Well blog, it's been quite a journey! We've had some good times and some bad, but in the end, we got through it all and learned a few things along the way!
Before starting this post, I went back and looked through some of my older posts. I remember how nervous I was to post my very first blog entry! Well, through the journey of 23 Things, those feelings sure have changed! I have found that I really enjoy blogging! It's nice to have some creative freedom in writing that you don't always get when writing a research paper or other writing assignments in grad school! I appreciated the fact that we are all in this learning journey together and I didn't have to give the impression that I accomplished all the tasks with ease or without a few obstacles along the way. I like that this is a very real forum to express our learning achievements and pitfalls. I like that I could be my quirky self and get away with it. And I like that I learned a lot during this journey!
When I initially started this project, I began by glancing through the list of the 23 Things and instantly felt overwhelmed and out of my league. Half of the items listed in this project could have been written in a foreign language! Looking back at my very first blog post, I found this...
Use Technology to Your Advantage (Habit 6) would probably be the habit that I
struggle with the most. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an idiot when it comes to
technology, but I'm not a pro either. I like to stay within my "bubble" of what
I use technology for, and I rarely seek out new technological advantages until
they become mainstream and virtually everyone is using them.
Although this is a goal that is never officially completed, I feel that I am well on my way to improving in the area of technology both for personal and professional uses. This journey popped that "bubble" and introduced me to a great abundance of new tools that I never knew I never knew! The age old adage states "Never stop learning." Well, this is especially the case when it comes to technology. Sure we have all learned a great deal throughout the 23 Things, but this journey is one that will never be complete! With the speed that technology is changing, this journey will be lifelong. However, completing the 23 Things gave me the confidence to know that with a little work (and sometimes pulling out my hair and screaming at the computer), I can figure out any new technological tool!
As with any major project, there are favorite aspects, and those that aren't making the list of "Things I can't wait to repeat again." Thankfully, the latter is a shorter list. Thing 11 "Finding Good Feeds" had me stumped, and I doubt I'll be giving that a go again anytime in the near future. I also didn't really see the value in creating an online to do list. However, the list of positives that I am walking away with far outweigh the list of negatives. Some of my favorite activities allowed me to explore a tool that I was already familiar with such as Flickr and iMap Flicker. Other activities introduced me to tools that I never realized were out there; bubble.us, Dealicious, Animoto, LiveBinders (still need to work on figuring that one out a bit more, but I'm loving what I have found so far), and my absolute favorite little gem from this journey, GLOGSTER!
And on that positive note, blog, I bid you adieu. It's been a fun and productive journey that we have travelled together, and I have taken away the skills needed to feel confident with my abilities in technology. I can now officially say that technology has been tackled!
Monday, April 8, 2013
Thing 23
After a quick search under "About Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers," I found the following statement...
Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers is based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things. That program is based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers, Technology Director at the Charlotte Mecklenburg County Public Library system, with the support and assitance of several staff. Helene's program was loosely based upon Stephen Abram's article, 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006) and the website 43Things.
This is a great example of the power of Creative Commons! If we are being completely honest, the first time I had ever heard about Creative Commons was during the class activity in the first half of the course. Don't get me wrong, I was fully aware of what constitutes plagiarism, etc, but I never knew that the option was there for people to share and modify works that were not created themselves. Creative Commons opens the door for learning and collaboration in ways that I can't do justice to in this blog! The possibilities are literally endless. As a future teacher, it is essential the I promote an environment that condones plagiarism. This is not a "do as I say not as I do" option. Creative Commons provides me, my students and everyone the option to utilize material found online in a way that is conducive to learning, without needing to worry about breaking copyright laws. Granted, the materials under Creative Commons license are not a free for all. There are still rules and regulations that need to be followed, which are determined by the original creator of the work. However, this ability opens a lot of doors when it comes to creating, modifying and utilizing educational materials in an educational setting!
Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers is based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things. That program is based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers, Technology Director at the Charlotte Mecklenburg County Public Library system, with the support and assitance of several staff. Helene's program was loosely based upon Stephen Abram's article, 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006) and the website 43Things.
