Thing 24: The End {but not really.}

My favorite thing was animoto, because it was a lot of fun and very creative. I also thought the livebinders were neat. It wasn't my favorite thing, but I feel like it will be useful in the future. In doing this project, I know that no matter how much time I spend online {which is a lot} there is always something new to learn and explore.

After graduating with my bachelors, I plan to go straight into a masters program. But afterwards, once I have a job, I might revamp this blog into a classroom blog. I think classroom blogs are great resources for new and upcoming teachers.

Overall, I call this project a success.

Thing 23: Creative Commons.

23 Things is based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things, which is based on the Learning 2.0 program designed by Helene Blowers - the Technology Director at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Country Public Library.

Knowing the copyright laws and creative commons is important for teachers, because we pull ideas from everywhere. Before this class, I was unaware of the laws and regulations about this, I just knew to site ALL of my resources in my papers. It will be very important in the future when making lesson plans and activities.

Thing 22: Livebinders.

Livebinders can be used in the classroom to keep online resources together and in one place. Teachers would find this very helpful when making lesson plans. Teachers could also create binder for students with practice resources if they are having trouble in a particular subject area. The binders I created are Teaching First Grade Math, Science Experiments for Elementary Students, and Homework Help. 

Homework Help

Thing 21: Animoto.

Animoto is awesome. There really isn't much more to say, seriously, its just awesome. But, because I must explain my thoughts, I'll say more. It's super easy to use, and with the free membership, you can make an unlimited number for 30 second clips. The site has a bunch of background and song choices... or you can upload your own song. And the pictures? Yeah, you can pull them from virtually anywhere: facebook, flickr, instagram, photobucket, or upload from the computer. Conclusion: super easy fun website to use!

Make a video of your own at Animoto.

Thing 20: YouTube.

YouTube is a brilliant resource for teachers and students - there is a video for everything. Teachers can find ideas for lessons and supplementary material, and students can use it for tutoring purposes, entertainment, and research.


I choose this video because I want to teacher kindergarten and I though this would be a fun way to introduce the alphabet.

Thing 19: More Social Networks.

I am a member of several online communities, including Flickr, GoodReads, Youtube, and more. Social networking plays a big part in education today, so I think it is important for teachers to become a member of online communities.

The social networking site that appealed to me was Open Source Food. It's a website where you can browse, share, and create recipes. I have recently found a new love for cooking and I'm constantly looking for new recipes, which is why this site caught my eye.

I definitely think GoodReads is a great site. It would be helpful when trying to pick books to discuss in class (and for personal use as well). TeacherPop seems like a great website to be connected with other teachers for discussions. I think I'll keep that one bookmarked in my new delicious account!

Thing 18: Social Networking.

my facebook profile.

Everyone and their mother has a facebook or twitter these days, but they are useful. Getting straight to the point, I don't like twitter - not trying to step on people's toes, but I just don't see the point. I was required to make an account for another class, and  immediately deleted it when the class was over, and I really don't want to make another one, therefore I decided to explore facebook. The link to my profile is at the top, and please don't get too excited because it's nothing special (although I think my cover photo is fabulous!). And for the real stuff:

Social networking sites are a great communication tool for teachers. A teacher can create a classroom profile on facebook or twitter and keep the parents and students updated on news. They can post important dates, birthdays, homework, field trips, and even pictures (with the parents' consent of course). 

Thing 17: Delicious.

I have previously used social bookmarking sites and I think they're fantastic. I have only used Delicious a few times back in high school during a technology class. And all I had to do was use my teacher's account to find a website. The one I use at home is stumbleupon, which is great! I've been using it for at least three years, maybe more; and I have a ton of sites bookmarked on it (now that I think about it, I should probably go through those...).

Social bookmarking sites would be extremely helpful for teachers. Every site they bookmark can be reached from anywhere - it doesn't matter where they are or what computer they are using. While on delicious, I searched 'educational technology' and the link I choose to explore was HowStuffWorks. This website is awesome! It has a ton of resources for figuring out, well, just how stuff works. Anyway, back to delicious: their website is very easy to navigate. It is very easy to add new bookmarks and bookmark something found in the search engine. I think teachers would find social bookmarking very useful.

