One Last Thing

Well I have finally reached the end of the 23 Things. I can definitely say that it was a worthwhile journey. I have improved my technology skills greatly and have been introduced to a lot of different tools and resources that I didn’t know were out there. Some of my favorite “Things” were exploring Flickr, finding Web 2.0 sites such as HistoryPin, Animoto, and the organization tools that will help me when I am teaching. I believe going through the 23 Things will definitely help me in my teaching career. There are tons of resources out there for teachers to take advantage of and doing this exercise exposed me to many of them. The only improvement I would make to the 23 Things is to keep things more up to date and current. Technology changes so fast so some of the tools and links were a little out of date. But regardless of that, the program was very helpful and enlightening. I plan on trying to stay up to date on new web 2.0 developments that will help me in my teaching career and I may continue my blog once I start teaching.

Thanks for reading! So long for now!

Thing #23

As a teacher, it is very important to know what you can and cannot use in the classroom. Creative Commons provides an easy way for people to protect their creative or intellectual works while giving the creator the ability to determine how and in what ways their work can be used by others. Creative Commons allows teachers to share their ideas and resources with others while still maintaining their ownership of the material.

The example of attribution on the Learning 2.0-23 Things for Teachers blog is below:

Credits

Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers is based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things, a staff development program for the Mesquite Independent School District. That program was based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers and adapted by the California School Library Association and others. Content and style for Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.

Thing #22

I thought LiveBinders was a bit confusing to navigate at first, but once I figured out what I was doing, it was not so bad. I can definitely see the usefulness of LiveBinders for teachers and the classroom. LiveBinders provides a way to easily organize and store websites and online resources to use in the classroom. Rather than trying to remember where you found a site, you can save your sites here for future reference. LiveBinder can be used to direct students to specific sites and provide them with easy access to various resources. It is also nice that you can search other people’s binders for resources as well. The three binders I created were:

1)      Social Studies Resources

2)      Lesson Plans

3)      Class Activities

Here is the link to my Social Studies Resources Binder: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=858934

Thing # 21

Make your own slideshow at Animoto.

Using Animoto to make my own video was super easy and fun! It was not hard to do at all. The tutorial video made it very easy. I decided to make a video of some photos from my vacation in Hawaii last summer. What a great and creative way to share photos with your friends and others. I can definitely see myself using this website again. 

Thing #20

While exploring YouTube, I came across a fun channel called “History for Music Lovers”. These teachers rewrite the words to popular songs and create music videos about certain historical events to make teaching history more fun. The video above is about the Trojan War set to the song “Tainted Love.” These videos are very creative and fun and would be great to use in my future classroom.  YouTube is a great site for teachers to utilize. You can find videos relating to just about any topic.

Thing #19

Facebook is really the only social networking site that I am a member of. But this “Thing” has opened my eyes to all the other social networking sites out there. I did join TeacherPop which is a nice site for professional connections and uses. I do use some of the other sites listed on a regular basis such as IMDB to look up movie and entertainment information and Yelp for restaurant reviews. Goodreads also seems like a site I would like to explore further. All of these sites have great uses for your personal life and some of the professional sites such as TeacherPop and Classroom 2.0 would be a great way to make connections and share information with other teachers.

Thing #18

It is important for teachers to understand social networking because it is such a fixed part of our culture and society these days. Everyone is on Facebook or Twitter including the students we will be teaching. Cyber bullying is also an ongoing issue with students today, so teachers need to be able to address that.  Social networking sites can be a great way to communicate with others and share news, information, photos, etc. However, I am not sure of how I would use these sites in my classroom. I suppose I could set up a class Facebook page or Twitter account for easy communication purposes with students and parents, but I don’t think I would use it for anything else because I feel these sites are more for personal use.

Thing #17

I enjoyed exploring Delicious and learning about social bookmarking. I can definitely see the benefits of using a social bookmarking site to save websites rather than just bookmarking sites in your web browser. It provides an easier way to locate saved websites and the tags help keep them organized by category. This is a great resource for teachers to use because the tags allow them to easily find websites related to their subject area and it also is a way to see what other teachers have found and used in their classrooms.

Thing #16

I created my start page with iGoogle. I figured iGoogle would be the easiest since I’ve already been using a lot of other Google applications. I really like the start page. You can see your email, weather, news, etc. all in one place. I added a few widgets including a To-Do List notepad. I also created a Google Calendar to keep up with school assignments, work deadlines, and personal appointments. Online calendars are very useful because they help keep you organized and you can access them anywhere. The other site I explored was Lifehacker. Lifehacker is a site that keeps you up to date on the new changes on various apps and software. I think all these tools will be helpful in both my personal and professional life. Being organized is very important for teachers and all these sites and applications will be useful to me in the future.

