One last thing....

It's the end of the road. I have learned many things during this journey. By far my favorite has been learning to make videos from animoto. Being a part of this program has given me the determination to be a life long learner and always aware of what is going on in the world of technology. I think this programs is designed perfectly, and I wouldn't make any changes. I think it hits upon some of the major concepts that teachers should know about technology. I will take the concepts I have learned into my classroom and make sure technology is just as much apart of my classroom as English is.

Thing #23

This 23 things blog is based on the website 43 Things and Stephen Abram's article 43 Things I might want to do this year and is an example of using Creative Commons.

As a teacher, I think I will get the most out of Creative Commons by using approved photos from sites like Flickr. Off the top of my head, I can't think of how I would take someone else's work and try to modify to suit my own needs, but I am sure this situation could come up. However, I do know that I will need the use of photos all of the time, and will use them from Flickr.

Thing #22

I listened to a couple of podcasts about the tv show Lost. I found them using Podcast Alley . Of all the directories this one was easiest to use because the search features were in plain sight, and it had the most categories of things I was interested in. I do think I will use podcasts with my students and even have them make some of their own, but I would never make one in my own spare time. I think I might start listening to these Lost podcasts regularly.

Thing #21

I think this site is fabulous! Students could do so many things in my English class with this. They could make their own movies in pictures where they act out scenes from a book. They could make a video of pictures showing their understanding of grammar concepts. The site was extremely easy to use and navigate. I had no idea this kind of website existed. I will probably make several of these for some time to come.

This is a video I made of just a few pictures I have of me, my fiance, and some friends getting ready for our wedding.

Thing #20

This is a video of Maya Angelou reading "Still I Rise" with accompanied pictures.

I love youtube and have sometimes gotten lost for hours watching one video after another. I chose this video to show how I can use youtube in the classroom. Poetry is sometime difficult for high school students. It might help their understanding if they can hear the author reading the work to get a feel of where the words are stressed and how it should sound. I could also pull clips from movies based on literature.

Thing #19

I am a member of a few online forum communities, but Facebook and Myspace are the only social networks that I am a part of. I would not regularly look for other sites to join, because Facebook and Myspace meet all needs I would want out of an online community. I don't have a desire to network with people I don't already know, and with many of the examples, the people I know wouldn't be on them. I was however interested in BackSpace because I love cooking and baking. Now, for that, I see the pros of joining such a site. Not alot of my friends cook or bake, so I don't have many people to exchange recipes with.

Thing #18

I have been a member of myspace for six years and facebook for four. I love social networking sites. I like to keep up with not only my close friends, but people I haven't seen in a long time. Educators need to know about social networking site because they should always be on top of what technology is out there and the technology their students are actively using. I prefer facebook to myspace, because it feels more professional to me. I know that the school system does not allow access to either of these websites, and I would be nervous as an educator to be friends with my students, because I don't want anything that goes on online to be misconstrued, however, I do know that their are social networking sites made specifically for school aged children for education purposes. I could see using one of those sites because they are safe and monitored. Students need to use this technologies because it is part of the culture and what is currently happening in technology.

My facebook page and myspace

Thing #17

del.icio.us could be used in the classroom. In the tutorial for the website, they suggest teachers can use del.icio.us for creating a reading list and making a syllabus. That got me thinking about the research aspect. My initial thought was that this would be a good site for finding information on my own personal interests. Then, I realized, students could do research with this website and maybe get better results than with google. Sometimes, when I am researching information on google, I don't always get credible resources. But, I would think if someone took the time to tag a website on del.icio.us then is should be reliable and useful to academic needs. Students could use this site for writing research papers and to get extra help with literature.

Thing #16

I chose igoogle for my start page. I like to stick to a brand name when I use products. If google has an option, it is the one I will choose. I will make this my permanent homepage, mostly because I immediately check my gmail account when I get online. This way I can check what news interests me, look at the weather, and anything else I choose to set up and then check my email from there.

Online calendars can help me remember the things I have going on in the month. If someone sent me an email that regarded dates, I could easily look up and see if I had an engagement planned on that date. I could also access the calendar anywhere, in case I forgot my actual hard copy planner.

I absolutely love to-do lists. There is no other feeling nearly as satisfying as marking a completed task off of a to-do list. Remember the Milk seems like a really neat to do list and even comes with an iphone application. I have an ipod touch, which will work the same. Through this site you can send yourself text message updates, which would be helpful, too. I think I will explore this site further and start using it on the regular.


Joe's Goals is a neat website I found where people can track their progress of a goal they are working on, or sometimes multiple goals. You can rate how well you did that day achieving your goal. This could be used for personal reasons, but also in the classroom. Students can create goals for themselves at the beginning of the school year for what they want to achieve in that class. Then throughout the year they can mark and follow their progress.

Thing #15

I've never participated in a wiki before, only read them. I could see exactly how this would be a great tool in the classroom. Students could work on collaborative projects. In one example, a 10th grade English class made a wiki for a literary circle. Students submit assignments via the wiki and the entire class can see their work about literature. I could do similiar assignments in my classroom and students could build databases of literary terms and share their work.

I want I find the most interesting is the collaborative effort involved. I understand that some people could occasionally put false information on wikis, overall the information is quite helpful. I like when multiple people gather to put their ideas together, so the wiki idea appeals to me.

Thing #14

I explored a flow chart and a mind map. I used Gliffy and bubbl.us .

After playing around with the features, I doubt I would use either for my own personal use. My mind doesn't think out concept in pictures, and I would just get frustrated trying to do so. However, these could be useful tools for class activities.

Gliffy is a good tool for students to stay organized and could be used when giving directions for an activity or doing an experiment.

Bubbl.us would be a great tool to use in front of the students for mapping out concepts and showing the relationship between items. It could also be used to map out a family tree for a family in a novel. Some students benefit from seeing relationships visually, than just being told why two things are alike.

Thing #13

Online word processing applications are a wonderful tool. I love the universal use to the program. More than once I have had trouble presenting a document that I created at home, because the formatting is not the same. I have also forgotten to print off a document from home, and turned assignments in late. With these types of application, those problems are non existent. I personally use Google Docs quite frequently. For a group assignment, we set up a document for the four of us, so that outside of our group meetings, people could work on the project.

Zoho Writer seems to be quite similiar to Google Docs. It has most of the features of Microsoft Office, including word processing, spreadsheets, and slide show. The features within these programs are comparable, such as double spacing, font types, and position. This is an application I did not existed, and I will put use to it in the future.

This would be a great site to use for keeping student work in a location where parents could look at it later, or so the student could work on it at home or school with ease.