Thing #11.5 of 11.5

This too was a wonderful learning experience and adventure. I guess I'm a little old fashion, but along with my Blog, I kept a learning journal, so along the way I accumulated additional sites, comments, and ideas. As I plan for the next school year, I find myself going back and looking at the things I learned and trying to incorporate these activities into my plans. Even though my new students will have very limited English language ability, I've think I have found new ways to expand their learning experiences using the technology, so as to not limit their learning until their language has developed more. I challenge myself to do and learn more, more, more.
To answer the questions:

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

• I really liked several activities. Wordle will be very useful in exciting the students about vocabulary. This summer I saw a Word Cloud used as an advertisement for Texas State University on a bus at the MELL Conference in San Marcos. Cool!
  
• Of course- YouTube, TeacherTube, SchoolTube and CitizenTube and video hosting. This has great potential to use with the Activboard
  
• Hulu and Blinkx- wonderful resource for finding video clips and full length video to use with the Activboard, as well.
  
• Screencasts- especially Goview. I can create instructional videos for my students to use at home on their iPods, (I think). I need to make one and try converting the file to mp4.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? It has encouraged me to continue to learn and be adventurous.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? I had never used Hulu or Blinkx and was always limited to the United Streaming videos. This is a tremendous help. I'm still not convinced to incorporate MUVEs, such as Second Life in to my teaching, but who knows, maybe once I'm more comfortable with it.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept? I would like to see this and additional opportunities offered the entire school year. I know once school starts our time is extremely limited, but we could actually develop, use, critique and share lessons with others. Time consuming-- but fun and educational.

Thing #7 of 11.5

I had heard about Hulu but never went to the site. What a wonderful collections of videos! I also liked Blinkx, especially U-Zoo The Cutest Pets Ever. Because these sites are free and easy to embed in presentations, I think I will be visiting them regularly and use them in my Flipcharts and podcast. I have used PBS and National Geographic videos before and they were extremely effective. Some of the short clips could be used for discussions or story starters.