Thing 16: Getting Organized.

I choose to make an iGoogle homepage. My widgets include the weather, date/time, gmail, youtube, celebs by Hollywood Access, CNN, and Comedy Central's joke of the day. I like iGoogle because everything is, like, right there. It is very convenient when I'm running late or just want to check something really quick.

Because I've already talked about Google calender and all of it's freaking awesome features, I decided to explore a different calendar: 30 Boxes. I really like that there is an option to display the weather. Adding events is pretty easy and self explanatory. Unlike Google calendar, you cannot have different calendars within the main calendar, which is some I use all the time. And there isn't many personalization options. In the end, I think I'll stick to Google calendar.

The other resource I tried out was Remember the Milk, an online to-do list. If you know me personally, I live by lists, because I'm pretty sure I have the worst memory ever. I have a list for everything: when things are due at school, craft ideas {I'm a pinterest junkie!}, a to do list, my weekly exercise routine... it just goes on and on! I really really really like the fact that there is a website AND apps for every product I own. That way I always have the lists, which like my calendar, I pretty much depend on.

Teachers can use these resources, plus the others listed on the APSU 23 Things blog, to help keep organized, and keep up with assignments, due dates, and to do lists.

Thing 15: Wiki.

The concept of wikis is very neat. I love the fact that when many people are collaborating on a project, one person can edit something and everybody instantly see the update, without one person emailing, calling or texting everyone else. And not only can the editors see it, other people who aren't a part of the project can see it - which is what makes it more awesome. However, in an educational setting, teachers and students must be aware of wikis when doing research. Contrary to popular belief , not everything on the internet is true (no worries, I'm not one of these people!). Students, especially younger ones, don't understand that people can just go onto the internet and edit the wikis. While I believe that wikis serve a great purpose and are fantastic to use, it isn't the best resource for an educational purpose.

Thing 14: Flow Charts & Mind Maps.

I decided to use bubbl.us to create a mind map over my annotated resource folder for Educ 4160; sorry it's hard to read! You can click the picture to make it larger if you really want to read it, although it isn't very exciting.  This helped me organize my thoughts and see what types of resources I had.

The interface of this website was very easy to use and not confusing at all. It allows the user to create different levels of a mind map and change the color of the bubbles, which I thought was awesome! Teachers and students would be able to use websites such as these to create many different projects.

Thing 13: Zoho vs Google.

Personally, I prefer Google Docs over Zoho Writer. The interface of Google Docs seems easier to navigate and simpler. Something I really like about Google Docs that I didn't noticed about Zoho Writer is that Docs saves automatically every few seconds or when the user makes a change. I find that awesome, because I'm the person who will write an entire essay without saving and accidentally click the close button or unplug my laptop causing me to lose the entire paper. Something very good about both sites is that the user can access them from any computer anywhere.Using a service, such as Google Docs or Zoho Writer, can be very helpful for teachers. If a student if absent, for whatever reason, the teacher can make the assignments available through the website without worrying about emailing them to multiple students.

Thing 12: Google.

I would absolutely-without-a-doubt die if Google calendar wasn't available - I use it for everything! Along with attending school full time (and doing a ridiculous amount of observation hours), I'm a babysitter/nanny/house & dog sitter for six different families, and I also have an active social life. I couldn't do any of this without my phone, which has Google calendar. Seriously, it's the best invention of all time. I'm most likely overstating it, but it is awesome. Users can create different calendars within a main calendar to keep the different areas of their lives separate and the best part is the calendars can be color coded, which makes it easier to keep them separate from one another. Users can also share their calendar with their contacts, allowing them to see their schedule and sometimes other people can modify the calendar.

Another service of Google that I love is Google docs, now known as Google drive. It's basically an online word processing program, which users can access from anywhere to create or modify existing documents. Users can also share their documents, allowing other people to read, and possibly modify, them.

