Monday, April 25, 2011
One Last Thing!
This program was very helpful in making me learn what all goes on within technology and how it can be used within the clasroom as well as other useful things that I can use for myself. I will probably not continue blogging just because of my crazy schedule, but now I know how to blog in case I ever do decide to start another blog! This program is a very good, helpful, program that can teach us all something new about technology.
Thing #23
Previously in this class we went over creative commons and its uses, noting that it can be used to share things as well. But the overall point of creative commons is to give people credit for their own work, which is something that is very important in the school setting. The application of creative commons in the classroom is bountiful. Students could use it to denote their own work and learn what each copyright meant and how to use each. The creative commons resource is a very good one and one that could be useful to everyone!
Thing #22...almost done!
LiveBinders seems to be a great way to get organized! Though I did not spend a whole lot of time on there I could see how this cite would be a good tool for teachers because it helps them keep good resources in one place for future reference.
helpful resources for educators
This Livebinder that I created is full of helpful resources for educators, obviously. I created two others, one called "Education Topics" and "Making Literature Fun". I could see lots of use for the educator but not much use within the classroom for the students.
This Livebinder that I created is full of helpful resources for educators, obviously. I created two others, one called "Education Topics" and "Making Literature Fun". I could see lots of use for the educator but not much use within the classroom for the students.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
I made this video on animmoto but I do not think that this would be particularly very useful in the classroom unless you paid for the full length videos, 30 seconds really is not enough to do anything productive with a video. The concept itself is a good one and this site makes the video really easy to make, especially if you connect with facebook or your flickr account.
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
Thing #20
I LOVE youtube! If not just for those bursts of boredom I have, but because I can look for pretty much anything that I need on this site.
I uploaded this funny video of the muppets interview of "William Shakespeare" because it would be an intertesting way to introduce the topic in the classroom, especially for young children or even teens. Students always get excited when presented the opportunity to watch videos in class and this one is a pretty humorous one, for me at least.
There is a caveat to using Youtube though. Students should not just have free reign to go to t his site and explore and the videos used from Youtube should definitely be screened before they are used in a classroom setting.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Thing #13
I created a Zoho account and found all these tools and it blew my mind! These tools are much more fun and innovative compared to regular old Microsoft Word. I definitely would rather use these than Microsoft. The part I like especially is that you can share the document and post to your blog instantly. It was lots of fun to use and I thought it was very helpful!
https://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=1Srm0LxO_JL42AAnplIQmRrj32mk49JFHDGmU3rpX1ps&w=960&h=720
I have posted the link to my drawing in google docs because I could not get the picture itself to upload to my blog. Google docs makes it possible for other students or teachers and students to work collaboratively and communicate by reviewing each other's work. This would be helpful in making drafts for a paper for instance.
Personally, I liked Zoho a lot better just because there were many other cool options on there in comparison to google docs and much more productivity applications on Zoho, which everyone seems to need.
https://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=1Srm0LxO_JL42AAnplIQmRrj32mk49JFHDGmU3rpX1ps&w=960&h=720
I have posted the link to my drawing in google docs because I could not get the picture itself to upload to my blog. Google docs makes it possible for other students or teachers and students to work collaboratively and communicate by reviewing each other's work. This would be helpful in making drafts for a paper for instance.
Personally, I liked Zoho a lot better just because there were many other cool options on there in comparison to google docs and much more productivity applications on Zoho, which everyone seems to need.
Thing #14
For this exercise, I used Bubbl.us for the mind map and found that these would be great for personal use when writing a paper or just brainstorming about things in your daily life. The mind map I did was fairly simple and I applied to a paper that I had just written on a novel by Charles Dickens called Hard Times.
For the flow charts, I used Gliffy and found that it was fairly simple to use, though I like the concept of mind maps better for myself. I chose these two because they were free and did not require an invitation.
My experience with both of these tools was simple and very useful!
