Thing #24

The End of 23 Things

Here I am at the end of this blog, I am happy to be done with the blog but I have also learned a tremendous amount when it comes to technology in the classroom. I think if this had not been a graded assignment I would have never done it. I never wanted to be on Twitter and I never wanted to Blog  to name a few things but in light of all that I am happy to have done it. I now have a ton of new passwords to remember for all the things that we needed to sign up for. (I'll just add them to the list of all the other passwords we need to remember in this age of technology!) The "things" that stand out to me the most are Animoto, Flickr Mashups- Spell with Flickr and Live Binders. I think I have used Animoto at least ten times since I learned about it. I think it is a fun way to display pictures. At first I was annoyed with Live Binders because I didn't know how to navigate putting different tabs into the binders but once I got a hang of how to work with them, it was easier and I have noticed that some sights ask if you want to put a file in your live binder, which I would have never noticed before and makes Live Binders even easier to use. 

I truly believe that everyone is a life-long learner but you decide what you are going to learn. I know have decided that I will try to start learning more about Webtools so I don't fall so far behind with current technology. I think it is important to stay up to date with technology because certain things can make my life easier and more professional. I feel like I have made the leap from dial-up Internet with the knowledge I have learned in this class. I think that staying current with technology will also help me connect with my students as well. With the need for more authentic teaching, I think using technology is just the way to do it. It gives me the freedom to differentiate my instruction based on the needs of my students. 

I think I will use my blog as a reference tool in the future. I think that this would be a great idea to look back and pick the tools that might be most useful depending on the grade I will teach in the future. I also have a terrible memory and it is nice that I have this to keep and refer back to as needed. I can also show it to my students to show them that if I can do it, then they can do it. As far as continuing to write in this blog... probably not going to happen. Especially now that the weather is getting nicer, I would prefer to do things instead of sit behind a computer and type my thoughts and feelings. I may however when I do become a teacher start a different blog using Blogger for my own classroom. It depends on what grade I am able to teach, it may be for students but it may be just to inform parents about the goings-on in the classroom. 

I am happy to check this off my list of things I have accomplished!

Thing #23

Creative Commons

I was excited to watch "A Fair(y) Use Tale" because I love, love, LOVE Disney movies. I have seen all the movies that were used obviously! I think that it was a creative way to learn what copyright is, although I did a little lost at a few points. Overall a great way to be introduced to creative commons and copy right. 

I simply searched "Learning 2.0 23 Things" never realized how popular this was. Here is what I found from one website:

Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program was originally created for The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenberg Countyby Helene Blowers. 

Content and style for this site is a derivative of the idea and have been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.

I was never really a person that worried about copy right, I always thought it was the notice that came up before movies with something about FBI. I never really paid any attention to it. To be honest before thing #23 I never really even looked at the bottom of the Austin Peay 23 Things page to see that our page had the same copyright and creative commons information. I think part of the reason I never really was concerned with copyright growing up is because we didn't have the technology we have today. I remember putting little c with a circle around it on pictures I had drawn growing up but I never really knew what it all meant. 

Now I think that students today need to learn about copyright and creative commons because we are asking students to do a lot more with technology than we have in the past. Students need to be aware of the guidelines and rules that they should follow when creating something using work from others. It is also important for students to know that they can copyright their own work as well. They can have the same protection under creative commons that many others have as well. I think its also important for me as a teacher to be aware as well. I may want to borrow ideas from others to use in my lesson plans and I would hate to do so without permission, I need to set an example for my students as the right way to do things. I kind of wish that this was one of the first things we did instead of the last one. I only hope that I didn't break any copyright or creative commons rules. I am much more conscience of it now and will continue in the future as well. 

Thing #22

Live Binders

When I first read thing #22 I was a little overwhelmed. I like to be organized but doing it with technology is another thing. I like to be hands on when it comes to organizing. I would much prefer a binder in real life than one on the computer. It took me a while to get the hang of it but I finally started to see the usefulness of LiveBinders once I started to put more things in them. I think if I was in an actual classroom that this would be very useful. It is a little difficult to plan a binder out when I don't have a classroom and set resources that I am looking for.

The three Live Binders I created were: Common Core, Mixtures and Solutions, and Literacy Center ideas. The one I chose to share here goes along with the standard I picked for this class. Here is my LiveBinder: Mixtures and Solutions. It took me a little while to figure out how to add tabs within the tabs, otherwise known as sub-tabs. I am not happy with the front of the main tabs, I think if I were to use this for real I would have to adjust them a little but while I am still learning how to use LiveBinders I think its ok to leave it the way it is. 

