Is it the End or Only the Beginning?

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

The biggest thing I enjoyed discovering was Google.  I was not aware of the amazing things this search engine can do.  Such as the spreadsheet maker, document maker and reader.  Such a great tool that not only searches for you but helps you create!

• How has this program affected your lifelong learning goals?

This has been a great tool to help with effective ways of using technology.  Blogging about technology has helped me realize the importance of it and I know I will continue using a lot of it when I am out in the field.

• Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Yes,  I definitly see that blogging is for more than just expressing your own feelings and that there are blogs out there for ALL SORTS of things!

• What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

I do not see anything that could be changed! Everything was very informative and well layed out, I truely enjoyed it.

• How will what you have learned influence your practice as a teacher?

What I have learned will influence my practice greatly.  I think that technology is a important part of learning and it is a great tool to assist a teacher in getting a good lesson going.  A lot of what I have learned especially everything from using Google will help me in my future job as an educator.

• How do you plan to keep up with new developments in web 2.0? Recommend a way that you have found to be useful.

Keep up with all the accounts I have made through out 23 things.  That will be the best way because it is the most effective way to keep up with everything I have learned about web 2.0.  Since it is where we got all the information from!

Thing 23

A great way to see that Dr. Wall gave credit to people for the ideas on this site is by the credits.  This part of the site will give credit to those whose work is their own, and to show that the creator does not get all of the credit!  This is a great way to show that Creative Commons is important.

I now know that I should be more careful of what I copy and paste into things I create.  I should research what i am right clicking instead of automatically copy and pasting it.

Thing 22

Craft Binder

This would be a great thing to use in the classroom!  This is site is very useful in creating binders that can be for one project!  Say you wanted to do a class wide project and needed to give students a lot of information.  This would be a great way to save paper, and also give the students all the resources they needed in one click!  I love this effective way of keeping things organized.

My binder is for craft ideas for the classroom that benefit the teacher and the students.  I think this is very effective to keep myslef organized as a teacher and to keep every thing together!

Thing 21

PCB Summer 2011!

This is a really cool site!  I loved creating my video of pictures from my PCB trip this past summer! it really makes me want to go back!!  I did not like that you have to pay to recieve all the cooler backgrounds for the videos though...a little annoying.  Other than that I loved it!  I loved how the video turned out as well! I will most likely be using this again if I ever need to create an "original" slideshow and want it to be super cute!!!

Thing 20

English Language Learners Video

I am an avid YouTube user.  I subsribe to many people on YouTube!  I love the sight!  Not only do I think that YouTube is a great site to use for recreational use but also for researching things such as educational videos like the one above for ELL students above.  Youtube can also be a bad thing when it comes to looking up videos.

When I was in high school there was no way that I could research videos in the classroom because of the internet protection sites.  It was actually a really good thing that they did that because there are so many unecessary things posted on Youtube daily.  It will kind of be impossible to use Youtube as a research site in the future because it will 1) Still be blocked and 2) Probably be ten times worse than it is now.

Thing 19

I am a member of the facebook, twitter, pinterest, youtube communities.  I love all of the social networking site that I used.  The one that I loved the most that I explored through Thing 19 is the "Bake Space" community.  I am very inspired by things like this to become an awesome cooker.  To know that there are many other people who love to cook and bake as much as I do is very cool!

I thought that the Ning was very neat.  The fact that you can create something such as a Ning to communicate "socially" to other people is very technology savvy!  I think this is something that can be used through teachers in not only their own building but many schools.  Just to see how progress is going throughout the system itself (not just limited to one school).

Thing 18

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=622500235&ref=tn_tnmn

Here is the link to my facebook profile page. 

I see that many older generations already have a facebook.  Which to me is a great thing.  I believe that educators should know how social networking sites work because they need to understand their students.  I know that sounds weird, but it is true.  They have to understand that now-a-days everything a child is thinking can be updated within 15 seconds through the "update status" bar.  Through this simple thing, their thoughts are updated on their profile.

I really did not gain any new insights.  I have explored facebook many times and I also have explored Twitter because I have an account with them also.  I love them both.  Twitter has intrigued me a little more lately because you don't just "befriend" people and then read paragraph long statements about their lives.  You just simply type in a sentence or two (because that is all the characters you really can have) and then you get your point across and people understand.  Facebook users for some odd reason think that using hashtags(#) on facebook will trend topics like they do on Twitter.....IT DOES NOT TREND ANYTHING!  That has become one of my biggest pet peeves.

