Is it the end or only the beginning?

 I had so much fun with so many "things" it is hard for me to just pick a few lol. I really enjoyed the first few days of just setting up my blog and creating my avator, I had a great time doing it and my blog is something I use everyday and plan on continuing to use. I also really liked creating my teacherpop account. I think that website is such a great social media website and the fact that is was started at APSU is even better. It is such a great resource and I love being able to communicate with my future collauges on there. The last thing I will mention was "thing 21", which was creating the animoto video. Not only was this so easy to do, but they come out like professional videos that I think students and parents would love to watch, I plan on creating a video for each year I teach and using them to go on my blog as memory keepsakes of all my students.

This program has affected my lifelong learning goals because it made me realize that the internet can be used for so many things in everyday life and in the classroom. I plan on taking what I have learned through the 23 things programsand sharing all of these tools in some way with my students and collauges. Communicating and sharing these ideas are what the program is all about. The 21st century is all about technology, and it will only grow and continue from here. I think is is so important for all teachers to take the time to learn about each and everyone of these tools and I am so thankful that I got the chance thanks to this class.

The one thing that surprised me with this project was how easy it is if you put your mind to it and really learn the tools. I would not called myseld technology friendly at all, and was quit terrified about this class at first, but I found this class and this program to be one of the most useful classes I have tooken in the education program. I am walking away with so much knowlege about technology that I never thought I would know and can not wait to share it with my students in the future.

I honestly can not think of anything the program could do differently to make it better. I thought every "thing" gave very good directions and as long as you follow those you will do fine.

This project has gave me so many ideas for my future classroom when I become a teacher, I actually get excited everytime I think about some of the stuff I want to do. Creating videos and blogs for each student is just a couple of my ideas :) I feel so much more prepared now to teach than I did before because I gained so much knowledge about web tools that I had never even heard of before this program.

The best way to keep up with web 2.0 tools after the program is over is to keep yourself updated. Visit the websites and blogs that you did throughout the programs again. Things change over the internet all the time so keeping yourself updated is the best way to obtain knowledge about existing 2.0 tools as well as new ones that will come about in the future.

Thing 23

http://classroomlearning2.csla.net/

The 23 things project is a great project for learning about web 2.0 tools and technologies. Thanks to creative commons, we now know that other schools also use the same project and APSU was not the first to use it or create it. The link above shows the same project being using by a library in California, but I also found many others. It is a great an effective project, and thanks to creative commons, it can now be shared and modified from school to school to help future learners all around the world.

Creative Commons is important because you need to be aware of the things on the internet that you can and cannot share. Before taking this class, I would copy and paste images and things on to powerpoints and social media websites without even knowing they were copyrighted and I was unaware of how important this issue is when it comes to the internet. Now that I know, I think it will  be very important for me as a future teacher to share this information with my students and make sure they know what can and cannot be done when it comes to the internet.

Thing 22

Mrs. Ray's Class

For thing 22, we had to create a livebinder account and create 3 of our own livebinders. The names of my binders were "Mrs. Rays Class", "Technology in the Classroom", and "Daily Readings". The first binder I created was alot like a classroom blog with a calendar and important events for the students and parents. The second one was lessons on how to incorpate technology into our class, and the last binder was daily readings that the children have to do for homework each night to help improve their reading skills.

I think livebinder is a very useful resource for teachers and students. As a teacher, I could see myself using it in my personal life to stay organized, but also for resources for my classroom and things that I want to share with my students. I also think livebinder can be used for students as well, espicially at the high school level. I would create projects that the children can use livebinder to create and present their project in. You could also create a class livebinder with resouces for homework help or extra activites for help in each subject so when the children are at home they could just access the livebinder for additional help if needed.

Thing 21

Here is my animoto video :)

Make a video of your own at Animoto.

 I think animoto is a great tool and creating it was probably one of my favorite things to do so far. I love how you can personalize it, create your own music, and make as many free videos as you like. I also like how easy the videos are to share on social websites or blogs such as blogger and facebook. I think animoto would also be a great tool for the classroom when wanting to do lessons that require pictures to understand or to better help the students comprehend. I also plan on having a blog as a teacher and taking pictures of my students weekly so my parents can see what they do on a weekly basis and can feel part of their learning experience, and i think puting the picture together in a video like this would b great for the students and parents to watch and also to have keepsake videos for me for each of my classes each year.

