One More Thing...

I'm done with the 23 Things. It doesn't feel like I should be, but I am, and now I'm very excited to have learned all of these cool technology tools to use in my classroom. I have learned about so many cool tools, but some of my favs were, animoto, flickr, and the podcasts. I did feel that after midterm the 23 Things became more of a chore than an exciting learning experience, because of all the other projects that I had to do. I will definitely use alot of these internet tools in my classroom and for my own personal use.

Thing #23

The 23 Things is based on The 43 Things. I will use the Creative Commons when showing videos to my classes and also by doing projects that relate to the Creative Commons laws so children will know them too.

Thing #22

I love Harry Potter, so when I found a Harry Potter podcast, MuggleCast, I had to listen to it. They are great and funny. I will be waiting for the next MuggleCast to be out. I searched through PodcastAlley and also PodcastDirectory and I thought that PodcastDirectory was easier to use because the webpage was laid out different and was easy to navigate.

Thing #21

Animoto is really really neat. I used it once on Facebook, but I never actually did any of the work because it used my Facebook photos. It was so much easier to use than I expected, which means I am definitely going to be using Animoto. This site is really cool and would be great to use to take class photos of trips and activities and make videos that parents could watch.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Thing #20

Youtube is a great site for uploading your videos, whether they are educational or just for fun. I think Youtube is a great site for educators to use to show children videos about topics they are learning in school. Teachers need to be careful because not all of the videos on Youtube are appropriate, which may be the only issue with Youtube. I was having trouble uploading my video from the site so I decided to add the link. I love these videos, they brighten my day and make me laugh.

Thing #19

TeacherPop is awesome. I will definitely be using Teacherpop when I become a teacher. It is so great to be able to communicate with other teachers for ideas and advice. I really cant think of anything else to say except for being able to be introduced to Teacherpop is great.

Thing #18

I created a Facebook account my senior year in highschool, and I love Facebook! I love being able to stay in touch with my friends, and find out about important events that are going on around Clarksville. Educators should know how to use social networking sites because the students they teach know how to use them and so they could be used in a classroom setting. A teacher could create a class page and post events, activities, and extra credit options on the group page. I have tried Myspace before and I personally prefer Facebook, I find it easier to use/navigate.

Thing #17

Bookmarking is a really cool idea, especially for people in education, because there are so many online resources for teachers to use. I think this would be a great tool for upper level elementary students and highschoolers. Teachers could add websites to help students learn more information about a topic. I don't think elementary students could use this but teachers most certainly could. It would be a great way to tag sites about certain subject areas and grade levels.

Thing #16

I chose iGoogle, because I have already use it was my start page so I decided to explore it a little further. I found some great organization tools to add to my start page, including sticky notes and a to-do list. I love iGoolge because there are so many add-ons that you can choose from to help keep you up to date on the news or keep you organized. The online calendars are great because you can add things that you need to be done by a certain date and then add reminders. Plus, you can never forget where you put your calender or planner and you can always come back and change the dates or add more things to do. Since I found a to-do list add-on for my iGoogle Ifelt like the to-do lists from other sites were too much work. So I added the to-do list to my iGoogle and that is so helpful because it is right on my homepage. I would recommend iGoogle to anyone, especially teachers and college students.

Thing #15

My favorite wiki that I looked at was the Book Lovers Wiki. I love to read and I think it would be really cool to create a book lovers wiki for elementary children to use in classroom or as a school. The teachers could post their own favorite books for the children and that way the teachers could share ideas for books to read in the classroom. I think it is so neat that everyone can come in and edit the wiki. It makes it a great feature for teachers to use a groups.

Thing #14

I chose to play with Bubble.us and Gliffy, I think Bubble.us would be a great tool for educators to use because teachers can create mind maps for the students and show them how different things are related and also unrelated, especially for my subject, science. Gliffy was a fun tool to use to create flowcharts, but it was cool that it also did a lot of other cool stuff, like floor plans.

Thing #13

I found that Zoho Writer was a lot like the Microsoft Office programs. I enjoyed using Zoho, it's features are very similar to Word and Excel, so I found it very easy to navigate through the program. I LOVE the fact that the documents can be turned into different types of documents for different computers depending on a person's needs. I also enjoyed the fact that the documents can be saved to Zoho so you do not have to worry about losing your document on your computer if it crashes, (like mine did). I think this is a great tool for educators because it is free, easy to use, and does all of the same things that the expensive software does.

Thing #12

Google is...amazing. I always use Google for searching and on my old computer iGoogle was my homepage but I never played around with it. Now, iGoogle is definitely my homepage with my certain settings, like quotes, email, news about Clarksville, and recipe of the day (because I love to cook). Google calendar is great because I can keep up with events and birthdays. I have my calendar as private, because people don't need to know all of my events. Since my iGoogle had my email set to it I would prefer not to add a link to it, just in case. I think having a calendar for the classroom would be a great way to keep up with assignments and events in school.

Thing #11

Wow, I never knew that there were so many blogs and feeds that you could subscribe too. I found that searching through Google and Technorati were the easiest, Syndic8 was really confusing to me before I even began searching. Searching by topic seemed to be the best way to find what I was looking for. I found a really cool website for teachers to use for new free technology and lesson plans in the classroom. Searching through Google I found some strange sites about FanFiction, people writing their owns works based off books or movies. I realized that if a website has a blog feed that Firefox will show you that you can subscribe to it by the search bar. I thought that was really cool, and a quick way to add feeds that you come across.

