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.

Thing #12

I honestly did not realize that Google had so much to offer. I had never really played around with most of the tools.  I am very partial to Picasa though.  I love photography, and have used Picasa to edit all of my pictures and albums.  I really like the fact that you can upload web albums for friends and family to see also.  We recently took a family trip to Disney, and it was great to be able to create web albums to share with the entire family, without having to send each one tons of pictures individually.  I will definitely use Picasa as a teacher, because I want the parents to be able to enjoy the memories of their child's school year.  I know that as a parent I really enjoy getting to see pictures of my children doing activities at school, and I want to afford that opportunity to other parents.  I will have a web album for the class that only parents of the children will have permission to see.  This will allow parents to feel more involved in their child's education.
      Google Translate is also a very cool site that will be very beneficial for a teacher.  I was thinking of all the uses this site has, and while playing around on the site I thought what if I received this note one morning as a teacher:

Por favor, espere José para viajar en el autobús a casa hoy.

Well...I don't speak Spanish, and lets say I couldn't get someone to translate for me quickly.  I could go to Google Translate and type in the message and get it translated.  I would then know that the note said:

Please allow Jose to ride the bus home today.

This would have been a very important note that could not just sit on my desk unread until I found someone to translate, and Google Translate can help in those instances. 

Thing #11

I really liked the Technorati blog search tool the most.  This site allowed you to see the most visited blogs, videos, and latest articles.  I found things of interest on this site, that I would not have normally searched for or been looking for.  I couldn't always think of the correct wording to get the results I needed from Google blogs, and found technorati much more efficient for my needs.  I think my favorite way of finding blogs will still be the beloved Pinterest!  I love...did I mention LOVE Pinterest.  I find so many neat ideas and cool blogs that I would have never found otherwise on Pinterest.  I did really like the blog directory from technorati though.  I found many websites that will be useful in my personal life that would not have been found on pinterest.
 

Thing #10

Okay...so now I am asking myself WHY haven't I subscribed to Google Reader before now?  I have so many blogs that I am...well...addicted to!  I spend lots of wasted time looking to see the latest and greatest cool ideas or crafts that are being blogged about.  The Google Reader is such a time saver, and I had just never taken the time to check into the RSS thing before.  I am kicking myself for it now.  I will be subscribing to way more than 5 blogs! 
     I will be using the RSS feed to keep up to date with educators and other blogger's new ideas and creations.  I love to look at cool teaching ideas and lesson plans that other great teachers create.  Instead of going to each blog or website everyday, now I will just check out the latest post from Google Reader.  Such a time saver!  Other educators can use the Google Reader for the same purposes, or to feel connected with other educators through the online community.

Thing #9

I used ImageChef to create the football jersey.  My twin boys are beginning to play ball this year,and when I found the sports jerseys on ImageChef, I thought this would be a lot of fun for them. A neat way this could be incorporated in the classroom is to divide your class into teams.  For reading groups, each group could be a team (Ex. Mets, Braves, Yankees) and to identify each member of the reading "teams" the jerseys could be displayed under the team name with each child's name on a jersey. 


The smiley face was created with Happy Face generator.  I did not find as many useful ideas or applications in the Happy Face generator as I did on the other sites, but it would be fun to incorporate the smiley face on the bottom of a worksheet or homework assignment.

Thing #8

 

  

 

     I created the image above using Spell with Flickr.  Why haven't I heard of this before?  I LOVE Spell with Flickr.  I think it would be so fun to incorporate these word Graphics into my classroom.  We could spell MATH and have a math wall with all things math on it.  These word graphics could make the classroom learning centers very interesting and inviting.  I am excited to use these in my classroom and in my personal life.  I have discovered a new friend!

 

    I also played around with Mosaic Maker.  This would be a very neat tool to use in combination with Spell with Flickr.  You could do a poster on something like diversity, make all of the students pictures into a mosaic and incorporate the word DIVERSITY from Spell with Flickr into the mosaic.  I would enjoy using this Flickr app in my classroom as well. 

 

Thing #7

     This was my first time using Flickr.  I am very familiar with online photo hosting sites, but never have chosen to use Flickr.  I found flickr very interesting with unlimited possibilities of keyword ideas and cool pictures.  There are tons of images that would help bring a classroom lesson alive with the use of visualization. 
   I did have a hard time finding a picture and copying the url correctly.  I understood how to use the click share this, but the URL I was receiving was not the one with .jpg 
I believe for my own personal use, I will continue to use Picasa to host my photos, as well as edit them.  I have an online web album and photos can easily be shared with family and friends, left public, or made private.  I see both sides of the coin with personal pictures being on public websites.  I do not mind this for images that do not contain my children.  I am very careful about allowing pictures of my children to be on random public websites, because of the child predators lurking.  I want to make sure every precaution is taken to protect my children, but otherwise, I do not mind the public being able to see any images I have taken. 
    I chose this photo because I am doing my PowerPoint on Science and the chemical properties of a common substance.  I plan on teaching about water and the different properties it has.