I think that if I needed a substitute teacher for a day I was going to be absent, that this would be a great resource for the teacher. If lessons for the day were all in one LiveBinder that the substitute could go to, I think it would make it a much smoother day even if I wasn't there. I also think that this would be great for students who finish early. If the LiveBinder was already set up on the computer, the students could choose activities or watch videos that I have already set up for them in the LiveBinder. It is also a great resource to go to for lessons that I have saved that are already on the internet. I think that this tool is best for when I am actually a teacher. 

Thing #21

Animoto

This is by far my favorite thing I have done. I may even consider upgrading to make longer videos. This was so much fun and it really does look like I paid someone to do it. It was simple and easy to do. The tutorial was simple and easy to understand. I really enjoyed making this video. I can see myself using this all this time in my personal life and in the classroom. I think that this would be a great thing for back to school night to showcase the student's and their work, of course that would require to sign up for the full features of Animoto but I think that is fine. I have no problem paying for something that I use and enjoy. I think that the 30 second clips would be great for elementary students to use as well for projects that they are working on. I feel that this would be a very useful tool both inside and outside of the classroom. If I do teach in Clarksville, I think that this would be a great thing share with deployed parents or divorced parents as well. A little 30 second video clip of their child is just that little something extra to show parents who aren't able to see their children on a daily basis, what they are doing in school and can be personalized in a matter of minutes for each student.  

My Video

Thing #20

YouTube and Beyond

When I read thing #20 I knew exactly what I wanted to share on my blog. Although knowing exactly what I was going to post I still spent over an hour watching videos. YouTube is like a bag of potato chips, you can't just watch one! So now that I have totally lost the last hour to watching videos I now can get back to this post. 

The clip I chose is a shortened version of the video I find so motivating and powerful. The video clip is of Dr. Randy Pausch and his "Last Lecture".  I highly suggest that if you have the time that you watch the full video on YouTube. I can not watch this without crying but at the end I also find myself motivated. I will use what Dr. Pausch has said to motivate my own students to do their very best. I only hope that I can do Dr. Pausch justice by motivating my students like he has motivated so many others. I think that this video is a little too much for elementary students but I think it is great for older students especially seniors about to embark on their next journey in life. 

I think that YouTube and TeacherTube are great resources that should be used in the classroom at any grade level. I think short little video clips that reinforce a lesson that is being taught is a great tool. Students love videos and it is a great way to grab their attention in the beginning of a lesson or as a summary to a lesson. I know as a student I was elated when the teacher rolled the TV cart into the classroom! 

I tried GameClassroom as my other video application. I thought this was great for the classroom because it has different grade levels from K-6 to choose from. The website had tabs for videos, worksheets, lessons for math and ELA. It seems like a great resource to be added to any K-6 classroom for independent or pair work on the computer. The only thing I wish it had was tools for science and social studies as well but it looks like it is more geared toward Common Core with Math and ELA. Overall I am impressed with this website and videos for students.

Thing #19

Beyond Facebook

Some of the tips that were given for teachers about social networking sites are kind of "no brainers". I would never put anything up on Facebook that I wouldn't want my 90 year old grandmother to see, because yes at 90 she is loves Facebook. I think the same goes for any other sights. Students today are little tiny sleuths and they will find their teachers on sights. I don't think that this is something to be afraid of and completely swear off social networking sites though. I have found that the teaching community as a whole is very supportive towards each other on these sites. 

I really liked the Classroom 2.0 Ning site where I found a group http://www.classroom20.com/group/elementaryschool20 that I would like to follow. In fact a recent post by someone on the site was talking about Twitter and uses of Twitter in the elementary classroom. No one has posted anything yet but now I have an RSS on that particular topic because I would be interested in how teachers now are integrating Twitter into their classrooms. I feel impressed with myself that I am using that I have learned in this class already to further my own knowledge. 

As a non-teacher social network I liked the Tasty Kitchen site. It is linked to the pioneer woman which I also really like as well. I'm not sure when I came across the pioneer woman but I have found her to be amazing and I think I will enjoy Tasty Kitchen as well. 

I love love LOVE Pinterest! I think I spend more time on Pinterest than I do anything else. I can spend hours just looking at different things. I do need to spend more time organizing my pins though. I also have an Instagram account but I don't use it very often. I'm not sure if it is considered a social networking site but I really enjoy things that teachers put up on teacherspayteachers.com. I have heard many times throughout this program, "Why reinvent the wheel?" This is a great resource for graphic organizers, activities and themes for the classroom that teachers make, some are free and other you have to pay for which I don't mind at all. I think if a teacher spends the time to create something that will help other teachers than, why not get some extra cash for it? We all know that we aren't going into the teaching profession for the paycheck! These are great resources for teachers that I will for sure use when I have my own classroom.