This is a great example of the power of Creative Commons! If we are being completely honest, the first time I had ever heard about Creative Commons was during the class activity in the first half of the course. Don't get me wrong, I was fully aware of what constitutes plagiarism, etc, but I never knew that the option was there for people to share and modify works that were not created themselves. Creative Commons opens the door for learning and collaboration in ways that I can't do justice to in this blog! The possibilities are literally endless. As a future teacher, it is essential the I promote an environment that condones plagiarism. This is not a "do as I say not as I do" option. Creative Commons provides me, my students and everyone the option to utilize material found online in a way that is conducive to learning, without needing to worry about breaking copyright laws. Granted, the materials under Creative Commons license are not a free for all. There are still rules and regulations that need to be followed, which are determined by the original creator of the work. However, this ability opens a lot of doors when it comes to creating, modifying and utilizing educational materials in an educational setting!
Thing 22
LiveBinders is a cool tool that my future teacher self is already in love with! If you are anything like me, you have great intentions of keeping your teaching ideas (worksheets, lesson plans, videos, etc) in one neat and organized location. But, in reality, that never seems to be the case!
LiveBinders is a great tool for teachers to help them stay organized! When I first started looking around LiveBinders, I was a bit stumped. Even now that I've spent some time navigating around the site, I'm still not 100% sure that I did everything correctly. But, I did get the gist of it! Although I will definitely be spending more time in the future looking at what LiveBinders has to offer, I'm pretty happy with what I've figured out for now!
After finagling through the creation of my Binder, I ran across another stumbling block when I went to post the link to my blog. After posting the link, I tested that link out, and found out that I had set my Binder to private therefore making the link completely useless. So, it was back to the drawing board and a bit more finagling until I figured out how to change those settings!
It was particularly important for me to change my Binder from a private Binder for the simple reason of how it will be used in the future. If you have read my previous posts, you are aware that I would really like to set up a class blog for my future kindergarten classroom. When I initially came up with that idea, I figured I could post worksheets, videos, pictures, etc to the blog one by one. LiveBinder changes all that. Not only is it a great resource to keep me as teacher organized, but it's an easy "one stop shop" way to keep the parents up to date on what we are covering and will be covering in the upcoming days/weeks/months. This could be especially useful for a student who is absent, students who are struggling in a certain area and need some supplemental work, parents who would like to review/preview material covered in class, or just to keep parents in the loop with what their children are studying. This is a tool that will be used in my future kindergarten classroom!
LiveBinders is a great tool for teachers to help them stay organized! When I first started looking around LiveBinders, I was a bit stumped. Even now that I've spent some time navigating around the site, I'm still not 100% sure that I did everything correctly. But, I did get the gist of it! Although I will definitely be spending more time in the future looking at what LiveBinders has to offer, I'm pretty happy with what I've figured out for now!
After finagling through the creation of my Binder, I ran across another stumbling block when I went to post the link to my blog. After posting the link, I tested that link out, and found out that I had set my Binder to private therefore making the link completely useless. So, it was back to the drawing board and a bit more finagling until I figured out how to change those settings!
It was particularly important for me to change my Binder from a private Binder for the simple reason of how it will be used in the future. If you have read my previous posts, you are aware that I would really like to set up a class blog for my future kindergarten classroom. When I initially came up with that idea, I figured I could post worksheets, videos, pictures, etc to the blog one by one. LiveBinder changes all that. Not only is it a great resource to keep me as teacher organized, but it's an easy "one stop shop" way to keep the parents up to date on what we are covering and will be covering in the upcoming days/weeks/months. This could be especially useful for a student who is absent, students who are struggling in a certain area and need some supplemental work, parents who would like to review/preview material covered in class, or just to keep parents in the loop with what their children are studying. This is a tool that will be used in my future kindergarten classroom!