Thing 20

I love using Youtube because you can find anything you are looking for from sports to recipes, and even tutorials on how to do all kinds of things. While youtube is a great tool to entertain, I think it can also be a great tool to be used in the classroom. While sometimes lecturing is good for a subject, other times videos can make learning fun and easier for students to understand. Providing videos on a teacher website or blog also gives students the option to refer back to it for further understanding.

The video I am sharing is a video my aunt shared to me a few years ago when i was deciding what I wanted to be. I always knew i wanted to be a teacher, but one day I hope to be a teacher like the teacher in this video. So many teachers today just come in and do what they can to get by for a paycheck, but there are still teachers like Mr. Si who think teaching is a gift and comes to work everyday to inspire children to be the the best they can be at everything they do in life. I hope to be a teacher like this one day and touch the lives of each of my students in one way or another like this teacher did to his students everyday.

Thing 19

For Thing 19, I discovered some other social networks other than facebook and twitter. One of the social networks I discoved and signed up for was teacherpop. Teacherpop by ning was actually started at APSU, and I think it is great. It is basically just like facebook except for teachers. I found ton of my classmates as soon as I created my account, which I think is great because it is a great way to make friends and connections with people who may be your future colleagues. I uploaded a photo on to teacherpop, invited many friends that I knew from class and below is the badge to my website :)

Other than Facebook, Twitter, and now Teacherpop, other online communities I am part of is pinterest and stumbleupon. I am actually a little addicted to pinterest. Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that lets you share all the interesting things you find on the web and organize them into categories. I actually have a future teacher category where I have found so many ideas from other people of lesson plans and create classroom organization ideas. The website is alot of fun and you find so many interesting new things on it everyday. Stumbleupon is also a lot like pinterest, it is basically a website that directing links you to websites that you are interested in. So if you are interested in say "travel", it pulls up many travel destinations and websites to place you may want to visit. Both of these websites are great for communicating and sharing ideas, and I learn many new things that will help me as a teacher on them everyday.



Visit TeacherPop

Thing 18

Exploring Facebook and Twitter was very easy to me because I already had an account for both of them. I use facebook religiously lol however I am not really a fan of twitter. I made one earlier in the semester for the class and all of my friends have twiiters but I just do not like it like I do facebook. Here are the links to both of my accounts:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100001331769412
https://twitter.com/#!/cmray15

I think that it is very important that educators know how to use social networking sites such as facebook and twitter. I could see schools using faceboook like the College of Education does to stay connected and keep everyone within their group informed of news and information that is important. I just added the College of Education to my facebook, and wish I would have had it all along because I did not even know we had it and all the useful information and upcoming news they put on the website.  Like I said, I think facebook is more appropriate for a school setting because you can make your profile private, or could just make a whole separate account just for school. With facebook you can also make groups, so you can have a site where you have group discussions about a topic or news just with your classroom kinda like a blog. I do not like twitter as much for a school setting. I think twitter is more of a fun social networking site where you follow celebrities and keep up with it 24 hours of the day. I do think twitter can be good maybe in a university setting, but I think middle and high school students would not use if for all of its resources as would universities students. Twitter can be used on an educational level, such as finding links to other educational blogs and tweets from other professionals, however I think facebook is more user friendly and more students would enjoy communicating with their classmates through it better.

Thing 17

For thing 17 we had to explore Delicious, which is a social bookmarking site. Delicious was pretty easy to use once I got the hang of it. You do have to set up an account, but once you do that you are good to go. The site is free to use and has an overwelming amount of links and information for almost anything you are looking for. When looking up the term "educational technology", I found so many different links to sites that gave me such great ideas for the things I could do in my classroom using technology. One of the site was ways to use ipads with elementary education students. I was really interested in this one because I will  be teaching elementary education, and I myself have an Ipad and my 4 year old son loves it, there is so many educational games that I would love to introduce to my future class to help teach a lesson. Overall, I think social bookmarking is great. I actually already had a stumbleUpon app on my phone and I love it. I love the idea of getting to share things you find with other people and them also sharing stuff with you. Being able to bookmark it makes it even better because you know where to find it if you need to use it again. Bookmarking is not only great for communication and sharing, but also great for organizing and I will be using these social bookmarking sites in the future for my classroom.

