Thing 22

I see wikis as a great way to collaborate, and blogs as a more personal way to share your information without editing. So, I guess I see blogs as more of a "diary" of information and thoughts that you want to share, and wikis as a way to share and obtain information for all parties that are interested in a particular topic. I really like the use of wikis for professional use. I can see it being used within our department. Below is the start of a "counselor wiki":

https://nhscounselorconnect.wikispaces.com/

Thing 23

This experience was great!! Thanks Maureen and Joan for your work in making this available!!! Everyone in education should take this journey.

When I started Thing 1 I thought since I had heard of most of the lingo in Web 2.0 that it wouldn't be as "new" to me, but as I worked through each thing I realized " wow, I really wasn't taking advantage of all the resources Web 2.0 has to offer". The educational benefits are outstanding, but I can see how many things I can use personally. I recently purchased an itouch, and I love it. . .on the hunt for a new computer, and all this new knowledge I now have is just making it that much more exciting.

In some ways, all of this can be somewhat overwhelming. It is like being a kid in a candy store with so many options. Everything was so easy to use that the overwhelming feeling does pass. It is going to be great to see what Web 3.0 has to offer. I think I might need to dedicate some of my summers to staying on top on all of this technology. It is always a unique balance. More and more people are in front on their computers. I now can truly see the value of what this digital world has to offer. However, I never want to lose that face to face interaction that is still so important to connect with people. Even with web cams, it is still not the same. Hopefully, our world (and myself) will continue to find that balance.

Newington23things.blogspot.com is going to be one of my "favorites", wait, I now know how to bookmark and tag which is going to make the world of web 2.0 so much easier.

Thing 21

As I was searching through some of the educational wikis I found one on and advisory program. NHS is moving to have an advisory program, and a wiki could be used to share resoucres among teachers on what they are doing in their advisory. I think it would be important to password protect this type of wiki so that only staff could use it.

Thing 20

Honestly, I did not realize how amazing this is. Are you sure it is still in the infancy stages? I keep thinking about when I am traveling and want to read a book and really do not feel like buying a book at the airport. I could just read from my ipod.



A lot of the ebooks sites were similiar in format, making them easy to navigate. I looked at bookyards. com and manybooks.net. Manybooks did not have videos and music, bookyards was just books.

Ebooks is a great resource for a students maybe with a specific disability. If they are unable to carry books they could access them from a computer.

I used the username=nhsstudent and password=nhslib. . and it would not login me in.

Thing 19

Screencasting is a great tool to help students navigate through the sign in process on Naviance. This would save a lot of time, and students would have a visual before signing on. I could also use it for parent presentations or when showing teachers or anyone that wants to see the naviance features. The computer I was using did not have a microphone, so there is not audio. This is a short screencast of how I could use it in the class room. What a great tool!!!

After I wrote the above, I had every intention of embedding my screencast. However, I am facing some technically difficulties. I am borrowing a computer this summer, so it could be that. Screencasting is something I really can see myself using!!

Thing 18

I found some good podcasts on cooking. I enjoy cooking and this was a different way to learn a receipe.



I found some with high school students describing their college search process. This could be used with juniors and seniors to help them through the process. It could be used to begin a lesson on the college search or posted on a college blog that the students can listen to.s There are epsiods on the college essay, searching, etc. . .it is like having a mock personal counseling session that you can view and hear.

http://podcast.com/show/14248/College-Search-Laugh-and-Learn/

Thing 17

I liked this presentation because it is something that our department could use for students and parents, and we would not need to create the presenation. It is clear and not to busy. The presenation below is on PSAT intrepreation:

Psat Nmsqt

View more presentations from april.chamberlain.

Outside of the classroom students could use slideshare to help them research their own presentations to see what a presenation looks like. There are also videos availalbe that I thought could be useful for in the classroom. Overall, I see Slidshare as a huge time saver. Not having to recreate an entire presentation makes everyone job much easier.

Thing 16

I tried "Remember the milk". I am always making list of things, and I like the idea of having everything organzied without having to write it down on a piece of paper. I have been looking for a tool like that since I purchased my itouch. I am currently using "easy note" on the itouch, and I am not sure yet which I like better. The free app on the itouch is only availalbe for 15 days until you have to purchase, so I may just stick with "easy note". They are very similiar.

Thing 15

Google docs is a great tool. I can think of several ways it can be used within my department. Collaborating on a parent presenation would be a great way to use this. Also, as counselors we are always creating lists of things. Being able to start a list, and having the next counselor add on would be much more efficient and accurate way to compile data.

One issue that comes to mind when using this with students if they are making edits that are completely off track the the next student that views it would be confused. I guess it would depend on the assignment.

Thing 14

I have a facebook account that I have had for about 2 years. I keep it pretty private, and do not use it very often. I like it to connect with family and share photos. Other than that, I am not sure that I would use it for educationally purposes. It may be okay for a discussion group on a particular topic, but blogs would also work as well.

Thing 13

I chose Diigo because I really like the highlighing feature. I think that it is especially helpful when you want to share information with others. I also liked that you can connect to other social networking sites easily. For those that may not be diigo followers you can share the information through another site. I also liked that you can get additional features as an educator so that you can use it in your classroom with students.

This was the first time I have done social bookmarking, and this is awesome. I get so many resourses sent to me on the college planning process, financial aid, study skills, etc. I want to use them, but I can never remember or I forget they are in my favorities (which is too much of a cumbersome list). This can be used so many different ways in our departement. It would such a great tool to share with the other counselors so that each counselor would have a library of resources to share with their students.

