21 Things and More

This blog was my very first blog. I started it as a part of WRESA's 23 Things. I have since moved on using blogs with my students and now we have to do 21 Things as a part of our district's PD. Here is a link to my 21 Things Start Page and my 21 Things Wikispace.

Getting Back To Blogging

Haven't had much time to blog on this blog lately. I have been working on my masters and creating other things for my classroom. Looking forward to add more to this blog soon. Can't believe 2010 - 2011 school year is almost over. I am giving twitter a try @stacklm for my last course in my master program. Have created many Netvibes Start pages for my class that I will share soon. Netvibes Start Pages are a great way to post daily lesson information, slides, videos and links. Look for the next post to view my classroom and college Netvibes pages. The post below this one has a link to one of them.

The 2009 -2010 School Year is almost over!

Well time sure got away from me. I have been so busy with taking classes for my master’s program and teaching that I haven’t had time to keep up with this blog. I have so many things to add to it but so little time. My goal is to add some teaching resources and things to do this summer. I took an in-service through BER the speaker was Joanne Troutner. She put together a book with amazing sites to use in the classroom. I created a Start Page to keep all these sites plus other teaching sites that I have collected along the way. Here is the link to my netvibes Start Page I think you will enjoy the links and find many that you can use. Here is just one Start Page that I would like to share with.
http://www.netvibes.com/technostack#Credits I plan to share more this summer. Enjoy

Happy Summer

Wow Summer is almost over. Have you noticed the trees are starting to change?
I have been so busy this summer that I haven't had much blog time.
Hope everyone is blessed and enjoying summer like I am.

Wow it has been awhile!

It has been awhile since I posted anything on my blog because I have been so busy.
Busy with Trimesters and in-services. I don’t know if anyone has tried Michigan’s Learn Port site but it is great! I love it. It has two MMC (Michigan Merit Content)courses for History and Biology . I thought they were great.
The site is http://mi.learnport.org/
Most courses are free.
Update on a few new sites that I found.

Flylady is now on facebook! Body Clutter.

http://budurl. com/BodyClutterF BPage

We have a free tool to help you too.

http://budurl. com/BCInvestigat or

We will also be using Jonathan's No Excuse Intervals.

http://budurl. com/NoExcusesWor kouts


Animal Diversity
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html

Texas Christmas 2008

Frank and Mary Ann's 25th Wedding Party

Frank Passed Away on December 22, 2008. We will miss him very much and are blessed with many memories.

Here is my sad first podcast!

Took an in-service on Podcasting A -Z and we created our first podcast. Here is mine and I know it needs lots of work but I did it! I created a podcast now I just have to get better at it.

Literacy fro Struggling Students

Literacy for Struggling Students: Meeting the Demands of Reading/Writing in High School Presentors:
Cherly Yocum , Candy and Linda. July 23rd to July 24th I would recommend this in- service to any one teaching High School English or Middle School English. The presenters were great and gave you several take aways to use in your classroom. Next time offered will be December 9th Writing Demands of High School. (This one is only a day but you will wish it was more).

Some Cool Web Sites!

Some Fun Teaching Web Sites:

Here are some sites I found that you might want to check out.

Foldables: http://www.dinah.com/http://www.gaston.k12.nc.us/departments/tlc/TLC2005/resources/clagg/FOLDABLES.doc

http://www.asd.k12.ak.us/MiddleLink/about/Directions_LayerBook.pdf


What is a lapbook?
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art50546.asp

Patterns or ideas for lapbooks :
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks.htm

Lapbooks:
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks/astronaut.htm

Instructions for folding lap books.
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks/folding_lapbooks.htm

Ideas:
http://4real.thenetsmith.com/forum_topics.asp?FID=1

Math Sites:

www.aaamath.com

www.mathcats.com

www.coolmath.com

www.mathplayground.com

www.aplusmath.com

www.funbrain.com

http://jc-schools.net/PPTs-math.html

http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games.html

Roman Numerals: http://www.paullewis.co.uk/

For our English friends:
Older students: http://www.42explore.com/journl.htm

Science:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/introb.html

Other Stuff:
Easy fun school~ http://www.easyfunschool.com/page1056.html

Ideas in a box: http://www.theideabox.com/

Have fun and summer break is almost over!

Poscasting From A to Z

Podcasting from A to Z on July 21, 2008 Presenter:Carol Mayer
I loved 23 Things so much that I had to take this on to try to create my own podcast.
I did but haven’t had time to download and post it yet. I really enjoyed this class and it was easy to follow because I had completed the 23 Things on line. Ms. Mayer is a wonderful instructor and you may remember watching her on Thing 13 and Thing 14 . We learned how to create a poscast and reviewed several podcasting that are already available for use. She gave us several handouts and a book called: Educator’s Podcast Guide by Bard Williams. This book is awesome! It has several resources and many list/references to different types of podcasting.
I plan to post my first ( funny and not so good) podcast for a reference of how bad my first one was. LOL.

