I'm so glad we had this time together

Yeehaa!!! I'm finally finished. It feels so good to be done. Overall, I have truly enjoyed this experience. I may have complained a little here and there, but I do value some of the unique and useful techno-tools that I've discovered through 23 Things. My favorite discovery has to be Voicethread. I just love the idea of creating a project with photos, videos, and text and then having the students comment, in various ways, on the various elements. I'm hoping that over the winter break, I can create a Voicethread for a Harlem Renaissance unit. Well...at least it's on my to-do list, between working on elearn and changing the shelf-lining in the kitchen.

I, also, loved blogging -- at first, when it was more sincere and social rather than trying to meet the requirements of the course. In the beginning, I enjoyed the alter-ego and the anonymity. The conversations between my peers and me seemed more social and less like work. It was fun. However, after several weeks of discovery activities and computer-screen daze, I started to lose my drive. Some days, I spent an entire morning going through others blogs trying to comment, and I'm sure my peers did the same. I'd stare blankly at the screen and try to think of something witty to say. Sometimes, the comments came, sometimes not.

Some of the activities are a little frustrating either because they are no longer supported, are difficult to access through the filters, or have somewhat confusing instructions. I know it's titled 23 Things, but I think I could have lived with 20 things. It's a nice, round number. So many of the activities are similar -- especially the photo generator, cartoon-type tools. While these were a little fun to do, I really don't see how to use them in the classroom in an efficient, constructive way. Am I glad that I now know about these things? Of course. Do I need to know about all of them? Not really, especially the ones that don't really have a strong, obvious connection to higher learning. I guess I'm being a little selfish in that statement because activities that may not be useful for the English teacher may be helpful for the math teacher. Okay...I'll concede that much for now.

I'm leaving you all with one of my childhood memories. Enjoy.