For the flow charts, I used Gliffy and found that it was fairly simple to use, though I like the concept of mind maps better for myself. I chose these two because they were free and did not require an invitation.
My experience with both of these tools was simple and very useful!
Thing #15
Yes, I have heard of Wiki's and I will admit it was only because of Wikipedia. I had no idea there were so many ways to use wiki's!
The Apsu sandbox wiki would not let me log in to post for some reason? I had every purpose to upload my mashup from thing #9 to show how easy and fun it is to share photos online and how much fun I had with that part of the 23 things but there was no success for me. :( I used the Wiki, but I still wouldn't trust all the information on Wikis just because anyone and everyone can change and add information to these.
All in all, a pretty good experience with Wiki's and very easy except for the no logging in part.
The Apsu sandbox wiki would not let me log in to post for some reason? I had every purpose to upload my mashup from thing #9 to show how easy and fun it is to share photos online and how much fun I had with that part of the 23 things but there was no success for me. :( I used the Wiki, but I still wouldn't trust all the information on Wikis just because anyone and everyone can change and add information to these.
All in all, a pretty good experience with Wiki's and very easy except for the no logging in part.
Thing #16
For this exercise, I used iGoogle to change my homepage and it was awesome! I love that it customizes it just for me! Since I am not doing this exercise on my own personal computer though, I will have to go back on my computer and change my homepage to this permanently. Yep, I like it that much.
For me, the online calendar was useful but I probably won't use it that much just because I am already set in my ways and usually use my phone reminders to notify me of anything big coming up in the next week or month. I don't think I would really take the time to get online and load everything into an online calendar because I probably would have written it down previously anyway.
For the to-do list part, I used Rememberthemilk. I thought it was a great idea but once again, I probably would not take the time to do this as I do not have a Iphone or Smartphone for that matter and would not really be able to access it unless I had my computer around me at the time. I would not use it but its a great idea for Iphones!
I also took a look at Zamzar and oh my goodness it was super helpful! The only thing I've found that helps me to change over different types of files. love it!
For me, the online calendar was useful but I probably won't use it that much just because I am already set in my ways and usually use my phone reminders to notify me of anything big coming up in the next week or month. I don't think I would really take the time to get online and load everything into an online calendar because I probably would have written it down previously anyway.
For the to-do list part, I used Rememberthemilk. I thought it was a great idea but once again, I probably would not take the time to do this as I do not have a Iphone or Smartphone for that matter and would not really be able to access it unless I had my computer around me at the time. I would not use it but its a great idea for Iphones!
I also took a look at Zamzar and oh my goodness it was super helpful! The only thing I've found that helps me to change over different types of files. love it!
Thing #17
For this exercise, I did not spend too much time on delicious.com but I did play around with it and look through the apsu23things account. I found this to be very helpful and the bookmarks that are tagged are very helpful for students like me because people that know alot about this stuff have added very important and very very helpful things to this page. This site is great collaboration also. I feel that this site is a great way for teachers to communicate and I do feel this could have applicable use in the classroom for teachers that use educational websites as an enhancement to their curriculum. Overall, the experience was a good one though I probably would not use it that much really.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Thing #18
I have a Facebook account already that I use regularly so I went ahead and set up a Twitter and had so much fun with it! I even got distracted from my work that I should be doing, but I guess that's not really that hard to do. I set up my Twitter account and found some friends on there as well as some celebrities and education related accounts to follow. I found that using Twitter was very easy but pretty different from Facebook. I still do not really understand some of the posts that go back and forth on tweets but I will get there eventually. When I first got a Facebook account I was pretty lost with it as well.
As a future teacher I believe it is a good thing to know how social networking sites work but also to know to be careful with them. Most young teenagers have Facebooks now and there is a line educators should draw in having a Facebook and adding students and talking to them and such. But on the flip side, this could be a way of communication between the teacher and students instead of just giving them office hours if they need help. There is always a way to message your teacher. I do not think that Facebook is appropriate for classroom use because of what it is, social. Students should have their social lives outside of the classroom, not while you are trying to teach them. Tweeting can be a good way to follow other educators for yourself, but I do not think this site would be useful for educating students really. Both of these sites come in handy for staying in the loop but I really can't see any useful applications in the classroom with these sites.