Thing 12

Tagging is a great way to store digital resources. It is quick and helps one sort a lot of information quickly. I feel like the Internet itself is set up like one large tag. When I do a google search, I type in key words (tags) to find what I am looking for.

The advantages of tagging are depending on the type of tag. It could pinpoint information quickly and sort through a multitude of websites on a signal topic, or if tagged incorrectly you may miss information that you are looking for.

I think it is important to think about your audience before tagging, avoid putting two words together into one, watch punctuation, and remember that you can always change the tag if it is not working.

Thing 11

I chose a widget on College Scholarships.



Embedding this widget was very easy. I found this widget on Widgetbox:education, very easy to use and search.

If I had a blog just on the college search process, I could include interactive widgets like this. I thing widgets could be very helpful to "breal-up" the blog and add more interest to the reader. If would make it more interactive for the reader/student.

Thing 10

I don't see any major value in twitter. It is similiar to facebook, except it limits how much you can write. So, I guess one of the values would be to stay connected with people or interests and receive snippets of their activity.

I looked at a lot of the sites lited on the Times 50 best, and I was having difficulty connecting them to how they could be useful in education (in the counseling world). Some of the sites on best of the Web 2008 for education seemed like they would be useful for teachers teaching a language (at least the ones I viewed). As a counselor, it was hard for me to make a connection on some of the sites and their usefullness in education. One of the sites that I spent a little more time on was OMGPOP which has nothing to do with education, but was a fun site to play free internet games. You can connect with others or just play on your own which I thought was a great feature.

Thing 9

Using Web 2.0 in teaching and learning is important to keep up with the fast paced and every changing technological world that we live in. If students are already using a lot of technology it is important to incorporate technology to make learning relevant to them. I think that some elements of learning will not change, but be enhanced by the technology available. I also see a much "greener" environment for students to learn with less paper.

Educators can incorporate lessons into their teaching on ethical use of interactive resources. An interactive blog like the one we are using for this program is one way to facilitate that teaching.


*I was not able to open the Horizon Report with the computer I am using.

Thing 8

I chose this video because it is a quick and fun explaintion of what a comprehensive school counselor/counseling program is. Counselors have changed a lot over the years and this video depicts a good way to explain it. I think it would be a great way to begin a presentation to educate staff and parents:

Thing 7

Overall, I like youtube. It is userfriendly and easy to search. I am not sure I spend enough time with it to come up with a lot of dislikes. Like anything else it will take a little time to weed through some of the videos and pick ones that are most useful for education. I did find a couple of vides that I though would be useful for education. When I search study skills I found some interesting videos. One video in particular could be a good way to introduce a lesson on study skills. . .It is hard to make a lesson on study skills exciting, and this maybe one way to hook the students into the lesson. Also, there were some good videos on school counseling that I think would be beneficial to a parent program. I haven't used Youtube in the classroom, but I do not know if it is restricted everywhere?

Thing 6

I was thinking that flickr may be a good tool for students to use when they are searching for colleges. Many times when I am working with students and they go on college tours and some do not remember which school they saw. Students could use flickr to take pictures of the school they saw and then right a few comments about what they liked about the school. They could extend it even further and create their own blog. I was also thinking that I could do they same thing especially when I tour colleges in the summer. I could have a college blog take pictures recording my impressions of the school. It would help me with my own memory. Using flickr in this way should not pose too many issues since both ways are used as personal tools.

Thing 5 (with picture)

I chose this picture because I love the ocean. There were so many to choose from, but I found this one to be interesting because it looks as if it the photo has been enhanced. It almost creates the illusion that someone is traveling quickly by this island, or the island is moving. I would say almost any picture of the ocean creates a calm feeling when I look at it.

Thing 5

Flickr was a great site. I had used it in the past when others have wanted to share their family photos. I did not realize you could edit pictures. I keep saying that I am going to make a photo album of a recent trip to Italy (2 years ago). I haven't done that yet, but maybe uploading them to flickr seems like a much easier and less time consuming process.

Thing 4

I choose to use yahoo as my custom homepage. I had one in the past, but did not use it as much. Since my yahoo address is my main e-mail that I use frequently, I choose to use yahoo over others. I added my new google address to my page, and other items like news and weather that I look at daily. As far as contecting it to education, I could attach links to important sites that I use daily with students like naviance, and collegeboard, financial aid sites and widgets (this would be especially helpful for parents).

Thing 3

Blogs could support the developmental guidance curriculum. I am thinking about it from the career/college planning perspective. It could be used more as an informational "guide book" for students as they navigate through the post-secondary process. I think students would respond well to a blog assignment since many of the tools used in the post-secondary planning process involve research using other web based sites and applications. One concern I have about educational blogging is the maintenance of the blog. Establishing and using the blog seems very user friendly, but when you add the numbers of students that potentially could be using it a given time it seems overwhelming to keep track what they are doing. I guess it would depend on the type of parameters I would need to establish for the blog and it's intent/purpose.

Things 1 and 2

I am participating in 23 things to learn about more of what students are using. While I am familiar with some of the terminology (blogs, wiki, etc). I have never explored or used them. It is important for me to keep up with technology to keep connected with students and the world at large. I like to think of myself as "tech savvy" :). . .I would like to keep it that way:) . It would be interesting for me to find ways I could use these applications as a counselor.

Thing 1 really brought to light what I have been missing. Technology is moving so fast, and I may not be moving as quickly as I think I am. I am excited to learn more about all of these great applications!

Knowing anyone can read what I write is scary and exiting at the same time. I think that writing on the Internet, at least for me means that I should be thinking about all the audiences that may be reading it. If I want to keep something personal, I simply should not post it. I think keeping some anonymity is very important.