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.