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.