barrack mom web 2.0 adventure

I have already played with Google docs at work. Stephanie and I use them a lot, and during the time before I came back to work – we had several that we put in the shared place where we could each do what we needed to without having to email huge files. I did however, play with the forms creator – I really liked that – I can see many uses for that. The only thing is that I couldn’t get it to record who responded. The google help says that there is a box to check – but I could never find it.

I have tried this twice – so hopefully third times the charm. I am embedding a video that Andrew and Grayson made this summer and posted to youtube. I love the fact that Andrew and Grayson used their imaginations to come up with the video – they thought about camera angles and then edited in the special effects. I also spent some time learning about my digital camera. I learned about some features that I had not used before.

I admit I was one of the ignorant – I thought podcast was because you could hear them on ipods.  Learn something new everyday.  I already had itunes, and had subscribed to several podcasts so this wasn’t so new to me.

I really enjoyed part of this and part of it – I’m not sure what the purpose of it is…I think that I must be very “unsocial”.  I love to read middle school books.  Partly because when I start to read – I become an addict and cannot stop myself.  This is very bad when I start a large series.  As could be testified to by my children…during the summer of 2008 (could have been 2009).  I began reading the Redemption Series by Karen Kingsbury, thinking ahead I had requested all 5 of the books from the library.  I began to read all about the Baxter family.  I don’t think that I dressed, or fed my children for 4 or 5 days.  I slept minimally.  This is not good when you are a mom.  So the reason that I now read middle school books, such as Frindle, Schooled, and No More Dead Dogs is that I pretty much can finish one of those in 2-3 hours.  Allowing me to keep my children away from DeFAX and the foster system.

I loved the recommendations part of Library thing.  And I found even more when I went trolling under young adult and teen with Zeitgeist.  I did play a little with Shelfari.  I liked the descriptions on Shelfari and the blurbs about the books better at this site.  I think that using both the sites together would make a very powerful tool for a librarian.  Or even avid reader.  I think that I could also use this to find other books for my son when he finds one that he likes reading.

I love the idea of Delicious.  Since sometimes at work I used to have time to do searches – I would open a word document and put the web addresses of the places that I found in the document and then email it home so when I continued my research I could go back to someplace if I needed that information.  Now no matter what computer I am on – I can save and get to that information.

I really enjoy reading the feed from Free Technology for Teachers it could also easily be called Free Technology for parents to share with their students.  We got a flip video camera this summer and Andrew has really enjoyed making and editing movies with it…one of the links that was referred to in the post on August 28th was a page with several different websites that offer free music and sounds to podcasts, and video stuff.  (my very technical term)  I emailed that to my son, along with the link for 7 organizational tools for students.  Then I saw the link and look briefly at Do more with powerpoint.  This article I emailed to my daughter as they seem to be doing more and more powerpoint presentations in classes, and I hope that they will continue to do that.  I need to remember to stay caught up with my reader.  I will confess with the start of the school year I had gotten out of the habit.

I could have stayed playing with all of these for days, weeks, even months.  I love the http://www.befunky.com/ I have an old photo of Addison on the beach looking at a shell that my mom has always wanted to make into an oil painting.  I will try and find the picture – scan it in and use the oil painting feature, make it poster size and print it and give it to her for christmas. I liked the unlimited storage (I know it is in the premium subscription) but my computer is almost full of pictures.  Last year I discovered that I love to take pictures.  But the thing is that you have to take a bunch to get one that you really like, my problem is that I have some I really like, but then I have a hard time deleting the ones that I only sorta like, and I only sorta like a lot of my pictures.

The other site that I spent more time than others playing in was http://doodle.com/.  I take pictures at my son’s football games and was wondering how to ask the parents of they would mind for me to upload the pictures every week so that everyone on the team could see them.  Not a public site.  This way I can do the survey if they are interested, and I can also ask where they would like them uploaded to….shutterfly, wal-greens, etc.  Several sites have places you can put team pictures where the team can get them and have developed the pictures that they want.  I can also see the doodle tool being very helpful to me in the office.  If there is something that I need to get input from all of the elementary staff – I could design the survey and get everyone’s response rather than get individual emails from everyone or go up and down the hall and catch people.  What a cool tool.

I tried several times to watch and listen.  But I am a miserable failure at staying tuned in.  I keep thinking about things that I need to be doing, the kids interrupt, and the dog comes to get me to let him out.  It seems that I am the only one in the family that can open a door and let him out.  Or at least that is what he seems to think.   I think I might be better in a group watching a presentation.  But by myself the my ADHD tendencies seem to really flare-up.

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I started off looking at palm trees, and ended up with rainbows.  What fun you could have with these photos.  I might even upload a few of my own -one day when I have time….maybe next summer!!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/foreversouls/7303104/ rainbow sunset