Summary of 23 Things

I am very excited to have all of my "The 23 Things" completed. When I first saw all of the "The 23 Things" it looked like so much work. It did turn out to be a lot of work, but I also learned so much about what web 2.0 can do.

There are so many amazing tools on the internet that I had no idea existed before doing “The 23 Thing”. I really enjoyed all of the things I did, but I did find it overwhelming to learn about so many web tools that now I just hope I can remember everything for future use.

I think it is really important for educators to be aware of technology and to embrace it in their classrooms. Children today are growing up in a world were they are constantly surrounded by technology, so if teachers do not incorporate technology as well, they will miss out on opportunities to reach students through methods that they can relate to.

I think some people are afraid of all of the web tools and think they are too hard to use. I think if everyone would just stop being afraid of the unknown they too could discover all of the neat things you can do. I think for teachers, it is even more important for someone who is afraid of learning about the tools to conquer their fears, because there are so many great tools that can be used to enhance the learning experience in the classroom.

With all of the tools on web 2.0, it has never been easier to connect the real world to lessons taught in the classroom. In addition, collaboration with others also allows teachers to learn from each other and share ideas in real time.

Thing # 23

Creative Commons is such a great resource for educators. I have already used Creative Commons several times over the course of this semester. Creative Commons make finding videos, music, and images for projects much easier. As a teacher I will use Creative Commons. I have already used it for pictures for two different power points and a video for my copyright tutorial.

It is very important for a teacher to set a good example for students on copyright, so although it can be frustrating to not use something that you think is great because you do not have permission, having permission is very important. Creative commons is great because it gives teachers a place to look for things to use, and with Creative Commons they can easily check for permission to use what they find.

Thing # 22

The Educational Podcast Directory was user friendly and had a large variety of podcasts available that were are divided into categories. If the categories were divided into specific podcasts for grades,then i would make them easier to find. The sections they do have are "student and class podcasts” and podcasts by “subject specific podcasts”.

Podcast Alley was also user friendly to search for podcasts, but they two were not divieded into subject grades. There is a search box, so you can search for specific podcasts or you can go under genre. Podcast Alley has over 2,000 podcasts for education, but since they are all under the same label it would take some time to find one you are interested in lisenting to.

The podcast that I listened to was a podcast for GRE test preparation. The podcast reviewed vocabulary, specifically word meaning,and synonyms and antonyms of each word. Although I think this could be a helpful podcast for someone who is studing for their test, it is not what I thought it was going to be, but since they are not labeled well it is hard to tell.

Learn Out Loud seemed to be more for selling podcasts, I did not find any free podcast of interest to me.

Podcast are a great tool for a classroom. I had the opportunity to make a podcast with a first grade class this year. I did a lesson on adjectives for the podcasts. The students had so much more fun with adjectives than they usually do because they new they were being recorded. The students were so excited to hear themselves on the podcast, that during the lesson they were very attentive and contributed to the lesson because they wanted to hear their voices on the podcast.

Thing # 21

I had a lot of fun with Animoto and I do plan to use this site again. My pictures are from a trip my husband and I took to San Diego. When I was making my video I just kept thinking off all of the other pictures I would like to make videos of too. I think this is a great way to share photos with other people. I think it is really neat how the video looks like it is professionally done, and it take so little time to do. It would be great if you could make longer videos for free, but the price for longer videos is very reasonable. I also like how easy it is to post videos to facebook or to e-mail them to friends.

In the classroom Animoto could be used by students and teachers as a way to present anything that they have taken photos of, because the site is so quick and easy to use. Teachers could take picutres of field trips and make a video of pictures and send it to the students parents.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Thing # 20

I think you Tube is a great website. In the past I had only used this site to watch fun videos, but this semeter I have learned that there is a lot more to you Tube than just funny videos. There are so many fun videos, but there are also a lot of great educational videos as well. You can learn a lot from you Tube videos, there really is a video for everything. I watched a video on the Ipad and now I want one!

In addition to all of the videos there are to watch, you can also make your own videos and share what you know with others. This could be a great tool for a teacher to make a video for the class that could be used for other classes and shared with other teachers.

The two videos that I selected for my blog are both videos are for kindergarten and first grade students who are learning the alphabet. I think fun videos like these help younger students learn. When I start teaching I will utilize you Tube for videos that go along with class lesssons.

Thing # 19

In this activity I learned that there are other social network sites besides facebook and myspace. Facebook and Linked In were the only two online communities are that I was a member of before this activity. I am now a member of Gather, Ning and Teacher Pop..

On Ning I really like the Classroom 2.0 and The Future of Education. I also like how with Ning you can create your own site for others to follow.