Thing 21
Underwater Engagement: Roatan, Honduras
This was a ton of fun and I officially love Animoto! I originally thought about making a picture video of some of the places I travelled to, but once I found out that you could incorporate video files into the Animoto video, I knew right away that I wanted to make an engagement video. If you read my last post, you will know that I'm obsessed with cool engagements. Knowing that, my husband went out of his way to make it pretty darn special! He combined four of my favorite things (disclaimer, sappiness ahead), him, scuba diving, diamonds and forever! I'd say he did a pretty nice job :)
Animoto is one of the cool tools that I can REALLY see myself using in the future. Heck, my cheapskate self might even purchase one of the options so that I can make longer videos. And that means a lot! Personally, I could use Animoto to make videos from special occasions; weddings, vacations, children, etc. As a teacher, I could also see myself using Animoto. How fun would it be to put together a video of a field trip for the parents. Or a compilation of class activities. Or an end of the year slide show. The possibilities are endless! But without a doubt, Animoto will be used in my future personal and professional life!
This was a ton of fun and I officially love Animoto! I originally thought about making a picture video of some of the places I travelled to, but once I found out that you could incorporate video files into the Animoto video, I knew right away that I wanted to make an engagement video. If you read my last post, you will know that I'm obsessed with cool engagements. Knowing that, my husband went out of his way to make it pretty darn special! He combined four of my favorite things (disclaimer, sappiness ahead), him, scuba diving, diamonds and forever! I'd say he did a pretty nice job :)
Animoto is one of the cool tools that I can REALLY see myself using in the future. Heck, my cheapskate self might even purchase one of the options so that I can make longer videos. And that means a lot! Personally, I could use Animoto to make videos from special occasions; weddings, vacations, children, etc. As a teacher, I could also see myself using Animoto. How fun would it be to put together a video of a field trip for the parents. Or a compilation of class activities. Or an end of the year slide show. The possibilities are endless! But without a doubt, Animoto will be used in my future personal and professional life!
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Thing 20
YouTube....Yet another one of those sites that I have spent WAY too much time on! I love using YouTube for a variety of reasons. I love flash mobs (and am secretly waiting for the day that I just happen to be in the right place at the right time) and have watched countless flash mob videos....With my husband deployed when I'm feeling sappy and in need of a good cry, I will spend countless hours wiping away happy tears watching military homecoming ceremonies. And the inner romantic in me also loves watching creative proposal videos for more hours than I care to admit :)
That being said, YouTube also has it's place in education. It is often one of the first places I look at when I'm assigned a research topic. For example, on a recent project on Bilingual Education in the United States, I began my research (you guessed it) on YouTube. I find that it's a great way to get a feel for some of the key topics that will be covered in my research articles, and gives a bit of light and perspective to some of the articles that I might read.
YouTube also has it's place in the classroom setting. I am currently observing for another class in a local kindergarten classroom. The teacher uses YouTube for a lot of phonics activities. YouTube has an abundance of phonics videos that help to make learning fun for kids!
As for my selection of videos to post for Thing 20, I decided on 4 very different videos. The first video is shamelessly my own video that took me forever and a day to put together, and is something that I'm oober proud of. Since my husband was deployed over Christmas, I got over 50 people involved to make a video message for him. The first part of the video is simply the quick "We miss you," "Come back safely," and "Merry Christmas" messages from friends and family. The second part of the video was A LOT of work. I mailed out word signs for all the words in the song "All I Want For Christmas Is You" to friends and family in all different states. They each took pictures with their words, emailed those pics to me and I put it all together with the music. Turned out pretty cool if you ask me :)
The second video is probably my favorite video on YouTube. I may have watched it 100 times, and it still puts a smile on my face! I dare anybody in a bad mood to not smile watching this video!
The third video that I posted is a video that highlights the Milwaukee Spanish Immersion school. This is one of the videos that I used as a source for the Bilingual Education project mentioned above. As a Spanish major, in an ideal world I would LOVE to teach in an immersion school like this. I chose this video because it gives a good glimpse of the education that students in an immersion school can experience.
The fourth video that I chose is a simple song that helps young learners learn the sounds of each letter. This particular video focuses on the letter "T." However, a quick search on YouTube is all that is needed to find various songs focused on any letter. These are great resources to use in the classroom, and really help to make learning fun. I saw first hand how successful this sort of lesson could be when observing in a kindergarten classroom. The teacher used videos like this to introduce a new letter sound. The students LOVED it! They were focused, intrigued, and singing/dancing along! In my opinion, that is one successful use of technology in the classroom!
