Is it the end or only the beginning?

One of my favorite challenges during this blogging journey was the Animito video. I guess that I never really realized how easy technology can be to use nowadays, and this definitely proves that I need to make more of an effort in using technology to my advantage. The biggest unexpected outcome for me is the fact that I actually really enjoyed parts of this blog. I expected for it all to be a complete nightmare. The biggest improvement I could think of is making it so that I wouldn't have to sign up for 25 different sites. I know that there are some sights that I signed up with that I will probably never use again so if the sites could be streamlined a bit I would have appreciated that. I've learned that technology is my friend, not an enemy. I plan o keeping up with sites like the bookmarking sites to stay up to date with Web 2.0.

Thing #23

The idea for the 23 Things blog came from stephen Abram's 43 Things I want to do This Year. Helen Blowers then took this idea and helped to turn it into the Learning 2.0. Creative Commons will definitely be something useful for me as a teacher. These laws help to protect individuals from copyright laws and give you more creativity. Also, the more that I know about and am informed about Creative Commons the better that I will be able to instruct me students and teach them about how to use work legally. Many students will not learn this if it isn't taught to them in the classroom so we can't just assume that they already know about Creative Commons.

Thing #21

Sweet Summertime

Animoto was pretty easy to use. I just had to choose which theme and song that I wanted and then added pictures and you can pull from Facebook, Flickr, or straight from your computer. I was a bit apprehensive at first. I thought this would take me hours but this would definitely be easy enough for students to use. This would be a fun way to show what students did over Christmas or Summer break, I think. Or you could make a video of a class field trip to send to parents so that they could see what all their children were doing. All in all I did greatly enjoy this site.

Thing #20

I absolutely love YouTube! You can find anything from funny Super Bowl Commercials to computer tutorials. The video that I found and really enjoyed was [Educators] Drs. Harry and Rosemary Wong, it was all about what an effective teacher is and how to become effective teachers. I think that YouTube can be an extremely affective tool for students. I can upload tutorials or clips about historical figures to help enhance my lessons.

Thing #22

The titles of my binders are: "Differentiated Instruction", "Classroom Management", and "Middle School Social Studies". I chose these for my binders because these are the things that I am most concerned about being proficient in. I know that if I don't differentiate between the different types and levels of learners or if I have poor classroom management then I will not be an effective
teacherhttp://www.readingrockets.org/article/263/

I could use live binders in the classroom in several ways. This would be an easy way for students to organize their own research and for me to already have binders of information for them and all I have to do is click share and my students would be able to access them. This would also help me to keep tabs on where my students are going when they're online. It's so easy for them to accidentally click one wrong link and see something completely inappropriate.

Thing #19

Until now I was never a member of any online communities outside of Facebook and Twitter so I found these sites very interesting. One of my personal favorites was the Education Networking. On tis site I can literally connect with hundreds of teachers from around the U.S. This opens many doors to different activities and ideas for me to use in my classroom. We all know that the more ideas and information that we can gather the more successful we will be as teachers. So I plan on begging and borrowing many ideas from this site in the future!

Thing #18

http://www.facebook.com/lauren.kaycee.5

Finally! I get to blog about something that I'm very comfortable with! Social networking is crucial in my opinion. The world is becoming more and more closely knit and sites such as Facebook and Twitter can really help to propel your career. It's helped me to reconnect with old friends, and stay in contact with current teachers. I also believe that you need to be very careful with these sites. These days anything can be screen shot and sent to anyone, anywhere. This is why I'm very watchful over what I post or allow to be posted on my pages. In terms of use in the classroom I feel that Facebook is a more useful site because students can create groups and communicate to each other. With this opportunity though, we need to teach students about how to present themselves in a responsible manner, since many children will not be taught these behaviors at home.

Thing #17

I liked Delicious to an extent. It was super easy to find tons of articles on anything I could want to research. However, a lot of the sites that it was connected to weren't always the easiest to navigate. I could see this being a very easy tool though to connect with new resources. This would also be a fun tool for students to use to get hundreds of new resources, websites, articles, etc.  So overall, I have my reservations about bookmarking but I do think that it holds a useful place in the classroom.

Thing #16

I chose to use iGoogle for my home page and while I liked that I could choose my interests and immediately was shown articles relating to my interests, there was also a little note at the top of my screen saying that iGoogle would no longer be available after November 1 of this year. Because of this I won't be keeping this as my homepage. The only reason I would be a fan of online calendars is that I could use it to keep parents and students up to date. For me personally though I prefer having my paper planner in front of me, you can just call me old fashioned. I did however really enjoy the LifeHacker site. It had lots of fun tools , tips and tutorials that technology challenged people such as myself could really find helpful.

