At the end... Thing 24

Finally... I have come to the end of my first blogging experience. In a way I am sad to see the end, but then again all things must come to end. Then we move onto bigger and better things. I would have to say some of my most favorite experiences were LiveBinders, Animoto,  and Google Drive. I believe these are some great tools I will be able to use in my classroom down the road. I don't think this program has affected my lifetime learning goals. I think that my goals are still the same even after the blog. A take-away from this experience is the ability to write freely what I think more. I have been able to express my opinions openly and not feel afraid to. I know that in my teaching career I will be able to reflect on this experience and the things I have learned and implement them into my classroom. There are many great tools out there and this is a great way to get to explore and understand them. I will be able to show my students what is out there and how they can use it to their advantage. I will be able to keep up with new Web 2.0 tools by keeping up with my various RSS feeds and blogs I have subscribed to.

I don't know if I will continue to use this specific blog, but I am definitely going to consider keeping another blog about my teaching experiences and what my classroom is doing. I have found a great blog to follow about a 5th grade teacher. She is an inspiration in the things she posts and I feel as though I would benefit from writing one about my students and my life. A blog can be a great tool and is definitely something to consider doing. Right now in my life with school full time, part time job, and a family at home, I don't know if a blog is going to be in my daily life, but once I have gotten to where I wanna be, I will be revisiting this experience and using it to share my life.

Thing 23

On the 23 Things main blogging page I was able to find the following credit: "Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers is based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things, a staff development program for the Mesquite Independent School District. That program was based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers and adapted by the California School Library Association and others. Content and style for Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License."

This reference gives credit to the original creators and allows for us to use their ideas underneath the Creative Commons License. Now that I am more aware of what Creative Commons is and how it is used, I am most definitely going to use this within my classroom. I have already created a instructional PowerPoint about Creative Commons to use in my classroom. This will allow the children to understand why it is so important not to copy someone else's work without their permission and how they can avoid getting in trouble for it. Being a future teacher, I know that I will want to share my created works with other teachers. Creative Commons allows me to share my work publicly, but also remain protected. No one else will be able to steal my work and use it as their own without giving me credit for what I have done. I think this is a great tool to allow the world to share their creations and still remain in control of the rights to it.

Thing 22

LiveBinders is a great online storage resource. LiveBinders allows anyone to post links, documents, videos, photos, or anything else they want to share with others. LiveBinders put these into binders which stores them in categories. They can be arranged and organized as you want. The three binders that I created are My 5th Grade Class, Classroom Resources, and Classroom Projects and Experiments.
Here is a link to one of my LiveBinders:

                        Classroom Resources

I think LiveBinders could be a useful tool in the classroom because it allows teachers to store and share various documents, resources, and information with students and parents. When creating the binders you can label them effectively so students will know exactly where to go for and for what. Also, students themselves could use LiveBinders to store information and resources for group work. It allows students to work in the binder then save and share it for the other students to access.

Thing 21

Over The Years


Animoto is a great way to create short, fun videos. I couldn't believe how much fun I had creating this video. The hardest part about it was deciding which pictures I wanted to use. I think I did this whole thing like 3 times before I finally decided I liked it. The website is very user-friendly can contains everything you need except pictures. I think Animoto could be a useful tool in an elementary classroom because it would allow you to create videos for lessons or for fun. These videos could be used in class or posted to the class website. Creating a fun video and putting it on the class website would be beneficial to the parents or guardians. It would allow them to see what their children are doing in class. Although these clips are not very long, it only takes a moment to change a child's life or understanding and this could be one way to do that. I am a believer in using your resources around you as much as you can. This is just one more great tool for teachers.

Thing 20

YouTube is a great source of entertainment and education. While every website has its downfalls, YouTube is no different. There is content that is not quite appropriate for young students, but with parental controls should be easy to regulate what your children can or cannot watch. With YouTube, I like that I am able to search almost anything that I want. I was able to search multiple different things and found videos that were interesting for all different ages. I chose the video "I'm Just a Bill" because not only is it a classic that most people have seen at least once, but it is a very educational video that children can learn from. I remember being in elementary school seeing this video for the first time and then seeing it again later in my educational career. It is just a fun way to learn something that can in a sense be so boring. A great feature of YouTube is the ability to share videos. If I had a classroom website or blog, I would be able to post links/videos right to my web page. This would allow the children to have an additional resource of learning. Also with YouTube, I would be able to create my own videos and post them on my class website. This would allow for students who were out of class see the lessons or materials we studied and stay on track with the rest of the children. 

Thing 19

Social media websites can be useful tools when looking for information or wanting to collaborate with others who are into the same things you are. Educators can use these websites to find out information on various topics, find useful projects, and helpful hints. Along with Facebook, and now Twitter, I am also a member of Pinterest. I started following this about a year ago and use this to create DIY craft projects. I have made 2-3 of them so far and they have turned out fairly well. There are many projects and activities posted on Pinterest that would be great for teachers to use. Although I am not an active "member", I do use IMDB a lot to look up various actors and movies. When looking through other various social networks, I have found that many of them are just like one another. For instance, IMDB and Filmcrave as well as GoodReads and Shelfari are about the same things. I currently use other websites that serve the same purpose and personally, I like those other websites better. Of various social media sites that I looked through, I believe that Classroom 2.0 Ning is the most useful one that I would later use. This website talks about using technology in the classroom. This could be very beneficial when wanting to implement new things into your lesson plans.

Thing 18

Twitter is the new and upcoming form of social media. First we started with MySpace, now Facebook, and most recently Twitter. All of these are ways that people communicate to others and develop relationships with those they have things in common with. Until now I have never even been on Twitter. Here is the link to my Twitter page.

Twitter along with Facebook and other various social media websites are important to understand as an educator because this is a part of our students daily lives. For some pages there are age restrictions, but this may not stop some children from getting on them. Social media websites are a prime place for students to get bullied and harassed. As a teacher, we need to understand how these websites can affect our students confidence, personality, and well-being.

After exploring Twitter, I found that it is a face paced and constantly updating. Facebook can be this way as well, but not to the extent from all different feeds. Normally on Facebok you have your friends who will post stuff and that's about it. Twitter is multiple feeds all at once and from all different areas. I found it fairly easy to set up and search for people or pages to follow. The only thing I had no idea on how to go about is searching for specific things such as certain educational sites. The whole hashtag (#) is unknown to me. As far as using Twitter in the classroom or school, I personally do not feel the need for it. Twitter is something that should be allowed to remain an activity outside of school. I feel that if Twitter were allowed in the classrooms there would be an issue with distraction and productivity. Twitter is best left at home or on the go, not in school.