Thing 19
Well blog, here's my dilemma....I love bookstores....And by love, I mean LOVE! I walk in, take a deep breath (come on, you all love that distinct smell of a bookstore), start browsing and immediately feel completely overwhelmed! See, that's my problem, I love reading (insert nerd jokes here) and unfortunately, I don't stick to a particular genre. So walking through the aisles of a bookstore can leave me in one of 2 possible situations, either broke or completely confused on what to choose. Thankfully, today I learned about a few solutions to this ever so horrific dilemma, Shelfari and GoodReads. Both of these sites are perfect for the avid reader like myself. Both of these sites produce the similar outcome, helping readers determine what to read through the use of suggestions based on books you have enjoyed in the past, genres or you can browse through suggested reads from other users. Clicking on an interesting book will give you a brief synopsis of the book and reviews from other readers. Although the sites do provide an opportunity for users to purchase the book online, buying books online often leaves me feeling cheated of the whole bookstore experience. However, I do like the option to be a more informed browser the next time I'm in a local bookstore!
A few other sites that piqued my interest were Craftster (I could literally spend months scrap booking and never get sick of it) and Yelp. Yelp is a site that I have used before to get reviews on restaurants, or other local businesses. Craftster did offer a great number of crafting selections and ideas. However, it was not visually impressive and I will more than likely stick to my other addiction, Pinterest!
A few other sites that piqued my interest were Craftster (I could literally spend months scrap booking and never get sick of it) and Yelp. Yelp is a site that I have used before to get reviews on restaurants, or other local businesses. Craftster did offer a great number of crafting selections and ideas. However, it was not visually impressive and I will more than likely stick to my other addiction, Pinterest!
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Thing 18
Ahh Facebook. We really have a love hate relationship these days. Back in the days when Myspace was no longer cool anymore, I was one of the millions who changed over and opened up a Facebook account. At the time I was was living overseas, and it was a great way for me to keep in contact with my friends and family. However, I basically used Facebook as a way to organize and store my travel pictures. These days, it seems some of the only times I find myself on Facebook is when I need to write a paper/study (yep, procrastination) or when I know I need to go to sleep, but it's important that I first read about what so and so had for dinner.
I decided to go against the grain here and not paste a link to my Facebook account. Granted, you could find me if you wanted (I'm not that cool to warrant a search though). However, after a presentation in another class about the importance of educators keeping their Facebook pages private, I realized that I want to do a major overhaul of my Facebook privacy settings before I go around posting any links that direct anyone straight to my page!
Twitter is a site that I tried in the past, never got into, and no longer use. I have no intentions of trying it out again. It's not for me.
As educators, I feel that it is very important that we are at least familiar with Facebook and other social networking sites. Granted, by the time many of us are in the classroom, Facebook is likely to have gone the way of Myspace, only to be replaced by the newest "cool" site. That being said, I don't want to be like my dad and tell my students that they should really check out this cool new site called BookFace (my sister and I literally lost it when he said this in all honesty to us one day).
I doubt that I will ever actually utilize Facebook in a classroom setting. I will even probably do my best to limit the teachers that I add as friends. Although I didn't always follow that motto, these days I try to limit my Facebook friends to actual friends and family. But it's always good to know a bit about the technology that our students will be using, even if it isn't an active part of our classroom lessons!
I decided to go against the grain here and not paste a link to my Facebook account. Granted, you could find me if you wanted (I'm not that cool to warrant a search though). However, after a presentation in another class about the importance of educators keeping their Facebook pages private, I realized that I want to do a major overhaul of my Facebook privacy settings before I go around posting any links that direct anyone straight to my page!
Twitter is a site that I tried in the past, never got into, and no longer use. I have no intentions of trying it out again. It's not for me.
As educators, I feel that it is very important that we are at least familiar with Facebook and other social networking sites. Granted, by the time many of us are in the classroom, Facebook is likely to have gone the way of Myspace, only to be replaced by the newest "cool" site. That being said, I don't want to be like my dad and tell my students that they should really check out this cool new site called BookFace (my sister and I literally lost it when he said this in all honesty to us one day).
