Is this the end

I really enjoyed this entire learning process. I was very nervous about this class in general. I feel entirely different now. I am a lot more confident in my ability to enrich the education of my students by using technology in the classroom. My favore discovery excercise was Animoto. I dont want to sound too cheesy by saying it was life changing, but it was absolutely an eye opener for me. I watched a presentation on the cival rights movement that was made my a teacher and was done for her students. As I watched it, I thought...."This is how I want to teach!" It was a prensentation that more effective than any powerpoint or lecture could ever be. I liked you tube a lot too. I am not sure I would have survived by statistics class if it would not have been for great you tube videos explaining how to solve the problems. It was also helpful in my math 1410 and 1420 class. I liked making a magazine cover in one of our discovery excercises. I think that will be fun to use for a student that is star of the week. Oh...and I LOVE my avatar:) This is my first time having an avatar. I even made it my screen saver on my computer! I want to be a life-long learner. When I become a teacher, I want to learn something new every day as well as teach. I think having a "teachable spirit" is an essential quality that all teachers should possess. Learning does not end when you receive a degee. I am thankful that APSU required me to take this class(as well as the chemistry class I has to take). I would have never voluntarily taken this class. But I have survived and I can say I really enjoyed it and learned so much. The fact that I was able to do this without any help is what surprised me most. I appreciate that fact that this assignment was taught and directed in a way that did not cause me to pull my hair out or cry myself to sleep. Some activities took longer that others, but none of them took a ridiculous amount of time. I like how (with the exception of you tube and facebook) everything was new to me. I will have to stay current on some of my RSS feeds and continue reading teacher blogs about WEB 2.0. There is so much already out there and new things are being created daily. I think most of what we learned is applicable for us as teachers. Using some of these tools will either save us time or allow us to create more meaningful lessons for our students. I know I will be a more success teacher because I now know how to apply some web 2.0 tools. My daugters 3rd grade teacher using shutterfly that also has a calandar on it. Not only do I get pictures of the class, but I get email reminders about all upcoming events and tests. I love this web tool and I am sure I will use something like this in my class. My resolution: When I become a first year teaher, I want to be a reflective practitioner. I will do this by keeping a blog. I will blog about my mistakes as well as what seems to be working. This blog will be encouraging to myself and other first time teahcers. It will be a way ro reflect, assess, and modify. It will be fun and helpful to keep a record of my teaching journey. I will end it each week by adding at least one thing I learned that week...after all, I want to be a life-long learner!

thing 23

This was posted on the bottom of the homepage for 23 games. *Note: This project is loosely based upon the website 43Things (which allows you to set and track personal goals) and the Stephen Abram article titled 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006). The Disney video was very funny and was an entertaining and creative way to teach creative commons law. During our class with Dr. Jerles, I learned about creative commons for the first time. I had heard of copy right law, but never really took the time to understand it. I completely understand the importance in being able to determine if something can be legally "shared". As a teacher, we have so many places to get ideas for homework and lessons. There are so many great things on the web and there are many print books on the market. I found a website the other day with lesson plans and worksheets from teachers, and you had to pay before you could view and print the entire document. This was the first time I noticed this. I will be very careful of what I borrow. I will be sure to research where every artifact came from. Alexis made a good point on her blog and mentioned that its important to set a good example. She is right. We can't copy from someone else while telling our students they cant copy/cheat. Using someone elses stuff is really not worth it. I will look for items that I am able to use that have minimum restrictions such as using it with giving credit to the creator or using it for non-profit purposes. I can appreciate the creative commons laws. I would not want to spend money/time and then watch other people profit from it. Learning about creative ommons in class was probably not the most interesting thing we learnd, but it was propbably one of the most important things we learned.

Thing 22

lesson plans

Wow! This discovery has taken me awhile to finish. I like everything this web 2.0 has to over. I had just never heard of it so it took me awhile to soak it all in. The binder I decided to share is linked above. I named it lesson plans. I went to a few different pages that had lesson plans created by teachers that I thought were pretty cool. I think 2 of them came from Google Earth. We just used Google Earth for our projects in EDU 3040, so it was the first think that came to mind. I then created a binder called blogs. I added a few popular blogs that teachers created. I like teacher blogs and I imagine I will use them to get lots of ideas for my classes in the future. I then made a binder and labeled it assistive technology. I found a site called enablemart.com that offers lots of products to purchase that aids with different exceptionalities. I have my milestone 2 interview this Thursday and one of the questions pertains specifically to assistive technology. I thought this would be helpful for my interview:) More importantly, something like this would be helpful in the classroom. The amount of resources and all the different types of assistive technology that is available is unbelievable. I like how you an click on a particular disability such as low-vision and then it will show you all the types of technology available to assist with that need. I think that LiveBinders can be great for kids to use to get extra help with homework. As a teacher, I could offer links to safe sites that I approved of that will help kids (and parents) with their homework. For example, if we are doing a unit on proper and common nouns, I could find a site that offers extra practice on the subject. Sometimes parents need a little bit of a refresher course on different subjects. For example, when my daughter came home and had to do commutative property and identity property and associative property, I had to do some Googling because I forgot which was which. I also think LiveBinder is a great way for older students to gather information for a research project. It saves paper and gives the student an opportunity to creative a binder that they feel will be useful to them. In our 3070 class, we are required to make a binder with at least 50 artifacts from the internet. Some of these "artifacts" are 5 pages each. This is a lot of paper and printer ink. There are over 120 students taking 4 sections of this class. We are wasting so much of APSU money (I imagine we are all using the computer lab to print our stuff)...anyway, as I was learning about this tool, I realized how we should have made a LiveBinder for 3070 instead of having to print everything!! I liked this webtool and I think I will use either this or something like this in the near future. I see the potential of using this as a teacher, but I see the potential in using this right now as a student.

thing 21

My Facebook pics

Ok, this was a little too easy.  I am afraid I did something wrong because it was that easy.  I logged in using facebook and allowed it to use my facebook pictures.  This was really cool.  It picked random pictures of my kids.  I liked this.  I am not sure how much an account would cost with them.  We just get 30 seconds for free.
This was fun and I liked it, but now I want to talk about the practical applications of this.  I could only see myself using this one time a year.  I think it would be sentimental to play a video/slideshow like this at the end of the school year.  I guess you could do this throughout the year, I think it would just be more meaningful one time at the end of the year.