Thing #16

The start up page I chose to create for thing 16 was the igoogle page. The igoogle page appealed to me mostly becuase I already have a google account and use google for almost everything. Creating the igoogle account was very easy and I really liked it, I actually already have it set as my home page becuase I love the weather and all the links it gives you as soon as you pull it up. I also had fun playing with all the widgets and cool things that you can add to your page to personalize it. I have quotes and horoscopes already added to mine. :)
The online calendars can also be very useful to you when wanting to stay organized. I already had a google calendar, but I now can access it right from my home page which is pretty cool. Having online calendars through google is also very handy if you have a google account because you can access your calendar right from your phone. So everytime I add something to my calendar, an alert goes off on my phone as a reminder.
One to do list that I have had on my phone for awhile now is remember the milk. Just like google, you can sign up for remember the milk on the computer and start making your to do list, but since there is an app for this to do list, you can also access it from your phone or ipad. I love using remember the milk, it is very easy to use and I love being able to access everything I need from my phone when I am not around the computer. I would recommend this to-do list and igoogle page to anyone!

Thing #15

 After reading through some of the articles about wikis, I find it so interesting. I really enjoyed learning all the ways that it can be used. I  espicially like the booklovers wikis. I think it is so great that they edit their own views and critics about books to share with others. Before doing this "thing", I never knew you could create your own wiki, which I found to be pretty cool since I have always read wikipedia. Not to use for my papers of course, but just to look up or get background information on certain things.

I have never edited my own wiki, but I found it to be pretty easy. In my post, I talked about "Thing 8" and how much I enjoyed doing the mashups and how I cant wait to be able to share things like this with my own students. Overall, I think wiki is a great tool, espicially for collabaration in the classroom. I could just see myself now giving my students a group project where they could edit and revise with other groups using their own wiki. I also think it would be great for teachers to have a wiki site to share information about books, movies, or any ther ideas that could be useful for the classroom. Any kind of communication is important and I really enjoy sharing and learning new ideas so I really like the whole concept and hope to use it more in my future.

Thing #14

I chose to explore Gliffy and Bubbl.us for my tools with using flow charts and mind maps. I really liked Gliffy even though it was a little confusing at first. You get to pick the kind of flowchart you wanted so there is plenty of room for creative and fun.I espicially loved all the different shapes you could use. :) Flow charts are very convienient, espicially when your a teacher because it lets you present your ideas in a very convient and easy to umderstand way. It helps you organize what you want to say and makes it easier for students to understand as well.

Mind maps are similiar to flow charts, except they are more for the author to see and brainstorm with, rather than to be shared with an audience like flowcharts. Bubbl.us was just fun to play with it. I loved the explosions when you delete something. Very cool. It was very easy to use and I can see the potential of using this tool for projects in school, and it would definietily be something I would share with my students as a teacher. Both of these are great tools, and are both free which is even better. I can think of many jobs that could use these on day to day basis. Although I dont think I would use them as much, they are very great to learn about and remember for when the time comes. Bubbl.us was definitely more for me, just because I really like brainstorming my ideas, and the site gave me more freedom to do that. Gliffy seems a little more formal, but depending on the situaition both are great to know about!

Thing #13

The first word processing tool I discovered and used was Zoho writer. The first thing I noticed when playing with Zoho writer was that it is formatted alot like microsoft word, which made it pretty easy to use since almost everyone is pretty familiar with  microsoft word. The one thing I found the most useful to me about Zoho writer is the fact that you can import and export documents. When exporting documents in Zoho writer, you can export them as Microsoft Word documents, HTML, or PDF files. This could be very helpful when trying to access your work from a different computer at a later time.