I doubt that I will ever actually utilize Facebook in a classroom setting. I will even probably do my best to limit the teachers that I add as friends. Although I didn't always follow that motto, these days I try to limit my Facebook friends to actual friends and family. But it's always good to know a bit about the technology that our students will be using, even if it isn't an active part of our classroom lessons!
Thing 17
Uh oh! I may have just found a site that is more addicting than Pinterest. Those are words that I NEVER thought would be said (well typed) by me! After spending over an hour looking around on Dealicious, I figured this blog post wasn't going to write itself, so I needed to get focused and start writing!
The thing I loved most about Dealicious was the simple fact that it's a very useful and extremely simple way to keep websites organized. After watching the video tutorial, I had to chuckle to myself when they mentioned how quickly bookmarked websites can get out of hand. Sometimes I feel I need an hour just to find a site that I saved as a favorite. Sites such as Dealicious help to organize these sites therefore creating more of an organized chaos! Up until this point, the only time I thought of using tags was to humiliate my friends by tagging them in embarrassing pictures on Facebook. Turns out tagging can be used in a much more constructive manner.
When I first started looking around Dealicious, I began by following the directions and searched for educational technology. This provided a wealth of options. I spent a great deal of time looking around at the results. One site that I found particularly interesting, for obvious reasons, was Kidblog. http://kidblog.org/home/. This is a site where teachers can set up a free class blog for their students to use! The classroom uses for this site are limitless!
After I got my fill of educational technology, I started using Dealicious to look for some resources for an upcoming paper that I need to research and write. What a fantastic resource to use when researching! If you are anything like me, when researching, you will find a great site, go off that site to some others, and then spend hours searching for that original site. Dealicious can really be useful in this situation. It is also fantastic that these tags can be accessed from any computer, therefore not limiting me to my computer favorites bar!
The thing I loved most about Dealicious was the simple fact that it's a very useful and extremely simple way to keep websites organized. After watching the video tutorial, I had to chuckle to myself when they mentioned how quickly bookmarked websites can get out of hand. Sometimes I feel I need an hour just to find a site that I saved as a favorite. Sites such as Dealicious help to organize these sites therefore creating more of an organized chaos! Up until this point, the only time I thought of using tags was to humiliate my friends by tagging them in embarrassing pictures on Facebook. Turns out tagging can be used in a much more constructive manner.
When I first started looking around Dealicious, I began by following the directions and searched for educational technology. This provided a wealth of options. I spent a great deal of time looking around at the results. One site that I found particularly interesting, for obvious reasons, was Kidblog. http://kidblog.org/home/. This is a site where teachers can set up a free class blog for their students to use! The classroom uses for this site are limitless!
After I got my fill of educational technology, I started using Dealicious to look for some resources for an upcoming paper that I need to research and write. What a fantastic resource to use when researching! If you are anything like me, when researching, you will find a great site, go off that site to some others, and then spend hours searching for that original site. Dealicious can really be useful in this situation. It is also fantastic that these tags can be accessed from any computer, therefore not limiting me to my computer favorites bar!
Thing 16
This one was an easy one for me. I already have an iGoogle home page with the calendar function (yep, once again the list lover and oober planner in me). As an avid scuba diver (my husband even proposed to me while scuba diving....That's how obsessed I am with it!) and wanna be beach bum, I love altering between different "under the sea" and beach backgrounds. Ahhhh, what I would give to be laying on a beach, fruity garnished drink in hand or going on a night dive right now.....But, reality calls and the truth is, it's the major end of the semester "pulling my hair out" crunch time right now, so I better stay focused!
As an avid list writer (some may say obsessed), I wish that I could say that I liked the online to do lists more than I did. But I guess it leaves me feeling cheated. See, the best part of a list for me is crossing an item off it, and doing that online just doesn't leave me with the same satisfaction. I may be old school, but I'm okay with that! To me, it's kind of like the e-readers craze. Technology works for a lot of things, but there are some things that I just prefer the old fashioned way, and that's just the way it's going to have to be!