I decided to spend a little time searching on the web what other teachers were using animoto.  I think a video slideshow was mentioned the most.  However, I did watch a few videos of what teachers did with this.  I saw a presentation done with the alphabet.  Letters were created using real life things like yarn and macaroni.  As the letters were flashing by, music was playing in the background.  I am glad I spent time searching what educator were doing with this, because I couldn't see past the idea of using pictures and making a slideshow. 

Oh, wow.  I just watch an AMAZING powerpoint.  It was about the civil rights movement and was more powerful and education than any lecture could be.
http://animoto.com/education  (this is the page you can find that powerpoint...you have to go to the bottom of the page and click on the civil rights one...I think there are five examples of how educators are using animoto in the classroom.

When i first played around with this, I though there is no way this is applicable in the classroom.  However, I have changed my mind.  I love the idea of video presentations...so much more interesting that a lecture or a traditional powerpoint!

thing 20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBsb5RNzdVs&feature=plcp I love youtube and use it all the time. I posted a link that will take you to the first video I had to create on youtube. I actually remember how stressful this assignment was and how difficult it was for me to go through the whole process. I am usually like that the first time I have to do something new:) I feel like its impossible, but then when I finish I always realize how ridiculous I was to get stressed out over something. This video was done for the purpose of math 1410. We basically had to show a lesson being taught. This lesson was me teaching my kids how to count to "honey"..(If you had Math 1410, then you know what is means to count in base 8 and you know what honey means....lol) You tube is great. I have taken math 1410, 1420, and stat 1530 online...and youtube helped me soooooo much. Sometimes our professors would give us a specific link to watch that would go with the lesson. However, many times I would search for something to get extra help with a concept. Also, I use youtube to listen to music for free. I just hook my phone to this wire (I dont even know what the wire is called) and it plays the music from my phone just like its on the radio. My kids love this. We have listened to many popular songs and have not had to pay anything for them. Even me, eing technologically challenged, understand youtube and realize its value. It can be fun to play around with. I have often searched for old theme songs to my favorite cartoons or watch old commericals. My girls (ages 9,6, and 3, also love to watch videos on you tube. We often watch The Chimpmunks sing Michael Jackson songs. I also like watching segments of shows like 20/20 or The Today Show that I missed. That being said, youtube needs to be used with caution when it comes to our students. It was very easy to access inappropriate things. Even if you have private settings, having the kids sit in front of youtube without supervision is a risk. I guess the best way to do it with students is to either have them watch a video (like maybe further instructions on a homework assignment) in class with your supervision (that is on private settings) or send them a link. As I was playing around with youtube, I saw a lot of comments that people posted underneath a video that were inappropriate. I know you can report someone, but I am not sure the process or the ramifications of it. I really like you tube, and I love all the extra help it can give a student. I certainly see the value of this web 2.0!

Thing 19

I liked how this project set me up for Thing 19 with Thing 18. Thing 18 was about facebook, which I think we are all familiar with. As I was exploring around with Thing 18, I kept thinking how it would be more applicable is the "social network" revolved only around teaching. I think I even mentioned that I do not really enjoy facebook but I keep it because I have a few teacher friends that I like to talk to. So I was really excited when I got to Thing 19 and was introduced to networking outside of facebook. I had never heard of TeacherPop, but of course I joined it. I immediately noticed some names on it I commented on a person named Jeremy's post. I actually think her is in my technology class.Another one of the discovery exercises I was required to do was post a picture. I remember when this was a difficult task for me. (yeah, posting a picture)But I have become a pro at this by now. I had a picture saved on my desktop and uploaded it easily. I then joined shelfari. I even added my favorite book which is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I do not have time to read as much as I would like, but I love to read. I love books and plan on incorporating a lot of different works of literature into my lesson plans. I think a site that this might be helpful in the classroom. I could get good ideas on which books other people think are worthy. I noticed my friend from this technology class has an account too and has lots of books selected. I think I will like this site. The one thing a little frustrating is having to sign up for so many different things. Its hard keeping up with everything I have created an account for. I hope all my classmates dont wait till the last minute to do some of these projects because sometimes it takes a few days to get approval to be a part of the social network. In fact, I am waiting for approval for TLNing right now. It took me a few days to get approval for teacher pop...SO IF ANYONE IS READING THIS...DONT WAIT TILL THE LAST MINUTE TO FINISH THESE 23 THINGS. Until today, facebook was the only social network I belonged too. I actually think that teacherpop and some of these other networks will be more applicable in the classroom. I look forward to communicating and exchanging ideas with other pre-service teachers. (and teachers)

Thing 18

I never really thought about social networking being beneficial for teachers, so I tried to keep an open mind throughout this process. I do have a Facebook account. I do not not use it as much as I use to. I have actually thought about deleting it. I have a few "friends" on my account that get to political for me. I have a few teacher friends thought that I talk to on occasion, and that is basically why I keep it. I don't see them on a regular basis, so this is a good way to communicate with them. I joined pinterest. I like this a lot. Its a great place to get ideas for the classroom, as well as good ideas for the home. I enjoy seeing all the crafty and seasonal things that teachers post and I look forward to using some of them in my classroom. I did add APSU college of Education of Facebook. I had not done this in the past, so I am glad thing 18 suggested doing it. I can certainly see the usefulness of this. I immediately saw comments and posts from students in the education department asking and answering important questions about assignments and different dates. I like this. I also recognized a person that I became friends with in a different class last semester so I sent a friend request. I think that social networking for teachers can be a great thing. I think that it would be more appropriate if there was a network that was just for teachers. I could do without all the inappropriate ads and comments that people put on Facebook. I like the idea of being able to communicate with a group of people that use the network for the same purpose. I am not really interested in if you are voting for Obama or Romeny, and it seems that Facebook it bombarded with that right now. So far, I like pinterest and google blogger for school ideas. In fact, I had to do a unit plan for 3070 and I used google blogger a lot to get ideas. I thing that educators need to be aware of social networking as opportunities for sharing ideas. I also think that (especially middle and high school) teachers need to be aware of social networking because it has become a way of life todays teenagers. There are negative to Facebook such as cyber bullying. I dont think at this time that any of the social networks that I am familiar with are really appropriate for the classroom. There is too much of a risk, really. ( Twitter is okay too, but I honestly prefer blogging. (and this 23 things project is the first time I have ever blogged). Facebook is okay, and I will keep it for now. The link to my account is https://www.facebook.com/marianne.spencer.7 I did friend request Alexis Wylie. She is in this technology class and 2 other classes with me. I like having connections with people that are going through the whole college experience with me. Facebook can be a very useful tool when everyone uses it responsibly.

Thing 17

I REALLY liked this activity. Not only was it easy, but I can already see what a valuable tool this will be for me in the classroom. I think I will absolutely use social bookmarking. The you tube tutorials that this guy does are always great. He is able to make an abstract concept and simplifies it and makes it concrete for people like me that are not that technologically advanced:)After watching the tutorial, I looked for the bookmarks on my own PC. Funny how sites are marked on there like PBS Kids and Reading Eggs. I find it funny that my 9 or 6 year old (or maybe even my 3 year old...lol) knew how to bookmark, yet I was clueless to this on my toolbar. I understand how having sites like Delicious are much more useful than our own bookmarks on our personal PC toolbar. For one, the public cant see what I have bookmarked on my PC so it is of no value other than to myself. Also, it does not do me any good if I am away from my PC and need something I have bookmarked on it. This is the first "discovery" I made with this activity. Diigo was the first time I have ever used any sort of social bookmarking for EDU 3040. I love it. I am glad that we all (in the class) had to find a site we found useful and bookmark it for others to see. I have already looked at a few that my classmates have bookmarked. I think that teachers can certainly take advantage of social bookmarking. One of our big projects (as a student this semester) was creating a unit plan. We all had to do a lot of researching and looking for resources to incorporate in our unit plan. I mostly used Google blogger to get ideas. (BTW, I would have NEVER known about Google blogger if it wasn't for this class!) I know that sites like this with social bookmarking will save me so much time as a teacher and give me great ideas and suggestions for new strategies. I spent a little time on Delicious. I typed in educational technology and found a lot of stuff on Web 2.0....We haven't done all of them, but I decided to look up a little more on what cloud is. After that, I looked up some more education stuff. I found a great website called Readwritethink.org. This was a great site that I LOVED. There were a lot of great ideas on this. I learned what a diamante poem was and how to teach elementary kids how to do them. I really liked this activity and I think all teachers can benefit from social bookmarking. It is certainly more than just being able to access our personal bookmarks away from home. It is a great place to share ideas and learn from others.

Thing 16

The first thing tried to explore was pageflakes because it had a catchy name. But I dont think this site exists anymore because got a message that said "DNS service for this domain has expired with DNS Made Easy". So I then chose igoogle because was already a little familiar with Google. I liked the layout of this page but there was a message that said that igoogle would no longer be available after November 2013. Even though that gives me a year, I imagine I wont use this much. I think as the year progresses the site plans to take features off. I did like this page though. It was familiar and looked a lot like my msn home page. What I really liked though was that on this you could delete things you did not use. For example, I do not use gmail, so I could remove this part off of the page. I liked that feature. Although I do not use one currently, I like the calendar that Google offers. It was very easy to use and very easy to add events. I really like how I get reminders sent right to my phone letting me know about upcoming events. I don't even have to go to my calender to keep up with it! My daughter's 3rd grade teacher uses a calender of event on her shutterfly account. She will add things to the calendar about upcoming spelling tests, or field trips, parent/teacher conferences, etc. I also get reminders 2 nights before on my phone. I think this is great and I am sure I will use something like this in my classroom to communicate and remind parents of important dates. The next thing I explored was Rmember the milk. I have a friend that has this app, and I know she likes it. I saw a barcode and I used my phone to scan it and now I have the app on my phone. I am still amazed that I can use my phone to scan bar codes and that automatically gives me the app! I played around with the online remember the milk. It was easy to navigate, but I am not sure I will use it. I prefer the calendar to the to do lists. Maybe after spending more time with it, I will change my miind. But as for now, I like the google calender by Google. I liked bloglines. It allows you to be alerted if there have been any updates/changes to a blog you follow. I have already noticed that there are a lot of great blogs on goolgeblogger that teachers use to share lessonplans. This would be a great way to be alerted about updates. Although I guess my RSS feeder does this too. I also really liked gliffy. I love flowcharts and diagrams and can certainly see myself using something like this when assigning research/writing projects. I like that we are being exposed to web 2.0 that are designed to save us time. But it sure it taking a long time learning about them:)

