Thing 24: Sneaky additional assignment

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

This assignment has definitely been an eye opener. There are so many web tools out there, that having to pick one thing that would be my favorite is fairly difficult. If I have to pick, I'd probably say delicious.com is my favorite. There are so many people out there that want to share their knowledge and it's all free!

• How has this program affected your lifelong learning goals?

I have always thought of myself as technologically savvy, but this assignment has really shown me that while it may not be difficult once you know about it, it's the getting to know about something that will be the challenge. How will I stay current with all of the emerging technology. That will be my goal. 

• Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I would have to say I was continually surprised by the the sheer number of web based tools out there. I don't think many of my colleagues know about them. That or they are keeping them all secret and why would they do that. It must be the former. 

• What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

I think the format is pretty great. The only thing I would probably do is try to add more collaborative work among classmates, or possibly have as an assignment to continually post comments to encourage others to keep up the good work. 

• How will what you have learned influence your practice as a teacher?

Keeping students interested and engaged is definitely one of the top challenges teachers face. I believe that by staying current and applying technology appropriately in the classroom can be a great way to get the students involved and ensure true learning can occur by having the students truly motivated to learn.

• How do you plan to keep up with new developments in web 2.0? Recommend a way that you have found to be useful.

Educational blogs will probably on the top of that list. Delicious.com is another way to stay current. Simply Googling a topic and seeing what comes up can be tremendously beneficial. 

Thing 23: CC

Learning about Creative Commons was definitely eye opening. I knew about some of the difficulties some people have had with unauthorized sharing online, but I had no idea of the scope to which it was occurring. I also had no idea about the original copyright law itself. There was probably more importance placed on people being able to legally share their work, than the amount that was placed on trying to stop people from sharing illegally.

I was somewhat surprised to find out there were so many "23 Things" blogs and assignments out there. It's a pretty good assignment, but I wonder why it has been copied and altered as much as it has. It must be a fairly good way to cover a lot of material at a self directed pace. Here is an example of a blog that states this at the top right hand side.

http://neflins23things.blogspot.com/

"Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program created for The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenberg County by Helene Blowers. Content and style for 23 Things @ NEFLIN have been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License."

A lot of the things that I use in my class room are not copied illegally, but one thing I can see myself doing is giving proper attribution when I copy and paste into a powerpoint.  That is definitely one thing I have done before. 

Thing 22: Livebinders

Livebinders seems like a great resource if I didn't already have Google docs, delicious.com, and diigo. It may be more convenient since it is all in one place, but people like to stick with what works for them, so I probably won't be using this site on a regular basis. That being said there is a lot of great information on this site. I really liked going through this binder.
There is some really great information here for new teachers. I probably spent over an hour just going through this one binder. It actually made me want to go to the conference that this was taken from. I could probably learn a lot at one of those.

Thing 21: Animoto

Animoto is a fairly easy web based tool to create video montages from photos. Probably the coolest capability of the site is to use photos that you may have saved on other websites instead of having to upload them to the Animoto site. I actually used some photos from a recent trip to Puerto Rico to create a montage.



Make your own slide show at Animoto.

The site definitely wants you to upgrade so you can have access to more options. The photos in the montage are a lot fuzzier than the originals. But what they allow you to do can definitely give you an idea of what is possible on the full site. An upgrade may even be worth it compared to having to go buy software.

Thing 20: Youtube

Youtube is quickly becoming the go to site for online videos. I remember when there were many different sites I would frequent That had either funny or informative videos, and sometimes it would be difficult to remember which site had which video. Now all of the videos that I used to watch are now somewhere on youtube. The videos can be great tools. I recently learned how to add them to power points, or even embed them into a presentation. The one thing that does bother me are all of the ads that have become so prevalent. I wish They would not put the ads on the screen.

Here is a great video a friend showed me a little while ago. It is pretty funny, but also will make you think about not having someone proofread something before you turn it in.