Thing #18

Twitter

I swore to myself that I would never be on Twitter, but then came Thing #18 in this technology class and here I am an official "Twitter-er". I never really cared much about hashtags and I think people go a little off the deep end hashtagging everything, I mean why else would they make an SNL skit about hashtags, with every other word being hashtag. It seems a little crazy to me that people want to tweet every single thing that they are thinking of for their followers to see. I really don't care what famous people are thinking or the nasty comments people tweet back and forth about each other. 

With that being said, to set up an account it was really quite simple. The website took you step by step and had me set up 10 people to follow. I chose teacher sites to follow since this exercise is about using Twitter for educational purposes and not to see what Taylor Swift has to say. I searched Teacher and came up with pretty interesting people/organizations to follow. Part of the reason I never was interested in joining Twitter is I had no idea that it could be used for education. I thought it was just a place that people could talk/complain about their every day comings and goings. I can see after signing up for education purposes that Twitter can be useful for teachers. I think that Twitter can keep teachers updated on information a lot faster with less than 140 characters. I think that it is probably a good thing for teachers to at least know about so there isn't such a gap between teachers and students, more so I think in high school than elementary school. 

I'm not sure if I would really use this in an elementary classroom with students so much. I might use it to keep in communication with parents much like a blog with a classroom specific hashtag that only my student's parents would have such as #mrsSomers3rdgradeclass2014. This way if the students had projects or there was information that I needed to get out to the parents who were followers I would be able to instantly notify them about the happenings in the classroom. As a teacher I think I would try to stay up to date with some of the hashtags for my own learning purposes. Overall not a terrible experience with Twitter, not nearly as painful as I thought it was going to be. 

Here is my twitter account

https://twitter.com/CandicePS813

Thing #17

Del.icio.us

The tutorial video really helped me understand Delicious since I have never heard of this before. I am feeling a little overwhelmed after learning about Delicious, Digg and Stumbleupon. I think that delicious is only slightly user friendly than the other two, although Digg didn't seem terrible. I will need to play around with this a little more, after watching the tutorial it seemed a lot easier to use but when I went to search for educational technology I was getting things posted from 2007, which we all know seven years ago in a technological world is ancient. Even MacBooks are considered "antique" after five years and you can't even get parts for them at the Apple store. I like the fact that this is different from bookmarks because then if I am not on my own computer I can still save websites that I find without needing to be on my own computer. I did find a tag about 100 websites that will make you smarter. I went down to the section about science and clicked on wired science. I was hoping it would have been a little more educational but it was interesting. The website has current information about the polar vortex and other current events. 

I can see how this would be useful for teachers to stay up to date on the most current teaching techniques and the tags make it easier to organize everything. I liked the social aspect in theory. You still need to rely on people to tag things the way would would tag them yourself. I did like how there was a follow button, I think that would be very useful as a beginning teacher to have access to other more seasoned teachers website that they deemed as useful. I think I will need more classroom experience before I know which websites and activities are helpful in the classroom and which ones are not. Once I get the hang of the website I hope to find teachers that have useful websites to use during my first year. I think is it a great way to share ideas with teachers across the country and not just the ones what teach in the school that I will be teaching at in the future. I am not sure how this tool would be used in the classroom for student use. I think that this might be a little over the heads of elementary school students. I think that I would only use this in the classroom to get websites off of it that I have already tagged.  

Thing #16

Get Organized

I first clicked on Ustart for my start page and I chose my horoscope, google drive, and tasks. There were a lot of options that I could have on my start page that I have no interest in such as video games, movies and stocks. I wasn't really impressed with this start page. It does have a calendar, weather and a place for gmail which made it easy to access everything from one page. It kind of reminded me of our APSU OneStop page that has all the information we need on one page. I'm not sure if I would ever make this my home page. I have a MacBook and I am used to how that is set up and I don't think I would have a start page in addition to the widgets on my computer. 

I liked the name of the tool rememberthemilk so I tried it out. Not a big fan on signing up for things even if they are for free. I feel like it is just an extra step and extra e-mails in my mailbox that I need to spend more time to delete, making me less productive. I wonder if I had done it on my phone first if I would have needed to "sign up". I always make "to do" lists for myself on a daily basis. In fact the first thing on my to do list is to make a to do list, that way I can cross it off after I make the list. I feel like something is lost when it is on my phone or computer. I enjoy the actual act of crossing things off my list. I have tried other apps on my phone that were to do lists. One actually marked things in red if I didn't get them done from the list. That app was quickly deleted. I find it a lot easier to write my to do lists on paper than on my phone or computer. I don't think I will be doing anymore to do lists like this. I liken it to reading an e-book compared to an actual book. I need to physically turn pages and I need to physically cross things off of my lists. 