Thing 15

I just finished adding to our page on the wiki. It was actually pretty easy to do. At first I did not really care for the idea of wiki's. However, I now understand how it can be a useful tool. I still don't like the idea of people editing other peoples stuff though. This is how my thought process began. As you read, you can probably tell that I didn't like wiki's at first. HERE GOES: So I am still on the fence about Wiki. I did like the you tube video we watched explaining the point of wiki. It was entertaining and simple to follow. The one thing I didn't like was all the editing. For example: in the video, a person would go in and edit and decide to bring something on the trip. They would add it to the items bringing list. The problem I had was there was no accountability, It didnt say WHO was bringing something. What if that person forgot? I did like how wiki makes it easier to organize vs. e-mails. That part makes sense. I had a college professor ruin me on wiki's for students. She said that is was ridiculous that her college students were using wiki's as academic sources. Kind of funny, really. We had a two hour class on what peer reviewed academic sources were and were told to NEVER use wiki's as a source for a report. But I understand the purpose of this learning activity was NOT for scholarly purposes. I could see using something like this as a tool to communicate with parents. Of all the tools we have learned about, this would not be my first choice. But I can see how it could be useful. As a teacher, I could post class needs/wants. I could include a section for parent volunteers during certain times. If the class had a picnic or a field trip, I could use it to post things that were needed. I did like the bookloverswiki link that this learning activity provided. I like being able to look up books and get reviews. I have heard teachers say that they have started books before with their class and then realized that it wasn't really appropriate. I think a wiki could certainly be a great took for something like this. I also like the link http://teacherlibrarianwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/19823570/FrontPage. This also has great information from one teacher to another. I especially liked the link that included books for elementary kids to read and great reading websites. I realize that if I used a wiki, it would be more for teacher communication with one another than it would be for parent/teacher communication. Teachers could have one site like this (wiki's) and communicate about lesson plans that worked/didn't work, etc. As I am typing this, I am realizing the potential in wiki's for teacher communication. I could see using this for that purpose...but I don't think I would use it in my classroom with parents. I wouldn't want parents editing or adding content that was actually inappropriate. Anyway, I appreciated this learning tool. I never knew that it catered to teachers in this way. I thought it was simply people creating pages of information to sound smart...lol I will be open-minded about wiki's in the future and look forward to discovering some more practical ones for teachers.

Thing 14

I really enjoyed this Learning 2.0 activity. Everything was easy to navigate and I thought a lot of the tools were applicable to the classroom. I first went to gliffy.com. I decided to look at the Venn diagram tool. I LOVE Venn diagrams. I know that I will want to use this in my classroom. It is a great concrete way to compare and contrast different subjects. Some of the common core standards actually pertain to comparing and contrasting, and I think this will be useful. This website only allowed you to do 5 different things for free and without signing up for an account. I did a simple Venn Diagram. It was very user friendly. I also played around with the flowcharts. I also love flowcharts. I am actually doing a lesson plan on teaching 2nd graders to write a personal narrative. A template like this could really be useful. I also played around with the floor plan tool. This was neat looking, but I couldn't quite get the hang of it. It may be useful in creating your classroom layout. But like I said, this was little harder for me to navigate, so I did not spend too much time on it. The next one I went to was the mindmeister. I thought it was need that I could sign in with my facebook account. Although I have enjoyed this 23 things project, I have not liked having to creating so many accounts. I went to the brainstorming tool first. This was fairly easy. I chose the topic of Inclusion and put it in my first bubble. I then branched off into different bubbles including laws and different exceptionalities that teachers see in the gen ed classrooms. I liked this tool. I think that brainstorming templates help students organize their thoughts and help them during the pre-writing process of a paper. I liked how it stored all of your projects in a folder too.This site was great that it made it easy to share your maps with others. But in order to do this you have to pay for an upgrade. There was an upgrade option that included a monthly fee. Although it wasn't expensive, there are too many free templates online for what I need. It is true that is makes sharing easy. I guess a teacher that had a site for parents could show examples of brainstorming with one click verses e-mailing or sending copies home for parents to see. I liked both of these sites. I just prefer the FREE sites with templates verses these.

Thing 13

This is the first time that I have ever heard of Zoho. I didnt event know that something like this existed. I have microsoft word and I guess I have never really had a need for anything else. Zoho is a web based application and I think this is a new concept. When I first started typing on zoho writer, everything looked about the same as it does on word. In other words, I was familiar with how to navigate everything. I did notice that it took a second longer to see the letter I typed on the screen. It seemed to take even longer to edit anything. I was frustrated because I am not use to having to Microsoft word. However, I started thinking about all the advantages to this. For one, its free. When I bought my pc, it was on sale for about $700. Then I added for spy ware (I mentioned I bought a pc...and not a Mac...right? lol) Then I had to buy Microsoft word. I dont remember what I paid for it, but probably close to $200. I knew I had to have it for school. I type all my papers using this and I need it to open a lot of e-mails. Who knew there was a better way? I love how documents can be sent this way and allows a person to open it without having to buy word. I remember when a family member of mine lost their job. They were applying on-line (thats pretty much the standard routine now for getting a job...online applications)...and he kept getting responses in the form of a document that he could not open because he did not have word on his computer. Some applications had to be sent this way as well. He had to use my computer a lot for this process, which was frustrating. It was time consuming too. He had to keep driving to my house to use my computer. After taking all things in consideration, I think I am in favor of using applications like zoho. It is easy to access and it is FREE!!! I think applications like this might but the pressure on microsoft word and force them to lower the prices on Microsoft Office/word. I understand that google driver is a way to share and send doucuments with others. It took a little while to install on my computer but I finally figured it out. I decided to play around with the drawing tool.. It was fun and okay, but I dont think I will use this feature of google drive. However, this application certainly be a great way to communicate as a teacher with students and parents. I actually tried to click on a link from a student in another section of this class..and it said I needed permission from this person to view it. This ensures privacy and I think that is a great thing. I prefer zoho. It was very simple and I could do anything that I needed on this application. Maybe as I gain more experience, I will find google drive to be better. I just know, for me, it took ahwile to download and I am always a little uneasy about having to download things on my computer that I am not familiar with. This is the link to my drawing............Hope it work:) https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1alC1BsVOO2I1J94fKXV1tvGFKoeMMgABx7dn-tFmYbM/edit