After discovering all that Zoho writer had to offer, I started playing with Google Docs. I decided to create a google doc of reasons to use google doc over microsoft office, here is the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10g7Lj7EvPeKvnPOHUTb8zJ3Pef0EN5tBBi0PXWkM6PY/edit#

Google Docs can be very useful for teachers and students because it is a great word processing tool to create and share your work. Using google docs, you can create a document or presentation and allow peers to edit it. This would be great for group projects in school! It also saves automatically every time you write, so no more worrying about saving your work after every paragraph or forgetting to save it and loosing all your work.

Both Google Docs and Zoho writer are great for creating and editing documents. They both let you share your work, just in different ways. I prefer google docs because i have had to use it for another class before so i was already familiar with it, but from the little time I played with Zoho writer i found it to be just as easy. I think both are very great tools that teachers and students could really benefit from. I love how tools like these really help by letting you share and edit your work because group collabaration is so important in school today.

Thing #12

Just like almost everyone else, I am very guilty of using google search for anything and everything. Other than google search, the only other thing I have used in google is google maps, which i use on my phone everytime I travel. Everything else however is very new to me. The first thing I played with and created in google was google calendar. I am very ocd and have tons of organizers and planners, so the google calendar was actually very useful for me. I also found it very easy to use. You just click on the day and write your reminder and the time. The google calendar is also great because you can set it up to alert on your phone as a reminder as well. The google calendar will be very helpful for me as a teacher because I can post all important dates and homework assignents that the students and parents will need for the year, and send them the link that they can pull up and look at any time. Here is the link to my calendar for the month of march! https://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli=1

The second tool I created was an igoogle page. This was also really easy to do and I really had fun doing it. I love how you can personalize the page the way you want using the add gadgets button.  A few things I added was daily horoscopes, quote of the day, and my personalized google calendar. You also can add games and sign up for weather alerts. There is so many things you can do just by using this one page its crazy! I love it, and have even already set it as my homepage on my computer. Here is the link to my profile:
https://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli=1

Thing #11

When playing around with the other tools other than google to search for new blogs using the RSS reader, I found myself constantly going back to google reader everytime. I just really think google reader is the easiest and most efficient for searching for the topics that i am interested in. While playing with technorati, i found it to be pretty easy to use. The only think that makes it less appealing to google reader is that in your search you have to be a lot more specific or you will get pages and pages of blogs that sometimes were not even what you were intending to search for. With topix, the first thing I did not like was that you had to create a login in before you could even began your search. After creating the login i was kind of disappointed. Topix is more of a new media search tool, not really for looking up peoples personalized web blogs. Also Topix uses key words or phrases only in the search tool, so you have to really narrow down what you are intending to search to get any kind of results, which for me was not very many.

I found many interesting blogs while doing the search however. Of course I subcribed to the cool cat teacher blog. I also found http://educationcloset.com/, which is a great blog I found using technorati, where the author shares personal experiences of her life as an elementary school teacher, mother, and professional photographer, which I found very interesting to me because I to am a mother, will be teaching elementary education and love to take picutres! It is amazing the stuff you can find using these tools.

Thing #10

I have never used RSS reader before, to be honest I have never even heard of it. I am glad I do now though, it is such a great tool! What I like most about it is that it is super easy to use. After setting up my account which only took a few minutes, I immediately saw the subscribe button and started adding feeds to my reader. The first thing i added was the pioneer women because after you showed us in class i fell in love with that blog and find it to be so interesting, quilty i know. I also think the recommended subcribers link is very cool. It brings up a whole page of other readers you might be interested in subscribing too.

I think RSS is an awesome tool for any teacher. Not only does it help you organize, but it also saves you time, which are two very important things for teachers. I think teachers could use RSS to share websites and links that they find for students when discussing certain topics. I also think many links and websites could be provided to the parents using RSS, such as the school website or tutorials to help the children with homework at home. RSS is also a great way to follow other teachers blogs and get updates on what they are doing in their classroom that might also work for you. It is a great and efficient way to share ideas and i think all teachers would enjoy it if they took the time to  make one.