My other tool I chose was the mint.com, I feel like this would be a good tool for me to use. Once again you need to sign up for it but sometimes I fee like I need something to show me where my money is going. I feel like one day I have money and then the next day I have no idea what I spent my money on. This tool displays the information for you in pie charts and in bar graphs. Maybe if I keep track of my spending I will get my credit cards paid off this year.  The only downside I see from this tool is that it has all my financial information on it, if it were to get into the wrong hands, but then again everything is on line and if someone really wanted my information, they would get it.

I think the tool that would be most useful would be an online calendar. Whenever I have observed teachers in their meetings, they are constantly planning things for their students, whether its testing, computer times, guest speakers or everyday activities. I feel like I am going to need some type of calendar to keep myself organized. I would like to see what other teachers use as far as calendars goes before I commit to one. 

Thing #15

Wiki

I really had no idea that you could make your own wiki page. The little tutorial on our APSU 23 things page was really helpful in explaining how you can use a wiki (not that I will ever go camping). I frequently use wikipedia and have the app on my phone. The only other time I have heard anything with wiki in it was a few years ago when the news was reporting about "wikileaks". I know wiki means quick or quickly and I can see why they chose the work wiki for all these pages. It is a fast way to communicate back and forth between multiple people. 

I looked at a few of the wikis that were provided and I really liked the educational origami wiki, I liked how it had information on Bloom's at each level. If I were to become a member I could add things to these pages based on what worked in my classroom for the different levels of Bloom's. I liked how the wiki was set up and it seems very useful. For my APSU 23 Things Sandbox wiki, I added an entry about Thing #14. I feel that I could actually use flow charts and mind maps in the classroom for reviews and for learning centers. I was however a little confused as to the "appropriate page" part. I had a hard time finding it. It seems that most people just posted to the front page. 

This wiki experience was an interesting one. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad. I had a little bit of an issue trying to figure out how to edit the page, took me a while to figure out I had to join before I edited the page. I still a little cautious about wiki's because anyone can delete things that others have spent time on and posted to the wiki. Plus I feel like it would need to be monitored by the teacher to make sure nothing inappropriate was posted on the wiki. With that said, I feel like it would be a great way to organize things for the classroom, for students and parents to see. Perhaps in addition to the classroom blog, put the year's schedule on a class wiki so parents can what has been covered and what needs to still be covered, or even a classroom supply list that parents can add things to or take things away like the tutorial with the camping trip supplies. I'm not sure if schools still do class trips, but when I was in school we did and we always needed parent chaperones, this would also be a quick way parents could add themselves to a chaperone list for a trip. I'm not sure how young elementary school students would really utilize wikis, it seems a little over their heads but I could be wrong. I will need to find out how tech savvy my students are once I get into a classroom.

Thing #14

Flow Charts and Mind Maps

When I was a student, I was never one for pre-planning anything out. I wish that I had bubbl.us and Gliffy back then. I always struggled with keeping my ideas organized when writing a paper. Teachers always encouraged us to take a few minutes to read an essay test question, and write an outline but no one ever really taught us how to really use them to our advantage. I really liked using Gliffy, it gave a little tutorial on how to use the application. I liked these flow charts because it gave the user the freedom to put the arrows to the boxes anywhere you wanted and to change it as my thought process changed. I didn't try flowchart.com because I didn't feel like waiting for the invitation. I think they probably loose a lot of potential users because of their wait time. For mind maps I really liked bubbl.us, it was very user friendly and great for brainstorming. I am also a big fan of all the changing colors of the bubbles. I think it adds a nice touch to the visual aspect of the mind map as well as being able to see ideas on different levels based on color. 

I would like to teach elementary school so I think that these tools would be great to implement at a young age so when they get older they are able to use flow charts and mind maps on their own when they get into middle school and high school. Depending on what grade I eventually teach I think that this would be a great activity but need to be teacher directed, whole class type of a lesson. Using these with heavy scaffolding for upper elementary school students would be useful as well. After scaffolding with upper elementary school students, I think bubble.us would be great for brainstorming ideas about a  group project that students would do. I think that these tools would work best in a small controlled setting for students to work with in pairs or in small groups after whole class instruction.

Thing #13

Google Drive

 I used google drive to do a Class Newsletter for my future classroom. I think google drive will be helpful because I plan I doing a newsletter every Friday for the parents to see what has been going on for the week and other important information. I have heard of Google Drive before but I was surprised to see how easy it was to use and questioned why I didn't learn about this earlier. I really liked the "make a quiz" template option under create. I can share quizzes and tests with other teachers and vice versa. I liked that I can create things on google drive and I can upload things as well. This was a nice touch to using this tool. 