Thing 19: Other social websites

In addition to Facebook and twitter, I have a Google+ , Yelp, Urbanspoon, goodreads, pandora, and delicious.com accounts. They can keep me quite busy, and with Yelp and Urbanspoon I can keep my belly full with some deliciousness that I otherwise would have not ever found. Social networking is a great way to learn about things that you previously did not know even existed. There have been times when I have remarked at how I could not imagine going back to doing things the way I did before I found out about _________. That's a good feeling and makes me feel less bad about how much time I can waste online looking through a bunch of junk. That seems to be the trick with social media, knowing how to wade through the crap, and find a diamond in the rough!

Thing 18: Social networking

Social networking can be a dangerous thing for educators. There have been instances of people being careless. While there are endless possibilities for teachers to interact with their students, it isn't always appropriate to use the same account for your personal and professional life. I recently set up a twitter account as part of another assignment. My handle is @GAmathnerd. I'm not very familiar with the best way to use twitter yet, but since it is the fastest growing social networking site out there right now, I'm sure it will behoove me to begin incorporating it into my classroom. Right now it looks like Facebook has more features, although in my estimation Google+ is fast on their way to being a top competitor, especially for more professional settings with its capability to integrate with all of Google's applications.

Thing 17: Social Bookmarking

Delicious.com just got themselves a new fan. This is a one stop shop for some great websites and will only get better with time and more users. I'm really glad this assignment has introduced me to this site. My girlfriend is a big fan of pinterest.com and this site has a lot of similarities. The social aspect is probably the best part of all. Unlike diigo, where you need to be invited to see a list or a groups bookmarks, delicious.com is all public and anybody is able to see what you thought was worthy enough of a bookmark. I can definitely see myself using this site a lot in the future!

Thing 16: Getting organized(ish)

I am a big fan go Google, so it probably isn't a huge surprise to see that I chose iGoogle as my homepage. I really wish that they chose a better name for it though. I get really annoyed with how much stuff exists with a lower case i in front of the name of the product....i digress.

Google has lots of tools available to add to your homepage. Its completely customizable. I chose to add my gmail, a moon phase calendar, my horoscope, weather for me and for where my parents live, a random fact app, and a small google map. I can go to this one page and catch up on a lot of things fairly quickly. If I need to do more things in my mail, it is right there for me to open up. iLove iGoogle.

I checked out the sticky notes sites, and I just don't get it. I don't understand the need for a separate app just to write down a quick note. I'm pretty sure every computer has a note program pre-installed. I think the sticky note thing is just for people who want their digital notes to resemble post-it notes. I am definitely a function over fashion person, so I will be skipping this one.

Online calendars are awesome. My school makes the entire year available in a digital format which I can put on my computer, phone, or iPad. It makes it very easy for me to find out exactly when grades are due, when our fall or spring breaks are, and every other holiday or day off for that matter. Two thumbs up from me.

Thing 15: what's a wiki?

Wikis can be a great resource for a classroom. It can be a place where students can add material or where they can go for answers to homework problems. For all the good that wikis have to offer, they can also be a source of misinformation as well. Many teachers intentionally go to wikipedia and put misinformation to show students that anybody can write whatever they want, and just because it is posted online does not make it a fact. There have been quite a few times in some of my classes where some of my own classmates have quoted things I knew to be untrue. It does not make them look very smart at all. Be careful! I hope everyone liked the changes I made to their posts on our wiki. They were subtle, so you'l have to look hard.

Thing 14: Flowcharts and mind maps

For this assignment I chose Gliffy for my flowchart. I chose this site because of some of its other features besides just flowcharts. Although I can see a use for flowcharts in my class, it was the Venn diagrams that really caught my eye. I can definitely see myself using this site to show the commonalities and differences of different polygons, or maybe using a flowchart to show the correct procedures to solve problems.

For a mindmap, I chose bubbl.us. I had not had much experience with mind maps in the past. This site was very simple to use and had nice clean graphics. I don't like it when some site try to get too cute and end up going overboard with the graphics.

Thing 13

Google never ceases to amaze. That must be an incredibly fun company to work for. I have been using Gmail, Picassa, and Google docs for a while now. Here is a doc I created a while ago. It is pretty standard practice for my friends and I to collaborate and coordinate food and other various sundries when we go camping. This could be a great way for students to collaborate on projects without having to be at the same place. I remember working on group projects where we had to meet up at someone's house. Now students can simply open up there project in Google and correct mistakes someone else made, or do any other editing or revising that may be necessary.