Gather is interesting; it feels that it is geared towards older adults. It allows you to choose an interest and to choose an age group of people who you would like to share your interest with. It is more than just a social network site, allowing you to publish work and to comment on work published.

I think Teacher Pop is neat, and it allows everyone from the class a place to share information they have learned as we learn new things in school and as we all venture out and start teaching. I added the Teacher pop badge to my facebook and to my blog.

Another new site that I found that I like is flixster http://www.flixster.com/ . I love watching movies but I really do not like sitting through bad movies, so I like how on this site there are lot of movie reviews from different people. If someone is looking to make new friends then going to a site where you can look for someone who also is going to have the same interest, can make it easier to make new friends online.

There are so many different social gathering sites that it would be impossible to follow all of them, but it is nice to have so many choices.

Thing # 19-Teacher Pop Badge

Visit TeacherPop

Thing # 18

I have had a facebook page for awhile, and I love how easy and fun it is to stay in touch with friends. I also started a myspace page, but I found that more of my friends were on facebook, so that is where I started spending all of my time. I think it is really fun how easy it is to talk to all or just one of your friends and that you can find people who you may have lost contact with, or even make new friends through other friends. The one disadvantage to facebook is that it can be easy to waste a lot of time unintentionally, looking at pictures and other updates of your friends. One thing that I dislike about facebook is that comments of friends, of your friends, show up. This could be interesting if all of my friends were teachers and I could learn from other comments, but since for me facebook it is just friends talking about personal things, I don’t like having all of the comments from everyone show up.

One feature that I like about myspace are all of the different options for designing you’re your own homepage. One thing that I do not like about myspace is that I find that there are more advertisements on this site that are very hard to ignore. I find facebook to be more user friendly, but if I spent as much time on myspace that I have on facebook I might find that they are equally easy to use.

I think it is important for educators to know about social network sites because they can be a very valuable tool for networking with other teachers. Facebook and myspace are both very user friendly sites and are an easy way to stay in contact with other teachers, and to meet new teachers, through the teachers you have as friends. I am not sure that either site would have a specific need in the classroom; however, both sites are an excellent tool that students could use to talk to each other about questions for each other or things they want to share about school.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1179973861&ref=profile

Thing # 17

For Thing number 17, I explored Del.icio.us. I really like the site, and I think it is has a lot of great features. One feature that I really enjoyed was that you can search through items tagged by anyone; this can be a great way to narrow your search on a topic, or to just view what has been selected as the most popular articles on a specific subject. Another great feature of Del.icio.us is that you do not have to be on your computer to access your bookmarked list, there have been so many times when I want to go to a webpage, but since I did not memorize the address, I could not access the different sites unless I was on my computer. It also is a great way to keep track of websites, I know from just this class alone, there are so many websites that I put on my favorites list that now I can never find anything I am looking for! I think social bookmarking sites can provide many benefits to educators and students too. Teachers can take advantage of social book marking sites by using them as a collaboration tool with other teachers, or as a collaboration tool for students when working on projects.

Thing # 16

For my homepage I choose igoogle, it was appealing to me because it was so easy to you and I like that you can customize and organize your homepage with the information that you want. I will consider using igoogle as my permanent homepage. For making my to do list, I really like the Ta Da List Account. I am a big list maker and I loved that you can type your list, move your listed items around and e-mail it to someone. I did not like the Remember the Milk website, this site seemed to be more work than it was worth to make a list. In exploring the list of tools for organization and productivity I found several neat tools and a few that I feel would be more work than they are helpful. Jott has a lot of neat features, such as you can get voicemails in the form of an e-mail or text, as well as Jott assistant is a cool tool to have for things that you think of while you are somewhere that you can not write something down, however, it would still just leave what you need to do on different text messages. I personally do not feel that my life is so busy that I would have a need for Jott. I really like the Tiny Url, it is a feature that would be great for citing sources, because some URL addresses are so long. Engrade is a great resource for teachers, allowing parents and students to get immediate feedback for how the student is doing in class. I also like Gradefix, I think it is a great program to help younger students learn how to manage their time.

Thing # 15

I had no idea before Thing # 15 what a Wiki was, before I had only seen the work Wiki a few times when I googled a definition of a word. I think Wikis’ are really neat. I found it interesting how easy it is to share information and that anyone can make alterations on anyone elses work. A Wiki could be a great collaboration tool for students in a classroom. It would be a very valuable way for students to communicate with each other outside of the classroom and build on each others ideas. In addition, a teacher could use a Wiki as a way to have an interactive lesson online. For example a student could write an answer to a question, and then the student could write the next question for their classmate. It would be a lesson that would go beyond just answering questions, and give them an opportunity to have more in-depth thoughts about the lesson they are learning.