When I went on to Zoho, it was a litter more confusing for me. I found it a little more difficult to get the hang of it. For that reason I prefer Google drive over Zoho, I don't really have time to figure out how to use Zoho when there is Google drive which is equal if not better. I have a better time when things are broken down step by step and Google drive does this. I will definitely use this tool in the future when I have my own classroom.

Thing #12

Google

I decided to look further into Google Alerts and Google Translate. I really liked google alerts a lot, I set my google alerts to look for stories about Clarksville Montgomery County School System and elementary literacy strategies. I think that using google alerts is another quick and easy way of getting information as it becomes available. I liked how you could change the settings to the alerts as well. I set my alerts up for every week. I think that this is a good tool to stay current on school related information.  I can also see how it can be used for anything a person would want to look up whether it be business or pleasure. 

I also tried Google Translate. I think this would be a great tool if a teacher had ELL students in their classroom and wanted to find a way to help the student along with their integration in the classroom. Although I think Google Translate is a great idea, I would advise against any language student taking the translation verbatim. I translated a few paragraphs from Le Petit Prince, a child's story from French into English and there were a few errors where google translate took a direct translation of the text which when read in English did not make much sense. I would cross reference any translation from this to make sure it made sense when translated. For a quick translation back and forth between languages I think that this is a great tool to help ELL students and to help the whole class work with ELL students. 

Thing #11

Finding Good Feeds

I think the easiest way to find feeds was the google blog search tool. I am the most comfortable with google and I found it easy to navigate. I searched literacy for elementary education and found a good feed to follow. I am excited about getting updates for this. I think the most confusing one for me was the Technorati one. There was so much going on when I first got onto it, it actually took me a minute to fine the search bar to type in my search. I don't think I would really use anything other than the google blog one to be honest. I found Edutopia this way too, which was nice to know that I would eventually get back to this website. I feel like that it means it is a good one to follow. I did find it interesting that some of the blogs I went to had the RSS split into comments and posts, so you can be updated on one or the other or both. I think that was a nice little feature because sometimes people write comments that have other links to good resources in response to a post and I might miss it if I didn't have an RSS for the comments as well. I thought this was a good exercise in ways to find feeds because I didn't even know google had a search for blogs.  

Thing #10

RSS 

I have to admit when I first saw what thing #10 was I wasn't really excited about it. I have seen the little orange icon for RSS but never understood what it was for and wasn't really interested in knowing. After watching the videos on RSS readers, it became a little less intimidating. I can see the usefulness of  RSS for people today, it seems like our time is at a premium and people don't want to spend time looking through information they have already checked. For example, I think this would be really useful if someone was doing research on a particular topic to be notified of when new research became available without having to look through all the old research. 

I think RSS would be helpful in school for staying up to date with other blogs from teachers or parents who may blog. As a future teacher I can see how having a notification system like Feedly would be useful. Between writing lesson plans, grading and preparing for instruction... oh and spending time with the family, there isn't going to be a lot of time for other things but it is important to stay up to date with what is going on as well. Having a notification when something is new streamlines the whole process and makes better use of my time. On a personal level I might do a RSS for things that I am interested in like recipes from bloggers and hobbies like fencing and horseback riding. I still just enjoy scrolling through the new stories on Yahoo because things that I read on there I may not want constant updates on but found interesting to read about. 

I think teachers can use RSS professionally to stay up to date on the most current methods and new methods of teaching and skills. I feel that any employer wants to see that their teachers are staying current on the ways of teaching and they are active learners who are genuinely interested in teaching and the new teaching strategies that are being developed. I think it is also good for students to see that their teachers are staying up to date on technology and that learning doesn't stop once you graduate. I feel that especially in high school not so much at the elementary school level, that students will have stronger connections with their teachers who are more up to date that the teachers who have the same lesson plans filed away year after year with no interest in staying up to date and current.

Thing #9

Image Generators

 

This was a fun activity that I probably spent way to much time playing around with. I had a lot of fun looking through all the different things you can do on these cites. I used imagechef.com for my NJ plate and customsigngenerator.com for the magazine cover. I'm a Jersey Girl who has been transplanted in the middle of the US. The parenting magazine cover is of my little girl around the 4th of July, I think it looks great as a cover to a July issue of Parenting! On a personal level this would be a lot of fun to put in a family Christmas letter or post on Facebook for fun. 

