Is It the End or Only the Beginning?

Wow, this semester has finally come to an end!  This has been one of my favorite and most interesting classes during my journey through the Education department.  I enjoyed learning about the various sites and applications that I was unaware of.  I liked the Animoto site best, and thought it was fun to create short video clips.  I believe I will use this site in the future.  I also enjoyed the mind mapping tools and think they will be very useful in my teaching career.  I think the Facebook and You Tube were the least informative, just because most everyone has experience on these sites already.  Also these are sites that are probably blocked at most schools. 
I plan on continuing my journey into blogging and using it as a way to reflect on progress that I have made along the journey!

Thing #23

     I found a blog that was very similar to our APSU 23 things blog that was developed for librarians in the state of Kansas.  This blog http://www.23thingskansas.org/ is the same type Web 2.0 blog that uses the 23 things. 
     As a future teacher I will pay close attention to things I find on the internet and make sure they have a creative commons license before using.  I will also use the tutorial we developed to teach my students about Creative Commons and Copyright laws.  The videos created to educate on the facts of copyright and creative commons laws are also interesting and useful.

Thing #22

I was not a huge fan of LiveBinders.  I felt that the site was a little dated looking, or maybe it doesn't flow the way I expected it.  The concept is a great idea, and again is a site that reminds me a lot of Pinterest.  For my 3 binders I chose:
5th Grade Science
5th Grade Math
5th Grade Social Studies
The standard I had chosen for this class was 5th Grade Science, so I chose to follow along those same lines with the binders.
Live Binders is a great way to keep up with resources and classroom ideas on the computer.  It is a great way to find ideas and share with others.  Live Binders would also be a great tool for the students to keep for review.  Students could each have an account of artifacts they kept in the binder throughout the year of the important lessons and standards covered.  This could be great for not only test reviews, but for TCAP preparation. 

5th Grade Science

Thing #21

I had never heard of Animoto before this assignment.  I really enjoyed this assignment and feel this is a site that I will regularly use for family pictures and events.  This will be a fun thing to do for vacations and such.  I chose to create a small video clip of a trip my entire family took to Disney in October.  It was fun to create, and I think this could be a good tool to use as a gift to parents.  Parents would really appreciate seeing short video clips such as this of their children at work during the school year.  These short clips could be uploaded to a classroom blog throughout the year. 


Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.

Thing #20

This video is an example of a video found on You Tube that is great for educational purposes.  There are endless videos on You Tube that could be used for educational purposes in any grade level needed.  You Tube is a great site to find videos many entertaining, and many instructional. 
I like the fact that so much information is available by searching on You Tube.  For instance, want to learn how to sew?  There are many You Tube videos that walk you step by step through learning how to sew, and many other useful things you may want to search for!  I think You Tube is a great tool for teachers to use in the classroom.  The only concern I have for making it available for students is the amount of inappropriate  videos that can be found using You Tube.  Sometimes the videos are hidden under names that make them sound appropriate for students.   With this being said, I  think the use of  You Tube should be controlled by the teacher.

Thing #19

     Tasty Kitchen is a social networking site filled with wonderful recipes.  I love to look up recipes, and had never heard of Tasty Kitchen before.  I soon realized this site was in connecting with The Pioneer Lady.  I am a big fan of hers!  I signed up and will definitely come back to this site. 
      I am a member of several online social networks.  I sell on Ebay and Amazon, and I am an active member on social networking sites with other sellers.   I will also use TeacherPop in the future as well.

Thing # 18

    I have an account with both Facebook and Twitter.  I use Facebook often, but never really got into the twitter craze.  I opened an account and never really understood it.  I like Facebook much better, as you can become members of groups that interest you, and share ideas and information with others in the same group or the same interest as you.  Facebook is also great for connecting with family and friends that may live far away. 
     I feel it is very important for educators to be up to date on social networking sites such as Facebook.  It is important as an educator to be current and up to date on the latest technology.  Facebook is used frequently by students, and has now even become a place where bullying takes place.  It is important to be knowledgeable about these tools.  It can even be useful to have a class Facebook group, since most all of the students will have a Facebook account anyway.  Facebook is also a great way to keep in touch with other teachers in the district, or maybe teachers that you graduated college with!

