Thing 13: Media Skills

OMG....I spent WAY TOO MUCH time exploring this one!!  WAY TOO MUCH FUN!!!
I am an oil painter and very often take pictures of things I would eventually like to paint.  5 years ago when I was pregnant with my daughter I switched from a great 35mm camera to digital...NikonD90...my life hasn't been the same!  I am obsessed with  digital photography, Photoshop etc... If you want to check out a really cool site try:  www.worth1000.com....I'm already off topic!!!
OK so when this project started on Pinterest I knew I was in trouble!
 I never used Pixlr before but certainly will again!  So much fun and easy!!  For a free resource -  the editor was excellent and the express and pixlr-o-matic my kids loved playing around with.

Picasa - something else that was new to me.  I have used snapfish.com for years to organize my pictures and get prints, collages, gifts etc...  I was inpressed with everything you can do with Picasa but when every picuture on my computer downloaded to photoviewer on the google created site...I was a little freaked out!  LOL  There was a bit of a learning curve but it was easy to use and lots of fun.  I was loving the special effects...I created a movie and a cute collage.    We did a 1920s project last year with a class where they had to put themselves into a scene from the 20s and write about it....so I'm thinking this could help with that process!  I need to come up with some ways to incorporate  this into the classroom....my students will love it!
The word clouds I have done before using Wordle and I also found a nice elementary version for the teachers to use....http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm
My students enjoyed using sites like www.imagechef.com and http://bighugelabs.com/ when we were afterschool one day making Valentines....so check it out. 

A great tool I used was clipping magic!!  OMG....so easy!  A great tool to take the background out of a picture...so easy and free!!  I also LOVE tubechop!  We use youtube all the time at school and so often we just need a few minutes of a video...again this was easy...bascially move the slider to the amount of video you want and it chops it!  You can save the clip you want.
OK....I could go on and on...really want to try an animated gif....

Thing 12 Social Learning & Learning Management Systems

This was a huge assignment that I started and stopped numerous times....but I finally got my act together...visited quite a few the learning Management Systems/learning environments and was happy to see how many I was already a part of!
When I was the MS librarian I had a science teacher that used Edmodo and LOVED IT!  I had checked it out looking over students' shoulders and thought wow...very cool tool.  Fast forward a few years here it is again...better than ever.  I did check out Schoology which I thought was a great tool as well but I'm leaning toward continuing with Edmodo.  I liked that students did not need an email address to sign up....super user friendly and lots of bells and whistles.  I am creating a class for my teacher book club so they will all become students and I can give updates because we only meet once a month...I can push them along with their reading and quiz them along the way!  LOVE IT! 

I have been using GoodReads for a few years now and my student book club uses it as well.  It is a great way to keep track of what you want to read and what you have read.  I love checking it out for suggestions and it comes in real handy when you are standing in the book store and can't remember what the next great book you wanted to read was.  I think I am going to have my students book club switch over to using Edmodo for our discussion...especially over the summer!  I love Good Reads but I always have a tendency to get sidetracked on their website
I love Edutopia....I have been signed up for their email updates...they always provide great articles and up to date news events in education.  I very often find myself forwarding articles to teachers I work with.  I highly suggest a look at it!

Just recently I started looking at MOOCS - I love the idea of it...very exciting opportunities but I need 30  hours in a day!!  edX is the one I took a closer look at and would like maybe take a course over the summer when I have a little more time on my hands.
I have been a fan of facebook for years and I always felt it would be a great tool to touch base with our students but our district has unofficially let us know that they did not want us having facebook contact with students or facebook pages linked to the school.  Recently our district switched over to gmail and all the tools that go along with Google.  We are a bit slow with our technology...for a while google docs was blocked but we are coming along and I hope to see all that google has to offer.

I just came across www.remind101.com - a safe way to text students/parents...I'm thinking overdue notices!!!  WOO HOO!