As a future teacher I believe it is a good thing to know how social networking sites work but also to know to be careful with them. Most young teenagers have Facebooks now and there is a line educators should draw in having a Facebook and adding students and talking to them and such. But on the flip side, this could be a way of communication between the teacher and students instead of just giving them office hours if they need help. There is always a way to message your teacher. I do not think that Facebook is appropriate for classroom use because of what it is, social. Students should have their social lives outside of the classroom, not while you are trying to teach them. Tweeting can be a good way to follow other educators for yourself, but I do not think this site would be useful for educating students really. Both of these sites come in handy for staying in the loop but I really can't see any useful applications in the classroom with these sites.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Thng #12
I knew about these tools, but had never used them. They are very useful! The translator seems pretty accurate and would be a very good tool for researching topics for a foreign language class. The calendar is awesome. I can never keep up with what my homework is or where I am supposed to be at what time and this really helps! I wish I could say that I would use it all of the time but I probably wouldn't just because I'm absent minded. (not to say that it's not very very useful). I didn't do much with the picasa because I have wayy too many pictures to choose just a few to go on there and if I started going through all of them it would take ten years to finish them all. I could see getting addicted to Picasa highly likely for me. :)
Google calendar could be useful in the classroom obviously for scheduling tests and such with students and teachers could also use it as well. :)
Google calendar could be useful in the classroom obviously for scheduling tests and such with students and teachers could also use it as well. :)
Thing #11
When trying out all of these feed finding things, I found that google blog search was the easiest to use. Just by clicking on a subject on the left hand column, it takes you to a million blogs from which you can choose from. The other sites like topix.net were a little bit more difficult to navigate through. I personally would not take the time to navigate through these if I could easily go through google blog search. There were many unusual feeds on there but there were a few useful ones such as the ones about current events or home and garden tips and things.
When I first began my search for RSS feeds, I just went around to some of my favorite websites to see if they had the little orange symbol, most did not so thing was very helpful in giving me tools to find what I was looking for in a more precise way. I did not have very much luck finding other feeds in different ways just because I didn't really know what I was doing. But not anymore, Thanks Thing #11!
When I first began my search for RSS feeds, I just went around to some of my favorite websites to see if they had the little orange symbol, most did not so thing was very helpful in giving me tools to find what I was looking for in a more precise way. I did not have very much luck finding other feeds in different ways just because I didn't really know what I was doing. But not anymore, Thanks Thing #11!
Thing #10
RSS readers were something that I had never heard of until I had to do this blog. I find them to be very handy for people that like to keep up with news or anything of that sort. I found some very interesting blogs to follow, most of them being from the New York Times website. I think that these could be put to good use in order to help students look for current events articles and maybe make a sort of portfolio for them to keep up with what they find. In my personal life, RSS feeds would obviously be very useful in that they would help me keep all of my news feeds in one place.
Teachers could use RSS feeds to help keep track of certain blogs that they would like to show their class by keeping it in one place, making it easier to access quickly. The advantages from RSS feeds I think are more on the personal side of using them rather than using them in the classroom.
Teachers could use RSS feeds to help keep track of certain blogs that they would like to show their class by keeping it in one place, making it easier to access quickly. The advantages from RSS feeds I think are more on the personal side of using them rather than using them in the classroom.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
These sign generators could be helpful for creating personalized name tags to put on each students cubby or to make signs out of in order to decorate bulletin boards in the classroom. Some of the signs on this site were very funny, yet not useful, while some of them could be used very creatively and in multiple ways, such as the hollywood star of fame, pictured above.
For this hand one, I thought of using it as a sign for a bulletin board, posting reminders for each and every student in the class.