Chemistry For All Students

Chemistry For All Students was from July 14th to July 17th. Presenters: Mary McMaster, Tim Graham and Jeff Weller Check out: Http://science.resa.net for some of the in-service information.
This was another awesome in- service. I really learned a lot about chemistry and boy I wish my high school Chemistry teacher was as good as these instructors were and are.
Topics and lesson ideas with take aways to boot.
Chem Matters is a good magazine to subscribe too.
If you have to teach Chemistry this is a great refresher course. We did several labs and was given several teaching lesson plans.

Pedagogical Issues For Struggling Algebra Students

Boy this summer has gone by so fast! I have been so busy doing in –services that I just can’t believe it is almost August .
My first in –service was from June 23rd to June 27th. It was called: Pedagogical Issues For Struggling Algebra Students Presenter: Terri Faitel
This was a great in- service and it went by so fast. I loved it Ms. Faitel is an excellent teacher and I would recommend taking any in- service or class that she may teach.
We learned how to teach several lessons using math graphic organizers, books and units on space.
She taught us several tricks using a graphic calculator.
Other key ideas:
Teaching using S.L.O.T. Students Learning Over Time.
Quotes from Richard Stiggins.
Assessment Crisis: The Absence Of Assessment For Learning by Richard J. Stiggins
Seven Practices for Effective Learning by Jay McTighe and Ken O’ConnorThis was my favorite one so far and I was dreading it the most because I am not a math teacher.

23 and Half Things Use Technology to Save Time~ Tip 45

I found this great site: www.tammyworcester.com
She has Tips of the Week and here is a link to Tip 45 Use Technology To Save Time:
http://www.tammyworcester.com/TipOfWeek/TammyWTechTipOfWeek/Entries/2008/5/7_Tip_45_-_Step_6_-_Use_Technology_to_Save_TIme.html

I thought you might find it helpful to use the Google Advance Search for PowerPoint’s.
She has some really good tips. Hope you enjoy.

Thing 23 [Such fun these Things have been!]

Looking back when I first started 23 things I was a little frightened that I would not be able to accomplish a majority of them. I was excited that I was going to at least be able to try to learn them even if I didn’t achieve all 23 of them. I remember the first 2 things I was excited that I could do them. I can honestly say that I never got the full idea of blogging until these lessons. I used eboards a few years ago when it was free and really liked the layout of their site. Then I really thought I was good when I created a website on Teacher web. I used teacherweb for about 3 years until this year when our school gave us a district website to use. The site they gave us is much harder to manage than teacherweb and I find it hard to make the time to update it. I like the idea of blogs and wikis and plan to use them next year with my students. I was excited when they offered free to educators a free protected wiki. The part I didn’t like about the wikis was that anyone could edit them. As time went on I found it helpful to review and check out blogs from other learners of 23 Things. I spent the last 2 weeks reading over other people blogs now that I had completed the 23 Things. I learned a lot from them. I went back and added something’s to my posts. Example for Thing 19 I just listed my username and after looking at others I went back and listed the actual link to my deli.icio.us like they had done. I really enjoyed B.C. Ben Cetera. I like his idea of posting his viewers blogs that commented on his blog. Thought that next time you do this you might want to have each person post on the directions post of the thing #blog page as they completed each thing. It might be helpful to look at other blogs for help if needed.

Using RSS was totally new to me. I had never used them before.
I like the way you set up each thing and thought it went well from one thing lesson to the next. I enjoyed the photos and images and found it to be the easiest because I use the computer to do a lot with photos.
I think I have the bare basics down on the Wikis but would like to learn more and do more with them. Maybe have a hands on person teaching all the tricks and ins and outs on how to master the art of wikis. Look at B.C. Ben Cetera wikis.It is so creative. I lack the creativity and have a hard time thinking out of the box. I tend to be too traditional and not enough digital.
I didn’t have a clue to the social bookmarking. Just before I signed up for 23 things I found a site called Keep and share. I really liked this site because I could bookmark my sites and use them from home and work. I like the trialfire and delicious but I can’t use them as easily at work. I was able to get the delicious downloaded by our tech person on two computers that I often use at school.
I think that is the most dishearten thing about the use of Web 2.0. They want us to teach it and use it but they restrict it. I do understand the reasoning behind it, I just wish there was a way to filter out all the bad and use the good. I guess that is were the blogs and wikis come into play but that is only safe way to present. We need a safe way to search and surf.
Podcast really interests me. I was disappointed that we were not going to create a podcast. I really want to learn more about them so I have signed up for your in-service this summer to learn to create one.
This has been a wonderful journey and I am so glad I signed up for this online course. I would recommend that every teacher take this because the tools learned here can be used in all subject areas.
I think the timing of this in-service was great because I can work on using these things for next year during this summer while it is all fresh in my mind.
I hope you keep the site up so we can refer back to it. You might also want to inform others that you are offering a Podcast in-service to learn to create one this summer.
I am going to miss learning something new each week. I really looked forward the each lesson and it became a part of my daily routine to come home and work on a lesson each night. I am glad I took time to read other peoples blogs after I finished my 23 Things. I learned different perspectives from reading them.
Thanks for this wonderful journey of 23 Things and let me know if you have 23 more Things to offer. I did look at the 43 Things but would be more motivated to do it this way.Don’t forget to give us information on SBCEUs.

