This is the LAST "Thing!" You've made it. Congratulations for sticking with the program, challenging yourself to step out of your comfort zone, and being so willing to try new things. After this post, there will be a final post requirement, plus a survey to complete, and then you will have officially completed the program! 3/21 is the official last day to have everything finished and posted, and then we'll focus on the PRIZES! Someone will walk away with a Sony eReader, which is currently sitting in our library closet, awaiting its new home. Everyone who finishes by 3/21 will receive an mp3 player, strand credit if you have a Master's, and possibly a few other 17 Things surprises. I can't thank you enough for helping make this program a success. I appreciate and admire your motivation, innovation, and enthusiasm. You guys are awesome! Now, on to "Thing 17!"
Thing 17: Your Choice
I kept going back and forth between different tools I thought would make good final activities, but there are just too many good ones out there, and different people may have a variety of interests and needs they'd like to still explore. Therefore, this last "Thing" will be your choice. You can choose from CNET's 2009 Webware 100 winners, which are the top 100 Web 2.0 tools chosen by voters in CNET's annual Webware contest. The tools are divided into 12 categories, including: Audio & Music, Browsing,Commerce, Communication, Infrastructure & Storage, Location-based services, Photo & Video, Productivity, Search & Reference, Social & Publishing, and Editors' Choice. Choose 3 or 4 different tools to explore, then choose the final tool about which you'll post. Your final post should list the 3-4 tools you played with, then you should write a detailed description of the tool you finally chose.
I will post links on my blog to all of your "Thing 17" posts. That way, we can learn about these new tools from one another!
Choose 3-4 tools to explore (they should be tools new/unfamiliar to you)
Pick one tool to explore more in-depth-- create an account if necessary, read/watch the tutorial, try out different functions of the tool, look at others' examples, etc.
Post about the 3-4 tools you looked at as well as the tool you explored in-depth. Describe that tool and discuss what it does, how you use it, what educational/personal applications it has, and anything else we'd might like to know.
We've just about made it 1/3 of the way! Yahoo. Congratulate yourself on coming this far. Now let's keep going! We'll be learning how to create your very own website using either Weebly.com or Yola.com, and then you'll learn how RSS feeds and News Readers can help you stay up-to-date with your favorite websites, blogs and online newspapers.
Thing 6: Creating Websites
Having a website of your very own used to be the stuff of dreams, but now it's become a reality. Creating a multi-paged website used to require familiarity with Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage, in addition to having an FTP program to upload HTML files, plus purchasing a domain name and server space. Have I lost you? Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? Who cares! It doesn't matter anymore, because all you need now is access to the Internet and some content you'd like on the web. You don't even need to be creative because these tools do the design for you! Ahh, web design for the armchair techie. You'll have the choice of using two different website creation tools: Weebly or Yola.
Watch the following video, which describes how to use Weebly.com (and why, as a teacher, you might want to have a website):
You can use websites to do so many different things. Check out Christine Stiel's Creative Writing class website, created using Weebly.com. See how she has created multiple pages for each project? Or you could have each page be a separate class. You could even have students create websites as a culminating project. Here and here are examples of final products created by my husband's social studies classes (password: mcculture).
To complete this Thing, you will choose either Weebly or Yola, sign up for an account, and create a multi-paged website. It can be simple, without a lot of content, but it should at least have a structure. It can be professional or personal. Once you've published your site, post the link to your new website in your Thing 6 blog post.
Write a blog post reflecting on your experience creating your website. Was it easy? Difficult? Will you actually use this website, or will you create another? How could you incorporate website creation into your professional or personal life?
Post the URL (web address) of your new website
Thing 7: RSS Feeds & News Readers There are a lot of websites out there, and most of us have certain websites that we check regularly. Now that we are all "following" different colleagues' blogs, we have even more websites to check. What if you could check for updates of all your favorite blogs, online newspapers and other regularly-updated sites by visiting one simple page? That's the beauty of RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication. You may have noticed that some of your favorite websites have little orange icons that look like this:
This orange RSS icon lets you know that you can subscribe to the website using a news reader such as Google Reader or Bloglines. You simply have to create an account with one of these news readers and then start adding websites that have RSS feeds. Watch this Common Craft video to learn more about RSS feeds and Google Reader:
Your job for Thing 7 is to sign up for either a Google Reader or Bloglines account, add the blogs of the colleagues you're following, plus at least 3 other blogs, online newspapers, or websites to your reader. Chances are, some of the websites you already visit a lot have RSS feeds available! Post about your experiences with Google Reader or Bloglines, if you think you would use it, and how you could use it professionally.
Here are some education-related sites with RSS feeds to get you started:
