Is it the end or only the beginning?

My experience with the 23 Things has been fun! I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about all of the new technologies that are available to us. Some of my favorite things to learn about throughout this assignment were the RSS feeds and Google Reader, the various Google tools, the picture-videos on Animoto, the Delicious bookmarking site, and LiveBinders. This program has affected my lifelong learning goals in a positive way. I will continue to learn new things to use in both my personal and professional life. The things that I have learned along this journey will help me as an educator in many ways. I will be sure to incorporate several of these great tools into my preparation for lesson and unit plans, keeping up with educational technologies, and communicating with my fellow educators across the globe. Several of the RSS feeds that I have on my Google Reader will help me to stay abreast of the new developments in web 2.0, and the posts on Diigo will also inform me about the great websites that are available on the Internet. Diigo has been very helpful in expanding my knowledge of the websites of which I was previously unaware. It is a great website to use as an informational tool to learn about new things! Hopefully, I will be able to broaden my students' educational perspective by teaching them about the new technologies that are available as they come about.

After I finish with my 23 Things, I would like to continue using some of the tools and websites that I have learned about through this assignment. I hope to use several of them for my future classroom and students. Thanks to this learning experience, I will continue to look for new tools to use in my classroom and for my students. Once I have my own classroom and my degree, I also hope to create a blog or format my current blog for my classroom to communicate with my students and their parents. 

One thing that I recommend for this program is more step-by-step instruction regarding the tools to be used during the assignment. If the students have less confusion and frustration concerning the tools to be used, then they may be more inclined to actually use them after the assignment is complete instead of cancelling their subscriptions and/or accounts. This is especially true for those students who are less familiar with computers and other technologies in general. 

I was very surprised by the great amount of things that I learned about throughout this 23 Things experience. I thought I knew about many great websites and tools to use in my personal and professional life, but only one of the tools that I was aware of was presented in this program. So many of the tools that I have learned about are useful in one way or another. Several of them are great for everyday use! I am grateful for this chance to learn about so many new tools that I can use for the classroom and to assist me in increasing my productivity.

Thing #23

There is a note on the home page of The 23 Things that says "this project is loosely based upon the website 43Things (which allows you to set and track personal goals) and the Stephen Abram article titled 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006)." That note tells me that the Learning 2.0-23Things for Teachers blog was not a completely original idea but was modified from someone else's creation. After learning about Creative Commons licensing, I have decided that I will be more careful about the things that I copy from the Internet for my own personal use and for educational purposes. I will remian abreast of the proper laws pertaining to copyright, Creative Commons, and fair use. I need to give credit to the original makers and respect their ideas as I would want other individuals to do for my works. I will teach my students to be responsible about the Internet, copyright laws, and Creative Commons licensing as well. The laws are in place to protect the creators of works, and we all need to obey such laws for our own sakes and theirs. 

Thing #22

I have created three LiveBinders called The 1st Thanksgiving, All About the Continents, and Explorers Across Time. I have embedded one of my binders at the bottom of this post called Explorers Across Time for you to view. There are many great possibilities for which an educator might use LiveBinders in the classroom. I could make unit plans and lesson plans binders to use in my classroom. I could also create a binder of all online education resources such as websites that provide educational worksheets, lesson plans, songs and activities, games, and any other thing that I think would be useful for the students. I could have my students make their own LiveBinders for certain assignments or just for their own individual use. I might have my students create a binder for a project the included two information websites, one video, and two related learning activities on a president. There are many possibilities for using LiveBinders in the classroom because almost anything from a computer may be put in it.

Explorers Across Time

Thing #21

This is the video that I made using Animoto. I call it Hudson Family because it is filled with pictures of myself, my two sisters, my brother, and my parents. I loved making this video on Animoto! The creation process was uncomplicated and not extremely lengthy. The video tutorial on the homepage was very helpful! The website offered several options for the style of video and had a large collection of songs from which to choose from. I really like the fact that you can preview your video before you make the final production and that the same style of video changes periodically. I would love to use the Animoto website again to make videos of my own personal photographs and pictures of my students in the classroom.