Thing #15

I think that wiki's can get a bad reputation but at the end of the day I do believe that they hold a lot of value for students and educators. While I agree that you shouldn't just believe anything you see on a wiki page because just anyone can edit it you can find some really helpful sources through articles and websites posted on them. They can really be a good umping off point for a research project.

The APSU 23 Things Sandbox was really fun. I had never heard of anything like this before and it was super easy to just scroll through and see what other people did and used for their blogs and it was also super easy to share my ideas. This would be really fun to use for class projects or sharing ideas with fellow teachers.

Thing #14

I chose to use bubbl.us for my mind map and I really enjoyed this site! It was super easy to navigate and I love how I can save all of my documents and I will definitely be using this in my classroom! This is the chart that I made. I also tried experimenting around with gliffy.com for a flow chart ad I didn't like that site at all. I thought it was complicated and I honestly won't be heading back there any time soon.

Thing #13

I found Zoho writer to be very similar in set up to Microsoft Word. This made it very easy for me to operate and I would definitely recommend for an easy document set up site. Google Docs was also very easy to use. However, I really liked this application because I was easily able to create and share documents like this,

Jack	Amy	Paul	Mary	Jane
Research the reasons for the Civil War	Research the major battles in the Civil War	Research Spies for the North, during the Civil War	Research Spies for the South, during the Civil War	Research the ending of the Civil War and start of Reconstruction
Write one page	Write one page	Write one page	Write one page	Write one page

This document can be shared within a group, so I could use this to help keep groups organized for group projects. Like for this hypothetical group of 5, each student knows exactly what they and everyone else is supposed to be working on. 

Because of this last point I think that I do prefer Google Docs. That way students can combine their Gmail accounts with their documents to make things more simplified.

Thing #12

The two Google tools that I really like and could really see myself using in the classroom are: Google Alerts and Google translate. For example, with google alerts I can get updates on current world events. If I was teaching about Italy I could receive updates on the Vatican and the process of selecting a new pope or on weather systems such as hurricanes or earthquakes. I am also very familiar and quite enjoy google translator. This has helped me with Spanish homework and if I had a student who was still learning English I could use this site to help me communicate more easily and translate homework and test directions to make some modifications to curriculum.

Thing #11

I've always found using google to be the easiest search engine to use. This is still a true statement after doing the research for this post. While this might be a case of teaching an old dog a new trick I'm just going to stick with what I know :) But it was still nice to see what other options are available to me! Technorati was the most confusing for me but I will definitely recommend it for others to try.

When I entered school library learning into Google I was overwhelmed with a plethora of blogs and information! This is such a blessing as a future educator. I don't believe in having too many options or too much information. There is always a new way to teach an old concept! I really don't use any other search feeds to find information so I'll have to research this further and broaden my horizons.

Thing #10

I really appreciate how easy it was to look up blogs that related to my interests. I was able to make a list of all of the blogs within the content area that I will be teaching. This is exciting because blogs are always being updated so it will help to keep me up to date on what I can teach my students :) This is also easy enough that students could use this for research projects.

Thing #9

These are just a few of the signs that I made that could be put in my classroom. The first one I used the happy face generator and I thought that would be a cuter way of displaying class rules that just having a boring list. And then I also made just another nerdy teacher sign on custom sign generator :) I know that if I display my excitement for what I'm teaching that it will eventually rub off on my students!

Thing #8

            

The site that I decided to use was Spell with Flikr. I can use this site to help jazz up presentations, make posters more interesting or to make fun flashcards. For young students they learn best when there is some type of visual interest and this site couldn't be more simple to use! As for how I feel about posting pictures online I believe that is a multifaceted answer. Many students will not have been taught how to be safe and responsible with what they post online. You never know when a future employer will find that "silly" or "dumb" picture you uploaded in high school and when it could cost you a job. 

