Is it the End Already?

I can't believe this semester is already over. I can truly say I enjoyed this semester and especially this class. I have always enjoyed technology and learning new ways to use it, so this class was a great learning experience for me. I have learned so many new resources that I look forward to using in my own classroom. Some of my favorites were Animoto, Delicious, and Gliffy. I think most of the resources we used I will use in my own class. I set up an email account just for all the websites we had to register for, but I think this will be an easy way to keep up with all the sites. I really enjoyed this blog as a whole. I don't think I would change anything about it. I look forward to being able to keep up with these websites and also Web 2.0 to see what new things come along.

Thing 23

http://plcmcl2-about.blogspot.com/

I found this website while searching 23 things in Google. I chose to use this website because it has many links to reliable websites that talk about Learning 2.0. I plan on using the creative commons tutorial that I have made along with my knowledge of creative commons to make sure that all the resources I use in my classroom are legal.

Thing 22

Math

Livebinders I created 3 Binders to help me organize some websites that I have found in the past. Creating these binders will help me to stay organized an be able to easily find the websites that I am looking for. I created a binder for education, math, and geometry. These binders will all be helpful as a math teacher to find resources to use in my class. I think Livebinders would be good for students when working on a big research project to organize their websites to be easily accessible later.

Thing 21

I am not going to lie, when I started seeing other classmates posting these videos on their blogs, I was a little worried about having to figure out how to make a video. Animoto made making a video of pictures so easy. I was amazed at how easy this was to use. I thought it would be hard to put my own pictures and music in the video but I was wrong. I think this website would be great for making videos for special occasions or even in a classroom. Being a math teacher it would be simple to make my own video of graphs or shapes to show the class so they would actually pay attention. Making a video would also be good to show progress on a project that the students may be working on. Animoto has many uses and I plan on trying out this website in my own classroom and sharing it with others.

Here is the video that I made.


Make a video of your own at Animoto.

Thing 20

                         


I love Youtube! I have been on Youtube for awhile already today, listening to music and watching some videos. Youtube is probably one of my favorite websites. I love Youtube because you can find a video for almost any subject. I chose to put this video in my blog because my unit that I have been working on all semester has been on polygons and this video goes along with it. Just like this video, I plan on using Youtube to find other videos that could be used in my classroom. Using videos would be a great review or learning tool for the students that are a more visual learner.

Thing 19

Visit TeacherPop

Teacher Pop was a really neat site for teachers. It is a great place for teachers to go to share lessons or just talk to other teachers. I really liked this site to be able to get new ideas from other teachers. 

Besides Teacher Pop, Facebook, and Twitter, I am also a member of Pintrest. I think that Pintrest is another great website for teachers. I have found many different ideas of crafts and activities that I would like to incorporate into my class one day.

Thing 18

Social Networking websites have gotten significantly more popular lately. I have been a member of both Facebook and Twitter for a long time. However, I am not a fan of twitter. I don't find any interest in keeping up with people on that level. I like Facebook though. I can keep up with friends that live in overseas without have to pay a costly phone call. Facebook and Twitter also has some advantages for teachers instead of just personal use. As a teacher Facebook is a good source to keep up with other teachers for insight when creating lessons. Also parents could be your friend to be able to contact you as a teacher for important information regarding the classroom or their child. Twitter is a good resource for teachers to collaborate with other teachers or teaching websites for ideas on lessons.

As much as I enjoy Facebook, I think it can be used for the wrong reasons. As a teacher, you have to be careful what you post on your Facebook when you have co-workers or student's parents as a friend. There is no need for a teacher, who is a role model, to post about their weekend outing or Friday night fun. Facebook and Twitter need to be used responsibly when you have many people that look up to you.

Thing 17

Delicious was a very neat website that can help you organize websites that you want to bookmark for later. I really enjoyed this website. It is very easy to use and to store websites that you want to save for later. I was actually thinking the other day that I needed to condense down my bookmarks menu on my computer. With delicious I can do that. I went though and quickly and easily moved all of my teaching websites that were saved on my bookmarks menu to delicious. I selected a few tags for the websites to make it easy to find them in the future. I think I will definitely use this website as a teacher. I plan on using this website more as I work on my degree and hopefully by the time I begin teaching I will have a lengthy list of websites to use for my classroom. I hope that as I use Delicious, more teachers will begin to use it and we can share our sites together.

