Thing 23

We're finished already? Hey, what was Thing 1 .... no, seriously, I have to click back to the outline because I have lost track of time, place, and Things.
I am very grateful for the 23 Things journey. I hope I can continue to access the 23 Things website so I can review topics, how-to directions, etc. I don't know if learning this has been hard due to the function of my age, coupled with multi-tasking through personal issues, as well as (of course as all of you had to) taking care of what enabled me to take this journey - my role as teacher, and juggling with taking care of The Main Thing which is Family.
I feel slightly less overwhelmed by all of it but having said that I know we just barely scratched the surface. I do feel more confident from tackling Web 2.0 tools. Some of the confidence sort of hit me when I realized I have some "street credit" on the technology scene from my 8th graders when word got out that I had a blog. Hah, I was emanating coolness as I explained to some of them what a "wiki" was.
The digital world is such a huge part of this generation that I know we have to find the time to incorporate it more into our teaching. Since they are so hooked into it I think I need to take more steps to incorporate it into their learning and into my teaching topics. Web 2.0 tools are a perfect living backdrop that becomes more than that when woven into teaching. Students love to use Wikipedia so much that I think it will be easy to use that enthusiasm into making our own wikis on project topics.
Personally, I think since many of the tools are collaborative they fit ideally into family projects of recording family history and those special stories that make up each and everyone's family culture. I was able to share with my own children some of the 2.0 tools and passing on the stirring videos. Now when I see a video I love I immediately think: How can I share it?
I still feel some frustration with embedding widgets into my website space on the school's website (we use schoolwires). I have to seek some help from some staff members who are already overloaded to show me what I may be doing incorrectly. And since I see the power of using many of those widget gadgets to hook kids (eg, checking what's new on my web site) I am more impatient to explore doing that.
I am even more grateful that my son decided to give us the resources to replace our 10 year old PC and appreciative that I somehow took that leap and decided (while shopping alone for the new PC) to go with the more expensive Quad core processor (against the salesman's advice!) . I can appreciate the technology needed for these new apps. The computer at school was so slow and loading the pages with errors on them which really slowed me down.
I can't believe that nearly 10 weeks have gone by. I began needing my daily or weekend fixes of exploring the Things - and exploring the digital world beyond my material "here and now".
My head had been really spinning with some of the Things but however frequent my tangents and side trips were with those Things - and it seems almost like an oxymoron - I now feel ever more grounded than before.
Here's my salute to keeping my head (most of the time) - Avril's version of Alice: