Thing #24- Food for thought

I almost titled this Blog "Thing 24- My Last post" However, this is not the case. I suppose a more appropriate title would be "Thing 24- My Last Required Post" because this is, you see, my last "required" post for this class. However, I do not intend this to be my last post. I kind of like blogging, I finally am "keeping a journal." I am actually excited to have this assignment over (not becuase I found it so dreadful) but because now the restrictions are lifted. I feel that I have the freedom to say and write about whatever I want to now that I have the graded part out of the way.

My favorite discoveries and exercises on this learning journey were the easy slideshow animato, and RSS & Feedly in Thing #10. I had never heard of Feedly before and truly appreciate that it brings the information to me. Information that I am actually interested in and want to know about.

This program has affected my lifelong learning goals because it truly made me realize the importance technology has and will continue to play in our lives.  Technology is not only important in our own personal lives but the lives of our students as well. As a teacher it is important that we are able to connect and relate to what our students are learning, not only at school, but at home, in the media, and in technology.

There are so many wonderful resources available to teachers that we have no excuse to present a sub-par lesson that is boring. I don't want to ever make my students sit through a "boring" class I want our classes to truly be learning experiences where they LOVE what they are learning and find it fascinating and interesting. I think that the internet and technology is making that possible!

My takeaway is that learning IS a lifelong process. That we really need to actively strive to stay atop of the latest technology so we can offer our students the best education available. Also, the information now available to teachers allows us to connect and pool our resources of knowledge and experience. Teachers can now offer the best nuggets of wisdom of what worked for them and their students.  know that we are in this as a team. As a teacher we should all have the goal of bringing out the best in our students and preparing them to be productive, successful, members of society.

I don't really know what you could do differently to approve upon this format. I learned so much that I really don't know what I would add, especially since I never would have thought of doing this to begin with!

I think I already addressed the question "how will what you have learned influence your practice as a teacher" in the above paragraphs. It will enable me to provide the students with creative, interactive, activities that I wouldn't have known about without using technology.

I will keep up with developments in web 2.0 but using the websites and resources I have learned here on this very blog! I will check in with the teacher social media networks I have joined. I will use Feedly, Facebook, and Pintrest to browse teacher and education groups. I can simply Google developments in web 2.0 occasionally and I know that the newest technology will be the top hits that I should check out. I can even come back here to this website and see what new assignments you have for students to accomplish!

Where do you go from here?
That is the last question posed to officially complete this activity. Well my friend, I like the suggestion of "give yourself the gift of time" - ask yourself what did I learn today? I also plan on using my blog in the classroom. I very well may "re-purpose" it to be my classroom blog. Or I may use it to write down the various events that effect me as a teacher documenting the special things the students do or say.  Maybe I will use it to write what I learned today and set a goal of how I can be an even better teacher tomorrow.

Thing #23- Creative Commons

                      Learning 2.0-23Things for Teachers blog was created under a creative commons license. I can say this with the utmost certainty because I saw the other websites that it is based off of. The websites that it is most closely based off of are Learning2.0-23things and K-12 Learning 2.0 . Also at the bottom of the page it is noted that

"Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers is based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things, a staff development program for the Mesquite Independent School District. That program was based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers and adapted by the California School Library Association and others. Content and style for Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License."

                   The Austin Peay State University Learning 2.0 - 23Things for Teachers blog has been modified to more specifically suit our class need but the same structure or backbone is still apparent.

                  I will use Creative Commons licensing in the future as a teacher. When I find an idea or format that I like I will be able to tailor it and add my own creativity to it to best suit my students needs. I will not be recreating the original but rather borrowing ideas from others and then changing it to fit my classroom and students. I think that this is wonderful and necessary as we enter into our new teaching career to understand the Creative Commons.

Thing #22 - LiveBinder

Well, I just finished creating my LiveBinder account. I created three education related binders in my account.

One was "Early Childhood Education Articles" - http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=1029484

I also chose to "share" this binder with you because I feel that this one has the most pertinent information. This binder is full of articles about Pre-K and Early Childhood Education in the United States. I have filled it with wonderful websites that discuss many current issues in the Early Education sector of our nation.

