Final Thoughts

By doing the 23 Things program, I have learned SO much. It has been a wonderful experience becoming more knowledgeable of the technology that has been and will continue to be around me. I had never thought to explore all that Web 2.0 had to offer (I didn't even know what Web 2.0 was!). I believe that this program is extremely beneficial to me as a student, but more importantly as a future educator. I have learned about so many tools that will be beneficial to my future students and will help me as I build my classroom. This has been very informative and a lot of fun!

Thing Twenty-Three

Web 2.0-23 Things is pretty cool. Here is another person's blog about the 23 things and here is one made for Archivists (this one has more than 23 things, it looks pretty fun to check out!)

Creative Commons is a very interesting program and actually makes life a little bit easier! It allows you to share information with others and to use others' information-with rules. If you didn't pay for the work, if you choose to share the work, you can't charge others for the work. If you drew the work, you can share it with others, they just can't claim the work as their own, and so forth. Creative Commons is important to us, as educators, in that we are responsible for doing our job right, teaching students the right way to do things, and sharing information with them that they can use later on in their school careers.

Thing Twenty-Two

Livebinders.com
is a pretty neat site to have, especially for a teacher. It allows you to compile a collection of your documents, favorite websites, virtually anything and save it in essentially, a binder. This tool is very useful to have handy for the classroom. You could literally save ANYTHING in them. You could have one for student assignments, a sub folder, extra credit opportunities, etc. There is no limit to what you could do with Livebinders. I created 3 binders: one for Education (websites that are beneficial to me as a college student as well as a future teacher), Personal (includes websites that I frequently enjoy "shopping" on), and one for Blogs that I keep up with and enjoy reading.

Here is my Livebinder:(All of my binders are listed as 'Personal' so, you may not be able to see them.

Thing Twenty-One

Animoto. Oh yeah. I thought that this was really kinda silly at first. I thought, seriously? We have to make a video? But this was actually really fun. If you want to see mine you can look here.This tool can be used in the classroom for many things. It is a fun and different alternative to your typical powerpoint and can incorporate your pictures from your Facebook which is super cool. I enjoyed this and found it to be very useful and easy to navigate.

Thing Twenty

I LOVE YOUTUBE!!!!! It is the best-literally. You can find ANYTHING on YouTube. You need to learn how to sew? How to do a math problem? How to ride a bike?! There's a video for that. On YouTube. So, through this process of searching YouTube for an awesome video, I found some on Flash Mobs. Oh my goodness...I love flash mobs almost as much as I love White Cheddar Cheezits and that's saying a lot. So, with that being said. I found this awesome flash mob video. This video was shot in Paris and it is the biggest one EVER. To be in a Flash Mob is definitely on my Bucket List. It WILL happen.

So, if you haven't explored YouTube yet, do it. There is something out there that will spark your interest. There is also another website called TeacherTube that has videos that are educational and it literally has endless information as well. Go see for yourself!

Thing Nineteen

Who knew that more social networking sites existed other than Facebook and Twitter? I didn't! Even more surprising is that there is one for teachers! Created right here at Austin Peay! It is called Teacher Pop and you can check it out here. While exploring other social networking sites, I found a site that I have been a faithful user to: IMDB (Internet Movie Database)-I had no clue that it was technically a social network. Too cool for school!
As a member of this society, I definitely am an avid user and visitor of Facebook and Twitter. I "keep up with the Jones'" as far as that goes.
I think that I will use Teacher Pop in the near future as I begin my life as a new teacher, being as how Teacher Pop is a social network designed especially for teachers. It is a great community to have your voice heard and to hear the wisdom of other teachers as well. :-)


Visit TeacherPop

Thing Eighteen

Social Networking...is a HUGE part of American society today. There are applications on mobile phones in which you can keep the world up to date with your every breath. I am guilty of being addicted to Social Networking-I am constantly on Facebook. I check my Twitter every now and then. I feel as though Twitter is more of a "celebrity" thing-granted, I do follow celebrities but I also use Twitter to "follow" companies and stores to keep up with different sales. However, through this class we had to explore Twitter to find educational Twitter pages. I was a bit skeptical thinking, "Really?!", but there actually are some really neat Twitter accounts made for teachers BY teachers. All you have to do is Search: Education and you will find a number of accounts that are dedicated to education. This is a new, modern tool that will be increasingly used, a tool that will be old news sooner than we think. So, while it's here and available-check it out!

Thing Seventeen

Del.icio.us actually is pretty flippin' Delicious! This website gives the opportunity to bookmark interesting information that could be very useful to future classrooms. This website allows you to bookmark information, but it is all stored in one place. I made an account and I believe that I will use it in my future classroom and to share interesting information with others.

Thing Sixteen

• Which start page did you choose? Why did that one appeal to you? Will you make it your permanent home page? I chose iGoogle as my homepage. I had to create an iGoogle account in a previous blog post, and I am in love! It is my new favorite. It has everything from the weather to top news.

• How can the online calendars be useful to you? They can help you, as a teacher, to keep up to date with your class schedule and to keep you on track with upcoming dates, etc.
  
  
• What about the to-do lists—helpful, too much work…? I REALLY liked Remember the Milk. This site is an online task reminder that sends an email to you (and if you regularly check your email or get your email sent to your phone, you should never forget anything ever again!).
  
  
• Did you find a tool that has some uses for you at the school or at home? Which tool(s) would you recommend to others? Before I had taken this class, I was already familiar with the application on Macs (Stickies). I, personally, frequently use the Stickies to use as reminders for my to-do lists for the week and since I am on my computer a good majority of the time, it is really helpful.

This blog assignment was very useful to me, lots of different tools and ideas that can be used in our personal lives and in our roles as teachers.

Thing Fifteen

Wikis....ok, honestly, I had no clue what a Wiki was. It actually made me think of a Wookie from Star Wars. Wikis are actually a really useful tool. You can find a Wiki on anything that you need. For this assignment we had to add our "favorite" blog post so far from this experience and I chose Thing 12 from this blog to add to our class' Wiki. I really enjoyed exploring Google and finding out more information and more tools that Google had to offer. I found that blog assignment very helpful.

Thing Fourteen

Flowcharts and Mind Maps.... First of all...these are awesome. Although, I was NOT impressed with the flowchart maker on this site . The whole process was just frustrating to me, and was slightly difficult to navigate. However, this site was a lot of fun. It gave you options that you could use while making the chart (ex: after you make a bubble, you can hit Control and Enter at the same time and it will add a new bubble!) These tools are really useful to anyone, but especially useful to teachers and their students for assignments, lessons, to help out with a story, etc.

Thing Thirteen

Typically when I need to share a document with a person or a group I will just send an email with the document attached, and get various feedback from each person contacted through email. It seems like there would be something a bit easier to do to send the same document to numerous people and to share everyone's feedback with each other. Well, there is now! And until I was a part of this class I had never heard of either site/application. What are these magical sites, you ask? Zoho and Google Docs.

As stated before, I love Google. That is my go-to place if I have a random question, need to find lyrics to a song, or find articles for school. However, I was rather disappointed with Google Docs. Google Docs simply allows you to create a document on the site and it gives your document a URL to "share" with other people. Zoho, has MANY different options. I particularly found their Collaboration Apps options to be very useful anyone, but specifically businessmen/women and teachers. Through Zoho you can share your document(s) and get loads of feedback. If I had to choose, I would go with Zoho!