Thing #7

This is probably going to be one of my favorite blogs. At first I was a little apprehensive about howI would be able to utilize Flikr in the classroom but now I seem that the possibilities are potentially endless. One of my big platforms as a future educator is to really teach students about the world outside of their town, state, and the U.S. With Flikr I can literally take my classroom across the world and expose them to numerous cultures. Coming from a VERY small town I know that many people don't have the opportunity to travel and this can help to instill biases and in a world of increasing interconnectedness that will only hamper them in their futures. I can also use this site to show different geography and cultural sites and students can explore areas around the world. Anther fun idea that I had for older students is to have the class set up their own Flikr group and they can upload pictures that relate to what is being covered in class to enhance their own learning. So in short, I am a Flikr convert :)

Thing #6

I found the tool PowToons. This tool can be used to easily create very visually interesting power points, videos and more. I really liked this because of the fact that it is so easy to use and it isn't very often that I find something so easy that can turn out so neat. This will definitely enhance student's experiences because of all of the visual interest to keep students involved with the lesson. This is also an easy tool for students to use to create their own presentations.

http://www.powtoon.com/

Thing #5

The mere concept of Web 2.0 is very radical to me and all of the implications, both positive and negative, on education and ultimately society as a whole. In the Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education blog I see a lot of the positive aspects. Web 2.0 offers many opportunities for diverse learning as well as education at your own pace. Also, it doesn't matter where you are as long as you have internet access so this can offer families quite a bit of flexibility in their schedules. One of my major concerns with this type if schooling is the aspect of socialization. While you can video conference that doesn't replace face to face human interactions. You can't live your entire life behind a computer screen.
The Horizons Report was more about incorporating more technology into the classroom. This I can agree with. Our world is rapidly becoming more and more modernized and intertwined with technology. Teaching students how to effectively use these tools can only help them further on in life. However, I don't believe that we can totally rely on these tools. We shouldn't lose the ability to do things on our own.
In short, I believe that School 2.0 means incorporating technology into the classroom and familiarizing students with how to properly utilize these tools. At the end of the day though I don't want for us to use technology as a crutch and forget how do math without a calculator, for example.

Thing #1

The hardest habit for me to master is using technology to my advantage. As previously noted I'm not technologically advanced. So the thought of utilizing technology on a regular basis in all honesty scares me. The easiest habit for me to use in my every day life though is, accepting responsibility for my own learning. Throughout my educational career I was home schooled. While my mom was very good about helping me and giving me direction, I still had to learn how to my own independent work. This especially paid off when I started doing dual-enrollment classes at a local community college. I felt much more prepared than many students who had gone to public school.

Thing #4

Commenting on blogs helps to develop a sense of community in the sense that it makes blogging more than just throwing thoughts onto a website. It becomes a conversation between you and other interested in the same things as you.  It can also help you to broaden your horizons and to develop new ideas and lenses through which to view the world. Some of the things that really stuck out to me from the readings is that there should be guidelines in how to comment. Always be respectful and courteous because whether you agree with the other person's opinion or not everyone deserves the right to have their opinion respected. Also, rewarding good comments help to facilitate more commenting on your blog, therefore giving you more ideas.
The seven blogs that I will be commenting on are: Daniel Bunger, Mallory Johnson, Kelina Stanley, Autumn Kirkland, Lesley Wallace, Richard Byrne "Free Technology for Teachers" and "Study Skills Blog"

The reason I decided to comment on these blogs in particular is that I know most of these individuals and that they represent a broad area of interest and I believe that I will really be able to gain quite a bit of useful information from them all.

One example of a comment that I made was on Richard Byrne's blog. In this particular entry he was discussing the important of going outside the box in terms of incorporating technology into the classroom. I commented that I completely agreed and that as educators and future educators we cannot expect above average results without above average effort and creativity.

Thing #3

There are so many ways that blogs can be useful as a teacher! One way is that they're great for sharing ideas amongst your fellow teachers. You can share lesson plans, teaching strategies or new activities. Blogs are also a great way to keep in contact with students about projects and updating assignments. They are also an easy way to keep parents updated on what their children are learning and what will be coming up in the classroom. You can make it like a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter update. As we know the better the communication between the teachers and the homes of the students the better that chance that they will be successful in your class.

Thing #2

I didn't really have any experience with blogs, reading them or writing them. To be honest, I would much prefer to read a book and have it right in front of me. I guess that I prefer old fashioned methods of communication. Creating the blog was easy since I was able to do it in class with verbal step by step instructions. The avatar on the other hand was completely maddening to me. I am definitely a verbal learner and trying to maneuver the sites without being in the classroom completely confused me. I decided to use my middle name for my site because there are tons of Lauren Williams in the world so I guess that I like to stand out. My avatar I think does resemble me and I'm really excited about my little flower. I believe that you need to represent yourself in a true light, especially on technology forums. If you can't be yourself online how can you expect to be yourself in public.