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.