Thing 16

I chose to look at iGoogle, 30 Boxes, Ta Da List, and Engrade.

I really enjoyed using iGoogle as my start screen for a little while. It was easy to see all of my apps on one screen. I could see my mailbox, calendar, quotes, the date and time, and even the weather on one screen. I thought it was very easy to use because you could add or delete apps as you wanted. Even school age kids would be able to navigate iGoogle and be able to customize the start screen for their needs.

Next I chose to try out 30 Boxes. I also thought this website was very easy to navigate. It was easy to add events to the calendar and you could even set up a to-do list on there if you needed to. I liked that you could share the calendar with people. I think this would be good to use in my classroom to share what we are going to be doing in class with the parents.

I was not a fan of Ta-Da Lists. The website was easy to use and easy to sign up for but it just seemed to simple. I don't think I will ever get on this website to make a to-do list when it does the same thing I can do with a pencil and paper and without the internet. It was not a bad site, I guess it just did not have anything different to offer for me.

The last site I explored was engrade. I chose this website because when I was in high school, the teachers started to use it right before I graduated so I wanted to see what it was all about. I really enjoyed the site actually. Teachers, students, and parents can all interact on this website. Engrade makes it easy for a students and parents to keep up with their grades and messages from the teachers. I think I will use this website in my own classroom to make things easier not only for me but also the students and parents.

Thing 15

I found the wiki to be pretty awesome actually. When I started this assignment I was skeptical about wikis but once I found out  how easily it was to edit, I was shocked. I really like the whole idea of the wiki. It would very useful in a classroom for assignments for the students, where the students can ask questions and help each other find answers. It could also be helpful for parents with questions or a get back to school list for the parents. I could see myself using a wiki in my classroom since it was so easy and user friendly.

Thing 14

I chose to explore Bubbl.us and Flowchart.com at first. I wasn't able to figure out Flowchart.com or at least I didn't see the significance in it, so I looked at Gliffy. I was more happy looking at this website. I enjoyed how many different things you could choose to make. There were so many different choices from Venn diagrams to even floor plans for a house. I definitely think I could see myself using this is my classroom. Making Venn diagrams are helpful in math so this would be a good alternative to just drawing one. This website would have been beneficial several weeks ago when I had to make a Venn diagram for a class.

I also made a flowchart on Bubbl.us. I just made something simple to see how it worked and I was kinda surprised how easy it was. All you had to do was hot command+enter to create a new line or tab to add another point to that line. You could also change the colors of the different points to prevent confusion.

I really enjoyed both of these sites. They were both easy to use and I think my students would be able to use these in my class. I look forward to using these again whether it be in college or my
own classroom.

Thing #13

I explored the Zoho writer and Google Docs. As I explored Zoho I found it very similar to Microsoft Word. I did not find it hard to use but I am use to using Word so I think I would use word instead of Zoho. However, I enjoyed using Google Docs. I made this picture above with the Google Docs drawing tool. I made this picture to go along with all the lessons I have written. I think that not only the drawing tool in Google Docs would be useful but the presentations and spreadsheets would also be useful. I think I  would use Google Docs in my own classroom. I think the students would enjoy using the drawing tools to create study guides for tests and I think I would use Google Docs to create documents and post them online so if a student is absent they can look online and find their homework.

Thing #4

Commenting on other people's blog is a great way to share you own thoughts on the subject the writer is talking about. I think that when you are able to comment you are able to express your own feelings, which I think is the best part of blogging. Commenting on other's blogs also lets the blogger know that they are writing about something that is important. It is important for people to get feedback in everything they do. As a future teacher and maybe coach, I think it is really important to get feedback with evaluations, parents, tests scores, or even with a game score. In this profession it is important to know and want to learn and grow to better yourself as a teacher. When somebody comments on my blog it helps to give me another prospective of things and not just my own. I have chosen several classmates blogs to follow. 