Post # 14

For the Flowchart, I used Gliffey. I found it pretty easy to use. There are a lot of shapes to use and they are easy to move around, there are a also a lot of color options. One problem that I did have was that I found it hard to erase. I did like that you do not have to register with the site, so it is one less username and password to have to remember.

As a new user to both Mindmeister and bubbl.us I like Mindmeister the best. I felt it had a lot more features. Mindmeister has a great tutorial that it starts with that makes it very easy to use. Some of the features I like are that it is easy to add notes and web links onto the map, and it has a playback feature, so you can watch the map being made, one idea at a time. In addition, it is easy to find images to add to the mind map, there is a large selection provided under the images tab, or you can search the web with a feature on the website, and easily upload the image into the map. Also on Mindmeister it is easy to share work with others, and you can collaborate in real time.

Between flowcharts and mind maps I found mind maps easier to use. It was hard for me to understand the difference between flowcharts and mind maps, the biggest difference that I found between the two is that flowcharts are for presenting a sequence and mind maps are best for laying out ideas and connecting thoughts and and putting them on paper.

Both flowcharts and mind maps could be used in a number of different ways, in explaining different concepts to class or teachers could use them when brainstorming ideas together.

Blog Post 13

I was not familar with Zoho Writer, and I enjoyed learning about all of the great features it has.  At first I could not figure out how to get anything on the screen, but then I realized that I had to click on the new tab on the top left of the screen.  Once I could work with it, I learned that Zoho Writer has many unique features, and some features very similar to Microsoft Word. With Zoho Writer you can share documents on-line, post something to your blog and even open on the last 25 documents you have worked on, off-line, so you do not have to always be on-line to work on your projects. Also a great feature is that you can make your work public, to share with anyone who is interested. This would be a great feature for being able to work on something from anywhere you want to, you would not have to worry about whether or not you had your memory stick with you or if you e-mailed it to your self. It woulld also be a great program to have if you were on a computer that did not have Microsoft Word on it. I did publish my post through Zoho writer, and I am still able to come back and make edits. 

Thing # 12

I really am amazed at how much more google is then just a search engine. The google tool that I like the most was the igoogle, where you create your own home page. The link to my page is http://www.google.com/ig. I think this is neat because it is a great and very easy way of having a homepage that just has the information that you are interested in reading about. This could be used on a computer in a classroom, by having the students select information that they are interested, that pertains to class lessons or current projects and having that appear as their homepage.

I liked the google calander feature, this is something that could be used in the classroom, both for students and for teachers. Having a google calander would allow the teacher to put all of the assigments for the month on the calander and then it could be posted in the room for students to check. It is also a tool that a teacher could use, that could be accessed anywhere, instead of just from a home or work computer.

Google Alerts is a good feature if you are wanting to stay up-to-date on an issue. If I had to chose I would use Google Reader over Google alert, by just having an RSS feed for the website that will provide information on that topic .

Thing # 11

For this post I looked at different sites and tools for RSS feeds, to add to my Google reader. I found easy ways to find posts and also discovered new fun feeds that I wasn't looking to find. I also found unusual feeds, such as a feed for magic and one for boardgames.

The easiest way I found to add feeds onto my Google reader was to go one of my favorite websites and use the RSS feed icon to copy into my Google reader. I did discover a easy search tool for RSS feeds on Google Reader. I found that you can add "pre-packaged bundles" on one of 449 topics that interests you and then once you have that bundle you can unsubscribe to individual feeds if there are a few from the bundle that you do not want. You can also share a bundle with a friend. I added an education and a fitness feed bundle.

I found both Topic.net and Technorati sites to be to confusing to use. I was not sure what was suppose to be about feeds and what was just information on the site.

Thing # 10

Learning about RSS feeds was really interesting. I started with http://www.bloglines.com/ but I had trouble with the site and could not add feeds. So I switched to http://www.google.com/reader/%20 and had no problems and found that it was really easy to add sites. I think there are pros and cons to using an RSS Reader. I like how new information for my chosen websites is all in one place, it is easier to go to one website, especially when there is so much information on the web. On the contrary, for sites such as cnn.com or foxnews.com, there is so much new information that it is an overwhelming amount to have listed on the RSS Reader.