I believe they both have useful features.  If you are looking for photo searching, small games playing, invitation sending type application, then facebook is the place for you.  If you are looking for trending topics, celebrity updates, worldly views, and limited resources then twitter is for you.

I do not see these being useful for classroom activities, just for the simple fact that these sites will soon be over run by things that children probably do not need to be surrounded with anyway.

Thing 17

I am a big YouTube watcher.  I love watching my subscribed videos and I always notice on YouTube all of the tags that all of the people use on their videos.  I also think that when you add a tag to something it helps searching for an item easier, whether it be on YouTube or on a research site.

I see huge potential for these resources in the classroom.  It is a great tool for if you are doing a project over something in Social Studies, you can create something on a tagging site such as "Delicious" and to get to the link faster they can type in "Underground Railroad" and it will take the students to the sites, blogs, opinions they are looking for.  Tagging is also a great thing to just use anywhere.  Even if you are looking up something for yourself, tagging is a great tool that is useful in easy research. 

Thing 15

At first I was unable to figure out how I was supposed to post on to the Wiki.  Once I figured it out I was able to put the picture I created on my blog post about Thing 9.  I think that a Wiki will be beneficial for many different things.

You can use these for if your are in a group work project.  I think there are many ways on a Wiki to show your ideas, pictures, and videos to others besides yourself.  The main thing that was great about a Wiki is that you do not have to limit the Wiki to just a few people, you can share it with the world. 

I also discovered the CMCSS Wiki for technology usage.  I thought this was pretty great myself.  I thought the strong point of this Wiki was that you could ask questions in a discussion board and the administrator of the site can answer the questions.

Thing 16

All of the sites that I went through were pretty great, but I actually have "my own page" that helps me stay organized. The "myYahoo!" has many great organizational tools. This has a calendar that you can add upcoming events/assignments in. You can also create special spaces that contain anything you want. I have my calender, stocks, horoscope, show listing, movie listings,etc... I love this site and always use it! I highly recommend this to everyone wanting to stay organized and up to date with things. Here are pictures from myYahoo!

I did explore the sticky-notes.net and thought it would be very beneficial in keeping all of my ideas organized. I am a big fan of sticky notes in real life. I am always writing down things I have to do, and if I am having to record my thoughts while I am on the computer, what better way than to use cyber sticky notes!

Thing 14

I chose to explore the "mindmeister" mind map and I also chose to explore the "Gliffy" flowchart. I really enjoyed exploring the flowchart more than the mind map. I feel as if I could use it more often especially in the classroom.

When you use flowcharts, it is easier to use these as a sequential order for things such as stories and dates in Social Studies. I think that mind maps would be an easier tool to use when dealing with things in detail. You could most certainly use a mind map with telling the climax, resolution, etc... in a story.

These are wonderful tools that would be helpful in the classroom and even outside the classroom!

Along with discovering the flowcharts I discovered on Gliffy that you  can create a floor plan for a house or apartment.  It was so cool with the basic tools they had for you to use and it was easy to use!  Here is part of the house I have created:

Thing 13

This was one of the most informational "things" I believe I have come across.  I knew that google was awesome, but I had never really gone into deep search through what google could do through Google Docs.  I really enjoyed using Google Docs more than I did using ZoHo.  The site for ZoHo just had too much going on for me.  I like to go to a reference sight and know where I am going right off the bat.  I feel like ZoHo is like going to the clearance section in Belk, you start to look...and then you think to yourself, "I really don't want to look through all of this for a blue shirt."  I'm not say ing ZoHo couldn't information friendly but I think it would take awhile to find what you wanted with all the links I saw all over the place. 

Now, when I went to Google Docs, I was very impressed.  I am the secretary for my soroity and I am well aware that i can accept Documents through Google, but I did not know that I could create and accept drawings, spreadsheets, etc...  I feel it necessary to have these great tools especially in a classroom setting.  This not only will help with collaboration between students but the teacher could get involved as well.  This could happen through the comment section in Google Docs.

I look forward to using this type of technology in the classroom.  I really need to reconsider search engine sites for more than just research.

Thing #12

I decided to create a "Google Alert" and an "iGoogle".  I thought these were pretty fitting since I like to know what's going on right when it happens.  I enjoy feeling like I found out the big news first.  I enjoyed making the iGoogle as well because it literally took about ten seconds to create, and then you had everything at a click of the mouse.  You could even access facebook through the iGoogle.  I decided not make both of those public, because I figure they are mine to look through, and my sites to visit because I chose them. 