The first blog I decided to follow was Ashlee Boyd's blog. I was really interested in reading what she had to say and we had the same thoughts on several different points. http://ashleeboyd23things.blogspot.com. 

I also chose to follow Cherie Manske's blog. http://23thingsjanell.blogspot.com. I think she had very good insight on the Things we have done so far and I think her work will be useful to me in the future. 

Anita Taylor's blog was another blog I decided to follow and comment on. I think she very insightful and will make a great teacher so it will be beneficial for me to follow her blog. http://ataylor29.blogspot.com. 

I chose to follow Derek Carroll's blog as well. The easy thing to say is that he commented on my blog and that we have had a class together so I decided to do the same, but as I started to look at his blog I noticed that he had so many great ideas. He will make a great teacher. I look forward to seeing more of the ideas he has as this project goes on. http://jcapsu44.blogspot.com

Last but not least, I chose to follow Shelby Burkhart's blog. I had a class with Shelby and I realized how enthusiastic about teaching she was. She has many great ideas and I look forward to seeing more ideas as she blogs more. http://burkharts23awesomethings.blogspot.com

I chose two blogs to follow that we outside of our class project that I think will benefit me as a future math teacher. I commented on these blogs because they both had so many great ideas for teaching math lessons and I wanted them to know that people appreciate them posting it. the two blogs I followed were "Math Teacher life" (http://www.educatorlife.com/mathteacherlife/) and "Love2learn2day"(http://love2learn2day.blogspot.com). Both of these sites will help me as a teacher and I look forward to getting to use some of their ideas in my classroom one day. 

Thing #12

Google is probably one of my most used sites. I use google to search for things all the time. However, I did not realize how many other things Google has to offer. I explored almost all the extra things that Google did and I was amazed. I think that Google had designed all of these tools perfectly. Although I liked all of these tools and think they will all be useful, my favorite two tools were the Google Calendar and Google Translate. I think both of these website will be the most useful in my classroom. With Google Calendar, I want to make a calendar online with the classwork and homework we did that day so students and parents can look at the calendar instead of emailing me. It will more convenient for everyone. With the translator I think it would be useful to talk to parents. Depending on where I teach, I could possibly have parents of students that only speak another language, this is where the translator would be useful. I think that it is very easy to use and would be a great way for me to communicate. I think it is important to make sure that a language barrier is not a problem no matter where or who you teach. Education is important for everyone and its important to give all students the same education.

Thing #11

I thought the easiest website to find new RSS feeds was the Edublogs' award winners. I really liked this site because it was organized and easy to use. They had different categories for the blogs so you could just search through the subjects that interested you. Also with this site, I liked how it had a top three blogs for that topic. When I first looked at it, I knew that those three blogs would be a good resource so I clicked them first. Overall, this site just had it all together. They knew what they needed to have a good site. I also like the Google Blog Search. This site was also just very easy to use. It was easy to search for a particular subject blog being that I use Google all the time. I didn't really care for Topix.net or Technorati. It just seemed too confusing. I looked at it and couldn't easily figure it out so I gave up. I am going to go back and try to figure it out. Hopefully with a little time, I will be able to figure it out. by using these sites, I found a lot of good teaching blogs that would be useful to follow for future reference.

Thing #10

Using an RSS for this Thing has shown me a new way to keep up with all the blogs that I am already following on Blogger, with just one click. Using the RSS to help keep up with the blogs that I want to follow is very useful and it will be useful when I am planning for a class. I added several math teachers blogs to my Google Reader so I could get different ideas on ways to teach a lesson.

As a student and future teacher, I could see this technology to be very helpful. I think as a teacher I could use this to have the students keep up with their morning work. It would be easy to keep up with all of my students using RSS. Also it would be very useful in planning. I think it is important to share ideas with other teachers so this would be useful to keep up with different teacher's blogs.

Thing #9

I chose to explore Image Chef for this Thing. I really enjoyed this website. I think that this would be a website that I could use in my classroom to post due dates or rules. Both of the pictures I made I could use in my classroom. I made these pictures in particular so that I would have something to follow as an example for the future.