That being said, I do love using technology when it comes to a calendar. The calendar on my phone is literally just an extension of my list obsession, and gets updated every single day! Because of that, I doubt I would ever use some of the online calendars for personal use. However, I do see them being useful as a teacher. Having an online calendar will allow me to keep my phone as my personal calendar (although let's be honest here, I'm sure a few school related reminders will make it on there too), while an online calendar could serve as a way to keep my school meetings, field trips, projects, etc organized in one place!
As an avid list writer (some may say obsessed), I wish that I could say that I liked the online to do lists more than I did. But I guess it leaves me feeling cheated. See, the best part of a list for me is crossing an item off it, and doing that online just doesn't leave me with the same satisfaction. I may be old school, but I'm okay with that! To me, it's kind of like the e-readers craze. Technology works for a lot of things, but there are some things that I just prefer the old fashioned way, and that's just the way it's going to have to be!
That being said, I do love using technology when it comes to a calendar. The calendar on my phone is literally just an extension of my list obsession, and gets updated every single day! Because of that, I doubt I would ever use some of the online calendars for personal use. However, I do see them being useful as a teacher. Having an online calendar will allow me to keep my phone as my personal calendar (although let's be honest here, I'm sure a few school related reminders will make it on there too), while an online calendar could serve as a way to keep my school meetings, field trips, projects, etc organized in one place!
Monday, April 1, 2013
Thing 15
When I was a little girl, I would always start my diary entries with "Dear Diary, it's been awhile since my last entry, and I'm sorry for that." Well, blog, I feel like I should start off with an apology for neglecting you these past weeks. Life as a grad student has kept me mega busy, but I promise to keep up with my blog entries from this point forth :)
I'll start off by saying how much I loved the wiki video! Wiki is a term that I have heard thrown around quite a bit. However, up until now I was never too sure what it meant. The video explained it in such a clear and concise fashion that even a non-techie like me could understand! However, actually utilizing the wiki proved to be a bit more difficult.
After navigating to the APSU sandbox site, I spent quite a bit of time finagling around, just trying to figure out how to sign in. After much more time than I care to admit, I was finally in (woo-hoo). Then came the hard part....What was I going to post? I decided to stop and reflect on all the "Things" we have completed up until this point and pick the item that would be the most useful in my future classroom. And Glogster was the winner! Although I have come across quite a few new and exciting tools to add to my kindergarten toolbox, I would say that Glogster is the one tool that I am beyond excited to use in my classroom. So I decided to share my love for Glogster with the world (well, the APSU sandbox wiki world anyway...Baby steps here)!
There are a variety of ways that a wiki could be used in a classroom. Keeping along the lines of the list idea presented in the video, my mind immediately went to the list of common items that every elementary student has to bring for the class. A wiki could be a great way to organize which student will purchase which item for the classroom stock. After all, who wants 40 boxes of tissues and not a single box of crayons?!?!?! Thanks to wikis, that won't be the case in my future classroom! Oh yah, Glogster and crayons.....What more could my future students ask for? :)
I'll start off by saying how much I loved the wiki video! Wiki is a term that I have heard thrown around quite a bit. However, up until now I was never too sure what it meant. The video explained it in such a clear and concise fashion that even a non-techie like me could understand! However, actually utilizing the wiki proved to be a bit more difficult.
After navigating to the APSU sandbox site, I spent quite a bit of time finagling around, just trying to figure out how to sign in. After much more time than I care to admit, I was finally in (woo-hoo). Then came the hard part....What was I going to post? I decided to stop and reflect on all the "Things" we have completed up until this point and pick the item that would be the most useful in my future classroom. And Glogster was the winner! Although I have come across quite a few new and exciting tools to add to my kindergarten toolbox, I would say that Glogster is the one tool that I am beyond excited to use in my classroom. So I decided to share my love for Glogster with the world (well, the APSU sandbox wiki world anyway...Baby steps here)!
There are a variety of ways that a wiki could be used in a classroom. Keeping along the lines of the list idea presented in the video, my mind immediately went to the list of common items that every elementary student has to bring for the class. A wiki could be a great way to organize which student will purchase which item for the classroom stock. After all, who wants 40 boxes of tissues and not a single box of crayons?!?!?! Thanks to wikis, that won't be the case in my future classroom! Oh yah, Glogster and crayons.....What more could my future students ask for? :)
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