Thing #15

On the APSU 23 Things Sandbox wiki, I uploaded one of the images I created with an image generator from Thing 9. Editing the wiki page was very easy to do. I can see how wikis can be useful. It’s another tool that makes collaboration easy. The example given in the “Wiki in Plain English” video is a good example of how wikis can be beneficial. Wikis could be used to coordinate information for a group project or as a way for students and teachers to share information and ideas. However, I find wikis to be somewhat confusing and disorganized because it is hard to tell who wrote what and what was changed, so I don’t know if I will be using them in my future classroom.

Thing #14

Mind maps and flow charts are a great way to create a visual outline of a topic and see how things are connected and related. I think these would be great tools for students to use to help them grasp certain concepts. The two tools I explored were bubbl.us and Gliffy.com.

Bubble.us:  I really liked this site. It was very user friendly and easy to figure out. You just click the “Start Brainstorming” button and then you can start adding your bubbles. Some of the nice features on this website allow you export and import your charts as well as the sharing feature which lets you collaborate with others.  

Gliffy.com: This site was a little more complicated and more difficult to use. There are so many options to choose from. This site took a little bit more time to figure out, but once you figure out how to use it, it’s not so bad.

Thing #13

Using Zoho Writer and Google Docs is much like using the Microsoft Office applications expect they are both free and available on the web. Both have many of the same basic features as Microsoft Office. However, they have some other features not available on Office such as importing documents from the web and a way to share and collaborate with others easily. The sharing option is a great benefit to using these tools because it allows you to work in real time with others. This feature would be very useful for group projects and presentations. Both programs were very easy to use so I don’t really prefer one over the other.

  

Here are the links to the documents I created:

Google Doc:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BVEG5YhH7A569Cu_CjWkxMnNoR18OTmVdKR90Sow-tU/edit?usp=sharing

ZoHo Writer: https://writer.zoho.com/public/911921793e7956c4fcf653b15d4a34a38e2fd705d41bec3acd0e086a4dfc6442d2bec0af04f23226

Thing #12

Google has so many things to offer other than just being a search engine. I use several of their tools on a regular basis such as Goggle Maps and now Goggle Reader. The two Google tools I chose to explore were Google Alerts and Google Translate. I set up a Google Alert for one of my favorite bands so I will know when they release their upcoming tour dates. Google Translate was also a really cool tool. I have used other online translators in the past, but Google Translate has a lot of neat features that I have not seen on some of the other translating sites such as the keyboard that lets you type with the different language characters, the “listen” function which lets you hear how the words are pronounced, and the “word usage example” function.

I can see both of these Google tools being very useful in the classroom. Google Alerts can help you find information and resources on whatever subject you are teaching and keep you up to date on any news related to your field. Students can also use Google Alerts for various projects such as keeping up with current events or finding information on a certain research topic. Google Translate can also be helpful in the classroom, by helping you communicate with an ESL student or with students learning another language.

Thing #11

The two search tools I found easiest to use for finding RSS feeds were Google Blog Search and Technorati. Google Blog Search is just like doing a regular Google search that everyone is already familiar with. I had never heard of nor used Technorati before, but I liked the site. Because Technorati is specifically a blog directory, it was easier to narrow down my search and find blogs related to what I was searching for. I tried to use Topix, but it was pretty confusing and I didn’t really find any specific blogs in my search. Most of the blogs I added to my RSS feed were found on Technorati. I added several teaching blogs and history blogs that I think will be useful in the future.

Thing #10

Before discovering RSS, I was using the old way of going to my favorite websites and checking to see if there were any new updates. But now, RSS feeds have made that process a lot simpler and quicker. I have seen that little orange RSS button before on websites, but never really knew what it was. Now I know that I can just click on the orange button and all the information can now come to me in one place. I love that I can just go to my Google Reader and it brings up all the sites that I would normally check on a daily basis in a centralized location, so I can quickly click on whatever new post or article I want to read and not have to search and refresh individual web pages.

Using RSS feeds can be very helpful to teachers because it creates an easy way to stay up-to-date on news and information related to the teaching profession as well as your subject area. If you follow teacher blogs, it allows you to stay connected with other professionals and can help you find lesson plans and ideas to utilize in your classroom. Your students can also utilize RSS feeds to get information on news and current events or follow different feeds related to what they are studying at the moment.

Thing #9

Using the image generators was fun. There are a lot of different things you can come up with using the various designs and options out there. The two sites I used were Image Chef   (http://www.imagechef.com/) and Comic Strip Generator (http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/). Creating the actual images was a pretty easy process. You just type in what you want to say in the text box and click create. I think image generators provide a great way to add some creative touches to your PowerPoints and to the classroom blog. They also provide a fun way to grab the students' attention and make announcements about upcoming assignments, events, and other classroom news.