I also chose to explore Smiley Generator. I think this would be a great site to put inspirational quotes up around my classroom. I really enjoyed this site. There were many ways of customizing your own smiley. I could see myself using this a lot.

Thing #8

I really enjoyed using these websites. I looked at all of them and liked some more than the other but overall they were all really neat. I could see myself using some of these mashups in my classroom. The two sites I enjoyed the most was Spell with Flickr and the Jigsaw Creator. I made a lot of different pictures on these two sites. I could not figure out how to upload the picture from Spell with Flicker so I just chose to put one of my Jigsaw puzzles on my blog instead. I would love to figure out a way to use this in my classroom, but for now I will continue to use it for my personal life. As far as sharing pictures, I think it is just important to be cautious when posting pictures and don't post anything that you wouldn't want others to see. 

Thing #7

I had a hard time choosing just on picture to put on my blog. I have never used Flickr before so I got a little caught up looking at the pictures. I probably sent way too much time on this website tonight. I had so much fun using Flickr. I was a little confused at first, but I just started clicking stuff and easily figured it out. I made an account at first then I started exploring. I went to the Last 7 days Interesting page to search for a picture, which was a mistake because I had a hard time choosing but oh well. 

As soon as I saw this picture I knew it was the one I had to use. This picture reflects my life a lot lately. The picture is call "A Time to Reflect" taken by Doug Wallick. My favorite place to go when I have a lot on my mind is to the lake just to sit and think about life so this picture hits home. ]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwallick/6390235775/in/photostream/

"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."

-Chinese Proverb

Thing #6

For this "Thing" I choose to use YouTube. I saw YouTube on the list and decided to use it mainly because I have been listening to and watching videos on this website while I was blogging. I use YouTube at least every other day. It is a great sharing site.YouTube has millions of videos that you can watch to learn just about anything.

As I explored I found a few different videos that were pretty neat. I found one school's YouTube channel where they post math videos that they make in their math class. This is the link to their channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/WSHSmath. Okay maybe I am a nerd but I thought this was pretty neat. They take newer songs that the kids can relate to and make a math song out of it. I found several other videos where other schools have done the same thing. I think this is a great example of ways that teachers can let their students get involved in teaching. The students in the videos all looked they were having so much fun. Learning should be fun so that was very cool. Also I found that on YouTube you can create an account for your school that lets you search through YouTube for education videos but it is more filtered so you don't get videos that are not there for education purposes. Here is the link to where you can go to create an account for your school or class, http://www.youtube.com/schools.

I think i could show some of these videos in my classroom as the beginning to a unit or something. I think it would get the students interested in the lesson and may even spark some creativity.

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
-William Butler Yeats

Thing #5

The first website I looked at was What is Web 2.0? When I first got on this website I watched the short video that they have on the page. I enjoyed this video because they talked about how much the Internet has changed in the last 10 years. The video shows how the Web looked 10 years ago and what you could do with "Web 1.0" and then they showed how much the Web has changed with "Web 2.0" now. With the addition of the writing aspect on the Internet, it has opened a whole new range of things that we can do. Without this new "update" on the Internet I wouldn't be able to be blogging right now. We also wouldn't have Facebook, Twitter, or any of those other websites that many of us can't go a day without.

I also looked at Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education. I thought this website was good because it had all kinds of links to other sites that could be beneficial for teachers. I looked at a few of the links and the one that stuck out to me the most was call "Formative assessments delivered on Apple and Android tablet, mobile devices". First of all the title of the article stuck out to me, but the rest of the article was shocking to me. The article talked about how a company had released a program that allowed students to be able to take assessments on an iPad, iPhone, or other type of electronic device. I know that technology is changing and is being used in the classroom but I didn't think that it would be necessary to have students do tests on the devices.

Both of these websites have just proved that technology is becoming more apparent everywhere. Technology is a great learning tool for students. Technology is no longer the future, it is the present., no matter what age now, want to use technology in everything they do so why not include it in the classroom as a learning tool so the students can have fun while they learn. I think it is important for students to look forward to coming to school. If they don't enjoy learning why would they try? I think that is what School 2.0 is about. Its finding ways to make school better and going for it. As the years go on we will see more and more change in the schools but like the Internet, it can only get better. I look forward to seeing where technology takes us in the future.