This could be very useful as a tool when you are teaching.  Not only is the google alert system very neat, it could sens you notifications if there is a new news bulliten for your schools blog/page.  The iGoogle could also be made up for just your classroom.  I could pick what i want to update myself or the students on, on a daily basis.

Here are the links to both that I created.

http://www.google.com/alerts/manage?mqm=c&q=leaf+chronicle&x=AMJHsmV2CTdoEqN3DMsr7sBGMhAymW7-jw:1317615296258

http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en#t_0

Thing #11

I personally like finding the feeds on my own.  Not only can I go to the sites I normally visit, but I can just look around for an "RSS" link on the page.  if I don't find one, I know that they do not have the page linked to be subscribed to. 

The easiest search tool that I came across was "syndic8".  It was like typing in a tag and it could send you to possible feeds that talk about those sorts of topics exactly.  I alsoo browsed through Technorati, and it was fairly easy to manuever as well.  The other to feed finders looked to complicated to even try to find where to begin.

I loved using the tag look up.  You could just type in a keyword, rather than typing in the whole site trying to find something interesting.  I am really starting to enjoy RSS feeds, and will probably use it everyday, or everytime I get on my computer.

Thing #10

I have always wondered what the little orange icon was in the top right hand corner of my computer screen.  I never wanted to press it, just in case it sent my computer into some host of one million viruses, so I left it alone.  I never knew that it was an "RSS feed" that could hold as many blogs, websites, and newsfeeds as you wanted.  I chose to subscribe to CNN world news, The Soup (from E!), Marlena from makeup geek, and News Channel 5's local news.  I thought it was a great resource if I just wanted to go to one spot to see all of the sites I enjoy visiting every day. 

This could be very useful in the classroom as well.  If I had many sites I wanted to show the leaners in a days time, I could just open up google reader, and there all the sites would be with just one log in to just one site.

Thing #9

I think that using these image creators are a great tool you can use in the classroom.  These create images that give a personal feel to whatever you plan to teach or use these to help prepare your lesson.  I made a couple of different images but my favorite one I made was the tree engraved "English".  I thought this was really cool, considering my favorite part of teaching fifth grade will be getting them engaged in reading and language arts.  I used the image creator called "Image Chef".

http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Tree+Heart

Thing #8

Flickr Mashups for Evelyn

Flickr mashups could be used many ways in the classroom.  I was able to find many links that create letter mashups, word mashups, and picture mashups.  I enjoyed using these sites because there are many ways to show students with different learning abilities things we are learning for the day in class or as an exit activity when the students are leaving.  I do not mind sharing photos online, because I do have a facebook that I upload photos to daily. Though, I do think there are some things that should not go on to the internet and be viewed by the world.

Thing #7

I loved using flickr.  I had never used this site before now because I normally go to photobucket to find photos.  I really enjoyed searching for photos and trying to find a photo that interests me.  I really enjoy sunsets.  I enjoy sunsets better on the beach.  I found this photo very interesting: I had to snap shot this photo from my Iphone, that is why you see the border around the image.  This scene is just breathe taking.  I love the clouds and the way the water reflects the sun so delicately. It was very easy to find this photo because all I had to search for was the tag "sunsets".


http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/5599620163/

Image Citation: "Sunset Sky." CubaGallery. 8 Apr 2011 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/5599620163/>.

Thing #4

Whenever you have things such as blogs or videos on youtube, you want to have some sort of feedback.  People do not post thing online for no reason at all.  They want to know what people think about what they have posted.  I thought it was important to show the person that you actually took the time to read their posts and that answering with a "yeah", is not a good way to show insightful commenting skills.  Commenting also gives the blogger a chance to actually "know" the readers on a level of understanding; lets the readers know that their comments are important.

I decided to follow Jasmina Kulovic (http://jasminakulovic.blogspot.com/), Sarah Felts (http://sarahmariefelts.blogspot.com/) , Johnna Conners (http://johnnaconnors.blogspot.com/) , Jessi Wright (http://education3040-wright.blogspot.com/), and Kyle Thompson (http://kyledt27.blogspot.com/) inside our blogger group.  The two that I choose that are not inside our group are The Pioneer Woman (http://thepioneerwoman.com/) and Grace Booney (http://www.designsponge.com/)

I commented on Jasmina Kulovic's post about how she found Amazon useful when using her kindle.  I thought it was interesting how she figured out you can upload the Kindle application to another device and still use it as if it were the Kindle.