When I was doing the magazine image generator, it reminded me of when I was in elementary school and we created our own Time Magazine covers. Over course it was nothing like students can do today but it was fun back then and it obviously stuck with me all these years later. I think it would be a good activity for elementary school students to do, students can make a magazine cover for a story that they read about, a current event or a science experiment. There are endless possibilities for this activity and I think it would be something that students would enjoy and stay engaged in. While I was on the custom sign generator website, I came across image generators for student of the week and star of the week. I think these would be great if I had a class website or blog that parents can check in on and see the happening of the classroom. Every parent loves to see their child being highlighted and I think that every student would like to see themselves up on a blog/ or website. Of course I would need to get parental permission before I would post a picture of their child on a public access website or blog. Imagechef was simple and easy to use and easy to post on this blog. I did have some trouble with the custom sign generator website where it would not open in safari but it worked just fine in firefox. Other than that I thought that this was great and something I will be coming back and playing with again. 

Thing #8

Flickr Mashups

I decided to try out the Spell with Flickr Mashup. I loved it! I think these type of things are so fun to play with. I love all the options that this mashup offered for the letters and numbers to spell out 23 Things. I did however have a hard time uploading the picture to this blog. I tried to follow the instructions given on the page but for some reason I couldn't figure it out and just decided to take a screen shot of the picture and upload it that way. I have no idea what it would look like if I was able to do it the correct way but I don't think it looks too bad the way it is. 

I could see having students use this mashup in the classroom for projects and for fun. Students can spell their names or make interesting posters with all the pictures available. If I enjoyed doing this I am sure my future students would enjoy doing this activity as well. Depending on if I can find a standard to pair this with, I may want to have my students go out and try to find letters and take pictures of them to make their own spelling mashups as well. I feel like it opens up a whole new awareness when you look at things abstractly. I think this would be a good exercise to get my future students into a creative mindset. We will see when I actually get into the classroom how it all plays out though.

Thing #7

Exploring Flickr

Team USA Bronze

  I have never used Flickr before but I found it easy to use and to find images. It reminded me a little like Instagram with all the pictures people can post. In light of the winter Olympics that are going on, I searched my love of fencing and came across Team USA in their Bronze medal bout against Russia in the 2012 London Olympics. My friend was on this team and my dad was there as her coach so it was really cool to come across these pictures that someone had taken.

I really liked how you could click on the information on the picture and it would tell you all the camera settings that the person used for the picture. I got a very nice SLR camera for Christmas and I thought it helped me knowing the settings people used for their pictures. I thought that this was a nice feature of Flickr for the people who want to take similar pictures. Overall I thought that Flickr was user friendly and easy to look up tags and save pictures. I did however have difficulty citing the picture. Maybe as I get more comfortable using my new camera I will sign up for Flickr. 

Thing #6

Web 2.0 Tools

I was totally amazed at how many websites/tools there were on the list of Go2Web2.0, 73 pages worth of information. I was happy that the website had a search option to narrow down the list. I happened to come across the website eLearning4Kids which I thought would be very useful for an elementary school classroom. I was first very impressed by the fact that the website offered 5 different languages that it can convert to. I thought this was a great option for working with ELL students to help with the language barrier. I am guilty of the thought that when someone says that they have an ELL student, I automatically think that their primary language is Spanish. Clarksville is a very diverse community with many other languages spoken other than Spanish and I think that this website with it's multiple language options would be a good tool for students. Students can choose from multiple skills to practice and grade levels K-6 are available. In particular, I thought the "life skills" lessons were interesting to have. While I was observing at an elementary school in Clarksville, I was surprised to learn that one of the "specials" the students attended was a life skills class taught by the school counselor. I think that these life skills lessons would be a good addition for students to reinforce what they have learned. I think this would be a great tool for students to use inside and outside of the classroom. There are so many options that a student would never get bored and would never have to repeat a lesson. It is also a free website which is also very nice although it does ask for donations. 

Some of the my dislikes about the website were that some of the lessons would not load so it made it hard to evaluate the website for these particular lessons. Some of the lessons that I was able to review had a lot of words to read and would make it difficult for a young elementary student to follow along with the lesson. Younger students would need the help of a teacher or a parent to be able to read the information in the lesson. 

This website would be great for school or at home. I think it keeps students engaged in their learning at the end of the lesson the student gets a certificate which is great. First, I think students enjoy receiving a certificate after completing the lesson and second it serves as a record for which lessons they have completed. I think this website would be very good for a child who was home schooled. I think I will use this website when I have a class of my own to see how students like the website.

Thing #5

"The Future of Education"

Web 2.0 & School 2.0

As I was reading the articles and watched the video Machine is Us/Using Us, I am simply amazed about how far we have come with technology in such a short period of time. I remember our third grade classroom getting an Apple computer, (no mouse) with its green screen and green print. It's hard to imagine what the next ten years will bring us in technology. One point that struck me was in "The Horizons Report", students today are now more then ever learning everywhere, at home, in the classroom and in their community. There are so many educational games and resources available to students now which help all different types of learners. 