My other two binders are titled
  "creative classroom ideas"  (themes, decorations, classroom "flow" and organization) and
  "creative curriculum/ projects" (various project ideas to use when teaching science, reading, writing, social studies, geography).

I might use live binder in the classroom when I am trying to teach the children how to write a story. I can use the binder to organize various forms of writing. For instance I can have a tab about how to help children write narratives, how to write letters, how to write journals, etc..
I could have another tab on teaching the children how to brainstorm and then have sub-tabs off of that listing various forms of pre-writing.

Overall this is a pretty neat feature that makes it easy to organize your classroom information. 

Think #21

Lover of mine

I actually loved this website. At first I was just going to do this "thing #21" to check off the assignment but then I decided that I would spend some extra time and see if I could create something I liked. I really do miss my hubs (he's deployed right now) and I thought I would make a little video of us.. We met on a cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale, FL, July 2007 and our adventures have just kept going.. this was a neat way of putting a few fun memories throughout our relationship and marriage to video and song..  I have never heard this song before but I think it fits perfectly because I would say we make each-other happy.

As I said my experience with this site was great. It was simple to use and I even liked that one song.. the rest of the choices were not so good, in my opinion. I also was bummed that the quality is so poor because they want you to upgrade to the more expensive version. I'm sure there are other video tools out there but I liked this one a lot.

Thing #20

I picked this video because it shows that "Teachers Really Matter."
I Love youtube. I think that it is a wonderful resource to learn new information. It is full of a variety of videos that cover a wide spectrum.

I chose this video because it touched me. I don't know the song that they played with the clips but it fit perfectly. It's good to be reminded that teachers really do matter. As a teacher you have a HUGE responsibility. What you do and say OR what you don't do and don't say, can have a lasting impact on your students. It's important to be reminded that we really are shaping the future of America as we have the honor of teaching these students. We need to be reminded of that responsibility and not take it for granted.
I think that this site would be very interesting if I applied them to my classroom website. It would enable me to show the children videos that pertain to the topic we are covering at hand. If I got the parents permission I could possible put up different classroom projects that my students were proud of and wanted to talk about.

http://www.go2web20.net/site/?a=Vine
This new tool is called Vine. You use it through your smartphone. It allows you to put up short clips of your life. It's kind of like facebook with it's "newsfeed" but instead its short video feeds of your friends. They recently changed it and now its not just your friends and followers feeds but other peoples as well. I don't really like that aspect as much. It could be useful in the classroom to put up short little clips of the kids and what they are learning throughout the day so the parents could watch them. The parents could be updated and actually get to feel like they were there with their child, even if just for a brief moment. I think it would be neat and build a relationship between the parent and teacher. 

THING #19 - Other Social networks

I think the best use of social networking for educators is in the simplicity and ease that it provides for teachers to connect and share ideas. Teachers are now provided the availability to connect, see pictures, read blogs, and even watch videos that others teachers have made! 

I discovered that there are "teacher / education" networking sites everywhere! The amount of wonderful information available to teachers now is amazing. There is information available now for almost every topic under the sun that a teacher may want some feedback on, AND if there is something that they can't find information on these social networking sites allow the teacher to simply put out a post/blog and ask!

I am a member of Facebook, now Twitter and Pintrest, but I am also a member of Instagram, and (yes, I sheepishly admit it) MySpace from when it was cool. (I assume I still have my account since I never closed it).

 It seems that Instagram is becoming the new "Facebook" or at least in the colleges in Florida. I only created an Instagram account because my sister (who is in college) uses hers all the time and I wanted to keep up with her. haha it's funny but right there, I'm using a social networking site to "see pictures" and read about what she's doing. I find Facebook and Pintrest the most appealing because of their ease. I had already had a facebook and I think Pintrest is a lot of fun as well!

From the new sites given in the learning activity I like IMDB, well, I should say my husband REALLY likes IMDB and I use it a lot to look up movies/actors/shows for him. I like all the cooking sites and if I have the time, perhaps when things calm down, I will attempt making some of these scrumptious recipes! I also like GoodReads because I do LOVE reading and its fun to see what others recommend or are reading now.