Sarah Felts made a post on the new and improved Google that she has new discovered.  My thoughts were exactly like hers.  I did not know Google had so much to offer for being a search engine.

I loved Johnna Conners' post for using Flickr.  I LOVE the beach.  So seeing the photo she chose was pretty awesome.  My photo was very similar but I concentrated on the sunset on the beach.

Kyle Thompson had a great post about how he never thought he would be blogging about different things.  He made a great point that he could use blogging to keep in contact with different teachers in the same grade as him.  They could share lesson plans and also become aware of what he was doing in class.  I never thought about using blogging with other teachers too.

I have fallen in love with The Pioneer Woman's blog.  I also enjoy seeing her photography and seeing her cookbook come to life.  I commented on her latest post, which included pictures of her hound dogs.

I have also gotten into the newest blog i was able to find Designer Sponge.  I commented on her post about vintage items.  I love finding vintage things, and then incorporating them into my room, or in my bathroom!

Thing #6

I was supposed to discover a site that has useful tools and interesting features.  I didn't have to look hard in the list of "Web 2.0 Awards".  I chose a website that I have already discovered and enjoy using.  This website is http://www.twitter.com/!  I think that Twitter is a genius website, that I am completely obssessed with.  The number one thing I like about using Twitter is the ability to find out information, fast!  When the earthquake happened, I found out from Twitter.  When Amy Winehouse died, I found out from Twitter.  They have a great way to trend topics through hashtags(#), which allows you to just go to the search bar to see if any new information on a topic is streaming through Twitter's news feed.  You can "follow" people on Twitter from the cast of Jersey Shore, CNN Breaking News, Barrack Obama, and even Oprah!
The only thing I could see Twitter being useful for in school, would be finding other people's opinions on the nature of a subject.  Even with other people's opinions, it can get explicit because the sight isn't monitered for bad language, so it may not be a permitted site in schools.

Thing #5

Okay, I get it, things are modernized and schools are becoming more technology savvy but I don't want things to go too far.  I personally think that technology is a wonderful invention.  It is great to have students on the computers, learning how to use websites as resource tools for essays, projects etc.  I even think that having an alotted time set up for the children to get on the computers to do blogging during their daily classroom activities is a good way to teach them technology.  I also believe things will be taken to the extreme with internet usage.
School 2.0 means more computer use during the school day, and at home.  If given the chance, School 2.0 can be taken over board.  It will soon be taken from a "free and open source software" to a classroom instruction world wide web program.  The teachers that have been in my life is what have influenced me, not the computers I sat in front of researching on every once in a while.
This new technology focused school (School 2.0) will give focus to the computer generated learning enviorment.  I think that it may get to the point where the teachers' evaluations will be based on the computer software they are using, rather than the structured lessons they prepare. 
It may be a good thing to have in schools, and then again it could just be a modern way to teach children on many different subjects.

Thing #3

As a teacher, blogging can be used in many different ways to increase student to student communication.  Facebook is a trend that has already exploded and still to this day is used by major companies, bands, etc. to get their name and information out there.  Creating a blog could be a "facebook" inside the classroom.  It could give students the opportunity to post comments to describe their opinion on a subject.  If the teacher plans to discuss a certian subject during the class, they can post links for them to read and give their opinion on.  This can also be used for teacher to parent contact.  Not only can it strictly be used for parent opinion or insight, but show the parents what exactly is going on while their child is at school. 

Thing #2

I decided on my blog name and posting name the easiest way I could.  I wanted something easy to remember, and that would be my name itself.  It was fairly easy to create my blog.  I have a lot of experience with computers and technology, so navigating through the site was a breeze.  My avatar reflects me the best way it can.  My favorite color is green, and I have a pet cat at home that is orange.  I didn't think it would make sense to create an avatar that did not represent me, because who wants people to think you're someone you are not?

Thing #1

The easiest habit from the 7 1/2 Habits would probably be, "Begin with the End in Mind".  If I don't set goals for myself, I will not get anywhere.  I am constantly coming up with big ideas, and these big ideas cannot happen over night.  So, I set a goal for my outcome and then it usual makes the end a lot smoother.  The hardest habit that I have come across before is, "View Problems as Challenges".  I sometimes catch myself viewing a problem as a BIG problem.  I do not focus on what I could possibly learn at the end of things, I usually go straight toward the negative outcomes.