Thing 12

I think this is a great resource. However, I will be honest and say that I prefer a pen and a calender that I can write on. In the spirit of learning about new resources, I am trying to figure out how I could incorporate google calender in my classroom. I can see how it could be a good idea for parents to log into a teacher blog or shutterfly (or whatever on-line site they use to communicate) to see a calender of events. Perhaps it could be a calender with slots on it for parents to sign up for parent teacher conference. If there is testing that week that is changing the normal class schedule around, google calender could be used to post the new temporary schedule. This would save time and paper sending home a schedule. After reading a classmates blog (Alexis Wylie), I learned that you can connect google calender to your phone for updates. This is great for me because I almost always have my phone on me. I could put dates and times of in services, meeting with the principal, early release dates, etc. This would help me (or any busy teacher) remember important dates and I see the usefulness of that. I wanted to share a link to my calender but I couldn't figure it out. When I went to a classmates link, I clicked on it and it took me to my calender. She probably does not realize this yet. I will ask more questions and see what I can find out. Google translate was great. It was very simple to use. I can absolutely see myself using this in my class. This could be a fun project for the students to have to do. The can write letters (have pen pals) with kids from other countries. This is also useful for students who are ELL's and are trying to communicate but can't find the write words. They could easily go to the computer and find the translation. I thought it was great how it could also detect a language. For example, I typed in "do sprachenzi deutch" which is spelled wrong and it came back and told me it was German and it gave me the correct spelling. I thought that was GREAT! It makes google translator more user-friendly and very kid-friendly. I really liked this and I can see the potential in using this in my class. The URL to my google translator is http://translate.google.com/#auto/es/do%20sprechanzi%20deutch

Thing 11

I really liked this "thing". It was very easy to do. All the the finding feeds were simple, but for some reason I preferred the google blog search. I think I liked this because my first time using it I got a great hit. I typed in Lesson plans. I found a blog from a teacher who posts blogs and gives help on doing lesson plans. She even shows you different templates that you could use yourself. Her templates were great and included standards and objectives. I am taking EDU 3070 and I am getting ready to have to make a lesson plan. For me, this blog is useful now and I will subscribe to her blog to stay current on new ideas.Using the RSS makes everything show up on one page and I think I will really like it. I hope this saves me time and doesnt mean I will spend more time on the computer because I keep learning about new things. I guess my least favorite was topix.net. I immediately got a pop up for net flix. The page was too busy for me and I prefer the simplicity of the google blog search. I will probably just stick to this. I liked the 2010 Edublog Awards and that could save time searching for good blogs in general. Just for the heck of it, I typed in "weird blogs". I thought it would be interesting to see what popped up. The first blog was about if a person should keep their pregnancy test after if confirms a pregnancy. I actually did not waste the time to read any opinions on this. Another that popped up was weird laws around the world. Here was an interesting one: In the UK, a pregnant woman can relieve herself anywhere she wants, even a policeman's helmet. lol Anyway, I liked this concept of searching and subscribing to blogs. I didnt know that this was so easy to do. There is so much valuable (and some useless) information out there on the web and I plan on using some of these ideas to my advantage in the classroom.

Thing 10

This was interesting for me. I have NEVER heard of an RSS reader until tonight. I THINK I might like it....MAYBE!!! This was actually very easy to set up. Apparently I already has a Google account so I really didn't have to do anything to set this process up. I was able to simply click on subscribe and enter the URL or do a search. I spent a little bit of time trying to decide what to describe to and why. That probably took me longer than anything else. I subscribed to a couple of blogs. One is a friend, another is an local pastor, and another is from someone who posts things about her faith and her daily experiences as a college student. After looking at what other classmates were posting/subscribing to, I also chose to follow/subscribe to a 2nd grade teacher. I play fantasy football with my husband and some friends and I subscribed to a site provided by NFL giving the latest fantasy projections. I also subscribed to Toys R Us and Target, because I always want to check out the latest sales. My husband always begins his morning with his computer. When I ask him what he is doing, he usually responds "reading the paper"....I have always laughed at this resonse, but now I get it. My dad would always begin his morning reading the local paper. He still does, he just now views the paper on-line. What I found funny was that subscribing to RSS and getting updates is really the equivalent of "reading the paper". I think that Google reader (or any RSS) can certainly be a great tool for teachers. Teachers can subscribe to educational sites or blogs by teachers that provide helpful information regarding the classroom. The teachers site that I subscribed to is really neat. She posts lessons and pictures of things that the class did. Teachers could get ideas for lesson plans, etc. It is true that RSS is not necessary. A person could simply surf the web and type in URL's and do different searches. RSS makes it a lot quicker to access pages that you are interested in and tell you in a second which of your favorite sites have made updates. RSS saves a lot of time. RSS could also be a fun and easy way for parents and teachers to communicate. (I say parents, because I want to teach the younger grades)...maybe there is potential here for teachers and students in older grades (middle or high school) to communicate. Anyway, this was interesting for me to learn. I think I will like it. When I wake up tomorrow, I will be sure to log onto my google reader and "read my paper".

Thing 9

This was my least favorite thing to do so far. I first attempted to get a photo of one of my daughters (just her head) on a different body. I found a tinkerbell image and I thought my daughter would enjoy seeing her face on tinkerbell. However, it did not work. Her head was crooked in the face frame part of tinkerbell and it did not look good. I finally was able to do a simple frame around a photo of my oldest daughter. This was easy to do. I honestly doubt I will ever use this though. I actually love to scrapbook....but I prefer glue and scrapping stuff from Hobby Lobby. I would NOT allow my children or students to use these particular sites. There was a lot of inapproprate content on the links provided by 23 things. For example, there were half naked (provocative) bodies that you could put your head on. I want to teach elementary students, and I would not approve of some of these things. There were also too many advertising links that were a distraction. Some of the suggested discovery links would not open on my computer. It said that firefox prevented me from opening them. I feel like I am suppose to find something useful with every discovery exercise. I actually feel bad for not liking this exercise. I will continue to play around with this activity and will add to my blog if I find something useful or fun.

Okay, this is pretty cool. My daughter loved this. This was cute and this was very easy to do. This could be fun to do in the class, but I am not sure this would be practical in the classroom. It would take a lot of in ink (and money).....and you couldn't just do for one kid...you would have to make for the entire class...anyway...this was cute....

