Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

Have you visited TeacherTube yet? Launched in early March, 2007, it is a searchable site that is similar to YouTube, but more geared for students and educators. It has been talked about MUCH in the educational blogosphere lately. From Technorati, I found 796 posts that include a reference to TeacherTube, so it is definitely getting some attention. At this site, one of the many blogs I follow, it received a review and gave some suggestions for improvement. Let’s check it out and make some other comments and suggestions!

Check it out! A program called PhotoWipe that will remove lines magically with a simple swipe or eraser tool. How cool is that?

If so, you MUST see this simple video from the CommonCraft Blog. So simple, even an elementary school student (or an adult digital immigrant) can understand. I promise! http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

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Visit this TeacherTube video to get a quick and dirty video tutorial.  Of course you’ll need Audacity to follow the instructions on this tutorial, but oh the power of sharing!  Let me know what you think!

I have been trying to find a wiki–any kind of wiki outside of Wikipedia–that serves its users well. I particularly would like to see a class wiki, but I haven’t seen many that I liked or that the purpose was obvious. A lot of my friends use Moodle, which is not really a wiki or a blog, but rather a more combined approach. But most who use them have them password protected (for good reasons) since their kids openly post and comment, or edit the site in its wiki sense. (I feel like I’m speaking a foreign language.) Here is a wiki that truly makes me “get it.” It gives me something to show at SLI to ensure the principals or other administrators who haven’t quite grasped Web 2.0 what it is, what it’s capable of, and what its potential is. Check out his wiki from Princeton Public Library.

Do you like fancy animations and glitter enahnced text?  Welcome to RockYou, a site that allows you to add  real pizazz to your site.  Check it out!! See an example here!

I have decided I am tired of being a “planning period” for elementary teachers, and tired of modeling project based learning to no avail. I have resigned effective the end of school, and am in the process of seeking a new job. Actually I have an offer but no contract yet. So my options are wide open! Now that I know I will not be returning to my current location, I need to copy all my material from conferences and presentations to a disk–maybe even a dvd. I suspect my current location will be deleted soon after I leave. If anyone wants to see some of my presentations, have a look at this site at least for now. I should go ahead and get myself some personal webspace.
It’s sort of like my professional page. Usually when I do a presentation, I make a matching page. The, instead of having to make a ton of handouts, I can make a card, sticker, or some other novelty to give out that include this location (URL).

My move will not effect this blog, and I hope to continue it as well. I will let any followers out there in the blogosphere know what I wind up doing.

 –pronounced photo- is a new photoeditor, at least new to me.  This one is said to be a comparable to the Adobe Photoshop program.  Cool beans! There are lots of photo tools, and you can adjust photos or repair them. Its a free editor with lots of bells and whistles, and even allows layering, something not typically found in free photo editing programs.