TCEA Time-Out

OK...before I go any further in HEB23, I think I ought to share some of the fabulous new stuff (just three little things!) I learned at the TCEA (Texas Computer Educator's Association) conference last week...maybe we can turn these into HEB23 - Part 2!!!  (Just kidding...well, maybe not!)

My favorite website of all has to be Blabberize - the address is http://www.blabberize.com/.  You can select an animal, person, object, etc., and then record a message and the thing "speaks" it back to you.  I did one of Bart Simpson about our meeting this past Wednesday, but was too embarassed at my version of his voice that I couldn't play it for y'all.  Still, I think it would be hugely fun to have the kids make commercials about the library, new books, important dates, etc., using Babberize - trust me, it's a huge attention-getter!

The second thing that blew my mind was learning what a GLOG is...not a blog, a glog.  The web address is http://www.edu.glogster.com/ and the potential for student and teacher creativity here is amazing.  Try using this with book reports, instead of a video or a standard paper/pencil report, and you've got something totally cool and awesome.  Introduce your kiddos to this site by letting them do a "Who I Am" glog all about themselves.  The possibilities and endless and oh-so-fun!

My last site to share is called Seat Gurus and the web address is http://www.seatguru.com/.  This website has the seating information on almost every commercial plane out there and if you are trying to find which seats are the best on a plane (furthest/closest from/to the restroom, close to exits, nearest the galley, etc.), then you need to check this one out!  When you book your next flight, before you pick your seats, if you have that option with your airline/booking agency, open another browser winder and see what the Seat Gurus suggest...there were so many things I had never thought of that come into play when choosing a seat on a plane. 

I'll stop here because no one will probably even read/comment on my fun sites, but I did learn so much at TCEA and like Brenda said in one of her posts last week, our jobs are not disappearing, they are expanding.  We need to broaden our minds at the same time.