Thing #23 So long and thanks for all the fish

I just finished the survey and need to inform my regional representative. Who is that? I guess that will be my final Thing to do - find my regional representative.

I think I covered most of the things I was suppose to blog about in my previous blog. Things I really enjoyed - the wikis, Flikr fun, Ning. Things I didn't enjoy - having to register for a whole bunch of websites that I may or may not use again later, reading a lot of articles, having to rely on the kindness of strangers to "friend" me.

I would definitely repeat this experience.

Thing #22 - Well, boys and girls, what have we learned today?

This whole adventure has been just that - an adventure. My husband has teased me about being a geek and a nerd, terms which I have fought against. But now, after spending HOURS online doing these Things, and doing my masters program online, and even correcting papers online, I EMBRACE MY INNER GEEK. I am so geeked out, it isn't funny. I am going to continue to blog; although, I don't know who would want to read my random thoughts. It will probably morph into a knitting blog where I record all of the many things I'm knitting.

I will definitely revisit the 23 Things to keep up with what's out there and if the program runs again next year, I'll definitely sign up again. I'm always interested in what's new and niffy. It's been fun to share these things with my co-workers and friends. I did start a wiki for planning my girlfriend getaway vacation and they are having fun adding and posting to it. It's a whole new world and I'm hopping on that magic carpet.

Thing #21 To Infinity and Beyond MySpace!

I have found my people. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a MySpace page that I now use to connect with friends from college. I set up a Facebook page and found a friend from high school that I had wanted to reconnect with and one that I didn't. [She stole my prom date.... long story.] But now, in Ning, I have found my people. Book people. Ah, home. I don't feel like I'm going to run into one of my students on the 23 Things Ning, like I worry about on Facebook and MySpace. I did feel odd about sending off random friend requests but so far, no one has turned me down. Thanks everyone.

I am still exploring this site and figuring out how it all works. I started a discussion thread but I think I put it in the wrong place. I don't know how to move it. Sorry! I did get one response already though so that's cool.

I have also been exploring other people's blogs and am surprised at the inactive blogs. I'm glad I'm on the tail end of the exploration. I noticed that most people posted fairly short posts about their things but some people have posted really in-depth responses. Are we being graded? Are there points assigned? What's the curve? Competitive nature rising, must control urges to compete. [I wasn't an athlete in high school but still have a really competitive drive. My husband won't let me keep score when I play games with our children. It gets ugly.] I'm doing my best and that's all that matters, right?

Thing #20 Whose Space is this?

It's confession time. I created a MySpace account a few years ago with the sole purpose of keeping tabs on a family member's page. I sent her a friend request and she accepted me without knowing who I was. I never lied to her or tried to deceive her in my identity. Eventually she asked who I was and I told her my identity. The things I learned about her online life were shocking. I couldn't believe the things she posted. After about six months, she blocked me but by then I had shared enough of what she was posting with her parents that they couldn't ignore it anymore. Her parents didn't believe me when I told them about the dangers of unsupervised MySpace access for a girl her age (13) and they thought I was exaggerating or reading too much into it, blah blah blah. I finally started printing out different postings and gave them to her parents, along with copies of photos she had posted of herself, etc. Suddenly, it was very very serious. I was really concerned about her getting herself in serious danger and was really frustrated with my relatives, her parents for not wanting to believe that their daughter could really be that naive. I don't want to go into a lot of detail but a lot of changes in that house took place. There was a loss of trust between that girl and I because she felt I had betrayed her. I'm slowly rebuilding that connection because as she gets older, she realizes that I was trying to protect her but it's not the same as it was. I think I need to stop posting about this now. It's starting to get to me.

Took a little break and am feeling better now. I did create a Facebook account but am thinking I'm going to remove that. I just don't want my information out there. It would be fun to try to find old classmates but a lot of my students are also out there and frankly, I don't want them to "friend" me. We had a staff member who really got in hot water for doing that with students. It blurs the adult/child - teacher/student line. I've had friends from college who I found on MySpace tell me that they had searched for me but couldn't find me on MySpace so I guess I have successfully hidden myself there. Facebook is a lot more out in the open and I'm uncomfortable with that.

Thing #19 Pick a Pack a Podcasting

I was introduced to podcasts last summer and was instantly hooked. I think I have subscriptions to about 30 right now and have loaded a few random episodes of others as well. I don't even want to think about how many hours I have to listen to. I'll never catch up but hate to delete any, just in case! It's cyber-packratting?

I subscribe to Grammar Girl, Stash and Burn, They Might Be Giants, and a bunch of literary ones. The best literary one would have to be Disney's Last Minute Book Reports. HILARIOUS! I used one podcast to play Romeo and Juliet for my class. I burned each scene separately on a CD which was really handy to lend to students who had been absent.

I have also taught some students how to make simple podcasts using Garageband - one program that wasn't listed on 23 Things. It's so simple, even my kids can do it. I also have used G Cast, which is very simple and only requires a phone.

I am helping our German teacher to create a walking tour of Germany podcast her students load onto their MP3 players before they take their trip to Germany this summer. Plus, I told her they can use G Cast to record their reactions throughout the trip.