Photo Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/4383817955/
Belongs To: Andrew
User Name: â–ºCubaGallery

• 

 

Thing #6

Etsy is the site I chose to explore from the Web 2.0 Award nominees.  Etsy is a great site for buying or selling handmade items.  Etsy is very easy to use, and anyone can set up a storefront to sell crafts, paintings, web designs, or anything handmade. Etsy makes it possible for the average person to have a place on the web to sell their goods without having to develop a website and have a domain.  It is very user friendly, and easy to navigate.  Etsy has also developed an app for smart phones.  On Etsy, you can browse through the pages of different categories, or you can use the search box to find a specific item.
The website is great for finding unique decorations or items for the classroom or teacher.  This site would probably not be useful in the classroom or library of the school though.
     

Thing #5

     Web 2.0 term used to mean the new, user friendly, interactive generation of the Internet.  Now, not only are businesses developing webpages,and the Internet being used for business and research purposes.  The Internet is now a part of almost everyone's daily lives.  Men, women, and children are very fluent with the use of the Internet, and use it to network with people all over the world, and do things that before were very intimidating, if not almost impossible.  Ordinary people are now opening online businesses, becoming writers, meeting their future spouse, and going to college online, all of which would have been impossible before the shifting of the Internet to the Web 2.0 philosophy.
     Schools must embrace the technology and Web 2.0 that the world has now become accustomed to.  Children are now very fluent in the use of technology and the Internet.  Educators must begin to use this to their advantage, and not fear the shifting from "traditional" teaching methods to new and more innovative approaches.  I loved the idea of gaining more professional development using technology resources, rather than the traditional in-services.  The idea of using podcast to expand on learning opportunities, is a great idea.  The teacher could listen to the podcast at her own convenience, and listen again at anytime.  This would allow much more information to be presented to the faculty of a school, when an in-service or faculty meeting did not have to be scheduled to present the information.  Blogs are another way to collaborate and brainstorm with other teachers over classroom ideas, curriculum, teaching strategies, etc.
      I am excited about Web 2.0 becoming more "traditional" in the classroom as time goes by and technology is more common in the classroom.

Thing #4

     Commenting is a very important aspect of the blog world.  It is important to let the author of the blog know how you feel about the blog posts that are important to you.  It also gives the blogger affirmation that people are reading the material written and find it worthwhile.  When people comment on a blog post it creates interaction on the blog, and the communication between bloggers help the bloggers feel that they somewhat "know" each other, and a sense of community is formed.
    For the 2 blogs that we were to comment on that were not a part of our group, I chose to comment on a weight loss blog www.itsuxtobefat.com .  I have recently started a journey to a healthier and smaller me!  I am excited that I have lost 20lbs. in this first month, and blogs like hers keep me motivated.  I am also a crafty person, and love to see ideas of how things can be transformed and made with DIY type blogs.  One of my favorite blogs is www.tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com  her blog features great DIY ideas, she showcases other DIY blogs, sewing ideas, and recipes.
    For our class blogs, I chose to comment on Ariel Griffith you tube video she posted.  That was great of her to share her story with other young people.  I also commented on Tyler Cherry, Hayli Wrigley, Myleah Gallagher, and Tonya Haley.  I chose to comment on the blogs listed above, because I found an interesting link on their blog, or I was caught by a blog post while browsing around.

Thing #3

There are many great things that can be done with an educational blog.  I follow many teacher's blogs that give ideas for classroom projects, share games and lesson plans, etc.  I would also enjoy having a blog for my classroom.  I plan on teaching in grades K-6, and a blog would be a great way to keep parents up to date on classroom happenings, to see pictures of their children learning, and to be informed of upcoming events. 

Thing #2

I found it easily to set up the blog.  Unfortunately, I had to miss the day that instruction was given for the blog  and avatar set up.  The instructions were straight forward regarding the blog.  I chose to use the first letters of my first name and my last name in the blog URL.  I chose to use my real name in the blog.  My avatar reflects my personality.  I made the avatar resemble my looks, and put a pair of jeans and sweater on her.  It was fun creating the avatar; however, I had more trouble getting the avatar set up in the blog than I did the actual blog.

Thing #1

The tutorial "7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners" was very interesting.  I found that Habit #4 is probably the hardest for me.  I It is very important to believe in yourself, in order to be successful.  I try to work hard to overcome defeating myself in my mind before I ever begin a new learning opportunity.  Habit # 7 1/2, play, is the easiest for me.  I enjoy making learning fun.  I can learn new things easier when I am enjoying the learning opportunity.  One of my main goals as a teacher, is to make sure my students are having fun while learning the material.