Thing #20

I love watching videos on YouTube. There are so many things that you can find on the site. You can find informational videos, music videos, tutorials, cartoons, movie trailers, and just about anything else you are looking for. The great thing about YouTube is that there are so many videos on a large variety of topics, and each one is unique in its own ways. However, there can be inappropriate content found on YouTube. I do not know if it is possible to ban only specific content, but if YouTube is allowed in the classroom, there should be specific content that is banned for the sake of the students.

There were several great videos that I found on YouTube about educational things. All I had to do was type in my desired topic in the search bar and click "search" to retrieve the many videos that were related to my search topic. I watched several videos until I found one that I liked. It was a very simple process. A video that I found was the President song video about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. It gave a few facts about the two best known presidents, and the song was catchy enough that I think children would enjoy it and pay attention to the information presented in the video. I chose the President song video because I hope to teach third grade social studies. I love to focus on individuals throughout history. This video was perfect to engage students about the Presidents in a fun, informational way. It combines several different learning styles to maximize learning potential.
Some features of YouTube could be useful for my school library website. The recommended videos that are based on recently viewed videos, recommended channels, and the watch history could all be helpful features for students, teachers, and librarians to use. 

Thing #18

I thoroughly enjoyed writing about this "thing" on social networking. I already had a Facebook account prior to this assignment. https://www.facebook.com/jessica.j.hudson.1?ref=tn_tnmn is the link to my Facebook page. As part of this assignment, we were asked to befriend teachers and other people that we may know on Facebook. I must admit that it was rather strange sending friend requests to my professors! Somehow, that seemed to be outside the realm of propriety. To this day, I do not have a Twitter account. I do not see the point of it to be honest. I have experienced Twitter by borrowing my friend's account to browse around it and find out if I wanted to sign up for it. After my experience, I concluded that I prefer my Facebook by far! However, I understand that there are benefits and down-sides to both social networking sites. For example, I like the graphic design and layout of Twitter better than Facebook, but Facebook has so many more features to offer than Twitter.

I believe that Facebook has more useful features for education than Twitter does because you can private chat on there, post pictures and text, like posts and pictures, comment on someone else's post, make your own pages for anything, and play games through Facebook. You can find friends, add friends, block friends, and specify who can see your page items. You can also make groups for people and create events to invite friends to. From what I remember about Twitter, you can add people to follow, post Tweets, and reTweet someone else's Tweet. I am not sure if it provides private messaging on the site.

I believe that there are classroom and school applications for Facebook. Educators can make their own Facebook pages. They can use the Facebook pages to post information and/or pictures about the students, their progress, their assignments, upcoming events, and many other classroom related topics. Administrators and other teachers can see the teacher's Facebook page to see the teaching techniques being used, the curriculum, and the student progress if the teacher chooses to post such things. I think it is important for educators to know how social networking works because it is a great way to communicate with people. It would be beneficial for educators to have social networking accounts with several different networks to open various lines of communication with other educators, their students, and the parents of their students.

I did not find out anything new about these websites that I did not know before. However, one new insight that I realized about Twitter is that one could follow teachers to see if they tweet anything useful from their classroom experiences.

Thing #19

I am currently a member of online communities such as Facebook and GoodReads. I am addicted to both because there is so much to do on them. I recently joined another online community called TeacherPop. I am really excited about joining it because it is geared specifically towards current teachers and future teachers. It is a great place for educators to communicate and collaborate on things concerning education. Some of the other websites that have interested me are Bake Space and Play List. I have been looking for a good website on which to find new recipes. The design of Bake Space was well organized, fashionable, and pleasing to the eye. I loved that it gave the user the option to create his or her own cookbook! Whenever you searched a recipe on the site, you could put it in your own cookbook for safekeeping and easy retrieval. I also liked the play list website because it had such a huge selection of songs. It allowed the user to make their own playlist of songs, make a song their ringtone, and share songs with other people. I have been wanting to get some new ringtones on my phone, so the play list website was a great find for me! I will definitely be joining and using Bake Space and Play List soon.

