One last thing

     There were so many discoveries that I made during this process! I have never been computer savvy so I was surprised that I learned so many things, and the tools that I learned about where generally easy to use and understand. Some tools that were really beneficial included the RSS feed and the social bookmarking. The RSS feed allowed me to get updates from all my favorite sites all in one place. The social bookmarking allowed me to put all the websites that I use in one place, and to tag the websites so that I can find them easily in the future. This program just opened up a whole new world of learning for me. I can use tools such as the podcasts to learn about teaching from other educators. I was surprised at how easy it was for me to learn all these tools and to be able to use them effectively. The one thing that I had the most problems with was posting videos to my blog. In order to make this program better, the makers could go into more detail on how to post videos to the blogs. There are so many of these tools that I can use when I become a teacher. I can make podcasts to help my students keep up with the curriculum if they missed a class. I can use the RSS feed to keep up with important news about education.
     My educational journey will not end here! I need to keep up with these tools that I have learned about, and continue to learn about new tools. I will also use these tools in my classroom, such as the podcasts. I may even create a blog for my classes in order to keep parents updated and allow students to showcase their work.

Thing #23

The 23 Things blog is based on somebody else's work. The project is loosely based on Stephen Abram's article "43 Thing I (or You) might want to do this year" and the website called "43 Things." The original work was not particularly talking about education, but the 23 Things blogging assignment was modified to be about education and learning Web 2.0 tools. Creative commons means that you can use somebody else's original work in a way that the person allows you to. They keep some of their rights, but they give up some of their rights. They may allow anybody to use and/or remix their work if they want to. Using creative commons can be useful for me when I become a teacher. I can use the site to use and remix different people's original work, as long as I credit the author. It is also important that I teach my students about copyright and creative commons so that they don't use somebody else's original work in the wrong way.

Thing #22

For this part of the assignment, I checked out the Educational Podcast Directory and Podcastdirectory.com. I found them both to be useful and easy to navigate. Both of these sites had their podcasts tagged so that they were easy to find if you were looking for a certain subject. On the Educational Podcast Directory, their student and class podcasts were divided into elementary school, middle school, and secondary school. I listened to a podcast called Ace Kids. It was created by a class of 5th and 6th graders in one school in Australia. They were doing this project in order to learn about podcasts and how to make them. Podcasts can be useful to me when I become a teacher. I can make podcasts to talk about what we learned in class so that my students that miss class can listen to the podcast and get caught up on the material. It can also be fun and educational for my students to learn to create podcasts. It could be beneficial for me to subscribe to an educational podcast in order to learn about different strategies for teaching when I become on educator.

Thing #21

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

I used animoto.com in order to create my own video. It was surprisingly easy! All I had to do was upload some of my own pictures and choose a song from the website, and the website mixed up my photos and created a video slideshow of my pictures. You can also upload your own mp3 to be played during the video, but I just decided to choose one of the songs on the website. The website allows you to create your own 30 second video for free, but if you want to create a video that's longer than about 30 seconds, then you have to pay money for it. This website is useful if you want to get into making videos professionally. You just have to pay to use the website.

Thing #20

I enjoy using youtube.com because there is such a variety of videos to watch. Some videos I particularly enjoy watching deal with music or pop culture. I enjoy watching videos where people are playing mallet percussion instruments, and I like to watch music videos from my favorite bands. There are many videos on youtube that are hilarious! I particularly love the video called "Star Wars According to a Three-Year-Old." The video that I chose to share in this blog is called "My Immortal" Piano Tutorial. I chose this video for two reasons. The first reason I chose it is because it deals with music, and music is a huge part of my life. The second reason I chose this video is because it is educational. This video teaches people how to play the first part of the piano piece to Evanescence's song, "My Immortal." Youtube.com can be used for entertainment purposes, but it can also be used for educational purposes.

Thing #19

I am not a member of any online communities as of right now. I found a couple of these social networking sites to be interesting. TeacherPop was interesting to me because the members are all teachers or teachers-in-training. This could be beneficial to me because if I have a question about teaching, I could post my question on this site and somebody could get back to me with an answer. I could use this site to get advice for teaching. Another site that I found was interesting was flixster.com. I chose to check out this website because I love to watch movies. This site lists movies that have just come out in theaters and on DVD and it shows how people rated the movies. For example, Harry Potter came out this weekend, and flixster.com said that 91% of people who rated the movie liked it. I would use this site later if I were planning on seeing a movie or buying a movie. I could go to this site and see how people rated the movie so I'll know if it's worth seeing or not.