This one was really just for fun because I love Elvis and would love to visit Las Vegas! But it could be used as a welcome sign into the classroom.
http://www.signgenerator.org/
Thing #8
Sharing photos online is very helpful in that you can find basically anything you are looking for, for personal use, as long as you give the photographer credit. As many times as I have looked for pretty photos or anything to use, I have never been able to find as much as I found on Flickr. There are many users of Flickr whose galleries are very good and this could also be used as a way to put your name and creative photography out there for the world to see. Photo sharing is beneficial for everyone : )
In dealing with Flickr, I had lots and lots of trouble. I am not sure if it is because I have a PC or not, but everything I tried to do through this website seemed to mess up on my personal computer. I like the Flickr website itself and like to save my pictures but posting my pictures in my blog was very difficult when I tried to do it the way that it was asking me to do it. Finding pictures on Flickr was not the problem at all, that was very easy. I would like to talk about how easy and fun this activity was, but I can't do that. The only way I would try this again would be to use a Mac, maybe it would be easier that way. I figured out how to save the image to my computer and put it in my blog but fighting with my computer to grab the link was getting exhausting. This would not be something I would try to do again. :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/5415577354/#/photos/cubagallery/5415577354/lightbox/
"Clouds" CubaGallery. 4 Feb. 2011. 1 March 2011.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/5415577354/>
Monday, February 7, 2011
Thing #4
- Commenting on others' blogs can be impportant for validating what we are doing as students. We are trying to learn about technology and come up with ways to make it fit and make it useful in the classroom. Interaction is key in the classroom and if we can find ways to keep students engaged with eachother outside of class, that's even better.
- I found the article "How to comment like a king! (or queen) to be very helpful and detailed. I like the idea of joining a site like co comment to follow all of the comments that you get as well as the ones that others post on your blog. The article about blogging etiquette was interesting to read and made me aware of certain things I could do to provoke more attention to my blog and how to respond to others' comments tactfully and punctually.
- I am currently following Equinelvr (Lbarth), Jessica Daigle, Jodi Trog, Han Solo and CdeBaca, JPertl, and Raquel Watters. I chose these because their posts were interesting to me and some of them I know personally from previous classes. Other blogs that I am following include Blogger Buzz and Learning to Blog and Blogging to Learn. I chose to follow these in an effort to help me with my efforts in blogging.
- I mostly made comments on people's blogs that I related with. I enjoyed reading others' experiences about creating the blogs, they were funny and made me feel like I was not the only one that was over whelmed.
Thing #6
I chose to explore Last.fm. This site is so convenient! I love the way that you just type in your favorite artists and then it finds similar music. Signing up is free for this site and that makes it even simpler. I think I would use this site a lot personally, but maybe not too much in my classroom since I will be an English teacher. I believe this site would be good for music teachers to help their students explore different genres of music. This website has charts of music that you can explore including the top bands of today and the top songs of today. This site would be great for listening to the radio but personalizing it (with less commercials!) When you click on a band's name it quickly comes up with a bigography of the band, pictures, videos and much more. This could be helpful if researching a band for music class. I did not have any complications with this website and find it very easy and fun to use!
LINK!
LINK!
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Thing # 5
Web 2.0 means that in today's world, I have a great amount of sources that I can use online and have at my fingertips at a moment's notice. This is something that teachers of the past did not have. This could make my job a lot easier and in many ways it is a blessing. There are many tools online that I can use such as blogs, online teaching sites, educational resources, and library websites with article databases. I have been using technology for a long time and the students that I will be teaching will very likely be so used to using technology that it could be of great benefit for them to exercise what they know about it. I see the Web 2.0 tools as things that can be used for me as an educator to further my knowledge and for students continued learning.
Schools of the future will probably be even more technology oriented and I believe with the rapid progress that technology makes everyday now, it will be even better for the schools in the future.
Schools of the future will probably be even more technology oriented and I believe with the rapid progress that technology makes everyday now, it will be even better for the schools in the future.
