My Final "23 Things" Post

Well, I am at the end of my "23 Things" journey & am amazed at everything I have learned.  I knew about a few of the "things," but most of the "things" I had only heard about.  I was afraid to learn about a couple of them, because I was sure I would be too confused to figure it out.  It was at those times that I was so grateful we were doing this project together and that others were wokring on the same things I was, because I could go to one of my "23 Things" counterparts & they could help me...a huge thank you to Charlie Wiggins for helping me with RSS Feeds & to Nancy for helping me with EVERYTHING!  I even learned a few things that weren't on our list (my favorite extra is my Voki).

At times I felt overwhelmed, especially when I was having to write papers for grad school which I hadn't done in YEARS - it was then that I got a little behind.  Then, when I was having to send letters to every parent in the school about service hours & the All-School Retreat  - I unfortunately got a little more behind.  Then, when service was due & I had to send out more letters to parents of kids with deficiencies - I got even more behind (I won't even mention teaching or cheerleading).  I was afraid I might never get it all done.  Finally, I am now caught up (thanks for the extension!!!), and am in love with the things I have discovered.  Overall, it was worth the time spent & I am now much more confident in my web endeavors!

A huge THANKS to Nancy for bringing us this amazing opportunity & for being there to cheer us all on...and to Perry for providing us with some extra incentive.  The journey was well worth it!!

Week 9 - Things 21, 22

Podcasts - I found some pretty good podcasts at podcastalley.com.  They had quite a few podcasts that I believe could be quite useful.  Of course I searched for Catholic podcasts & here are a few that I found:  Saint of the Day, Daily Mass Readings, and Catholic Classes...all of which I could learn from daily!  I included the RSS Feeds from my finds on the right side of the page.

Ebooks - WOW!!!  I had no clue that you could download free books.  I went to worldebookfair.org & found some amazing books: my favorite being St. Augustine's Confessions.  I am in awe of my discovery!

Week 9 - Thing 20...21, 22, 23 to come

Believe me, I already LOVE YouTube. I use it class all the time. There are so many videos on it that I can use in my class. I used one during my most reason lesson on Abraham. It was a music video on the sacrifice of Isaac:

Wow!! I also just learned how to embed a video into my blog...woo-hoo!!! I also showed the video that Chuck sent the faculty & staff about Advent to my students. It was great! It seemed to help with trying to hand out the "angels" from the Angel Tree. Take a look:


As for podcasts, the site I tried to use was blocked by the school firewall, so I'll have to try again at home. So long for now!

Week 8 - Things 18 & 19

Zoho - First off, I loved that I didn't have to create a new account with a different password and whatnot. I got to sign in using my yahoo acocunt, which saves my memory from trying to remember something else. As for the actual program....the clouds opened & the angels sang as soon as I began using it!! It's like having Microsoft Office on the internet...and being able to save to the internet. No more flashdrives, or emailing things to myself or anything...SWEET :) Also, now being the avid blogger, you can also add to your blog from Zoho (not that I would...but I could).

As for LibraryThing, I added some books, but I am totally NOT a reader. I read what I have to for grad school and for my classes. As a result, I don't really see myself using this site at all. Regardless, I created an account and added the following books:

• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• The Lamb's Supper by Scott Hahn
• The Screwtape Letter by C.S. Lewis
• The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
• Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, and Defend the Catholic Faith

Week 7 - Things 16 & 17

I love wikis. I learned about wikis when I went to Chuck's presentation at the "Library Petting Zoo." It was wonderful, because it's like a blog except that more than one person can edit it. I can totally see myself using this is class. I envision a lesson on saints, liturgical feasts, service sites...the possiblities are endless :)

Week 6 - Things 13, 14 & 15

I already kind of knew about the tagging thing through Myspace and Facebook, and use the tagging features often on those...and also the "de-tag" option whenever the picture is horrendous...which is often, hahaha.

Del.icio.us - I definitely didn't understand the importance of this website at first, but now I totally see the value of it. It's kind of like the ability to save your favorite websites on the internet, in order to access them from any computer. I see it's value, but I don't know if I would use it. If I know enough about the site I'd probably just google it rather than logging into Del.icio.us and then finding it. That being said I'll probably create a list of my favorites on the site - just in case :)

Technorati - This site seems to let people blog about things that are going on in the world, but I know for certain that I would never use this site. I am much more in to googling things that I want to know about.

For thing 15, the question, "What does Library 2.0 mean to me?" was presented. Well, I after I looked up what Library 2.0 meant, I found that at its heart is user-centered change. It seems like it is a valuable resource to me mainly because it is focused on customer feedback.

Week 5 - Things 10, 11, & 12

I absolutely LOVED playing around with the image generators!  I could play around with my pictures all day long.  Here are just few of my creations :)

As for the Web 2.0 awards sites, I investigated Thinkfree.  It seems pretty neat.  You can save your documents - anything from Word to PowerPoint or Excel - to the web & access them from anywhere!  Forget trying to keep up with your flashdrive or expecting your students to...just sign on to Thinkfree.

Week 4 - Things 8 & 9

I know that RSS Feeds were part of the wonderful petting zoo we had at our last inservice (which was the absolute best inservice I think I've been to...way to go Nancy!!!). There were SOOO many things that I wanted to go to that I decided to ask Charlie to teach me RSS Feeds beforehand. I totally thought that I understood it at the time...boy, was I wrong. I have no clue why, but this whole RSS Feeds things was rough to figure out.

Once I figured it out, I found several feeds that I think I'll enjoy. I love quotes, so I subscribed to a Quote of the Day feed, and of course I love all things Catholic, so I found a neat Catholic blog. It had a lot of valuable links on it, including the counter on the bottom right.  Oh well, we'll see if I come to love these RSS Feeds after all :)

Week 3 - Things 5,6, & 7

I thoroughly enjoyed Flickr. It was so simple to upload photos, and then you could view & work with them from any computer - work, home, school, etc. which is great for me because I'm always on the go & can rarely count on using the same computer twice.

As for playing around with the photos, my award goes to Big Huge Labs. I loved all of the things I could do with my photos. Here are a just a few:

Brandon & my beautiful baby girl.
He loves her immensely - she's very lucky!

My lovebug again...

I could post a thousand! I had so much fun putting all the photos I take of my precious girl to good use. Does this make me an obsessed mommy? Cause I don't really care if it does :)

Things 3 & 4

I am officially in love with blogs.  It's hilarious.  I teach the Confirmation sacramental preparation classes at Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church.  I have a group of wonderful students, but only 2 go to Notre Dame.  I was really trying to find a way to stay in contact with all of them...then came the dream of blogging (insert dorkiness here).    I posted their assignments, due dates, pictures, etc.

So now I have a blog for their class, one for my Christian Leadership class, one for me & my 23 Things (& Lily, of course!).  What next...a service blog?  Time will only tell.

As for my avatar, the fact that I could add my precious lovebug Lily was exciting.  If only the picture could do her justice.  She is way cuter than the avatar :)  Oh, well.

So much for Blog #1..here is Blog #2

Well, I set up my first blog for Christian Leadership.  I loved it!!  I began reporting on my 23 Things on that site, but ended up loving it so much that I have decided to designate it for the sole purpose of that class.  I have inserted pictures of them, a poll for them to decide on their class t-shirt, and other updates.  For some reason, they (SEEM) to like it better than Edline...why, I dunno.

I felt weird having to journal about my thoughts on 23 Things while also inserting all kinds of class stuff.  So, here it is...the blog solely devoted to me, my Lily Belle (I couldn't POSSIBLY leave her out), and 23 Things :)