Thing #21 Animoto

Try our video maker at Animoto.

I really like creating this video with Animoto! If only I had more time and money to upgrade and make more videos.  This would be a wonderful tool for teachers to use to display student work on the class website.  As a parent I know I would love to have my child's work showcased in this manner.  Earlier this semester I had to travel to South Africa.  Although this was not really a pleasure trip, I took along my camera and captured some of the beautiful sites.  The music in the background is from a South African Jazz Musician I met during my trip.

Summary

This was way more work than I initially anticipated.  As I noted in an earlier blog, one thing lead to another which lead to another, and so on and so forth.  There was a great deal of information I learned from this project but for some reason I feel like I need to start over and complete this process at my own pace in order to best utilize the tools I found most useful to their full capacity.  There were several tools I wanted to immediately begin using and sharing with my students as well as family members.  My personal go to is now the Google Reader which I use daily.  I have also shared LiveBinders with other teachers I know.  This project could be improved by being a discovery project over the entire matriculation through the certification program.  One other thing I've learned from this project is the fluency at which students are expected to obtain and retain information has greatly increased over the past decade or so.  Technology is a no longer just one way of doing things, it is becoming the only way to do things in much of our culture.

Thing #23 Creative Commons

My exploration of Creative Commons lead to discoveries that will hopefully keep me and my students out of court!  It is important to me make every attempt to maintain integrity while integrating new tools into my curriculum.  Students should learn to refrain from plagerism in all aspects and modes of communication. Creative Commons lead me to discover other websites and lesson plans to aide me in teaching these important concepts.

Thing #22 Keepin' it Together: Livebinders

Middle School English Grammar

I have created three Live Binders.  They are: Middle School Grammar, Middle School Reading, and Middle School Social Studies.  Of all the organizational tools I've discovered through this project, I like live binders the most.  I think this will be a very useful tool for students and teachers alike.  I currently like the idea of students using binders to organize their notes, assignments and other documents.  This is a tool that can be easily implemented and a great way for teachers, students and parents to share information.  Continunity is key!

Thing #20 You, Too, Can YouTube

What I like most about YouTube is the filing feature.  I can search and save videos to show at a later date.  I can share videos with others.  I am now creating files of videos to coincide with lessons I create and find for several different subject areas.  I chose the video below because it relates to the standard I have chosen to work with for this class.




<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/o2G5DSvNVvY?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Thing #19 Beyond Facebook: Other Social Networks

I am now a proud member of TeacherPop!  I joined this social network but something with this computer I'm using just won't let me add the badge.  As I stated earlier I have been member of Facebook in the past just to keep in touch with out of state family.  I have also joined What's On My Bookshelf but I have not shared any of my books yet but I plan to use this tool to share my collections and acquire books I am interested in reading and/or to test out some books before presenting them to my students.

Thing #18 Explore Social Networking

Most middle and high school aged students spend countless hours communicating with friends and others via facebook and twitter.  I find both these networks to be controversial.  Most recently cyber-bullying is quickly becoming one source of much dismay among young people.  Gone are the days when you could end a conflict by talking it out at school and forgetting about it.  Nowadays, someone somewhere is going to find a way to keep the drama going with a FB post or Tweet.

I have used Facebook to keep in touch with my many family members who chose to frequent these sites.  Mainly I joined because I don't get to visit my home state very much and this was the most convenient way to send well wishes and at least know what some newer family members look like growing up.

Although I can see some ways that social networking could benefit learning, I have found many more reasons for young students not to use these tools.

Thing #17 Tagging and social bookmarking with Delicious

As soon as I completed this "thing" I began using it.  I had never even heard of Delicious before and the title was intriguing at the start.  This tool is very user friendly and I like the idea of being able to access all my bookmarks from any computer.  I pretty much do the same thing with my + Google account but with delicious I don't have to log into my Google account and risk everything I have associated with my Google account being hacked while using a public computer.

Thing #16 Get Organized with Web 2.0 Tools

I live by the list!  I make list for everything.  I make grocery list, to-do list, wish list, book list, etc.  I chose iGoogle as my start page because I am familiar with Google, I already had a gmail account and use several other google tools.  I actually created my google start page while completing another one of the "things".  I only recently started using the calendar feature on google.  Previously I relied on my outlook calendar and the app that is on my cell phone to keep track of important dates and meetings.  I found the google calendar just as useful, if not more so, than the outlook calendar simply because most of the tools I use are already on my start page and with google.  I do like the idea of the to-do list but, I doubt that I will use it as much as my pen and paper.  It just seems easier to me to keep a note pad and check off items as I complete them.  I have sent my mother the links for igoogle and suggested that she being using these tools for her business.  She does quite a bit of travel and it is not always easy for her to carry all her documents and hard copies of information with her.

Thing #15 What in the World is a Wiki?

For years I've used the wiki Wikipedia to look up information.  I relied on this tool and expected the information there was factual.  I was not aware until completing this exercise exactly how this information was collected.  Although I have not seen any reason to believe that the information on Wikipedia is not the most reliable that could be collected, I am now a bit leery and tend to use other tools to verify the information.  I also joined a wiki at the school where I currently work and thus far only administrators have posted and made changes to the information.

Thing #14 Go with the Flow

I chose to explore flowchart and mind meister.  I used flowchart while working on a math project.  Flowcharts and mindmaps can be very helpful visual aids to use with students.  I was especially interested in learning how these tools can be used in the classroom with students with learning disabilities. Flowcharts would probably be best suited for teachers to use to create visual aides for students whereas mind maps are likely best used by the student to keep track of information they may need for a project. Both sites I tested were pretty user friendly and neither required a lot of steps to set up accounts.  Flowchart was had the most steps because it required an invitation to be sent to my email before I could log in.  I also liked the ability to easily share documents with Google Drive.  

Thing #13 Web-based Applications

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6f5JDzQARn3S3dzUWpWZHpOQ2s
I created an account on Zoho only because this assignment called for it.  Personally, Zoho Writer is not my choice for productivity tools.  I much prefer Google Drive.  I found that Zoho Writer had too many steps in order to share a document and even once I got through all the steps the link still did not work when I tested it in this blog post.  However, Google Drive is my "friend".  Aside from the fact that I am already a google user, Google Drive was compatible with Dropbox which enabled me to easily share a project I needed to complete for another class.

I can envision myself and my future students using Google Drive to collaborate on projects.  Whenever there is an opportunity for students to work on group projects, I will require them to use Google Drive.  A perfect example was the project I worked on with four other students in another class.  It was a math course in which groups were assigned problems to present to the class.  Our group was able to share our problems with each other and make corrections and additions prior to sharing the assignment with the entire class