Thing #9

I used imagechef to create this banner for my blog. I thought imagechef was a very fun site genorator. I chose to personalize my blog with the banner option, but there were many other options to do on the site such as sketchpad, word mosiacs where you can pick your own words to put into it, and personalized photo cards and banners.

I also used custom sign generator to make a personalized license plate of where i was born and raised. I thought this was so fun to do and I think students of any age would enjoy making up there own funny signs and comics to share with the class.

Thing #8

I thought playing with the mashups was very fun. I really enjoyed the spelling one. I think it is so cool that they find random images to spell out words, and I think kids in my classroom would really enjoy this too. I would love to let all my students do this on the first day of class so they could have fun but also get to know me and there other classmates in a new and exciting way. I think many of the mashups I played with could be integrated into the classroom to make some learning fun. The puzzle could make for a really fun project for younger kids to do. Also, putting images on maps could help make history fun and enjoyable!

Thing #7

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hudamamat/4608686288/

Exploring Flickr was very fun for me because I have never had anything like it. I think is it a great site, espicially for photographers or people who take a lot of pictures and want to share them or organize them a certain way. I chose this picture because i found it to be a beautiful picture and the quote is an amazing inspiration for current and future teachers.

The process of uploading the picture in my blog was very complicated for me. I am not very good and working with URL's and stuff, so this was all new to me and I know im still learning. I do however love getting the chance to learn about new websites such as Flickr and I definetely think I would use this in my future classroom to take pictures and let the parents view them and make them feel part of their childrens day and let me carry on the memories of my classes as they come and go.

Thing #6

The web 2.0 tool I chose to explore was Remember the Milk (RememberTheMilk.com). This website is the best way to manage your tools online. I have used it for about a year now and love it.  Managing tasks is generally not a fun way to spend your time.  Remember The Milk was created so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand and end of loosing all of them after you take the time to write it down anyways. You can also integrate it with your gmail and it is now an app for apple and android phones, so you have all your task right there are your phone for on the go as well.

I think this would be a great tool for teachers, not only for personal use but for work too. We all know being a teacher can and will get very hetic, but we also know the importance of being a organized teacher. Remember the milk will help you be just that, and it is very easy to use!

Thing #5

The first article I read was Web 2.0: A Guide for Educators. This article explained how important the web has become in just a short period of time. It explained that people of the 21st century are now using the web for almost everything in their daily lives including social networking, business, and entertainment so education as well needs to jump on board. I really enjoyed this article and completely agree that as future educators we need to be able to use Web 2.0 to its advantages. Using web 2.0 will maximize resources not only for teaching, but for learning and driving innovation for students. It will do this by using new tools such as blogs, social bookmarking sites, podcasts, and RSS.

The next article I read was The Horizons Report. This article was very interesting to me because i am not familiar with very many technology tools that can be used in the classroom and this article explained many educational technology tools and how they can be applied in the classroom. One tool i found to be very interesting and that i had never heard of before was data mashups. These mashups were basically combinations of data from all kinds of different sources "mashed up" in a single tool for you to look at and interact and share with others. I thought this tool was very cool and can be useful for teachers to have and to share information with there students. It can also be fun to have for social networking, blogs, and mapping as well.

Both this articles really helped me understand the future of web 2.0 better and what school 2.0 will mean to me in the future. School 2.0 will be essicential to me as a teacher. Web 2.0 means different things to everyone. Some of the more common themes include communication, collaboration, and user-generated content. Web 2.0 is about providing a framework to facilitate people sharing information in new and dynamic ways, and as a teacher I think being able to do that and share that with your students will be more than important.

Thing #4

Commenting helps create a sense of community because they encourage discussion. Many people write blogs or on social networking sites just for the mere fact of getting feedback or comments in return. Commenting is important because it lets people know that you care. It gives people a reason to express their feelings and by you commenting it lets them know you understand and that their is a person behind the blog. Commenting also gives people a reason to return to your site, which in turn expands your interaction with that person.