Visit TeacherPop

Thing #18

I made a profile on facebook.com two years ago when I started college. I don't necessarily think that social networking is important for teachers. Maybe it's an effective way to keep in touch with co-workers, but I don't think it's appropriate for teachers to be friends with their students on facebook. I think teachers should be informed about the dangers of social networking sites so they can warn their students about the dangers. It's also extremely important that teachers express themselves in an appropriate manner on facebook. If they make posts on facebook about going out and getting drunk, and a potential employer sees their profile, that could keep them from getting the job. I like using facebook.com because it keeps me in touch with friends that I otherwise wouldn't be able to keep in touch with. However, I am extremely careful to keep my profile appropriate and to not put too much personal information on my profile. I don't know about how I could use this site for my elementary students, but I have seen colleges use facebook.com to post pages that students can get coupons and discounts by visiting the page.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1485060345

Thing #17

For this part of the assignement, I searched a site called delicious.com. This site is used for social bookmarking. By using this site, you can tag websites that you come across that you want to be able to get to at a later time. It's like creating a list of your favorite websites, but when you save the website to delicious.com, you are able to tag the website. For example, if you want to save a website about math, you would give the website the tag "math." In this way, when you want to find the website months from now when you have several other websites saved to delicious.com, you can type in the tag "math," and all the websites that have to deal with math show up. This could be helpful when I become a teacher because I can bookmark different educational websites for my students to view, and I can find the websites easily because of the tags. It's called social bookmarking because you are able to view other people's tagged websites. This can be helpful for me when I become a teacher because I can see the websites that other people have tagged that have to deal with the subjects that I am teaching my students.

Thing #16

I chose iGoogle as a start page. It appealed to me because it asked me about my interests and customized my home page to fit my interests. For example, I'm interested in music, so my customized home page tells me about different concerts that are coming up in my area. I also explored the calendars and to-do lists. Calendars can be helpful in reminding you when an event is or when a project is due. To-do lists can also help you keep track of what you need to do and what you have already accomplished. While these tools can be helpful, I prefer not to use them. Instead I just keep a real calendar and write down my events there. Also, for a to-do list, I just write what I need to do on a post-it note and stick it on my desk. Another tool that I found useful was Google Docs and Spreadsheets. This tool is useful for creating documents and spreadsheets online for free, instead of using Microsoft Word for these items.

Thing #15

Wikis are used in order for people to collaborate with each other for different purposes. I discovered several reasons why people use wikis to collaborate with others. People can start a book club and use the wikis to review the book and to see what others wrote about the book they read. Also, people can use wikis in order to share information with other people. One wiki that I looked at was created by somebody to inform people about the different places to go in a certain city. Other wikis that I looked at were written for librarians and by librarians. They were sharing information that they thought was useful in order to help other librarians. In the future, I could use a wiki in order to write about my experiences in the classroom and talk about what worked for me and what didn't work for me in the classroom. Other teachers could post on my wiki and tell me and other teachers startegies that work for them in the classroom.

Thing #14

For this part of the assignment, I discovered the differences between flow charts and mind maps. I went to the websites for them and decided to use them both for something that I needed to think about. For both the flow chart and the mind map, I thought about the same question, but went about the question in two completely different ways. The question had to do with what I should get my boyfriend for Christmas. For the flow chart, the process dealt with how I should figure out what to get him for Christmas. For the mind map, the process dealt with different possibilities of things I could give him for Christmas. What I concluded from using flow charts and mind maps was this: Flow charts are used for describing processes. Mind maps are brainstorms in which the user thinks about a certain topic and divides that topic into several sub-categories.

Thing #13

I had never heard of Zoho until I started this assignment! It's amazing what all it has to offer. With Zoho, you can create documents online without having to use software, such as Microsoft Word. Zoho Writer allows you to create documents and share them with whoever you want to share them with. This allows you to get feedback from somebody about your documents. You can allow people to just view your documents, and you can allow them to view the document and make changes. Zoho Writer has many similarities to Microsoft Word. Like Word, Zoho Writer allows you to change the font in your document, make your font bold-faced or italicized, create headers and footers, insert images, and use spell check. This is a great way to create documents to be printed and/or shared without having to buy software, such as Microsoft Word.