Thing #14

I explored all of the mind maps and flowcharts from the list and found that I liked Gliffy and Bubbl the best. Gliffy.com was a good site to make a flowchart because there were so many options with which to make it. They were fun and creative options! I also liked that the site allowed you to zoom in and out to see the full extent of the flowchart during the process and after completion. The creation process was easy. All you had to do was click on the image that you desired to use, drag and drop it to the grid, and type the desired text in the blinking box. I do wish that the images had the ability to be rotated though. That would have helped a lot with the arrows and other connectors.

Bubbl.us was a good mind-mapping website because of its grand simplicity. To make a mind-map, you click on the "start brainstorming" button on the homepage. That button will take you to a yellow box without text. Click on the yellow box that says "start here" to type the text in the box. There are tabs on the yellow box to help you make the map. Click on the tab to the left to make a new yellow box. Click on the tab at the bottom to make a connecting box. If you hold your mouse over a box, the edit box will appear. Despite all of its simplicity and usefulness, there is still room for improvement. I think it would be easier to use the mind mapper if you could right click on the box that you want to edit rather than holding your mouse over it. Sometimes the edit box does not respond when you hold it over the box. Also, I would like it better if there was a left tab option as well as the right tab instead of just the right tab.

I would like to use Gliffy for a project sometime in the future. Of the two websites, I liked it better than Bubbl because it offered more creative freedom to the user. Both sites are great for educators, students, and office personnel to use though. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a mind-mapping website or a flowchart website.

Thing #17

I recently joined Delicious and enjoyed exploring the awesome website. I typed educational technology in the search bar and got a lot of results. I was able to see the comments that other people had made for the bookmarks on the right-hand side of the page, and I was able to see the tags that they had added to the bookmarks.

The Delicious website is very useful to anyone looking for something specific. All you have to do is type in the search term that you are looking for and voila! Either they have it or they don't. The tags on the websites were very helpful when I was looking for things. I really enjoyed looking around the site at all of the other awesome websites that I was not aware of before. I loved that the whole thing was very easy to use!

Delicious would be great to use as a resource for the classroom! There are so many websites especially geared towards education on the site. For example, there was a website that had videos for teachers and videos of lesson plans on the site. There was another website that had games and interactive activities for the students as well. Teachers can take advantage of the social bookmarking websites by sharing with other teachers the websites that they have found useful in the classroom and for the classroom. By sharing the helpful resources for the students' sake, teachers can help education to flourish further.

Thing #16

I chose the iGoogle start page because it looked like the most simple, efficient one to use. I liked the design, the widgets that were available, and the fact that I am already familiar with Google tools. I do not think that I will make it my homepage, though, because I already have a homepage that I love. iGoogle would be my second choice for a homepage.

I like the online calendars that are available to us to use. I can use it to remind me of important, upcoming events. Instead of making notes all over the house to remind me, everything that is important is all in one place with all of the information that is necessary. I can use it to remind me of birthdays, meetings, classes, appointments, holidays, random events, and so many other things. I chose to use Basecamp because it has multiple tools to use all in one place. The calendar and to-do lists are available there too.

I found the to-do lists to be very useful on Basecamp. It was quick and simple to make. It was extremely helpful. When I am done with something, I can literally "check" it off of my list. I love the to-do list. It would be great if the calendar and to-do lists could somehow be combined! That would be a very efficient, effective tool.

tinyurl.com is another very useful tool that I found in the research for this blog post. It is a useful website to use at home, school, or in the office. All you have to do it take a long URL, copy it, go to Tiny URL in a separate window, and paste it into the white box. Once you click "make tiny URL" next to the white box, a new page will appear with the converted URL in black bold. I would highly recommend both Basecamp and Tiny URL to anyone else who uses a computer.

Thing #15

I created a page on the APSU 23 Things Sandbox wiki. At least, I hope I did. I was not entirely sure what I was doing on there because it was somewhat confusing to me. I was not sure if I put my blog post about my curriculum ideas in the right place. I really hope I did not mess something up or delete anyone's post. If I did, I apologize. It was completely unintentional! You can find my page on the wiki at http://apsu23thingssandbox.pbworks.com/w/page/64381396/TheThing. I also added my blog post to the FrontPage on the wiki.