One thing I found from "Your comment?" from the Blue Skunk Blog that I found really important about commenting is to say thank you when someone comments on your writing. Everyone does want their writing to be read or seen or else they would not haveO took the time to write it or post it on the internet in the first place, so if someone takes the time to read and post a meaningful comment on your blog, show them you are greatful for it and atleast respond even if it is just a simple thank you.
Another thing that i thought was important was to invite comments in your blog. If you are not getting the feedback you desire, invite them in your blog to leave comments or concerns for you to reply too. Also ask questions in your blog. Asking questions in your blog will always help you get higher numbers of comments because people will naturally want to answer your questions.
I am going to comment on some blogs now, I will be back to tell you what i thought about them later....

Im back!
One of the first blogs I commented on was Ariel Griffith's Thing 7. The was a great blog about her experiences with using flickr. She chose a picture of a groups of sorority girls because it was something that was important to her. In her blog, she talks about wings for wishes and how her sorority works to help grant atleast 2 wishes through the make a wish program by working at the wings for wishes here on compus in April. I could relate to this blog because I have also worked for wings for wishes through my job at zaxbys for 3 years, and it really is a great program, and im glad someone enjoys it as much as me.
http://agriffith3.blogspot.com/

The second blog I posted about was Rachel Jones's Thing 5. Her blog about Web 2.0 and its affects on the future of education was really good to me. I really enjoyed reading it because it was from a totally different perspective then mine. Technology to me has always been a neccesity, but for her, it has not. She says that she can remember in elementary school only using it to play games, and now it seems like people today can not go without it for a minute. I also really liked her idea of implementing internet safety into schools because people, espicially younger children really dont understand that as great as the internet is, is can also be very dangerous and I think we as teachers should make them aware of this.
http://keepingupwiththejones23things.blogspot.com/2012/02/thing-5.html

Thing #1

As I was watching the "Seven and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners" I thought about each of the habits and how important they all are to be an effective learner. I wrote down each of the habits like the tutorial said to, and after thinking about it awhile I deciced that the hardest habit for me was was habit 3, which states "view problems as challenges". This habit is probably hardest for me because I deal with it on a daily basis at school. I get very overwhelmed with problems that I face and want to quit or stop trying or ask others for help instead of seeing the class or the problem as a challenge and doing all I can to overcome it and learn from it.

The easist habit for me was Habit 7, which was to teach/mentor others. There are many aspects of my life where i have to teach or help others. I am a mom, and everyone else who is a mom can tell you that you teach or mentor your kids on a daily basis. I am also a shift leader where i work, so it is my job as the team leader to help train and teach people new stuff about the business everyday. Teaching or helping others about stuff i know or have learned comes really easy to me and is something i love to do. Any chance i get to help somebody if i can i will.

Thing #3

Well like I said before in Thing # 2, I have never had a blog before but just from the little time I have used one I can think of many reasons they could be used in the classroom once I become a teacher. As we all know, or will learn from this class, our world is getting more and more technology based. Using the internet for blogs and forums for communication is really important for future students to know since it is already how over half the world is communicating with each other.

As a future K-6th grade teacher, I would want to set up a classroom blog and post things such as weekly writing topics for certain subjects and let the children get on the blog and post and discuss their ideas as a class.  I would also use a blog to communicate with parents, which I think is very important when teaching young children. This blog would include things such as a classroom calendar, general classroom rules and guidelines, and daily lessons plans to inform the parents of what we are working on at the time.

Thing #2

I just decided to use my name for my blog that way the class could learn it and recognize me when i write about my experiences with the class in my blog and so i could use it in the future when i am not just using it for school purposes.

I thought creating the blog was fairly easy, but that was mainly because we did it as a class and all worked together. If it was just me at home I would probably be crying lol. I thought the avatar was a little more challenging than setting up the blog as far as having to paste it to show up on your site but I had a lot of fun doing both. I have never had a blog before so all of this is new to me but I really love learning new things about the computer even if it takes me a little longer than most.

Setting up the avatar was definitely the funniest part. I did make my avatar look like me so the class would get a sense of what i look like when reading my blogs. My avatar has brown hair with blue eyes and glasses like me and is wearing jeans and high heels like me because i have a very girlie personality. I do plan on going back and playing around with my avatar some more but for the most part it was fairly easy and a lot of fun, which is why i am sure everyone enjoys the class so much.