Google calendar and docs can be extremely helpful to a teacher who has their own classroom. Teachers could set up a classroom calendar to share with students and parents, which would allow them to post important dates, such as due dates, field trips, school breaks, and fun days in their classroom. It would also be a good communication opportunity between parents and teachers. Teachers could make any worksheets or handouts in Google docs that way they always have access to them and they could even allow parents access to certain documents. Overall, Google services do some amazing things and could be an awesome resource in the classroom.

Thing 11: Finding Good Feeds.

Finding good blogs to follow can be very simple. Using the Google blogs search, I quickly find multiple blogs that are of interest to me. I found it easiest by just searching a topic. Broad simple searches come up with a large amount of results, while more complex and specific searches come up with a smaller amount. You can truly find anything with Google. The one I found most confusing was Technorati. I found the site a little confusing to navigate and really didn't find as many results on it as I found on Google blogs search.

While searching for blogs to add to my RSS feed, I looked for recipes, do-it-yourself projects, and teacher/educational blogs. Another way to finds blogs of your interest is to look at the people who comment on the blogs you already read. Users tend to comment on things to relate to them. I've found some of the best blogs that way!

Thing 10: RSS Feeds.

I don't have much experience with RSS feeds... actually this is my first time messing with them. I can see where they would be useful, but I can also see where they would be annoying. For teachers who follow educational blogs - or any blogs for that matter- RSS feeds would be useful because every post from every blog would be right there. They would be able to quickly find that one post that has that one project or idea, which they think would be awesome in their classroom. On the other hand, when following a ton of blogs, the bloggers update on different schedules and therefore, the RSS feed would constantly be updating and it might be hard to keep up with. Personally, I don't think I'm going to be using RSS feeds anytime soon; they seem overwhelming and slightly confusing.

Thing 9: Image Generators.

 

The online image generator I used for both of my pictures is Image Chef. The sticky notes would be helpful as reminders in the classroom. I choose a sign and put "halfway there!" on it, because the semester is halfway over. Image Chef has a variety of pictures that a user can choose to personalize, and each picture has different options; some have more than others. I think online image generators would be useful in the classroom. Teachers could use them to creatively display important thoughts or rules for the students in lower grades. Students could use them for assignments or projects. Personally, I think they are fun to mess around with, especially the ones where users can change the effects on text. I was hoping to use one, but I couldn't get it to work :( Overall, online image generators are an awesome tool that can be used for great things in the classroom. 

Thing 8: Flickr Mashups.

Flickr mashups are really neat! I used Spell with Flickr to create this. A teacher could use them in the classroom to display important words creatively, and this would get the students' attention. Students could also use this to spell out something for a project. Other than that, I don't know what purpose it would serve in the classroom. I think more people would use it for personal use. Creating a mashup with your own photos would be really awesome, because it would have a lot more meaning to the person, than using random pictures found online.

I think sharing photos online is a great idea! It's a good way for friends or families to stay in touch with one another when they don't live close. If a person is a photographer, its a good way to get their work seen by a lot of people. However, people do have to be careful when sharing pictures online.

Thing 7: Flickr.

Eric  Lafforgue 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41622708@N00/3777132543

Elephants are one of my favorite animals and that's what I choose to look for while exploring flickr. I do have a flickr account and use it on a regular basis; however, I've never really explored the website, besides how to upload photos, so I choose to do option one. My experience using the flickr explore area was good. I found the site very easy to navigate, and I found this picture using the map feature. I thought the map feature was very cool, and using it in a classroom would be excellent. It displays a map of the world, and the user is able to search a specific area of the world, and they are also able to narrow down the subject of the photos within that area. When I did my search I typed "elephants" in the the search for box and "Africa" in the taken in box. It was very simple. Everything I searched for on flickr came up with a bunch of different results, so using this in the classroom would be beneficial for the children, because they would be able to see different views or ideas of the same object, place, event, or person.

Thing 6: YouTube.

