In Conclusion...

23 Things is an amazing training filled with opportunities to think outside the box and endless learning.
Some of my favorite discoveries were the calendars and to-do lists, enriching our knowledge with blogger, keeping up with our bookmarks on delicious.com, being constantly updated with RSS feds and of course, The Library Thing!
As each thing has so many things within, I would like to learn about each thing more in depth. I would have liked to have a divided training into two halves. Have session 1 and 2 with more time to learn farther about each topic. I would definitely join those sessions and all the other discovery programs offered as Staff Development online. For now, I will keep up with new developments in web 2.0 by reading my RSS feds and participating in technology trainings offered by the district.
23 things had a huge impact on how I will approach my lessons next year in my classroom. I cannot wait to continue learning from each one of the things we learned.

Thing #23: Ning.

Ning is a great tool that help us obtain and share ideas between diverse groups of people. We can create and join educator's networks for subject areas and find discussions, educational videos, useful links, creative ideas, etc.
Within Ning there is a group called Classroom 2.0 for educators. It is an excellent resource where we can also choose between different groups according to our matter or matters of interest. We can discover and contribute ideas that work for us, find solutions to everyday classroom difficulties, etc.
This kind of networks are beneficial personally and professionally because we can expand our horizons of knowledge and also help others expand theirs.

Thing #22: Exploring Social Networking.

It is important for educators to know how social networking works because more and more of our students are making use of them and if we want to understand them, we need to know about what they are talking. We can also make use of them in our classroom. We can make a facebook for the class and then have groups about the books we are reading, history or science topics, etc. I found facebook to be more useful for my classroom because of the adding people's security and different groups we can make.
My facebook

Thing #21: Google tools.

"Google is not only a search engine anymore" It has dozens of options that can facilitate our every day's chores. Google Alerts e-mails you the news as they happen and keeps you posted on the topics that you select. We can use this tool in our History class to have our students updated on the selected information. Another tool we can use in school is the Google Calendar. We can input dates for our class and coworkers to plan and keep an ordered schedule of events. Finally, I will use iGoogle to customize my homepage containing the tools we have learned how to use here, this way, I will be able to use different facilitating web2.0 tools without the need to research, but only with a click of a button.

Thing #20: Google Docs.

Google Docs is a tool that works pretty much like office. You can make presentations, documents, spreadsheets, forms and drawings. You can manipulate the size, color, type of letter, create tables, etc. Google docs can be used in school with our students and together make lists of things in word, making grocery store's finances in spreadsheets, draw shapes with area and perimeter in drawings, etc. We can also use it in our personal life if we are not home and we need to make any kind of document to save and have handy later.
My article on Google Docs.

Thing #19: Voice Thread.

Voicethread can be used to add voice and written comments to documents, videos or pictures. I might use it on my Master's Presentations next semester and in my class to review vocabulary and multiplications, read books, create presentations for and from my students, brainstorming ideas, etc.

Thing #18: YouTube

YouTube and TeacherTube are websites where you can find videos about anything you can imagine, humorous, educational, happy, sad clips... YouTube can be used for a more personal use and on TeacherTube we can find already filtered educational materials for our class. I researched on some of the most popular topics that we use in class and could find interesting videos on each one of them; Abraham Lincoln, literacy circles, plants, area, perimeter...
I am planning on researching for more videos for my class and post them on my delicious website to have handy when school starts!