Thing #12, Tags, Delicious, Diigo

I never use the Bookmarks feature of my computer because somebody at my house has hundreds of sites listed there, and I figure I could never find a new bookmark. So, I can see the value of Diigo and Delicious for cloud-bookmarking, with access from any computer. Diigo's features of highlighting and post-it notes seem like they could be very useful in a classroom setting.

Thing #11, Gen Y

Although I'm usually pretty skeptical of generalizations concerning the generations (the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, etc.), I have to admit that today's young people did indeed grow up with certain technologies and are much more comfortable with them than the rest of us. A post on Blog Catalog ("The 5 Key Ways I Believe Our Education System Needs to Change So That Future Generations Can Succeed") sums up some of the points we've been reading about: Collaborate, stop lecturing, technology instead of textbooks, quality research instead of quantity research, and there's no need to learn the "long way."

Thing #8, Free Technology

There's way too much stuff here, but here are five sites that looked good:
Wiki Field Trip - As you move the cursor over a map of a city, Wikipedia entries appear about the local sights - right at the exact location.
Teacher Tube - A variation on Youtube, but everything is appropriate for teachers and students.
National Geographic Kids - An excellent resource for science, geography, etc.
Hulu - Lots of TV shows, movie clips, etc.
Who Wants Pizza? - A fun way to study fractions.

Thing #7, RSS Feeds

Sometime in the past 24 hours, my wife (my computer guru) used the term RSS and I asked her what the heck she was talking about. Hey! Now I know! I guess I already started doing the RSS thing (but didn't know it) when I signed up for Google Reader in Thing 3 (or was it Thing 4?) I can see how it can be a time-saver. I can also see how it can be a big time-waster, if I get too carried away with it. How to use it in education? I don't know. I'm not that far along yet. Maybe I'll know after I've done 23 things.

Thing #6, Image Generators

Comic Strip Generator

Thing #5, Flickr

My previous impression of Flickr was that it was responsible for e-mails from friends with "765 photos from Henry's first day of kindergarten" and "1,250 photos from our trip to the Grand Canyon" and "75 million photos of my face from a distance of five inches," etc. Now, I see that it can also be a source of images that I'm trying to find - from just about anywhere.

Thing#2, Avatars

My wife made me get an avatar, although I don't really understand what "Extra Credit" is going to do for me. Why did I choose a samurai guy? I don't actually know anything about martial arts, but I just watched the "Kill Bill" movies and I'm hoping that Uma Thurman will look at my blog and be impressed.

Thing#1, Blogs

This is a link to Clovis 23 Things, a "fun professional development program for teachers, parents, students and others." http://clovis23things.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/register/

My 92-year-old father started his own blog two years ago; it's about time I did one of my own.