Thing #8

There was a lot to see and discover browsing through the different mashups in the Flickr App Garden. I found several interesting apps, but discovered that there were some limitations in using them if you didn’t create a Flickr account. I came across some cool Flickr Apps that I could use in my future history classroom on http://www.whatsthatpicture.com/. This website has created an interactive timeline and an interactive map of Flickr Commons images that make historic pictures easy to locate by time period or location.

Just for fun, I played around with a few mashups such as Mosaic Maker and Spell with Flickr. See below:

 

1. santorini_g5628, 2. Santorini, 3. santorini, 4. Greece!



I enjoyed learning about mashups and can definately see a lot of uses for Flickr and the mashups in the classroom. The possibilities are endless.

Thing #7

Exploring Flickr was fun. This was my first time using the site, but I found it to be pretty interesting and user friendly. One part of the site I really liked was “The Commons” where several museums and archives have come together to share their photography collections.  I also really enjoyed exploring the Library of Congress Flickr page and the historic photos that they have posted. I will definitely be utilizing these resources in my future history classes.

It was fun to type in various things in the search bar and see what photos popped up. When searching for photos of Greece, I came across this beautiful photo from the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. Located on the side of Mount Parnassus, Delphi is one of the most beautiful and majestic places I have ever seen and I believe this photo captures that well. In ancient times, Delphi was one of the most important sacred sites because it was home to the famous Delphic oracle and was also considered to be the center of the world. While studying abroad in Greece, Delphi was my favorite ancient site to visit by far. Browsing through the different photos on Flickr is a great way to reminisce about past travels and experiences. 

Photo by Pinox67 on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinox67/3054162062/

Thing #6

The Web 2.0 site I chose to explore was Historypin.com (http://www.historypin.com/).  Historypin is a really fun site that allows anyone around the world to “pin” their historical photos to Google Maps. So for example, say you found an old photo in your attic of your grandpa standing in front of the old courthouse in your town you could upload the photo and pin it to the location that the picture was taken. Then you could use the street view function to compare the photo with how the location looked then and how it looks now. You can even leave a personal story about your photo for people to read. 

You can also search for photos by place or by time or even by subject. For example, I typed in “Athens” and “Parthenon” and it brought up several photos of the Parthenon dating from 1849 to 2011. I really enjoyed reading the personal story one man posted about his trip to the Parthenon. He posted a picture of himself in his Navy uniform sitting in front of the Parthenon in 1962. He wrote about his experiences in Greece and described the “goose bumps” he felt looking up at the Acropolis. 

 

Seeing these pictures and reading the stories that go with them really helps bring history to life and that's why I believe this site could be a very useful tool in my history classroom. If we are talking about a certain place or event, Historypin may have some useful photos to help create a visual for my students. For example, if we are talking about World War II and I type in “Europe” and “World War II", all kinds of pictures come up of soldiers, artillery, buildings with bomb damage, VE/VJ Day celebrations, etc. And with some pictures, people have left personal stories which helps put you in the mindset of what it must have been like to be there during that time. Rather than just lecturing about an event it always helps to have some kind of visual to bring it to life and a story to relate to, so students can feel some kind of connection to what we are discussing and really become interested in history.

Thing #5

            I didn’t know what Web 2.0 was until I started this class. Web 2.0 describes the various sites and internet resources out there that allow users to interact and collaborate with each other rather than just passively viewing a website. Some examples of Web 2.0 include blogs, wikis, social networking, video sharing sites, podcasts, etc. With the abundance of all these free resources available, teachers should definitely take advantage of them in the classroom. Web 2.0 is changing education in a big way by making learning a more collaborative effort, making access to information easier and faster than ever before, and creating new learning environments for students.

                The trends that Steve Hargadon discusses regarding the two way nature of the internet were very interesting. He points out that Web 2.0 has created a tidal wave of information. Anyone can contribute information through sites such as Wikipedia. It has made people more participative by allowing people to comment and state their opinions on just about anything. It creates a collaborative atmosphere and social learning. It truly is changing the way people learn and how they go about doing it.

To me, “School 2.0” means using these new resources and tools to better engage students in new ways of learning. Technology is changing every day and so must our schools to keep up. Students are already using various forms of technology in their everyday lives, so it only makes since to incorporate these things into their activities at school. Schools of the future are going to have to continue to adapt to meet the technological needs of their students. With technology progressing as fast as it is today, what will our schools look like in 10, 20, 30 years from now? It’s exciting to think about.