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!