http://jbroad.edublogs.org To blog or not to blog... Wed, 14 May 2008 18:09:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Whew! I made it! At one point I thought that I would have to drop out of the course because I just had too many other professional commitments, but fortunately I was able to make up a whole lot of ground over the last four weeks. I'm ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/14/thing-23/ Wow! Both of these sites are great! Out of all the social networking tasks we have completed, I feel like this one was the most worthwhile. My intent was to browse around Classroom 2.0 and move on, but I immediately found two discussions I was interested in ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/14/thing-22-classroom-20-and-ning/ This task by far was the most challenging and frustrating activity for me. I spent a great deal of time creating my Pageflake, and I am really not satisfied with the end result. I found this site difficult and confusing to use, and I am not really sure ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/13/thing-21-pageflakes/ After exploring YouTube and TeacherTube, I found an incredible amount of information on several of the topics I researched.  Due to the "geek" factor of my topics, most of the videos I found were appropriate to show to my 6th graders.  However, I did run across some that contained inappropriate language and questionable ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/11/thing-19-youtube-and-teachertube/ Using Evoca to record a podcast was incredibly easy and fun!  In fact, my family had a great time helping me play around on the site before I completed "Thing 18" (we created a Happy Mother's Day song and sent it to both grandmothers). Here is my podcast: Three Ways Podcasting Can Support ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/11/thing-18/ I listened to two Podcasts: Grammar Girl's Quick Tip, "Listen You Will, Grammar Padawan" and MythShow.com 11 - Fairy Tales, Movie Review: Enchanted.  I appreciated that Grammar Girl offered brief advice about a worthwhile topic (does Yoda really speak proper English?) and MythShow offers information about mythology, folklore, and fairytales ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/09/thing-17-podcasting/ I really like the idea behind the site 43 Things.  Whenever I create lists of "things" that I either need or want to do, they always get done much more quickly.  I guess that it is just easier for me to prioritize when I have something visually out in front ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/09/thing-16-43-things/ I very much enjoyed my time spent on LibraryThing.  I found several of my favorite books and read some member reviews.  Because I couldn't resist, I joined and added several titles to my profile.  Personally I can see me using this site to look for a new, good read.  I ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/08/thing-15-librarything/ I just explored del.icio.us today, and I must admit that until I played around on the site, I was a little skeptical as to how I was going to use it in my classroom.  However, after tagging several sites, it became clear that the list I was creating was saving ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/08/thing-14/ I just created a spreadsheet in Google Documents today, and it was pretty easy to use.  I am the supplies coordinator for our church's vacation bible school, and all of us on the planning team use Google Groups to communicate.  Since I was going to create a spreadsheet of all ... http://jbroad.edublogs.org/2008/05/07/thing-20-google-documents/