Thing # 3
My goal is to teach high school English and though before now I would have never used a blog in my class, I now think it could be a good idea for becoming a catalyst for good discussion. Many times, teenagers are afraid to speak up in the classroom, but by creating a blog and making it count as a small percentage of their grade, I could get the class to discuss literature in their blogs. This would make it fun and I could really get to see what each and every students' opinions were. Though I had some confusion setting up a blog, I could teach the students to create one and walk them through it in one day of class. I believe once they get started, it would be easy for them and could encourage pure and un-intimidated thought from my students.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Thing # 2
I finally figured out how to work this blogging thing after a little while of confusion.
To begin, I chose to display only my first name to the public and chose the name "School Blogs" for my title because..well..that's what they are. In the beginning processes of creating this blog, as I said, there was much confusion. Though I do have a bit of experience with computers, I do not usually do much on the internet except check email and get on D2L for my school work. This is my first experience using a blog and I have to say it is not so bad once I figured everything out. :)
I created my avatar to look a little bit like me, though my skin is not really that tan. I would like to get my tan back, but I live in Tennessee. I thought about adding a dog to sit next to my avatar because I love dogs, but the dog looked funny and awkward. I would like to think that my avatar looks relatively like me but others may disagree. I do have a different view of myself than others obviously. I created my avatar with a smile because I am a friendly person and I'm almost never so serious that I look like the serious face on doppelme.com. I wanted people to get a sense of how I really am without having to look at a real picture of me. Hopefully I have done a good job with this and my post finds everyone easily. :)
To begin, I chose to display only my first name to the public and chose the name "School Blogs" for my title because..well..that's what they are. In the beginning processes of creating this blog, as I said, there was much confusion. Though I do have a bit of experience with computers, I do not usually do much on the internet except check email and get on D2L for my school work. This is my first experience using a blog and I have to say it is not so bad once I figured everything out. :)
I created my avatar to look a little bit like me, though my skin is not really that tan. I would like to get my tan back, but I live in Tennessee. I thought about adding a dog to sit next to my avatar because I love dogs, but the dog looked funny and awkward. I would like to think that my avatar looks relatively like me but others may disagree. I do have a different view of myself than others obviously. I created my avatar with a smile because I am a friendly person and I'm almost never so serious that I look like the serious face on doppelme.com. I wanted people to get a sense of how I really am without having to look at a real picture of me. Hopefully I have done a good job with this and my post finds everyone easily. :)
Thoughts on Thing # 1
The lifelong habit that I believe I am most capable of is beginning with the end in mind. In my head, I am always thinking of how things are going to turn out in the end. I usually set goals for myself and work to achieve them to the best of my ability. The goal that I think would be the hardest for me is viewing problems as challenges instead of having a major melt down before I can figure out how to deal with the problem. I know that each problem or challenge will be a good learning experience for me, no matter how difficult it can get.
By using the tools in Web 2.0 I would like to gain a better understanding of working with technology and computers as well as discover new things I can do on a computer that I've never been able to do before. While I was setting up my blog, I had a bit of trouble and got a little confused, but that is not a suprise with my lack of computer skills. But, once I accepted the challenge and stuck with it, I finally figured everything out and now it's a breeze! This blog looks like it could be a lot of fun! I really enjoyed the template and design part, though I wish you could create your own background for your blog posting.
All in all, it was a somewhat confusing experience, but now it looks to be a good experience and a fun one too. :)
By using the tools in Web 2.0 I would like to gain a better understanding of working with technology and computers as well as discover new things I can do on a computer that I've never been able to do before. While I was setting up my blog, I had a bit of trouble and got a little confused, but that is not a suprise with my lack of computer skills. But, once I accepted the challenge and stuck with it, I finally figured everything out and now it's a breeze! This blog looks like it could be a lot of fun! I really enjoyed the template and design part, though I wish you could create your own background for your blog posting.
All in all, it was a somewhat confusing experience, but now it looks to be a good experience and a fun one too. :)
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