I think the RSS Reader is a feature that is best used to keep track of sites that are interesting, but do not have constant new information. A site that if you went to daily you might go and find nothing new, but the next day might have several new articles. As for the news sites, if you were just interested in looking for articles on a particular topic, then having an RSS feed for that site would be helpful because you could just scroll through and look for information on that topic. However, if on the news site you are interested in looking through all of the articles, there are so many to go through on the RSS Reader, when you could just go to their site where all of the stories are laid out in an easy to follow format.

This could be used in my personal life to keep track of all of the sites I enjoy that I do not go to all of the time, to keep from missing great new things. For the classroom I think this could be a great tool because a teacher could help students to collect websites that were appropriate for them to read, and they could log on to which ever RSS Reader site they use and read through information that is appropriate for them. This can also be used in schools for teachers to keep track of blogs that students have set-up, to see when they post new items.

Thing # 9

I created my first sign,the heart mosaic, on http://www.imagechef.com/. It was easy to do, I just had to choose the background and text color, font, and the text I wanted to use. It was fun to do, and I think it would have a use in classrooms for decorating for the holidays.

My second creation was done on http://www.fototrix.com/border/. The picture is of the first time my niece met my cat. It was simple to do, I just had to go to the page, download a photo and choose a frame. I can see a lot of use for this in my personal life, so many fun ways to decorate your pictures and it is so easy to share them once you are finished.

Of the two sites the first one was my favorite. It was easy to use, and there are so many different options of things that you can choose from. I also found the site as a whole more user friendly.

Thing # 8

http://bighugelabs.com/mosaic.php

Above are the three things that I created for thing # 8. I found it very easy to use the above website, and it was also easy to upload the pictures onto my Blog, once I figured out how to do it.

While creating my 3 designs I thought about several different ways that this could be used in my personal life, to have fun ways to share pictures with friends and family. I think it is neat that you can order real puzzles from your design.

I think there are ways that this could be used in the classroom. One way is for decorating the classroom, a mosaic could be done of different pictures taken of the students, especially for a open house for the parents to come in and see what the children have been doing in class. This also could be tool that the students can use to be creative and have fun with pictures that they have taken.

I am okay with having some photos online, but I prefer not to for most pictures.

Thing # 7

Using Flickr was fun! It was very easy to upload and share photos. I have not used a photo hosting site in the past. My pictures are of my cat Tippy.

I will use Flickr again to post pictures to share with family and friends. I like how different members of the group can add pictures to the pool, this would be a great way for friends to share pictures with each other, instead of each person having to share photos individually.

I have some mixed feelings of having my pictures available for the public to view, but overall I do not mind.

I think Flickr could be a great tool in the classroom, students could take pictures of projects and other classroom activities to share with friends, family and other classrooms. Children can share what they have learned and learn from other students as well. I think anything that is ineractive for children is great.

Tippy

Tippy
Originally uploaded by angelaoconnor

My cat Tippy

My cat Tippy
Originally uploaded by angelaoconnor

My cat Tippy

My cat Tippy
Originally uploaded by angelaoconnor

Thing # 6

In reviewing the Web 2.0 winners I found a site for cooking. This website has a lot of recipes, and many other great features. What I like most about this site is that it makes trying new recipes so easy. The website has a section where you can enter in what you have in your pantry and it will tell you what you can make with those ingredients. Also when ingreditents are listed on a recipe it will tell you if an item is on sale at the grocery store. In addition you can add in food allergies or dietary restrictions and it will provide recipes according to your individual needs. Recipes are organized into several helpful categories including, type of food, main ingredient, and time to prepare. This website will even make your grocery list for you of the items you checked that you need for each recipe, divided into store categories. This tool could be used at a school if it were in a class that was teaching about cooking and how to find, shop for, and make reciepes.

http://www.recipekey.com/

Thing # 5

Web 2.0 is new and exciting and many of us never could have imagined it would someday exist. It provides many exciting ways for teachers to teach students.

School 2.0 includes new interactive web tools that are being used to transform the classroom. School 2.0 allows the classroom to be a venue where students can participate in educational networking and benefit from collaboration with students around the world. By collaborating with students from other cultures they learn first hand what in the past they would have just read in a text book. To me this means that there are no limitations to what a student can learn.

School 2.0 will have an extensive effect on schools of the future. Educators will have to learn and understand all of the new options with web 2.0. They will also have to explain the benefits and responsibility of these new web tools. Teachers will constantly need to adapt their teaching styles to keep up with the new tools that are regularly being created. It will be vital to prepare students for tomorrow’s workforce that is in an ever constant world of change.

Thing # 4

Bloging is a new to me. I have never had a blog before, and had only read a couple of blogs of friends and family. Of the blogs I have followed I have never commented on them, so pretty much everything about bloging is a new expereince for me.