Thing #17

I am a big fan of social bookmarking.  In fact, I am addicted to it I guess you could say.  I did join Delicious and browse around for a while.  I did find some useful sites that I had not found before, such as http://www.teachertube.com/.  While I love the idea of "looking into someone else's filing cabinet", I find it much more fun and visually appealing on Pinterest.  This site seems to be very much like pinterest, in that you can bookmark sites and store them in seperate folders.  You are also able to share them  with others.  This is what I love so much about Pinterest.  You can search for anything and come up with many resources and sometimes really fun ideas.  Social Bookmarking is an incredible tool for teachers to share and collaborate with ideas for making learning FUN!

Thing # 16

     For the new homepage I chose to use iGoogle.  I thought it was more user friendly to set up, and I liked the looks of this start page better.  I like the layout, and will probably change my home page to this new format.
     Online calenders can be extremely helpful for a person who is on the computer often.  The online calender is much more helpful to me than a wall or pocket calender.  I love that events can be set as reoccurring and reminders are given. This calender is much more useful to me than the traditional calenders that are offered.   I really liked the Remember the Milk to do list site, because not only is it available online, but also on the iPad and iPhone.  I have both, and like the fact that the list(s) that I create are available on both.  This is a tool I will definitely use, because I tend to forget things and get off track easily.  This will be a helpful reminder of the tasks that need to be completed and things I need to pick up.
  I loved PDFconverter, and it will be very helpful for use as an educator.  It allows documents to be changed into a PDF document and makes them accessable on any computer device.

Thing #15

This is one of my least favorite of the "things".  I am not a huge fan of wiki because of the lack of control.  Anyone can write anything on wiki.  For instance when looking up a definition, medical condition, or something of importance, many times the wikipedia comes up.  Many people do not understand that anyone can post information to it.  Often times people with the best of intentions still have wrong information, and other times, people purposely post incorrect information.  Wiki would be a good idea for a class activity for something like a test review, or collectively writing a story, etc.  Something that each student could add to and change.

Thing #14

For the flowchart I chose to use Gliffy.com.  It seemed very user friendly and easy to navigate.  I liked the fact that it could be shared in a blog or website very easily.  Here is a copy of the flowchart I played around with.

My standard was 5th grade science for this class, so I decided to make a fairly simple flowchart on the Scientific Method.  Flowcharts can be very handy for students to have in science to explain steps and processes.  Also when doing an experiment, the flowchart would be great for the cases of "if.... then ....". 

For the mind mapping activity, I chose to use bubbl.us to create a map.  I played around making a map of George Washington's life and accomplishments for a class lesson.  I was unable to figure out how to get the map onto the blog though.  I definitely preferred the Gliffy.com site more than the bubbl.us site.  It was easier for me to navigate.  Both sites will be great to use for future lesson plans.

Thing #13

I was unfamiliar with Zoho until this assignment.  I love that documents written in Zoho are so easy to share with others, without the need for emailing them to many different email addresses.  Zoho could be a great tool for student's to complete assignments in. The site is free, so the need to purchase Microsoft Office is eliminated, and the student's work can easily be shared.  You can also create your blog post in Zoho Writer, and it will post to your blog from there.

I had not used Google Docs before either, and honestly liked Zoho Writer a little better than Google Docs.  Zoho seemed to be more user friendly, the site was easier to navigate, and it was more visually appealing.

  Here is the document that I created in Google Docs:


Dear Parents,
   
     We will be going on a field trip on Monday May 7, 2012.  We will be travelling to the Nashville Zoo, leaving the school at 8:15 a.m.  Please make sure your child arrives to school on time that day.  We will be returning  school at 2:30 p.m.  The cost for the field trip is $5.00.  Please send  sack lunch with your child on this day, because we will stop at the park for lunch.

Thanks for your support,
Mrs. Gardner


Students could work together in Google Docs to create a story that each person builds on for Literature, they could work on group projects together collaboratively on Google Docs, and they could work on drawings together.  There are many ideas that could be implemented into the classroom with both Zoho Writer and Google Docs.