Thing #10

I like that you can choose which feeds you want to subscribe to and read. There are so many options to pick from and it makes it so much fun to look through them and decide which ones you want to subscribe too. For my own personal life I love books and movies, so I can check reviews on new books and movies. As a teacher, educational blogs can help give ideas to new topics or projects in the classroom. This is really easy to use and so cool to be able to find all of this information without having to go to a lot of different sites.

Thing #9

I enjoyed playing around with the image generators. I love all the different background choices you have to choose from the create unique images. These are so cool for personal pictures and can also be used in the classroom as gifts for the kids to give to their parents.

Thing #8

I love using the Mosaic Maker to take my pictures and blend them together to create different layouts. In the classroom you could use this to let the kids learn more about each other while playing with photos. If you made up a list of favorite things or things about yourself and then have kids look for images to their answers and then present their mosaic and tell what each picture means.

Thing #7

I never used Flickr before, my senior class used photobucket to share all of our senior trip photos, and I use Facebook now. On Facebook I used Flickr once to create a group of images of favorite things. I loved looking through all the different images on Flickr. I think it is a great site for people who love to take and share pictures.
I chose this picture of Gulf Shores, Alabama
because that is where my family always goes for vacation and I love the beach.
I liked using Flickr to find images because there are so many options to chose from that you can use by searching the Creative Commons.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojodenbowsphotostudio/451374042/

Thing #6

I personally love to write and I love to read so I found a site called Lulu. http://www.lulu.com/index.php This website allows people to publish their own books, calenders, photo books, etc. Anything you can think of that is your own to publish, Lulu can help you do it. I think this would be great for classrooms! Elementary teachers can take student's stories and create a book for them each to have using the site, they can also help students make calenders or recipe books for parents as Christmas gifts. The website is very easy to follow when it comes to publishing a book, it shows you the options (with pictures) and guides you through the process, the only problem I found with the website is the extremely large collection of books that may not be suitable for younger children. Which as a future teacher, is a major downfall to me, but overall I enjoyed the website.

Thing #5

Wow, um... to much new stuff for me to keep up with, that's for sure. I think it is all great and wonderful that students today and in the future will have a better opportunity to learn and discover more things. I'm actually jealous that I didn't get to use some of these things when I was in elementary school. To me School 2.0 is almost just like Web 2.0, it is not only new and emerging technology but it is creating a network where everyone all over the world can communicate with each other, share ideas, and learn new things. As technology changes, gets better, and grows I think School 2.0 will grow and change with it, giving students an ever better chance to learn all they can.

.... I love it!

Thing #4

I think commenting a a great concept to help people with common interests interact with each other. I know when I post things on my Facebook, I love to hear what my friends and family have to say, plus it is a great way to communicate with my family across the country. I did like the point of not being rude when commenting on people's blogs. I love writing and often post my stories on a website, and the positive comments and feedback encourage me to write more and often times try make it better, but the negative comments are often hurtful and make me want to stop posting.
I posted a comment on soloround.blogspot.com because this 16 year old girl is sailing around the world, by herself, and I think that is absolutely amazing. It was something she had always wanted to do, and she made her dream come true. I wanted to wish her good luck and congratulate her for her achievement. I also commented on Serendipitous's blog because to me it was so neat. She took pictures around her house, and then wrote about why she posted them, they ranged from something silly, like rotten apples, to her granddaughter learning to use the potty. I commented on Alexa Tyler's blog because she had a great idea to put classroom rules up using the sign generators. I commented on Tracie Cannon's blog because I liked that she said we should motivate our students, which is true. Kids need motivation to achieve their goals. I commented on Darlena Gary's blog because I agree that Google is a easy site to use and navigate through. I commented on Cassidy Fisher's blog because I loved hr idea about students bringing in a fun fact of the day. I also commented on Rachelle Smith's blog because we both chose the same site, LuLu, and I think her idea to have students make stories and create books using the site is a great idea.

Thing #3

I think using a blog as a teacher would be a great online tool. I think it could help parents get to know the teacher more before the school year starts and I think it would be a great way to communicate on important topics like field trip ideas and fundraisers. I also think it would help students find a new and creative way to express themselves and learn to use the web. With a blog a teacher could also post questions or ideas and have students respond to the blog post.

Thing #2

I have never created a blog or an avatar before, and I have to say it was a LOT harder than I expected it to be! I decided to use just my first initial and then my full last name, to make my blog name some what private, but at the same time, it still identifies me. My avatar is very similar to me, I love the color pink, so I chose a pink shirt, and I usually wear jeans and tennis shoes. My hair is brown and my eyes and blue, like my avatar. The only difference in me and my avatar is I can never get my hair to look like that.

Thing #1

After I read the 71/2 habits I believe that the easiest habit for me is Habit 3: View problems as challenges. When faced with a problem I see it as something I must overcome and it helps to motivate me. The hardest habit for me would probably be Habit 1. I start with the end in mind, but in some cases as Icontinue with whatever I have started I sometimes lose the drive to complete it, because I do not see the end of the project. I want to become a lifelong learner because learning is a part of life and everyone should be able to learn something new every day!