Thing 25 Portaportal

I love http://www.portaportal.com/.  Whenever I find a great website I add it to my Portaportal account and then wherever I am I can log in to my account and there is link to the website.  If you want to see my account, log in as a guest.  Your favorite or ones that you want to share with others.

Go to http://www.portaportal.com/ , log in under Guest Access, karenliebert.

You can create different categories, subcategories.  I use it when students are researching a topic and I can list appropriate, reliable websites.  It avoids a great deal of wasted time, when students google something and end up using Wikipedia!

Several of our teachers use it a lot.  They bookmark it or create an icon on their classroom computers and the students log onto the teachers account as a guest.  There is a way to add to add icons (see the one I added in the category, Media Skills).  One of our second grade teachers differentiates instruction this way.  She can tell Johnny to go to the sites with the smiley face, or the thumbs up icon.

Try it and I'm sure you will find many uses for it.

Thing 24 ToobleTV

I downloaded Toobl.TV to my laptop and converted one of my favorite YouTube videos, TMobile's Royal Wedding, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kav0FEhtLug  Watch even if you are not a anglophile or royalist.  It's pretty funny and has great music!

Unfortunately it downloaded it as MP4 file and I can't figure out how to change the format.  It's late so I will try and play with it tomorrow.

I know that we have one teacher in particular that likes to use YouTube and would probably like this program, when I can figure out how to change the format.

Google Reader

I accidently discovered that if you are logged into your Google account and you click on Reader, you will see a "hit list" of blogspots that you are following.
I just tried to do a screen capture, but was unsuccessful in pasting in a document.  But go to Google and login and then click on Reader (it might be under "More").

Authors Available to Skype

Here is a web site that lists authors who will do Skype visits.

http://skypeanauthor.wetpaint.com/

Web cam

Hey,  I might have to get a laptop with a built-in camera!  Very cool.

Library 2.0

I'm reading the blog about Library 2.0 and I agree we have to make our library media centers relevant or we might all get permanently furloughed as some LMS have in other states.

Stephen Abrahms video

I watched the video of Stephen Abrahms, but got a little distracted!

I did overhear someone say that a blog would be a good place for us to recommend books to students and faculty.  I sure wish I had a library media center website.  I worked on one for the school for awhile, but it fell by the wayside.

Today we are beginning our 23 Things on a Stick adventure.  It sounds something I would put on the grill!