Thing 22

I picked the following two videos.
I picked the first one for fun. I thought it was funny but true about things they don’t teach you in college. I love the teacher workout out one. Some days that is so true at least for me. The study skills video I can use next year at the beginning of the school year for my learning lab. I may use it the week before final exams as well. I was able to download the videos once I put into my blog from school. I forgot we are not allowed to check any emails except the one the school gives us at work. I sent the download to my gmail account and didn’t want to give out my school account because I wasn’t sure of the spam it might create giving it to Zamzar. I am happy that I can download them from the blogs so that is a good start for me. I forgot to post a comment on the videos so I will go back and do that. I think I like that the least. While reading some of the posts that people put I found that some can be quite nasty and mean. It would be nice if there was a way to clean up the pages a little. Maybe the home page would just be simple and have a search box with out all the pictures of most viewed and all that. It would be safer to go to the sites. Probably more costly for them but safer to use at school.

The first video was embedded into my post.
My favorite funny Youtube:


This Study Skills video was downloaded into my post.

Thing 21

I only like the educational YouTubes. I am not much for TV shows and some of the stuff is just plan silly. I did enjoy a few my favorite one was the Top 10 things you didn’t learn in collage. I dislike when you do a search and inappropriate things come up with your search. And they stay on the side of the page so you would have to put the video in some other program/ blog to show in class. We are also blessed with the use of united streaming from RESA. I use that fairly often. They are a little longer than Youtube but information is presented visually.
There were a few that I found that I could use in my learning lab on study habits.
YouTube is banned from student usage in our building. Teacher can use them as of right now however this may change if students get caught trying to download them. ( They haven’t found a way to block the students only so right now they lifted the block but students have found that out yet. When the do it will be back to blocked again for all of us is my guess.)

Thing 20

Yes I think I do have a better understanding of RSS. Since I really didn’t know much about them and would not have known what someone was talking about until thing 4. I think this summer will show me more benefits to all these things. I am pushing right along to get this done by June 20th. The Month of May is so busy for me getting all the Seniors on their way and all the senior events not to mention all the IEP meetings. I do plan to go over these things and spend so time planning to use them next year. I do remember to check them when I have time. As well as checking the comments on my blog. It is not a habit nor an obsession yet but I am working on it.

Thing 19

My Del.icio.us link is: http://del.icio.us/stackandrews
I use to highlight copy and paste into word the Urls of the sites I would find that I enjoyed or used in my classroom. I also subscribed to educational emails that would send links to educational sites. I would pick the ones I enjoyed the most copy and paste into a word document to create a handout of useful sites. I would pass them out to my co-workers. I will upload one example in google docs.
This would be a new way to tag favorite sites for my co-workers to see. Also could use it with students for a reference list to a webquest or research assignment.
I am having difficulty getting access to del.icio.us downloaded onto my computer at work. For me this might only be a service on could create at home.
I really like my keepandshare bookmarking site. I use it more for my personal resource but you can make it public. There are no tags and it is really easy to use. I did find some new sites on del.icio.us that were interesting so I will continue to use this site however I did bookmark my sites from del.icio.us onto my keep and share site.
This would be great to book mark a number of sites you might want to show your students during a class period. Easy way to reference them quickly.
I thing one can get lost or overwhelmed using too many sites like keep and share, trailfire and del.icio.us. I plan on doing more this summer to see what I like best.

Thing 18

My thoughts about tagging are mixed. I think I am one of those amateurs that may over tag or not tag enough. I am one of those file savers that have difficulty remembering where I save what. I have to say I just started this year with using folders to organize my pictures and document files and for the most part it works at least when my memory works.
Some advantages are that it is a way to organize and group subjects together. If you pay attention to the way others tag it can give you some insight on how to expand your searches. Some topics may come up when searching that you might not have linked to your subject.
Some disadvantages are that there are so many different ways to tag and we don’t all think alike so we will not all tag the same. If sites have limited tags one might not find them in their search because they didn’t type in the right tags. This will take some practice and creativity. You have to try to think outside the box. How do others thing?
This can be a great tool to simplify how we create references to resources.
When making a tag you have to think of several things: The tag can be unique but memorable. It should identify your purpose without being vague. You can tag it so it goes to friends and Coworkers. (For:username) I have to practice this one more.