I found the idea of easily publishing documents for others to view and contribute to as the interesting aspect of wikis. When I watched the YouTube video about wikis, the concept seemed quite simple and useful. However, after experiencing a wiki for the first time for myself, I may have to revise my thinking on that issue. It was not simple. I was lost the whole time I was on the wiki. The editing did not work like the YouTube video said it would. I think I may have accidentally deleted the previous post before mine. I completely agree with one of the links explaining wikis that mentioned how organized, OCD people may not like wikis because they are disorganized and easily changed! I believe I fit in that category.

There are many ways that a wiki could be used. If I ever did decide to use a wiki, it would most likely relate to my classroom and/or students in some way. Perhaps I could create a wiki to post information about the curriculum topics that I will cover in the classroom. Other people could post helpful tips or information that I could incorporate into my lesson. I would request that the informational comments be reinforced with research evidence.

Thing #13

This was my first experience with Zoho writer. While on the site, I made a sample PowerPoint presentation and a sample document. I liked the new features that both tools had to offer. They had the same features as the Microsoft software, but they were presented in a new way. It was exciting for me to try something old in a new way. One thing that I saw different in the Zoho document toolbar was the capability to create equations for the document. I am not aware of that feature in the Microsoft Word software. I attempted to create the quadratic formula in the equations maker, but it did not have the capability to underline the whole equation to divide by 2a. That was somewhat disappointing. The PowerPoint tool on Zoho had several new themes to choose from for the presentation. I liked them very much because they were pretty and had fun new fonts to use in the presentations as well, such as cabin sketch. What I really liked about the Zoho website was that you could keep your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, music, pictures, and videos all under your account. I don't know of any other website that offers that many potential storage options to the user.

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1LZvwo2BNNi0TLvsqsxeWLvWu8H8Yp6KyqJkiq9_kZ2Y/edit?usp=sharing is the link to my drawing that I made using Google Docs. It was fun to do, but I wish I had been able to put some color into it. I have used Google Docs before and was not overly impressed. However, one feature that is appealing about Google Docs is its capability to update documents automatically as you type. You don't have to send multiple copies of revised documents to ten different people and have a mess in your e-mail. That feature alone makes Google Docs a good collaborative tool for students to use inside and outside of the classroom. For example, if students were to have an assignment where they had to create a group skit for class, they could create one document to share and contribute to it all in one place at one time.

After interacting with both Zoho writer and Google Docs, I have decided that I like Zoho writer far better.  It has every capability that Google Docs has to offer to its users plus more. I also like the clean set-up of Zoho writer better than that of Google Docs. In my opinion, Zoho writer is obviously the better tool to use.

Thing #4

I think commenting helps create a sense of community and interaction because of the ideas that are being shared and discussed. Typically, people comment on blogs or statues because they are intrigued by what an individual has to say in either a positive or a negative way. By commenting on the status or blog, one makes himself or herself an instant member of that conversation. People interact through conversation and learn about varying things. In some ways, this creates a community because the people who are interacting have something in common.

There are two other points from the readings about commenting that I found important. I liked the idea in the Cool Cat Teacher Blog about making hyperlinks to things that bloggers have written about. I feel that this is important because it helps the reader to understand more of what the blogger is referring to in the blog. For example, if I said that I really liked this intriguing new website that I found for teachers, it would be highly beneficial for me and for my readers to have a hyperlink to the website that I speak of so that they understand what I am talking about. Also, a hyperlink cuts down on a lot of unnecessary description in the blog. Another thing that I found important was from 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog; it said to interact with the comments left on your blog. I absolutely agree with that. Commenting on the comments keeps the conversation going, and it makes people feel good to know that their opinions are valued and their voices are heard.

This comment is from Hayley Carney's 23 Things Journey regarding the usefulness of a blog for education. I said,"I must concur with Brandy; your blog ideas are wonderful! I had not thought of so many ways to use a blog for the classroom. It seems like you put a lot of thought into this. :) You are right that children spend much of their time on the Internet these days. The adults do too, so it would not be a problem for most of them to get on your blog and browse the things that you have up for a certain week or ask questions. With your permission, I would like to organize my blog in a similar way as you have described here. It is one of the more efficient ways that I have heard of to use a blog for education."  
I made this comment on her blog because I liked the ideas that she presented and wanted to express my approval of her post.