Commenting on interesting blogs and not just reading them creates an opportunity for communication between the reader and the bloger. It allows the person who has the blog to know that people are out there reading it and our interested in the bloger continuing. It also helps to shape the content of the blog to what is interesting to the flowers of the blog. Two points that I found important about bloging are to not be afraid to comment, and if you have a critique to do so as nicely as possible.

For the assignment I chose five of my classmates Blogs to look at and comment on. I choose the following five to comment on because after reading their blogs for different reasons, I had something that I wanted to share.

On Brokaw Spring 2010 Blog, I commented on her Blog, because I really like the video that she did for Thing # 21.

On Michelle Journey Through The Web Blog, I commented on her posting for Thing # 3 because I also want to teach Elementary School and found her idea of using the blog to communicate with parents a very easy, yet effective method of communication.

On The 23 Things Blog, I commented on her post for Thing # 7, of her pictures of snorkeling off the coast of Cozumel Mexico, I have also done this and really enjoyed it.

On haileyknowlton -5540 Blog, I commented that I too think a blog is a great tool for students to ask questions, especially for those students who do not feel comfortable asking their questions in class, a blog is safe place they can ask questions and get feedback.

For my fifth post to a classmate’s blog, I commented on McNealEDUC5540 Blog because I agree that I to feel I might "need an organizer for my organizer soon". In reference to Google Reader, once you add a bunch of sites, then you have a lot going on and a lot to read.

For the first blog I choose to comment on one that I have recently discovered. I commented on a fitness blog that has great information. I commented that I found the information useful. I made this comment because I would like to encourage this blog to continue.

http://blog.fitnesstown.ca/2009/03/23/mixing-beats-tune-your-body-through-music/comment-page-1/#comment-3139

I also commented on my sisters blog which is all about her daughter Camilla. Now that I know how easy it is to comment I think it will be fun to comment on all of the cute stories. My sister and I are very close and it is hard for me not to be able to see my niece very often, but this blog helps me and other family members who live in different places to be connected with what is going on in the first days and months of Camilla. For this site I commented that I really enjoy reading the blog and that it helps me feel that I am not missing as much. I made this comment because I want her to know that the blog is being read, and enjoyed.

Thing # 3

There are many different ways that a blog could be used as a tool by teachers with other teachers and with their students. A new teacher could start a blog to share problems and success stories with other new teachers. Or a teacher could post information they would like to share with all other teachers, such as a great new lesson plan that got all of their students involved. Using a blog in this way could really enhance the teaching and learning process for everyone because as soon as new ideas about what works in the classroom are discovered they can be shared with anyone who is interested. A blog could also be used by a teacher for their students to follow. A blog could have information for the students that has links that correspond with the lesson plan for that day. A blog can also be used to show students how to start a blog, and each week they could have an assignment of what to add to their blog and the teachers blog could have an example. There are many great ways to use a blog, and it is a tool that can enhance a child's learning experience in the classroom.

Thing # 2

For my posting and blog name I used my name because when I am finished with it I would like to be able to use it in the future when I am looking for a job. Creating the blog was easier than I thought, because I thought it would be difficult and confusing and it was not. I am always putting to much thought into things before I do them and almost always find out that things are much easier than I thought they were going to be.

Creating my avatar was fun but trying to get it posted was very frustrating. I did not read below the part that said to create the avatar and post it, because I thought it was another step after my avatar was posted. Without reading the instructions I did figure out how to get the gadget page, but then I did not know what to do from there. I was very relieved when I went back and read farther and saw the instructions. I created my Avatar to look like me but of course with a lot of limitations, I don't think it looks a lot like me, but I do think it fits my personality.

Thing # 1

In learning about the 7 1/2 Lifelong Learning Habits I feel that the the hardest of these for me is habit # 3, to view problems as challenges. It is much easier for me to see a problem as just that, a problem, something that is creating difficulty in my life. I like the idea of thinking of a problem as a challenge that you can learn from and I will attempt to view my next "problem" as a learning opportunity.

The easiest habit for me is habit # 6, the best way to learn something is to teach it. I have always found that if I understand something, or even just have a slight understanding about it, once I explain it to someone else it always becomes more clear. I am also more likely to remember something after explaining it. There are times when I am learning about something, especially if I am struggling with it, that I will stop and explain it to anyone who will listen.

In web 2.0 I would like to learn about all of the different tools that are available to help me as a student and as a teacher. I know I have a lot to learn! Setting up my blog was much easier than I thought. I am nervous about the other 22 steps, but I am excited about the knowledge I will have gained about web 2.o when I am finished.