 I know that I will be using all of the sites I listed above from time to time... Well, maybe not Myspace..but all the other ones!

Thing #18 - Twitter

https://twitter.com/JstinLorie

This activity took me a while because I have never used Twitter before. I do have a facebook and hadn't seen the need to get a Twitter. It forces you to choose a bunch of friends or things to follow just to sign up. I don't know anyone's Twitter account information so I ended up "following" a bunch of Educational websites. I primarily chose to follow Early Childhood Educational sites.
It is important for educators to understand social networking because its quickly becoming one of the leading forms of communication. It seems that people love the ability to just post a quick little statement about what is going on in their day, or what is on their  mind and post it into the cyber world for all their friends to read.
Hash-tags # confused me greatly at first. It seems to be a type of branding almost. Its a way to provide essential information that is supposed to improve your social media intelligence. Hash-tag searching pulls up relevant information to whatever word you had typed in. It works pretty well in my opinion.

I know that teachers are already using it in the classroom by having their students "follow" them in their class. Teachers use it to update information about their class, assignments, tests, and even schedule meeting times. 

Thing #17 - Delcious

Delicious is a neat site that lets you see other bookmarks and tags that your fellow friends and peers have made. You can see the comments they added about this bookmark and tags they used to categorize this reference. Delicious has a lot to offer for education teachers.

You can bookmark a website, organize them by tags, and be social in the processes.

Clicking the tag button quickly saves the website as a delicious bookmark. A teacher could use it to remember what sites have great information about a particular subject. Other people can see your tags and then use those great resources as well.

It's a way for teachers or anyone to share sites that they really enjoyed. It would be an easy way to access bookmarks from anywhere. I think Delicious could be a very useful tool for teachers as they plan their teaching agendas.

THING #16

              I chose to create my customized start page from uStart.org. I like this one because of its user friendly quick start link. It took me through a little tutorial that showed me how I could best use this to organize my life. All on one page I can find everything I need like my google drive, calender, news, and even social media sites I enjoy. I also like that they let you customize the "skin" or background colors of your page. I don't think I will make it my permanent home page at this time because I like some of the other webstites I have already discovered during this course better.

               An online calendar is wonderful and extremely useful to me! An online calendar allows me to access my information from any computer, or mobile device where ever I am at. I like online calenders because I never have to worry about forgetting to bring my paper calender around with me.

             I definitely discovered a tool that I will use at school and at home! I really like Zamzar which is a free online file converter. This is a wonderful tool and I would recommenced it to anyone who knows how to turn on a computer. I think that this tool is beneficial for everyone because at some time almost everyone will have to write a document and it is extremely frustrating when you send that document or try to print that document from a computer that can't open it because it is in a different format. Zamzar is a wonderful tool that can convert it from one format to another then emails it to you!

THING #15 - wiki

                     Well I just successfully completed my first editing experience on a wiki page! I went into 23 Things sandbox wiki and started messing around with it until I figured out how to "edit" a page. I chose not to edit anyone's previous work because I don't think that's very nice. I figure who ever posted in the past had taken time and consideration into their editing on the wiki page and I don't think its very nice to change that. So instead of editing someone's older material, I added my own new information to the 23 things sandbox APSU wiki page. So far my favorite feature of 23 things that I plan on using in my classroom would be from "thing #12" because I plan on using the Google calender and the Google alert features.

(this is a screen shot of the page)

                 I have used Wiki in the past and am familiar with the concept but strictly as an observer. I had never edited a website before so this was a brand new experience. I realized that I had to create an account in order to edit it, they do not allow just anyone to edit on it. After creating an account I searched for the APSU 23 things website and from there was allowed to edit the page and add my own information.

                I find it interesting that wiki essentially lets anyone write anything they want on any given topic. I think that this could be dangerous if there is no one watching over the information to check the validity of what is written. However, I also think that it is up to the reader to be a cautious consumer of the information they are ingesting.

