final thoughts

The thing that I really enjoyed the most was thing 22. It was the thing that taught you how to make a video. I made one and I loved it, I can't stop watching it! This program has helped me realize that my goals need to be set a little higher. I never knew there was this much stuff out there at my disposal. Now the pressure is on for me to take some of these things and apply them in my classroom. There weren't any unexpected outcomes, I knew it would be challenging. I don't think this program needs any improvement it is pretty self explanatory. I could keep up with new developments by using the rss feeds to keep me updated.

thing 23

At the bottom of the web page for the 23 things it says that the 23 things was borrowed from a creative commons. Creative commons can be used in the classroom setting to help teachers teach certain subjects. Maybe the teacher can find a good website to incorporate into his/her classroom and she would have to give credit where it is due. She could also have the students pick things from the web to share with the class and tell the class where they came from.

thing 22

I choose to visit podcastalley. I went looking for good music podcast because I love music. I listened to a podcast that had music from up and coming artist in Chicago. They let you hear one song per episode. The song wasn't that great to me. The easiest directory that I found was podcastalley I am inspired to create a podcast of my own and I will be doing so very soon in my education 3040 class this semester. I didn't find a podcast that I would like to subscribe to regularly,but I will keep looking!

thing 21

http://animoto.com/play/NiOhC06bwM1X5NYXRpjdNw I subscribed to the animoto website. I love this website. I created a video of me and my family at the zoo. My daughter Jordan turned 9 on Easter and we went to the zoo. I thought it would be cool to make a video of our trip. As soon as I finished the video I called my mom and told her to watch it. This tool could be used in the classroom setting so that students could make videos teaching the class about a particular subject or person.

thing 20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o The video that I watched on YouTube was about students and the way that we teach them. The video discussed other ways to engage students in the classroom besides using the old teaching methods, which consist of a teacher standing in front of the class talking for an hour. This video was all about technology and how we can get our students interested in class again.

thing 19

I am not a member of an online community but I did sign up for the ning network and my membership is pending. I thought ning was cool I saw some students from school who have joined and I saw Dr. Walls post's I tried to comment on them but I can't since my membership is pending. I would definitely consider using ning in the future it seems like a easy and effective way for educators to communicate with each other.

thing 18

http://home.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=homeSocial networking is an exciting way to communicate with people all over the world. Teachers can use this tool to contact other teachings professionals and get new teaching ideas. Almost everyone old enough to use a computer has a myspace account. I never had one until now, I will not use it anymore because it's just not something that I am interested in especially when it comes to my personal life. However, I would consider using it for educational purposes only. Some of the things I don't like about this tool is that some people use it for the wrong reasons. I saw a lot of bad photos on people's myspace pages including people holding wads of money in their hands and smoking different kinds of cigarettes with the smoke clouding up the picture, that is not cool to me. I realized that myspace is helpful in getting in contact with old friends, I even looked up some of my friends that I went to school with and with the click of a button I found their profile page.

thing 17

I think social bookmarking is a really cool idea. I like the fact that you can see how other people have tagged their links and use that information to create your own ideas. I visited the apsu23things account and I clicked on the art tag and saw all of the bookmarks that people created for the art tag. I visited one of the tags which was a website that had art activities and art games. My daughter loves art so maybe I will let herplay around on that site! This can be used in the classroom by making the students add their own bookmarks and tags and they could explain to the class why they choose the ones they did.

thing 16

For my start page I choose Google because I am very familiar with Google. I choose to put news, music, entertainment, and cooking on my start page because these are the things that interest me. I think I will make it my permanent home page. I clicked a few buttons and choose a background and instantly created my own start page.

The online calendars can be useful because no matter where you are more than likely their will be access to a computer, so you can check your online calendar for events or dates you might forget. You could create an online calendar for your classroom that displays the assignments for the week or the month so students can work ahead and they could have access to this information outside of the school environment.