The site I choose to explore was YouTube. I was super excited to see it on the list, because I use this site on a daily basis. YouTube can be used for many different things: listening to music, figure out how to do something, watching funny videos, and there's even videos for teachers to use in the classroom. Teachers can find ideas for lessons, ways to set up their classroom, and general helpful videos. Students can use YouTube videos for research and projects. It's amazing how a simple website can have so many different uses.

Thing 5: Web 2.0

In a nutshell, school 2.0 is everything. Students use a variety of different methods to find information. This includes the lessons in the classroom, the internet, books, people - everything is a learning experience. Web 2.0 is extremely important in schools now. Instead of being able to research information, as in web 1.0, students are able to interact with the websites while researching. Now there are educational games, videos, blogs, and more to students and teachers to find the information they need or want.

Many universities are to the point where students can earn an entire degree online, without ever setting a foot on the college campus. Some private schools provide the students with iPads or tablets for their books and homework, but the students are still required to attend class. In the future, schools are going to become more and more dependent on technology. Everyone uses it and there isn't a way to get around it. Personally, I love technology and think it's a good thing.

Thing 4: Comments.

Commenting on other people's blogs is very important. It creates a sense of community, even when the people are in different cities, states, even countries. Commenting allows other people to add on to the original idea and tell about their experience with it. When commenting, users need to be respectful and write something meaningful.


For thing 4, I commented on Amanda Blankenship's thing 3 post, Amelia Downs' thing 3 post, Vanessa Green's thing 12 post, Derek Cooke's thing 12 post, and Tammy Cruz's thing 1 post. I choose to comment on Amanda's post because I thought she had some really good ideas for using a blog in the classroom. I thought Amelia had really good ideas as well. Vanessa and Derek pointed out some of the great features Google has to offer. Vanessa talked about Google calendar and Derek talked about several of the features, including the calendar, documents, and iGoogle. I thought Tammy's post was very well written. She mentioned that she had a hard time viewing problems as challenges, as do I, so I thought her post would be a good one to comment on.

Outside of the class, I decided to comment on View Along the Way, where Kelly documents her and her husband's journey to redoing their new home. I've been a long time reader of this blog, and she is absolutely hilarious! I decided to comment on Kelly's post How to Clean a Paint Roller: the Quick & Each {Kinda Messy} Way. If you paint and always have trouble cleaning the paint roller, I would definitely check out her post!  The second blog I commented on outside of the class is Chocolate Therapy, where Sarah blogs about her love of food and post mostly recipes. I thought mini cake batter cinnamon buns sounded good, so that's what I choose to comment on. I might attempt to make them over fall break!

Thing 3: Blogs.

Blogs can be a fantastic resource in the classroom. A teacher can get many different ideas about a wide range of topics from blogs, and the coolest part is the blogs are from around the world! I will probably use blogs during teaching as a resource for new activities, or possibly classroom management. Another idea for blogs is setting up a classroom blog which allows the parents or students to log on and see what's happening in the classroom throughput the year, and it also creates a way for parents to contact the teacher. I think blogs are an excellent resource and definitely should be used by teachers.

Thing 2: The creative process.

Creating this blog was very easy. Blogger is very simple when it comes to setting up a blog, and already having a gmail account made everything much easier. The hardest part was trying to decide on a template and a title.

My title is the my last name and the title of the assignment. I was trying to go with something very simple, easy to remember, but also told the point of the blog. I tried to make my avatar similar to myself. Again, I just went with simple.

Thing 1: Lifelong Learning.

The tutorial had great points and I agree that these 7 1/2 habits are excellent for lifelong learning. Most of the habits are ones that I find myself doing daily and really have no problem with. Whether people realize it or not, almost everything they do is a learning experience.

The easiest of the 7 1/2 habits for me is to play. I'm a nanny when I'm not in school, and I love relaxing and playing with the children. I like to do anything that requires movement and little worrying, especially when I'm stressed out about something. This is a good way for me to let off steam. The hardest of the habits for me is probably having a learning toolbox. This is because, honestly, I've never heard of it. I'm not totally sure what it is, there wasn't much explanation.