Thing 20 - albiet order free

OK - so I'm the person who always reads the last page first. As such, I'm doing thing 20 last instead of in order because, well, that's just the way I am. However - I didnt get very far with my experiments. I plan to do more investigating - particularly the "how to transform YouTube so you can use the files" part. Couldn't do it before because the aforementioned VISTA was causing issues with the whole flash download bit. Now I think I've got it figured out so I can start using it. I hope at somepoint we will be able to use YouTube videos - I know that some of them could be very valuable in the classroom. Once more into the breach!

Thing 23

I tried completing the survey - but my vote would not submit. Yay, technology. Anyhoo - here to conclude this marvelous journey is my "Ode to Library2Play"

An email came to me one day,
"Come join us at Library2Play!"
"What's this?" I thought, and with a grin,
I looked it up and jumped right in.
Techno-gadgets are such fun -
Don't I use every single one?
How little I knew - my mind in a fog -
Confounded I was by the simplest blog.
Creating my avatar took hours three,
But then - hey, wow, it looks just like me!
I Flickred and Mashed Up and used Google's tools,
I did try my best to follow the rules.
I learned how to access the RSS feeds,
And the Trading Card generator just suits my needs!
Technorati in general gave me great pain,
But I learned how to tag things again and again!
Web 2.0 led me to Wiki,
And opensource coding was really quite tricky.
Productivity tools made me shout out "Hooray!"
And adding the videos just made my day.
This process was great, in many ways big and small,
Library2 Play is the best thing of all!
So a'podcasting I go, with these wonderful things,
And the best part of all - I discovered the NINGS!

Thing 22

"I think that I shall ever sing,
The valiant praises of the Ning!"
Well - doesn't common sense rule us all! What a great idea! As a music teacher, we are limited in our curricular interaction with others because there are only 1 or 2 of us on campus - I would love to see a Spring Branch Music Teacher Ning! We could post lessons - and upcoming trainings - and link to cool websites - and not fill up our email boxes!!! What a fantastic idea! Now having said that - I'm looking for a brilliant person to nominate to set that up. :) But I think this is an idea whose time has come - its as easy or as complicated as you make it, its accessable, it can be such a great support tool. My joy with Wikis has been overwhelmed by Nings. And that's just the vocabulary! I can see using wikis with my students and Nings with other teachers. Long live the Ning!

Thing 21

OK - so I'm doing this out of order - but I got so excited!!! I use Audacity everyday, so I'm really familiar with it (I taught several Audacity classes to music teachers) but I've wanted to get my hands on Photostory for a while - how cool it is!!! Someone made the comment that this thing was not easy - and its not - it took me several tries to get correctly downloaded - but Photostory is VERY user friendly - and the help buttons actually help! I will be using this for several projects in my classroom - I'm very excited :)

Thing 19

WOWIE WOW WOW! (Thank you Junie B. Jones!) It's perfect! I just discovered pandora.com, which is based off of the music genome project at the Web 2.0 awards. All you do is type in a composer, genre, or song, and it creates playlists for you based on the style of what you typed. Its a music teachers dream! I got Gregorian chant in 5 seconds flat - no fumbling with CDs and trying to find the one tape with that one sample on it...What a fantastic way to show my students what different types of music soundlike in little bits that they can understand! I can't wait to use this in my class tomorrow!

Thing 18

Well - I'm still trying to get everthing organized with OpenOffice - I think the fact that I've got VISTA is messing everything up. Go figure. I've opened some stuff - it looks basic but good. But I've read other people's comments on the website and it seems really effective - just what I'm looking for - particularly the PowerPoint aspect of it. I've used opensource stuff before - I taught a class in Audacity - its fantastic. I hope that this one turns out to be as good! I'm looking forward to playing with it.

Thing 17

Wiki Sandbox - what a great idea! I can see using it with parents to do stuff like - plan the valentine's party - sign up to chaperone a field trip, and sign up to bring stuff that's needed in the classroom. I can also see it as a great way for kids to do a book response - set up a sandbox for the class to share their thoughts in. Youd have to create rules, etc. and establish norms, but I think it would be worth it!