                I might use a wiki with my class. I could give them an assignment to find out all the information they could about BETA fish (ex. where they are from, how they breathe, male/female characteristics) I would tell them to edit and change the wiki page as they gathered information on the BETA fish. I would be the administrator of the page to ensure the information was factual and at the end of the assignment we could purchase a class pet BETA fish.

THING #14 - Flow Charts and Mind Maps

                 After playing around with mind maps and flow charts I think that flow charts are easier for young children to understand. Flow charts use simple boxes and lines to connect ideas, as opposed to a mind map where there are lots of boxes and connecting lines. I think that young children would benefit from learning how to use flow charts and as they mature (and begin writing more complex essays) they should move into mind maps. 

Flow charts would also be fun to use when teaching children how to write "beginning, middle, and ends" of stories. We could have them move the boxes into the correct sequence of events.

            

                  I chose to set up a flow chart account at gliffy because I first tried setting one up at flowchart.com but they still have not sent me an invitation to join their site. SO, I moved on and tried out Gliffy. Gliffy was very simple to use, they have short tutorial that shows you how to use the site then you simply click start drawing. I used this to create a real project that I have coming up, I made a flow chart of my intended research projects for my MAT program. this is a simple to understand flowchart of my intended program of study. I could use this tool in my future class room when I want to create a simple diagram of what my expectations of the day are for the class. 

                                                                  FLOW CHART

                  I set up a mind map account  at Bubbl.us and figured out how to use it. It is actually quite fun to use once you get the hang of it. It helps in organizing your ideas. If you have a lot of different thoughts but are not sure how they connect, this is a great way to get a visual with lines and bubbles connecting them. So you would start with your topic and then put off shoots that support that topic. This would be a great tool in teaching when you teach children how to write essays with supporting sentences. You show them how you write down your topic or idea and use the other bubbles to support it. 

                                                             MIND MAP

Thing #13 -Google Drive

              I have to let you all know, I just recently discovered Google Drive and have LOVED using it for classes and work. My boss is the one who first introduced Google Drive to me because we have to keep track of so many papers and forms regarding our work. It had become a hassle to let each other know what documents had been edited and updated and which ones had not. Now regardless of where we are or when we update a form (even if the other person doesn't know about it) as long as its updated in Google Drive it automatically changes them!.. (SEE attached Google Drive document)

This is the rest of THING #12 blog inside my google drive document : Document link :

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QRWCVCGqNPfkmQ8N7Wh6lGt4gdGPMDAyOrU5Jneyxfk/pub

This is the embedded code
Starting here : 

Here is a picture I created on Google Drive: drawings
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/19CxRtmVHDY335jS2RWcWj-19TN4pEmtwnkv03U9b8_s/pub?w=960&h=720

Thing #12 - Google!

            I have always loved and used Google. Google has been set as my home screen ever since I have had a computer, and I'm pretty sure it was set as my families home computer screen before I owned my own as well. I have chosen to set up a calendar and alert system on Google. I love that Google calender gives you access to your calendar no matter where you are. You are able to sync it with your phone, on your computer, or tablet. If you want you can set it up to send you reminders about different events you have scheduled by text messaging to your phone number! My favorite feature of Google calendar is the "share your schedule" feature. I think that this is the most handy dandy feature it has because you can chose to "share" your calender with your boss, family, friends, and anyone else who may need to get a hold of you. This feature will be extremely beneficial as a teacher because you could create a "work" calender to share with your students parents to set up conferences with them and let them know what will be going on in the class for that week. You could also use this feature to send out to your co-workers if you were trying to set up a meeting time or plan an event.



            Google Alerts is new to me. I have never used Google alerts before but I like this feature. I like the simple interface and I was able to learn how to use it very quickly. I typed in Elementary Education and it immediately gave me a list of the most current sites that were on Elementary Education. I think this feature will be beneficial as a teacher because it will keep me up to date on the newest news going on in Elementary Education. I could also use this as a teacher by asking my students topics they were interested in and then every day read them an interesting new article on what ever topic we had chosen as a class.