Thing 24- To be or not be that is the technicological question!

My favorite activities include: the anamito video maker (which I am now a subscriber) and the livebinder activity.  I am already planning to use these programs next year.  I think this program has influenced my lifelong learning goals because I try each week to incorporate more interactive lessons with more technology. I did experience an unexpected surprise when I got a better education on copyright laws and the creative commons.  I like the format and most of the 23 things but I feel like the "thing" that encompassed alternatives to microsoft office could have used a little more exercise collaboration between classmates for example.  I thought that googledocs could have had a group collaboration because we use it in CMCSS and it is a real world application that we will use again.  I really did enjoy this course.  i have used my interactive powerpoint with my kids and I know we will use them again next year.  I am still investigating the different features of web 2.0 but there are many programs we have learned about that I am planning for next years lesson plans.

Thing 23

I have used creative commons in my classroom already.  As we discussed plagiarism we talked about things that we can share.  As a class we went over the PowerPoint Presentation I created in this course.  We looked at the creative common symbols.
We discussed:

cc- creative commons licenses
•Not meant to compete with copyright
•Meant to go with copyright
•Means some rights reserved
•Grants permission in different ways for use of a work

We found this image which shows that the work has a creative commons license which can be used but credit must be given to the author, we can use the work but not for money, and we cannot change the original work. 

 

Thing 22

The titles of my livebinders are:  Geography, World History, US History.


Link to my Geography Binder

This is a great feature.  The use of livebinder can keep students who are absent up-to-date.  It also serves as a fail safe/space saver for materials needing to be stored.  I think that this was a neat project.  I also like that I can share it with my co-workers.

Thing 21

The Best things in My Life


Make your own slideshow at Animoto.
OMG! I love this site!! I am going to be subsribing to this one I can see!  It is so easy to use and makes such wonderful memories into an awesome show I love it!  i spent more time on this one project then I should have but I just could not drag myself away.  I know I will be using this next year as i take pictures of my classes and create and end of the year slide show!

Thing 20

I am a youtube.com fanatic. I spend a lot of my free time surfing this site. I even have upload a video of my little girl on here when she was a toddler. I think that this site is easy to use and has great video capability. I like that most bands put their music videos on youtube as well as all the funny videos that are out there waiting to make me laugh! I picked the video by Note to God by Rhema Marvanne. I like the video because it is a little girl (she is 8) singing a song about if she talked to God what she would ask for. Her video is a slide show of the people in the military being reunited and some being buried after giving the ultimate sacfrice. The song is more powerful with this slide shows in comparision with all the others that have been done in my opinion. Most of the times I watch the video I get teary eyed. Rhema is an inspiration because she lost her mother in 2008 and instead of withdrawing from the world she decided she wanted to be a gosphel singer like her mother.

Thing 19

I am now a member of the tasty kitchen. I like the tasty kitchen because it is easy to use and I plan on using the recipes and canning tips from there. I also belong to pinterest. I only joined pinterest last week but I have found out that I am always searching for neat crafts and things to do with my daughter on there.

Thing 18

I explored the social media sites and like facebook best. Honestly I like facebook because I am very familiar with it. I have found several useful things as a teacher that I can use facebook for. For example, their is a link for students to receive destination updates and pictures. I gave extra credit for my students to use facebook and create a picture collage of different popular locations with backgrounds and things one would want to see. Their background had to address the location of the places (continent, country), the climate of that area, the culture of the people that lived there. My students loved it! I like that I was already familiar with facebook and adding friends, adding groups, and things of that nature I am not sure I will ever get used to twitter. As I teacher I also find I can see what is going with my students on a personal level because most kids do not censor what they say on facebook. For instance, without even friending my students most of them have open profiles and I know one was sick this week and another student went to party and is grounded and yet another student's father deployed. It helps me monitor my students and the changes they go through in a school year without telling them that I am.

Thing 17

I went to delicious and joined which was an easy task. I don't know if anyone else had trouble locating things with the educational technology tag but I had some trouble there. I did not find any results on the network or but I did find some results under the other links on Delicious. I explored a link called smartboard in the classroom. THis link has made me envious as it tauted all the wonderful things a teacher can use a smartboard for. I have requested a smartboard but was told with the look of the next budget things are not looking well for me. :( I like the social bookmarking site because it is an easy way to share ideas and tweak lessons that could use a little extra ommph :)

Thing 16... High tech we are moving now!

So today I got an education on high tech things to keep me up-to-date and organized! One of the biggest issues I have as a new teacher is keeping college and work schedules! There seems to be so much to do all the time I just miss somethings. The first thing i made was a unique and customized homepage. I like my new page because it allows me to stay up to date and news and things that I would use with my history classes. I like my yahoo customized homepage better then google but I would not say that I am not going to use google though I doubt I make it my homepage. I also was able to update my calendar. I even made a class calendar for students to view at home! I like the to do list I made with Remember the milk. Ironically I created a to-do-list for this class so I wont miss any deadlines this week since I selected drowning in work may not make it on our class poll. I will use the calendar for school for sure! I also know already that I will use the remember the milk to do list for home and school because it gives me dates, events, in a checklist format that is easy and quick to make!

Thing 15

I found that this is now one of my favorite blog projects. Using a wiki was great. I think I will use wikis in my class next year to allow students to get extra credit points for collaborating on their own time about things they like doing and things they don't like doing. I also want to use the wiki for students to create virtual assignments and tours of different locations in Geography and World History. This is a fun and engaging way for students to collaborate. I like that they can collaborate from home, school or even while out on vacations! I was a little confused when I first went to the APSU sandbox but then realized I was locked out while another student was editing their project. Once I was able to complete the edit though it was easy and fun. I like that I can make graphic organizers using the mindmap web 2.0 software and then allow my students to own it by editing the graphic organizers to fit each group and show what they were able to come up with.

Thing 14

Flowchart VS. Mindmap I found personally I had a lot of fun making the mindmap. I used the Bubbl.us to create the mindmap. The web 2.0 program was relatively easy to use and I was able to create a nice mindmap within a few minutes. I struggled a little at first but once I was used to the commands it went smoothly for me. I made a chart for my new students next school year on three basic types of geography that is in our course of study. I was able to change the colors and size of my text. I also enjoyed changing the colors which would have enhanced the appearance on a document camera. When it came to my ability with the flowchart I found myself lacking. i used Gliffy and created the image below. I was able to create a similar chart though it took me longer. I was frustrated and realized that the program was probably not one I would use in the future because Bubbl.us was so much easier for em to use.

Thing 13

The above image is the image I created on google docs. I know that in my school we use google docs to update different tasks and projects teachers are working on or sometimes the students we need for those projects. I also like that I can have my classes colaborate on google docs. For example one class could log-in and create a document like this study guide which my next class will then fill in or add on. I like google docs better then Zoho. I honestly think my preference for Google Docs was because it was easier to use for me. I had a little guess work with Zoho but found I could manuever easier through Google Docs. This may have been true just because I like using google so the platform was not foreign to me.