Thing 8

Thing 8, a photo by marianne1022 on Flickr.

This is my Ella Payton, a photo by marianne1022 on Flickr.

Okay, So I just played around for about 2 hours on the whole mashups and I still dont know what to think. I tried to play around with all the discovery tools. The one that was the easiest was creating a puzzle from a photo on flickr. That probably only took me a few minutes to figure out. I just chose a random picture on my desktop. I think the puzzle is a cute concept. I think that art teachers could have a lot of fun with this tool. I also chose to do a mosaic. This was also fairly easy and was fun to do. What really baffled my mind was how flickr was connected with so many other tools. For example, I could chose photos from facebook to make my mosaic with. I also liked doing the spelling projects that flickr had. I think that kids could have a lot of fun with this and many different lessons could be incorporated with this tool. I understand that one of the objectives for the 23 things is to explore technology and use it to help facilitate learning in the classroom. However, I am just not sure if I would really use this much other than for creating picture mosaics of the class. Maybe the poster thing would be fun and practical. The kids could upload a picture of themselves and write a caption. This would be fun and creative. However, I am not sure this would be a good idea because the kids would probably want to print out the posters and it would not be economical for all the kids to print a poster of themselves. Maybe as I get more familiar with these features I will be able to find ways to make these tools valuable for the classroom. However, at this point I only see myself doing the picture mosaics. (By the way, I did try to do the clock mashup, but my computer would not allow me to do so...I am not sure why not...I hope someone is able to so this one and posts it because I would like to see it.)

thing 7

015, a photo by marianne1022 on Flickr.

This is Zoe. She is my baby. She is a miracle and I am blessed to be her mom. When I was pregnant with her the Dr. told me that I had miscarried with her and that I was beginning to develop pre-cancerous cells due to a partial miscarriage. I was given what I call an abortion pill (which I decided after reading the label to not take) and was sent to a specialist to remove the tissue that was "cancerous". After a few sleepless nights and lots of tears, I went to my appointment in Nashville with the specialist. After a quick ultrasound, it was very obvious that I was indeed pregnant and did not have any cancer cells at all. Zoe is my miracle and her name means life. She is my reminder that when no one else sees us, that God sees us. When no one else hears us, God still hears us. And when others do not acknowledge us, that God does and he calls us LIFE. I am thankful for the grace of God and my Zoe Grace is a daily reminder of that. I decided to use her photo while trying to learn how to navigate flickr because it would give me something to blog about. As you can see by her picture, Zoe is a little monkey and is full of LIFE! I will have to be honest and admit that flickr was not easy for me to figure out. I was able to create an account easily and upload my photos. I understood what it meant to tag people and I was able to tag our class, but I still have not figured out how to send it to our group because I can not find our group under search. Has anyone else had this problem? I uploaded pictures on shutterfly once, then decided not to get them developed because it cost money for shipping and handling. I probably sound lame, but I still prefer to go to Wal-greens and put my card in their machine and crop, edit, etc. my pictures there. I don't really mind my pictures being "public". That part does not bother me. i just prefer to get pictures developed where I have the actual picture in my hand verses having a bunch of jpegs on my computer. It took my a little while to figure out how to get my picture from flickr to my blog. But like everything else with this project, once you learn how to do it once it gets a lot easier the next time. When I want to share pictures with family and friends, I just put them on facebook. Typically people do not want to see and entire album from you, and facebook make is quick and easy to share one or two of the cutest pics from an album. I guess flickr does to, but I prefer facebook to share. I do need to proably get more comfortable with posting pic on blogs though. I am still thinking that blogging and sharing classroom photos with families would be a great thing to do with my future classroom. I am just not sure at this point if I will use flickr.

Thing 6

      The site that I chose to blog about from the list of Web 2.0 Award nominess is facebook.  I chose this because I think that this site has had the greater amount of influence over social media than any site.  Although facebooks has a disclaimer at this time saying you must be 18 years of age to use, it is easy to open an account and there are many minors who also use facebook.  Facebook is a way to communicate and share photos with people from all over the world.  Each member has a profile and what is called a wall.  The profile is set up by the member and included any personal info the member wants to share such as birthday, hobbies, religion, marital status, etc.  Member of facebook can search for other members.  It is a great way to stay in touch with family members or old friends.  There is a simple way where you can request particular people to be your friend.  After the other member accepts your friend request, it is easy to "chat", share pictures, and communicate with one another.  Members of facebook have what is called walls.  Friends can write on each others walls about anythng they like.  Members can give status updatesas often as they want.  I have noticed that tonight a lot of people are posting political things.  I assume that this has to due with the DNC going on right now.  When people post on walls, it is out there for everyone to see. There are privacy settings that can prevent others from seeing your wall.  There is also a way to send private messages.  There are also games that people can play. 
     What I like about facebook is the ability for family members and friends who live far away to stay connected with one another.  Pictures can be posted.  Althought I havent figured it out yet, video clips can be taken as well and sent to one another.  Staying connected is my favorite thing. What I dislike about facebook it all of the political and religious hatred posted on facebook.  I dont understand why people make facebook their soap box.  It can be contoversial and people can post pretty inapproprate things.  Teachers also have to be very careful if they have facebook.  This is where ones past can come back to haunt them.  It is possible for anyone to find an old picture and "tag" another with the picture.  This essentially means the picture is placed on that persons wall (the one who was tagged) for all to see.
     Some people do not like the idea of being on a camera.  I do not skype for this reason.  I prefer to type and see pictures.  Facebook is a very usefull network for connecting people without a camera.  It is also useful for companies and businesses.  Businesses can have their own page and members can "like" it.  This allows the business to keep people updated on sales, coupons, etc.  It seems like big business and local business all tend to use facebook to help promote their products.
     Although I think facebook could be used in schools, it would need a lot of modifications first.  Maybe a smaller and seperate network could be created just for schools.  At the present time, there is not enough of security measures and no way to prevent inappropriate content from being placed on it.  It is too risky and not really approprate for children.  However, I think that if a kid friendly version of facebook could be created, it could be a very valuable tool.  Kids could interact with other kids from across the country (or even the world).  There is also at this time no use for facebook in a library.
The link for facebook is facebook.com.  It is free but you have to sign up before you can view profiles or create your own.