The to-do list is very helpful. I am a college student and a mother so I always make a to-do list, it's the only way I can keep up with my life. Doing it on the web just makes it more fun.

thing 15

I think wikis are cool, a wiki reminds me of a discussion board. I could use this tool in the classroom by starting a science experiment in the classroom and giving each kid a certain day to comment on the project and state their observations and make the other kids log on to the wiki and state weather they agree with the student's observations or not. Teachers could use this tool to keep their students interacting with each other outside of the classroom. I thought it was very interesting that anyone can change things and add new content to the wiki.

thing 14

I choose Gliffy and Bubbl to explore flowcharts and mind maps. Some of the key differences that I noticed between mind maps and flowcharts is that a flowchart explains the process of something, uses short descriptions and usually has symbols that are linked together to show the steps and order of some process. Mind maps usually have words and ideas in bubbles of some sort that are surrounding a main idea or topic. Mind maps can be used for writing research papers and getting your ideas together. Flow charts can be used for telling someone the process for changing the oil in their car. These tools can be used in the classroom to show students how to gather information for projects using the appropriate chart.These tools were very helpful and I look forward to using them in the future.

thing 13

I played around with Zoho and discovered that I had been missing out on this amazing tool. It's way easier to use zoho than to worry about leaving your thumb drive at home and not being able to turn in an essay paper that you were up all night writing. I made a little word document in zoho just to play around with it. I realized how much it resembles word and other document tools, but its a lot more convenient! This can be very beneficial to teachers because you can create your lesson plans in Zoho and have access to them no matter where you go. It's a joy in knowing that when your running late in the morning and you accidentally forget your thumb drive you can go to zoho and have everything that you need to get you through the day!

thing 12

I created a google calendar. This could be useful in the classroom setting because teachers can make class calendars listing assignments and their due dates and make them public so students and parents can access them from home. The google calendar is very useful because being a mother and a college student it is very easy to forget things. I also created a Picasa web album. I actually had to do a web album last semester I just took a screen shot of my web album because I didn't want to put pics of my whole family on the internet. I grabed a few pics of me and my friends getting ready for our friends wedding. Some of the pics are from the friends bridal shower and bachelorette party as well.

thing 11

To find more feeds I went to the Google blog search option. This site was very easy to use. One of the stories that I was interested in talked about Micheal Jackson, i'm a huge fan. I also went to Topix.net. I really liked this site as well. Some of the stories had to do with Haiti, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This is a really good site if you like to keep track of whats going on in other countries. Although both of these tools were easy to use I like the Google blog search tool better. Neither of the two were confusing, it's just that I can relate to the Google tool better. Another feed that I found during my search that I really enjoyed was "Always Learning" this feed is very helpful especially to educators.

thing 10

The best thing I like about newsreaders and rss is the fact that I dont have to waste time surfing the web trying to look at all of my favorite sites. It's very convenient to have all of my favorite sites together at the same time. Some of the sites I choose included cnn news, myspace, and the rice bowl website because my kids like to play the games. This application can be used in schools to help students and teachers view different educational sites on a particular subject. This could also be used to help teachers and parents communicate with eachother.

thing 9

It was fun playing around with the image generators. There are lots of cool images and backgrounds you can choose from. There were so many options I had to force myself to choose one. I chose the fake magazine cover because I thought it was cool. It was a very easy process. I found the picture on my computer, downloaded it, and choose the template. The website automatically placed my picture in any frame that I chose. These generators can be used in the classroom setting in a number of ways. You can use them to make signs for the classroom. (this will come in handy for visual learners). You can allow your students to use these tools for class assignments.

http://www.customsigngenerator.com/

thing 8

I had a lot of fun exploring the flickr mashups. I think these applications can be very bebeficial to the classroom setting in many ways. Teachers could use these apps. to help make the lessons that they will be teaching more creative and interesting. Educators could also use these apps. in the classroom by allowing students to explore the web and possibly use some of the tools in class assignments such as projects and presentations. Certain mashups can be used in peoples personal life. They are a great way to share photos and ideas with family members across the globe. My feelings about sharing photos online is just to be careful of what photos you put out there.

