Thing 23

I didn't think I'd actually get to thing 23! As a way to do what I'm supposed to do, I'll just answer the questions.
1. Favorite discovery or exercise: the pandora "radio" site. I love going to the site, putting in something I like, and hearing what else they think relates to it. I also like giving "thumbs up" or "down".
2. ...affected lifelong learning goals: This exercise forced me to learn about some things that I might not have encountered. I believe I know some more ways to research and to find other "learners" with similar ideas (or not so similar).
3. unexpected outcomes? I had a "holier-than-thou" attitude about blogs. I thought they were only written by people who liked to "spout" their opinions or who had too much time on their hands. I learned that there are those who use this medium to express pertinent ideas and some of them really care what some others might think about it! Some of the bloggers actually want to help and some actually want to learn!
4. do differently? For the most part, the experiences were sent up well, but some were difficult to accomplish right away. I wanted to learn in a "straighter line" but that's not how it happened.
5. Yes, I'd participate in another course like this.
6. This learning experience was "mind-opening" for me.
7. I've been checking out the other blogs and will continue to do so.
Am I really finished? No, because I'll continue to go back to some of the "things" and investigate further.

Thing 22

Well, this "thing" related well to the previous one (which left me a little confused). I clicked on the "Ning" link and then several more links and somehow ended up at a music education blog site in which someone posted an article describing how she used a podcast to assess her first grade students! It was kind of interesting. I have the feeling that it was someone much younger and more computer savvy than I am, but it still sounded doable.

Thing 21

I looked at examples of photostories and I think that perhaps this might be fun to use for personal photos, but I can't really think how I might use it for teaching. Audacity is, of course, quite useful for music teachers. We've used it to record accompaniments and to help students prepare for performances. I've used it in teaching recorder to 4th graders. They download the program at home and record their playing and send me the recording. I can critique and even send a recording back to them.
I tried to register and view some podcasts, but I wasn't successful. I won't give up, but I'm going on to the next "thing".

Thing 20

Exploration of YouTube and Teacher Tube could go on and on. I used the keywords "children's music" and viewed several videos. There were a couple of programs in Japan in which the children were singing in English. Then, clicking here and there, (a festival somewhere), I found a hilarious video of a group of women, wearing big straw hats and performing a tambourine routine to "Stars and Stripes Forever". I'll try to embed it on this blog, but I'm not sure that I want it on here! On the TeacherTube site, I put in "music education". I've attached a copy of a video of 2 guys who live across the world from each other, performing a song together. The video gives some facts about the process. I thought it was so neat and I even sent a comment saying so! This is another one of those "Things" that I'll need to get back to!

Thing 19

I checked the blog of a music teacher and went to the site she recommended--pandora.com. I've created 3 different "stations" of music. I like a variety, so I'll probably create more. I think this is a really cool site and plan to share it with friends and students. I also plan to go back and look at more sites.

Thing 18

I'm going to use Google Docs today (or tomorrow) to work on our August inservice plans with committee members. I'm also going to use it to plan the Tribes course that I'm teaching with a new "partner". I promise to report back.
As to the use of Open Office: It would be great to have it available if you didn't have Microsoft Office (which is kind of expensive). I looked at the different components, but didn't actually prepare any documents. I can't see the advantage to using it over Microsoft.

Thing 17

I just can't get Rollyo to work for me. I've tried to download my favorites using their instructions numerous times, and I go through all of the steps, but it still says I have nothing saved. I've spent several hours on this, so I'm moving on to the next thing. I've read some of the other blogs and several people seem to be having the same problem.

Thing 17

I'm having trouble with using Rollyo. I search for music education lists and didn't find anything useful. Since I already have some pretty good feeds in Google Reader, I wondered about using those as a starting point. I don't have any favorites saved on the desktop of this computer. I'm going to keep trying.