I commented on Alena's post at http://asglassford.blogspot.com/ concerning YouTube videos. I said, "Alena, you make some very good points about YouTube for education. I also believe that it can be a tool to utilize in the classroom to help the students understand a concept. There are many helpful educational videos on YouTube, but there are also some very inappropriate videos as well. Unfortunately, schools may not allow YouTube access due to such available videos. It would be great if there were a link to all of the educational things on YouTube to avoid the improper images all together during the search for good teaching materials."

My comment on Jill Hutchison's 23 Things pictures that she made from Comic Strip and Image Chef read "I could not figure out how to work the online generator. Your images are fun and compelling though. I think it is a good idea to start your day off with a funny picture or inspirational message. Many of the kids don't want to be at school when they are in the classroom. I think the funny pictures might help lighten their moods just a little and maybe bring a smile to their faces. :)"

 

I also commented on Mary Ann Swaney's blog about the Flikr letters and said "Mary Ann, I love your idea to use the Flikr letters to spell out words! The kids could be creative while they enjoy the various shapes and colors during the learning process. The Flikr letters might also be used to create signs or labels for things throughout the room."

The final comment that I left on the education blogs was at Bailey's 23 Things about using the Mosaic Mashups. I said, "Bailey, I have seen many great ideas while browsing through the blogs. I have said it before, and I will say it again. I love your idea to compile some of the students' works at the end of the year! That is a very creative way to use Flikr for an educational purpose. It might also be fun to make a collage using Mosaic Mashups of your students doing various activities in the classroom throughout the year."

I chose each of these people to comment on because I found their ideas intriguing. Some of the blogs I added to the idea if it was possible. These future educators used good grammar and punctuation for the most part and seemed to know what they were talking about. Because I am somewhat technologically challenged, that is something that compelled me to read some of their blogs. I wanted to see if they offered any advice on how to go about creating the things that they had posted.

I tried to leave encouraging, positive comments on each blog. Each of my comments mentions something about their particular posted item. If I could add to their ideas, I would give advice on other possibilities for the tool.

"This sounds like a wonderful book to share with students. Thank you for posting such a thorough and intriguing review. I will look for it to buy nearby. :)" was the comment that I left on Waking Brain Cells blog about the review called Review: Miss Moore Thought Otherwise by Jan Pinborough.

"These photographs are beautiful! I, too, am guilty of snapping pictures with my phone wherever I go and doing all of my editing from my phone. It is so accessible, but we sacrifice the beauty for the sake of the time." are the words that I left on http://anhsfoodblog.com/2013/02/eat-analogue-visits-to-pope-joan-brunswick-east-melbourne.html/#comment-10925 blog about photography.

I chose the sites and blogs to comment on because they are topics that I am interested and am invested in.

Thing #5

I believe that Web 2.0 means better education that will be more accessible to a wider variety of people. I think Web 2.0 will change education for the better and help individuals to understand things better than they did before. It will not replace educators or detract from education itself. Rather, it will help education flourish because more people will be reached through the possible tools that can be used for learning. Web 2.0 accommodates more of the different types of learners than what was done in the past through the various tools that are made available. The news ways of communication that have been made available are invaluable.

Thing #11

I found it easier to use the Google blogs to search for specific blogs than anything else that was provided for us. I could simply type in the topic that I wanted and shuffle through the necessary links to find one that I found useful. Google blogs was the simplest search too that I used.  Topix US News was the most difficult search tool to navigate. There was no indication that a blog was available on the site. There was, however, a search bar for the site. I found an amazing website called TeachThought that I found interesting. It has useful information about the trends in technology for the classroom, iPad apps to use, educational games, and much more! I also found a tool to locate blogs called Blog catalog at http://www.blogcatalog.com/. It is a great site with many cool blogs to check out. 