I think when people refer to School 2.0 they mean that our students are getting the newest version of education. Just like how we need to update computer software to keep up with technology, we need to update the ways we educate our students. Now we are taught that we as teachers need to differentiate our instruction and I think that using technology aides in this tremendously. Students can use the classroom computers to take individualized tests according to their level. In addition to helping students I think that School 2.0 also means updating the way we run our schools as well. In Clarksville, for example, Powerschool is the latest update of School 2.0. Powerschool electronically sends attendance to the office and serves as a grade book in which parents can log on and monitor their child's grades. Tools like Powerschool help teachers, parents and school administrators to better communicate and work together to give students the best education possible. 

I have mixed feelings when it comes to what School 2.0 means for schools in the future. While I am excited to see what the future will bring in the way of technological developments. I am a little concerned about how inner-city schools and Title I schools will be able to stay up with these demands of supplying schools with the newest of technology. It would be great if every student was able to get an Ipad/ tablet but realistically I don't see that happening nationwide. Prices have gone down tremendously as technology has been more accessible to everyone. In 1984, 30 years ago,  a Mac computer cost $2,495 ($5,595 in today's economy). 1984 Macintosh  The cost would be very prohibitive for every school to get computers/ tablets in every classroom. To add to this, I recently found out that my MacBook Pro that I bought five years ago is considered to be an "antique" and can no longer get parts for it. Even if schools were able to supply students with the most up to date technology, we are making technological advancements so rapidly that it would be difficult for schools to keep up. I also have a security concern as well. There are always new viruses popping up and if someone decided to target schools and children's personal information could be as risk. That being said there is no reward without the risk. I do believe that the positives outweigh the negatives when it comes to School 2.0, students are using technology anyway, so why not use it to educate them as well? 

Thing #4

The Importance of Commenting

I have to admit, since I am new to this whole blogging thing, I have been a "lurker" not a commenter". After reading about how important commenting is I equate commenting to giving students feedback for tests. People want feedback and commenting is a way of giving people that feedback. When someone comments on a blog, it is telling the blogger that they connected with them and actually thought enough of their post to write a comment. It gives a sense of belonging and validation for what the blogger is doing. We are social beings and now that everyone is on a computer we have lost some of that, but we have also gained a new way of being social. We don't have to be social with the people around us but we can also make connections with people in other towns, states and even countries. Which makes the world a smaller place because of all the connections that people are able to make due to blogs and social media. 

Two points that stuck out from the readings were to watch out for the "Darth Commenter" and to make links to the blogs you comment on. I think part of the reason I never wanted to blog before is because of the "Darth Commenter", people can be mean and it can really put a bad taste in your mouth about the whole blogging thing. I tend to take things personally and I didn't want to put myself out there in the chance that someone would come along and decide to make a negative comment. Even though I am an adult now, I still care what people think of me, its a hard thing to break myself out of. If I do get a comment from a "Darth Commenter" then I will have to remind myself that I am who I am and if someone doesn't like me, that's ok and a comment from someone like that isn't worth getting upset about. My mom would always tell me to "consider the source". The second point I found important was to make a link to the blog that I commented on my own blog. If it is something that I thought enough of to comment on than, I want to first have a link back to the blog for myself and for any of my readers as well. If I have readers of my own blog, they must find what I have to say interesting so it would be safe to assume that my readers my also find what I thought to be interesting, interesting as well. Creating a link would make it easier for my readers to find the information instead of hunting for it. 

The Blogs I have decided to follow and comment on are:

The Amazing and Wonderful 23 Things According to Mrs. Pigg - Kyrie Pigg

Emily's 23 Things - Emily Ellison

23 Things from Mrs. Cruise- Rachel Cruise

Morgan's 23 Things- Morgan Bryant

Miss Z's 23 Things- Christin Zolkiewicz

Shenanigans in Second Grade
Wright's Room

The five I picked from our classroom are ones that I found interesting or I felt like I had some connection with. Emily would like to be a third grade teacher as would I, so I felt that we had a strong connection and would gain insight into how to use technology from an elementary school teacher's perspective. Kyrie's post seems to that it will be fun and interesting to read. She seems to be very upbeat in her posts and I am interested in what she has to say. I made a connection with Rachel's post about negative commenters and she seems to have similar thoughts to my own. I picked Morgan's at random only to find that I was one of her 5 classroom blogs to read. I picked Christin's because I am interested in how she will use technology when it comes to special education.

The two others of my choice I chose because they could help me in the future in teaching. I chose Shenanigans in Second Grade because the blogger is so creative with ways to keep the classroom fun while still learning. She has so many ideas I think are so wonderful to keep younger students engaged in their learning. I picked Wright's Room because she has a background in technology and she takes the time to respond to every one of her commenters. I feel like that says a lot about her and I wanted to be one of her readers, she was very insightful even about things that were not directly related to the classroom. I also thought it was interesting that she isn't from the US and I think this would offer an interesting perspective on teaching as well.