Thing 5

     Wow....I am absolutely amazed and blown away by School 2.0.  Children have such an advantage to learn in such fun and interactive ways.  When I was in school, technology to us was using the projector from the library.  Occasionally we would get to even watch a VHS tape!  I am 35 years old, and I remember using a typewrite to write my papers in highschool.
     I would describe school 2.0 as using all the technology of computers and incorporating them into the classroom to encourage learning.  With today's technology, students, students are able to use i-pads, smart boards,  and much more.  The internet itself offers all types of different options as well.  Students can use social media such as facebook to communicate with people from all over the world.  School 2.0 is quick and becoming easier for people to learn.What really fascinates me is how most of these new technologies out there are able to sync together.  It amazes me how an i-pod and connect and communicate with your computer to transfer music.  I still have difficulties understanding how a software disc can be inserted in my computer to create a new program on my computer!
     Education has definitely been transformed due to all the advancements of technology.  With School 2.0, we are moving into an age where school can be taught in so many different ways.  There is not just one way to learn (such as paper and pencil).  Technology allows the teacher to manipulate learning and engage students in ways that will prepare our children for the future.  I love how children with disabilities are now able to participate and to be included because of  tools such as the i-pad.  Students can now "go to school" without even leaving the house.  I love the public library (and I hope it does not become obsolete), but now children can read books with devices such as the nook.  High school students and college students can do research without even having to go to the library.
     Classrooms in the future probably wont need textbooks.  Paper and pencils may not be needed.  All learning will probably be done on some sort of computer.  I think it would be cool if a student could one day take a foreign language class such as Spanish by logging onto the computer and watching a teacher from Spain teach the course.  I'm sure it is possible to do this already.  We just have not made it logistically possible yet.
     I imagine the classrooms will continue to change as technology advances.  Although the gadgets being used will change and keep improving, the one thing remains a constant.  The purpose and goal of the classroom is to educate children in a way in which they can reach their fullest potential.

Thing 4

I never thought about this until now, but blogging certainly creates a sense of community. Reading my classmates blogs about their experiences with this project allowed me to see that I was not alone. Others were having the same anxieties and issues with setting up their blogs that I was. This made me feel like I was not alone in this experience. A friend of mine with a child with Down Syndrome has a blog and has many followers. (some with children with special needs and some without) People (even strangers) are able to offer support and encouragement. She has a built in community surrounding her offering her encouraging words. Some followers are able to relate to her experiences and can offer great advice to her. I know a few other people that blog too. One of my friends is a pastor of a church and blogs different experience from his daily life and relates is to the bible. Another friend is an amazing singer and blogs about her life as a stay at home mom. When reading 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog, I really liked how suggestion 8 had a question mark after it. To be controversial or not; some may say yes because it draws for followers and more responses to your post. However, it is worthy to consider what kind of community you are trying to build by blogging. By adding controversy, you may lose followers who actually have input that is essential or enhancing to building your blogging community. I agree with the author when he says he tries to stay clear of controversy. I also agreed with CoolCats blog about leaving meaningful comments. I know I don't like on D2L when people comment to my post by saying I agree or good job. If I publish a blog, I have put time into it and I want some time put back into any comments. If you can’t post anything better than "I agree, then don't comment at all. I chose a few different blogs to comment on. I posted to a girl named Rachel. I don’t really know her, but I know her mom. Rachel is a college student at UT Knoxville. She writes very articulate and inspiring blogs about her journey as a college student and blogs about her faith and her relationship with Jesus Christ. I simply chose to blog encouraging words to her and told her I appreciated her honesty and her blogs. I also blogged to Angie Howard. She is a friend of mine that I haven’t seen in about 7 years. She posted a video of her singing God Bless America. It was amazing, and I blogged to her thanking her for posting her video of her singing. When I commented to her, I got a message from blogspot saying I would have to wait for her to approve my comment before it would show. I am imagining by the time this is being graded it will have been approved. The link for Rachel is http://rapelt.blogspot.com/2012/09/dear-me.html?showComment=1347584971549#c7759980820174374441 and the link for Angie is http://angieacapella.blogspot.com/2012/09/i-remember.html#comment-form I chose a few classmates blogs to comment on. I chose Wendy Young because I know her. She was in a class of mine this summer. She also agreed that technology was hard for her to use to her advantage. I could relate to that so I posted a few comments to her letting her know that she was not alone. The link to where I commented is at http://wyoung3780fall.blogspot.com/2012/09/thing-1.html#comment-form I commented on Ashely Saunders post blog http://gonnalearn23things.blogspot.com/2012/09/thing-3-blog-in-classroom.html#comment-form I commented on her because we initially had the same questions about how a blog would fit into our classroom. I thought it would be good to see how we both felt I chose Danielle Witter for the opposite reason that I chose Wendy. I don’t know her at all and she posted in thing 1 that technology was her strength. (which is my weakness) The link is http://dwitter3040.blogspot.com/2012/08/thing-1.html I commented on Alexis Wylie at http://wylie23thingsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/in-my-future-classroom-or-teacher.html#comment-form I chose Alexis because she sits behind me in two different classes and I thought it would be good to get to know her. I posted on a few other blogs to from other sections. I will try to find the URL to this one girls post and edit this one. It was so funny. She talked about how she was in tears and curled up in a fetal position because of the difficulties of setting up a blog…It was so funny to me because I could relate. I blogged to another guy in a different section about his avatar. The avatar had an army shirt with a chef’s hat and I think he was a cook in one of the armed forces. My section is really slacking right now. There are not many posts to comment on. 2 of the registered blogs have no entries, and one blog has been temporarily shut done to investigate appropriate content. Anyway, I am sure I will comment as the semester goes on. I like this assignments of 23 things and I am beginning to like the whole blog thing here is another link to a comment I made...I was actually responding to Wendy a classmate) who had a great idea on how to incorporate thing 9 into the classroom..sharing ideas!!! just one of the benefits to blogging... http://collegemomsblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/blog-post.html?showComment=1347765420320#c5227731978529188322