Thing 16

My only previous experience with Wikipedia was having my university students use it as a source. After the first semester, I had to say that they couldn't use it because it's not so reliable. I wasn't aware of the other uses (being able to create a wiki for a particular purpose). This could be a solution to the difficulties of teacher committees meeting, maybe. It's so hard for busy teachers to get together (especially from far-flung district schools), so I'm going to try this. Also, there are several teachers teaching the university class I mentioned and we want to go toward standardizing certain aspects of the course. I see some good uses here. A personal use could be planning our next family reunion!

Thing 15

See the second Thing 14. I'm moving faster than I thought!

Thing 14

The past, present, and future of libraries is very important to me (and probably to most teachers), so I find this to be an interesting topic, even though I'm not directly involved. Several items did ring true to me. "...if our services can't be used without training, then it's the services that need to be fixed. . . " made me remember how difficult it has been for me to use the card catalog on the computer rather than in the drawers. The Library 2.0 movement seems to be aimed at making services more accessible to users. the idea of a collective intelligence sounds like some of the books I read in the '70's, but I liked the idea then and I still do! I'd never thought of libraries functioning as "conversations", but if users are able to participate in the development and evolution of those services, then I guess it's a valid idea. I wonder if I'll eventually be able to craft my own library!

Thing 14

I spent some time learning about tags and how to use them in Technorati. When I put in School Library Learning 2.0, there were quite a few pertinent posts that were listed. When I put in music education, thousands of posts came up and most of them didn't have anything to do with music education. Then I searched the blog directory and that yielded better info. Searching the tags had way too much stuff and, again, many weren't really connected to music ed. I've already found some music ed. sites by using the google tools, but I can see that this is a good site. I claimed my blog, even though it doesn't have much that is valuable right now.

Thing 13

As I tried the 3 different sites, Magnolia and Furl worked better for me because you could use 2 words in the search and it narrowed the search better. To be useful, I needed to search "music education", not just "music" or "education". Using both of those search engines (is that what they are?), I was able to find some useful sites. I haven't registered yet, but I believe that I will. I think this might be better than the Google tool that saves sites. When I come back to this, I'll compare.

Thing 12(con)

It's happening. I'm getting "roped in" to this idea of blogging. I thought it was just self-centered people writing about themselves, but I've found some blogs that are thoughtful, intelligent, and really helpful. I commented to 5 of the people on the list to the right, then I went to some of the blogs that I'd found and kept on Google Reader. I googled quilts and found an entry that spoke about connections and it mentioned a new series of mysteries centered around quilts! I responded (mostly thanking). Then I googled "piano teaching" (another of my jobs) and found a site that posed questions. I responded to 2 of them and it was easy! That same site led me to a video of a talk that was so inspiring about guiding people to love classical music. Now I'm trying to figure out how to link it to my blog.

Thing 12

The things that stand out in the articles I read about blogging are: There is more "structure" than I thought. I guess it's like most things--a culture develops with its own set of accepted behaviors. Secondly, I've been trying to decide whether to use my real name or an "alias". I'm inclined to want to be private when I express opinions. For one thing, I seem to change those opinions sometimes. I guess I don't want to be held accountable. Whatever the reason, I'll probably respond only to blogs that don't require registering. We'll see.

Thing 11

Cataloguing books is a valuable tool and it will be interesting to see if there are other people with a taste for funny murder mysteries. Changes will need to be made often because I learned years ago that I don't have enough room in my house for all of the books that I read. I try to sell to Half Price Books or donate to other locations fairly often. There are a few that I can't part with, however, so I'll try and get them catalogued. I'm trying to get the first 5 books to my blog, but it's taking me a while. That's the story of my tech life. I'll keep trying. This tool seems like it will be fun, but I can't see a use in my (elementary music) classroom.

Thing 10

This is kind of fun, but it takes a lot of time because I never remember exactly how to do each task. I think I'll do some more. This one came from the cartoon link, but it didn't have very many music cartoons. I'm going to try to do a composer trading card. We could also make the cards for instruments of the orchestra. I'm wondering about making posters.

Thing 10

Thing 10 is kind of fun. I plan to do more than one example, but here's one.