Backyarrder’s Weblog

Thing 23 Give feedback

23 things can help me in my work:
I think there are potentials in using blogs either for students to read(not create at my level), and for colleagues to create and identify with the information that is roaming
some of the things like flickr, funny image,photos, videos and podcasts all have a place in a classroom as a teaching strategy.
igoogle and its associates is good for us as teachers to stay organized and up to date. (subsrciptions etc)

USE:I am already putting it in to use. In conversation and in work. I use google docs. I have to convince others to participate. I use flickr, funny image, comment on blogs, subscribe and can get relevant info receive and generate.

Improvements: SOme instructions don’t often work. For example I had to download vodpod for video upload to blog. I have a few existing difficulties, that work on apple computers but not PC. I want to refine some of the learning and implement this better. I think the delivery was good, as it is meant to be on-line, I like to get feedback from comments. I got a few, not many from others. WordPress did change its’ ‘look’, but there are choices to make about this. I didn’t change the look again, theyre pretty similar and its common sense in the end. It makes you think. As an immigrant to Web 2, I feel that I have had an excellent time in discovering all this. The 23 Things was awesome. Thanks for doing it, i have looked at other 23 things around on google, that was interesting. I wouldn’t want 43 things, as this is really nice, at this time to bring it full circle. So thanks again champs.

Keep blogging?: Yes i think I will. The ‘backyarrder theme did’nt develop as planned, because the discovery of 23 things was just about that, not the theme. But that didn’ matter in the end, it was all about learning.

Thing 21 exploring podcasts

michael Collaghan

Interesting, but long, lecture on using voice tools.

Another thing 20 ESL websites

Mike Smith’s ESL sites

I also found this one which is a nice teacher’s resource. There were a few problems getting these videos onto word press, but once I had downloaded vodpod everything is easy now. Thanks champs. Found a way around that little problem.

Thing 20 ABC video and audio for English language practice

using ABC video for language teaching

There is so much there, I really need to be doing this on my fast computer (which is at work, not at home- where I do most of the catching up of 23 thingamebobs) So while I can see it is a great resource, (very M rated too), I do not like the waiting time. I found a lot of stuff- what would be the best way to bookmark them- in delicious?

Photo resizing Thingy 18

I have irvanview on my desktop and this is a really easy, user-friendly piece of software. It functions well and it’s fast to paste onto and edit.This photo is about 400 (width) by 285 pixels (height) reduced and also cropped to capture only the bits I want, in this case the poster.

my image in swinilearn was taken the same day, thus the bright red color! Do you like this color?

Thing 19 contribution to staff wiki

I have friends. Some of them are you! the wikiwikiWeb reminds me of a 1920′s building I walked into the other day- the old parliament house in Canberra! It is trully quite an experience to see how far the net and our personal involvement has come over these past years. Makes one wonder what is the future. Certainly not what we are learning now I suppose, but it has to progress through its’ evolution somehow.
In order to really pay tribute to starting a thread- I have to do a lot of reading. I want to start a thread in ‘voice threads’, but this will have to wait a while. Exploring all these 23 things takes a lot of time, and I am usually doing this when all are asleep in the house.

Thing 13

I’m glad I found this little beauty! I am in the process of exploring google docs. THis could have been really handy a while ago, but I will master this and use this with staff at work I think.
I have created two docs for sharing with many collaborators. Some have got back to me but most haven’t. I think it will be a while yet, before I get a response, as everyone is flat out at the moment. One person had difficulty with getting on as a new account member, and I wasn’t much help in working out the problem. I want to get this habitual for 2009.
I had my own probs today, as we could’nt get on to a live wimba on-line seminar. Stuffed around for an hour or so, wasting time.

Looks like I’ve set up a little gallery of the same pic here. Unintentional, but another lesson goes by. Yippie!

thing 17 subscribing to blogs

I have had a great time discovering the universe here. I put some blogs into the reader, and another few links I wanted on my igoogle page. How cool is that?

thing 16 Digg

The fact that digg has such a huge variety of pieces of information, again, I am not a huge fan. I like to get my news from reliable sources, not by voted the most popular. Thematically, there is so much to be interested in it is entirely overwhelming. For practice, I put digg.stories.most popular on my google reader anyway- to familiarize myself more than anything.
Just thought I’d add:

Thing 14 & 15 – feed reader

I actually set up a new igoogle account so that all the usernames and passwords were generic. It’s easy to start off a bit backward, I had too many things all over the place, as you can see by the order in which this blog is done. It is not 1 to 23 straight forward. There are reasons for this. It does depend on which computer I am working mainly.
Phew, that was an epic jouney following all those instructions. That will become clearer over time I think, and with more use. I followed the google reader notes, now I feel agoggle.
Yes I do have about 4 subscriptions now. even nasa.
I hope to add more in due course.
home to the backyarrd for some planting. the weather is too good!