Thing #3

Blogging for the Classroom

I think that blogging would be a great way to connect with my student's and their parents. I would like to set up a blog each school year where parents and students can look to see what is going on in the classroom. I would like to teach third grade so I am not sure how exactly it would work. I was thinking of getting the students involved in a classroom blog. Each student would get to write on the classroom blog throughout the school year. I think this would be a great way for students to connect with technology and an exciting thing to show their parents as well. Of course if I do something like this, my students may be teaching me how to blog instead of the other way around. I think this is a great way for students to practice their typing skills along with using different forms of web tools that will help them later on in their schooling career. I would hope that parents would take the time to read the blog but considering what I've heard from teachers about PowerSchool and how barely any parents log-in to check their child's grades, I'm not sure how many parents would take the time to read the classroom blog. 

In addition to creating a classroom blog, depending on how this 23 things blog goes, I think I would like to set up my own personal blog where I can express my feelings about my first year teaching. I know I would like to read first year teacher's blogs almost as much as I would like to read a well-seasoned teacher's blog. I feel like if I can connect with other first year teachers over the troubles and breakthroughs that I am having and that I am sure they are having, I won't feel so isolated being a first year teacher. Plus when I have a few more years of teaching under my belt it would be nice to look back and see how much I've grown as a person and educator. I think blogging is almost like a diary (that everyone can read!) and a penpal all tied up in one. My only fear with starting a personal blog my first year of teaching would be will I have enough time to dedicate to putting my thoughts down. In the past I was never a very good penpal and never wrote in a diary for more than a week or two. This blog is the first one and so far I am having a good time writing it so we will see!

Thing #2

The Blog and The Avatar

I have no experience with blogging and I never thought that I would have a blog. I don't think of myself as old but with the rate of new things in technology, I now feel a little older. I have never really been a very tech savvy person and I am the one always talking to someone at a helpdesk to help me with all my technology questions. I was a little hesitant when it comes to starting a blog but so far it has been a positive experience and I am not finding it very difficult but  then again I am only on Thing #2. I never had a myspace account and until Facebook and Pinterest came along I really only used the computer for when I needed it for schoolwork or checking my e-mail.

I come from the mindset that if you put something up on the Internet you can never take it down, it is there forever. This still makes me a little nervous doing a blog for everyone to see. Then again there are so many blogs and so many people the likelihood of someone other than my classmates who are also in the same boat reading my blog is probably very slim. Honestly, I never thought I was an interesting enough person to write a blog.

I had a good time inventing my avatar. I liked all the options that you could choose from to make your avatar like yourself. I think this is a fun thing to do to make a blog a little more interesting. My avatar looks similar to what I think I look like if I was a cartoon. I did have trouble with the background I tried to make it a transparent background but it didn't work out that way. Looking at it now I think the white background is probably best so my avatar doesn't get lost in my blog background. One of my favorite colors is red so I made her shirt and shoes red and she is wearing blue jeans. Some of the other options were funny but not appropriate for a school blog.

Thing #1

7 1/2 Habits

I had never heard of the 7 1/2 Habits of Life Long Learners before and I found it very interesting. I enjoyed the fact that the 1/2 habit was play. I can see being a teacher how it could be easy to forget this necessary habit and why it was included. No matter what grade someone teaches, everyone is more engaged when fun is involved. I would say that the easiest one for me out of the 7 1/2 habits would be habit 7 to teach and mentor others. When I was growing up I always enjoyed helping others and people felt comfortable talking to me about problems they were having. 

The hardest habit I would say would be habit 4 to have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. Although I was an outlet for friends growing up, I lacked the confidence in my own studies. I was almost a year younger than most of my peers in my grade and I was put in all the honors classes. I struggled at times especially in math and questioned if I should be in the honors classes. I always felt like the "dumb" one in the class (especially Trigonometry). When it came to Calculus I didn't have that same feeling. The difference? The teacher... It is amazing how much a learning environment can shape students' learning. When you have a warm and safe classroom where it is ok to make mistakes a student can feel confident as a learner. I only hope to give my future students that type of learning environment that my Calculus teacher gave me. 

I heard of people blogging before, but I always thought it was a place for people to complain about things (I guess people save that for Facebook now). This introduction into blogging has taught me that blogging doesn't have to be a place where people write and complain but it can be a fun and exciting experience. I honestly never thought I would be a blogger, but with this post I am now officially a blogger. I hope to learn new and fun tools that I can use to say connected with my students and be a successful teacher!