Thing #10

This is my first experience with a newsreader. I have found it very useful! One thing I like about newsreaders is that you can subscribe to many things that interest you and it is all available in one place. You don't have to keep up with all of the RSS sites that you want to be informed about. I like that the RSS updates automatically on the newsreader. The Google Reader was very simple to use. All I had to do to subscribe to an RSS was to plug in the URL in the subscribe box and click "add" beside it. I believe the newsreader technology would be very useful for me in my personal and professional life. I could keep up with RSS sites that could give me advice about things that I use in my daily life. I believe that teachers could use this new technology to keep up with RSS sites that could help them in their classroom. For example, the Free Technology for Teachers website is an RSS site that could provide advice to teachers on which technology would be useful to use in the classroom. Teachers may be able to create an RSS site for their students to use to keep up with assignments or upcoming events.

Thing #12

I played with the Google translator at http://translate.google.com/ for a while and decided that I like it very much! You do not have to have an account to use the Google translator. You also do not have to create separate works to use it. Simply type what you would like to translate into the box on the left and it will be translated into your chosen language in the box on the right side. I attempted to translate several phrases that I know in Spanish and French. The site worked very well to do a thorough translation. The translator utilized suggested spellings and a button to speak the phrase to the user. It translated single words and whole phrases on the site. I will definitely use the site again. I think it would be very useful for educators who may have a foreign student in their class that knows or speaks little to no English.

I also used Picasa Web Albums at http://picasaweb.google.com/home and found it far more to my liking than Flikr. Picasa was so simple to use. Everything was clearly displayed and easy to find. The website was unbelievably efficient. The uploading process for the pictures was quick and without difficulty. I just clicked on the "upload" button, clicked on the blue "upload from computer" button, and chose the photo that I wanted to upload. Once it was finished loading, it was in my album. I loved this website with all its simplicity and would highly recommend it for others to use. If you would like to view my work, https://picasaweb.google.com/110536670178019578184 is a link to my photo albums that I have created on Picasa. The Picasa website would be great to get photos from to include in lessons and PowerPoints. With the permission of the parents, one could even put class pictures of the students and classroom activities on the site.

Thing #9

I created this image on ImageChef at http://www.imagechef.com/. It was very simple to do. I went to the website, clicked on create, chose photo frames, clicked on my desired frame, and uploaded my picture using the "upload new photo" button.  It took me all of a minute to complete the whole process. I liked this photo frame because it was sweet and innocent looking. This photo is of my cousin, and it was perfect for this frame.




This is the second image that I created using Happy Face Generator at http://www.happyfacegenerator.com/. It too was an easy website to navigate and a simple process to create my image. I went to the website, clicked on the "here" button that indicated where I could go to create a smiley face with a sign, chose the face that I wanted my smiley to portray, and followed the proper steps to create the remainder of my image. I chose this image to portray my feelings about the upcoming midterms. I thought it was a perfect picture!

I would like to use these sites to create images for my classroom and for my own personal use. I could use the smiley face site to create inspirational signs that I could put up around my classroom. I could use the smiley face holding a sign to remind my students of any upcoming events. The picture frame website could be used to make frames for my own personal photographs or for the photos of my students that I will post throughout the year. Both websites have various uses that I would enjoy employing.

Thing #8

I used the puzzle mashup to create this photo. This is a picture of my adorable second cousin named Donovan. The puzzle mashup is a super easy tool to use! I think it could be useful for me to create fun puzzle activities for my students in my classroom, or I could use the mashup to be creative with my own personal photographs. I don't mind sharing photos online because I love to take them and show them to others. The internet only provides me with a larger audience to share my beloved hobby with.

Thing #6

http://www.heapnote.com/ is the place to go if you want to access the HeapNote website. It is an amazing site that allows you to create your own notes and tasks and bookmarks, create tables, and share your notebook with friends. All of your documents have the ability to be organized on the website. It is useful in the school setting because the tutorial said that it is a great website for teachers to store their lesson plans on. It would even be useful for teachers to share documents with one another or reminders of upcoming school events. I would love to use this outside of a school setting to keep all of my tasks to do organized in one place. I seem to have picked up my dad's bad habit of leaving yellow sticky notes all over the house that contain my things to do. I like the fact that the site seems very easy to use and is useful for educators as well as other occupations and individuals. Teachers can create classes of students and keep up with all of their grades and assignments. I have not found anything that I do not like about the site yet. Even the price of the upgrade is very reasonable at $1.99/month.