Thing 3

This is my 3rd blog and I think I am really going to enjoy doing this.  This is great practice and I can honestly say that I think I will use something like this for my classroom.  I plan to teach younger kids (perhaps 1st grade) so I think the parents would use my blog rather than the students.  I imagine my blog will be used mostly as a communication tool between myself and the parents.  I think it is realistic to say that my goal will be to update blog entries weekly.  I think it would be a good place to connect and communicate with parents about what the class was doing that particular week.  I would have a place for spelling words and another place for the weeks homework.  If a student missed a day, the parents could log in and look to see what the child's homework was for that day.  I could include a monthly calender where important dates such as field trips and test days could be viewed.  I could post all the children's birthdays on the calender as well. 
     I think it would be a good idea to provide important links for parent on my blog.  Maybe there would be fun educational games I thought the students would enjoy that we just did not have time to do during class time.  There are many education sites other than just games that could reinforce learning at home.  Maybe if we are learning about plants (for example), I would have a link for an educational site that could serve as a fun review over what the students were being taught that week. (Let's face it, sometime parents need to be reminded about what photosynthesis is to help their child with homework)   Another good idea would be to post additional literature that I think the families would enjoy reading together.  A book club would be fun as well.  I imagine that there is not enough time in the class day to do everything that I would want to do with my class.  A blog would be a great idea to encourage reading and learning outside of the classroom while involving the parents.  I could give suggestions to the parents on what specific questions to ask the child about particular books.  If teaching older kids, I could give incentives to the children for posting a book review on the blog site. 
     I could also use a blog to communicate with other teachers.  I could post my lesson plans and ask for suggestions or feedback with other teachers. I could include reflections about what worked well and what did not seem to work for the class.  Getting feedback and using the process of reflection is a great way to become an effective and successful teacher.  Maybe another teacher had some of the same experiences and could provide feedback to encourage and provide suggestions.
     Like I mentioned before, this is only my third blog ever.  The possibilities are endless.  I am sure as I continue to learn  more about blogging, I will have even more ideas about how I will this technology to foster learning in my classroom.  My daughters 3rd grade teacher actually uses a site from shutterfly which I think is awesome.  She includes weekly homework assignments along with what the class is learning all week.  She has a place for a wishlist of things the class needs (supplies, snacks, etc.), and even post dates that she is looking for a parent volunteer.  I hope to get lots of ideas from her and incorporate them into how I want to use a blog or some sort of class website for my students.  I think this is a great way to communicate with families and to include parents in the education of their children.

Thing 2

     Creating a blog was very difficult for me.  I have never done this before and it seemed to take me way too long.  I had to come up with usernames and it seemed that all the ones I tried were taken. I finally decided on collegemomsblog.  It seemed fitting.  I am a mother of three and for the past 9 years that has pretty much defined who I am.  I can not add collegemom to my title!
      I was afraid I was going to mess something up which also kept me at creating my blog at a slow pace.  However, I feel more confident now and hopefully will get quicker as I get further into my project of 23 things.  I LOVED making my avatar.  It was not difficult to do.  The only problem I had was that when I set up the account I had to give them my e-mail.  They had to send me an e-mail for me to confirm my account.  The problem was that it was sent and placed in my junk e-mail.  It took me about 15 minutes to even think about checking my junk mail.  Sure enough, it was there! I just had to click on the link and I was official!  I had an account and created my first avatar.

     I think my avatar looks just a little like me.  I think the hair color and cut is about right.  I also love coffee, so I was excited to add the coffee cup to my avatar.  I picked the background of a chalkboard.  I thought that was fitting since I want to be a teacher one day.  I liked the shirt a picked out.  Its a jersey and I love sports and  usually dress pretty casually like this.  This was fun.  I hope the 23 things is as fun as this!

THING ONE

      

   

       According to the powerpoint, there are 7 1/2 lifelong learning habits.  I really liked how the last one included play.  As a busy mother of 3 girls, I sometimes forget this.  However, the one that was most challenging for me was habit 6.  This one was about using technology for our advantage.  Although there are 4 computes in the house and my husband and I both have smart phones, I certainly don't have the skills to utilize these tools for my advantage.  I have owned a nook color for about a year and have only downloaded one book.  (and I LOVE to read).  I got an ipod 2 years ago and I still couldnt tell you how to upload or download (whatever the right word is) a song.  In fact, I dont even know where it is right now.  I can text, check my facebook, and check my e-mail.  I am getting better at navigating my D2l.  That is about the extent of my ability.  I noticed when my husband, who is quite the electonic gadget guy, tries to explain things to me either about my phone or the computer, I tune him out.  It is almost as if my brain is screaming "Don't listen to him!"  I am a very diligent student, and I know that being forced to take this class will benefit me greatly.  I am sure my husband is relieved that I am finally forced to learn how to do some of this stuff so he wont have to help me so much!

     Habit number 7 is the easiest for me.  I love to mentor and teach people.  Last semester I took statistics online.  A girl I knew was also taking the class.  She was struggling and was afraid that she would fail the class.  I started helping her before our midterms.  We had the same midterm test, and she ended up scoring higher than me!  Anyway, helping her was fun.  I have two kids in elemenatry school and I love sitting down with them to do homework.  I love when I am able to help someone learn something new.  I think teaching someone is so much fun.
     Becoming more familiar with web tools will absolutely make me a better teacher.  I will try to keep a posivie attidute and embrace technology.  I was nervous about creating my first blog ever.  I was afraid I was going to mess something up. But I didnt!! Who knows.....I might just survive this class:)