"There can be infinite uses of the computer and of new age technology, but if the teachers themselves are not able to bring it into the classroom and make it work, then it fails." – Nancy Kasselbaum, U.S. Senator

Thing 3

Blogs can be very useful in a classroom. I think I would use a blog in my classroom for two different reasons. I would create a blog that all of my parents or even students could follow that i would post what we did in class that day on. I think this would be useful because parents like to see what is going on in their students classrooms. I think this would create less confusion then getting emails and phone calls all the time. Also this would be helpful to my students if they are absent they can check the blog and see what homework they need to get done so they do not get behind in class. I think I would also create a separate blog to post ideas for lessons. this would benefit me and other teachers to get ideas for those hard to teach lessons. I think that these blogs would be very beneficial to my classroom and I look forward to getting to create a blog (or two) for my own classroom.

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." 
-- Henry Brooks Adams

Thing Two

For my blog I decided to use my name as my posting name. I decided to use my real name to keep it simple. Also I think that using your real name for this blog lets the whole class who you are. It will help to familiarize us with each other in the class. I also just chose to keep the title of my blog simple. I chose to just use the title of the assignment as my blog title. When I was setting up my blog I wasn't trying to be to creative because I just wanted to get it set up. I didnt think setting up the blog was to hard, considering this was the first time I have ever made a blog. I thought it would be hard but I thought the whole process was easy. The hardest part of setting up my blog was getting the avatar on my blog. I had some trouble at first with it but once I got home and tried on my computer, I got it fairly quickly. I choose to make my avatar simple. I am a very simple person and I don't need much to make me happy. I think my avatar reflects this because I just have a simple outfit and my hair up.

"Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it."

Marian Wright Edelman 

Thing #1

As I went through the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learning, I thought that I could relate to all of these habits in some way. Whether it was that I do these habits in my life or that I should work to use them in my life. All 7 1/2 are great examples for me to live by as I strive to be a better person and work towards being a teacher. I find myself taking life to serious sometimes, so number 1/2 is a great reminder to slow down in life and enjoy each day. Being a teacher, especially a middle school teacher, I am looking forward to finding new activities to use in my classroom that can also allow my student to be able to play while we learn. 

I think that the hardest habit out of the 7 1/2 habits for me is to begin with the end in mind. I like to take the race one step at a time and finish the race when I get there. For me it's hard to look for the end when I am nowhere close to the finish line. I do this with everything. Books I read one chapter at a time, life I take one day at a time, and homework one problem at a time. This habit will be hard for me to break but if I can break it then it will help me with planning lessons and working with other teachers.

I think the easiest habits for me are to treat each problem like a challenge and also using technology to my advantage. Both of these habits come natural to me. I have a very competitive attitude towards everything I do, so I like to challenge myself with problems. I think that is why I enjoy math so much. I like to try to push myself to try things that I think I cannot do, just to prove I can. Also I think that I definitely use technology to my advantage. I have always enjoyed using computers. Again I think it's like a challenge that I want to figure out. I use my computer for everything. I know this is bad but I can't imagine not having a computer or the Internet. I don't only like using computers though, any kind of technology is like a new puzzle for me to figure out and I don't like to stop until I figure it out.

In this class, I hope to use Web 2.0 to figure out new ways to use technology to make learning fun in my classroom. I want to be able to use new technology in my classroom to keep my students engaged in learning. With the help from Wed 2.0 I can find new ideas and implement them in my classroom.

For me setting up the blog was fairly easy, considering I have never done it before. As I said I love playing with technology and being able to figure out how to do things I've never done before. The hardest thing about setting up my blog was creating the avatar. Once I got home and used my own computer I was able to play with the program more and easily figured it out. I loved being able to customize my blog. I was unsure how much I would enjoy blogging because I hate writing but so far I really enjoy it. I look forward to the rest of this class and learning new things.

"Don't limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, you can achieve." -- Mary Kay Ash