thing 7

While exploring flickr I found a cool picture of a praying mantis. This is weird for me because I really hate bugs. I am terrified of them. I like to be able to look at them when they aren't a threat to me. I enjoyed looking at the photos in Flickr. I typed in the key word insects, and a bunch of cool pictures came up of insects all over the world.It is really interesting and easy to navigate. I chose the picture of the praying mantis because I have always thought that they were interesting, I like the fact that they are so long. Here is the cool picture that I found of a praying mantis this photo was taken by a guy named Ben.

thing 6

I explored the list of nominated websites and I thought the most interesting was Pandora. It is a music website that is like a online radio station. You can select anysong or artist you want and it will browse and let you listen to other songs by that artist as well as other songs like it by different artist. It's like having a radio station that caters to you! This particular website could be used in school if you were having your students do a report about older musicians they could do some research on a particular artist or type of music and the students could let the class here a sample of the music. www.pandora.com/#/stations/create/

thing 5

I choose to write about the article web 2.0 "A GUIDE FOR EDUCATERS." I totaly agree with this article because in order to keep our students interested in learning we must be able and willing to keep up with the times. We all know that students are interested in everything that has to do with the web and computers, so why not use this to our advantage and keep technology in the classroom now and in the future. The second article I would like to comment on is the one titled web 2.0 is the future of education. I like the fact that this article mentioned something called an OCS or open classroom server. This sounded really cool because it gives the teacher and the students a bigger field to do research while providing students with a safe and secure learning environment. School 2.0 means a lot for the future of schools because I will become a teacher and technology will definately be a big part of my job. To me the term school 2.0 means taking schools to the next level.

thing 4

Blogging helps create a sense of interaction because that's just what blogging is, another form of communication. Blogging has a community effect because it's almost like you are chatting with a neighbor. Some points from the readings that I found to be important are to draw attention to your own blog and not forgetting to invite comments within your blog. Theses were important to me because you get to enjoy and give credit to someone elses work while bringing attention to your own. When I commented on my classmates blogs I tried not to comment on bloggs that were ahead of the blogg that I was on, for the simple fact that I wanted to be familiar with the topic of the blogg so I could have a meaningful comment. I commented on Della, Kendra, Josh, Jerita, and Lakisha's post. They all had positive and helpful things to say and I enjoyed reading their bloggs. I really don't remember which person had which topic I just tried my best to give them good feedback while keeping in mind some of the tips I learned from the previous readings!

graham'sthing3

I think that blogging is really fun. It's like an upgraded version of emailing. I would use blogging in my future classroom to post events and homework assignments. I would also use blogging to enhance student to student communication by creating a different topic each day for the students to check and have a little discussion about the given topic each day. I think it was a great idea to make blogging a part of this course because this course is all about technology and a lot of students in this class, including me, have blogged for the first time ever.

graham'sthing2

I decided on my blog and posting name by using part of my real name. I realize that being a college student comes with having many emails and passwords, so the thing that works best for me is trying to stay as close to the norm as possible without using all of my personal info. The blogs are getting easier to create as I get more practice. There is still a lot I have to learn. I tried to create an avatar that looked like me, but then I realized the avatar didn't look anything like me so I decided to just have fun with it!

graham'sthing 1

The lifelong learning habit that is the easiest for me would be determining what my goals will be. That is the easiest part for me because I will always have goals in mind. The hardest of the lifelong learning habits for me will be to use technology to my advantage. This is because I am not really good with computers, so I get easily frustrated. I hope to learn how to use technology to my advantage by using the web 2.0 tools. My experience in setting up my first blog was easy. The instructions were very thorough.