Using 23 things in "real life"

Well - taking the 23 things course over the summer gave me OODLES of fabulous ideas and time to consider how to implement them in my class. I knew that when school started back those pipe dreams would be difficult to bring to fruition but I was (and am) determined to do my best to make it work! Here's what I've done so far (in the first 2 weeks of school) and how I plan to expand on it!

• got signed permission forms for all of my students to read and create online content as well as have their photos and videos posted on our class wiki, blog and flickr (I say this as a disclaimer because I know someone will see the pics/videos/etc. and say "You can't put their photos on the internet without permission!")
  
• set up my class wiki - I'm encouraging my students' parents to participate by sharing weekend stories and photos and asking questions or leaving comments on the discussion page. I've also created a page for each student and plan on helping them add content to their pages.
  
• set up my class blog
• set up and began using our wiimote whiteboard
• created a voicethread about everyone's summer vacation (don't have this one posted yet, we're still missing one students' photos)

This week we're working on an activity that incorporates several web2.0/technology tools.

1. First each student typed the word "cat" (some typed in "black cat", "orange cat", etc. - some copied the word using the keyboard, some used an adapted (intellikeys) keyboard with only the letters "C-A-T" - depending on their ability and skill level) into the search box on flickr (I set the search up for creative commons photos only in advance).
   
2. They then chose (by using a mouse or touchscreen) which cat photo they wanted to use for their page of our story. I printed these photos for use in creating the "hard copy" of our book and copied the photos to use later in our digital story.
   
3. We used intellitools Balanced Literacy on our wiimote whiteboard to practice writing the sentence "Here is my cat." by clicking on each word in order.
4. (this part doesn't involve technology)The students put word cards in order to create the sentence "Here is my cat" and glue it on a piece of construction paper (Some matched the words, some copied the sentence on handwriting paper after ordering the word cards). They also glued a picture of the cat they chose on their paper under the sentence.
5. Tonight I am putting the pictures they chose into Voxpix
   
6. Tomorrow they will each read their sentence as narration in the Voxpix slideshow and we will post it on our wiki.