The End...

I'll admit that I am not a big fan of technology and subsequently was not looking forward to this assignment.  However, by its conclusion I realized that SOME of the activities were not only quite useful but actually fun! I stress the word some because I believe some of the activities would only be beneficial to people who are big internet users. For example RSS feeds would not be useful for someone like me who only accesses 1, MAYBE 2 sites a day.  I don't need to have a separate add-on on my computer that lets me know when these sites have been updated because it would take the same amount of time to just check these few sites.  However, it is good that we learned about RSS because not everyone uses the internet in the same way that I do and for them maybe learning about RSS was a godsend.

My favorite activities were all the ones that dealt with photo manipulation.  I loved Flickr
the image generators, and most recently animoto! I could see myself going back to all these sites to create more cool custom images!

No matter how hard I fight it, the world is becoming more and more technology savvy so in order to keep up I need to as well.  Therefore, the program has made want to become more comfortable using technology and make an effort to use it more in my day to day life.

What surprised me about the program is the fact that almost every activity we did could be applied to the classroom.  Even though at first I thought for sure using something like Vine had no academic benefit I was proven wrong eventually.

I think the program was a bit lengthy and repeated itself somewhat in its activities.  For example even though I really enjoyed playing around with flickr and the other various sites, I don't think it was necessary to introduce us to quite so many when they all did basically the same thing.  But with that being said I still believe that the program as a whole was genius and will only help make us more innovative teachers!!!

Thing #23 Creative Commons

I knew from the very beginning of this activity that it was based on someone else's work because after scrolling to the bottom of the 23 things blog I saw this note...

credit given to the original author!

The site that serves as the inspiration for the 23 things!

Now that I know about the Creative Commons I'll make sure that my students and I publish all work with the "some rights reserved" rather than "all rights reserved" tag.  I say this because the main reason the internet is such a wonderful learning tool is because it gives you the ability to both share your own work and see others.  I want other schools and students to benefit from the activities I do with my class and perhaps implement them in their own classroom.  I like Creative Commons versus regular copyright law because it is not as stringent and easy to get sued over. For example in law school I read a case where a mother was sued for making 10 t-shirts for the kids at her daughter's birthday party with the image of Mickey Mouse on them. Crazy huh!?

Thing #22 Live Binders

The first binder I created is titled "middle school teaching" which is filled with articles about being a middle school teacher and blogs written by middle school teachers. My "English" binder has three tabs titled grammar, spelling and poetry which each link to fun interactive sites. My last binder is titled"future classroom decor ideas" which is depicted below...

click here to see my full binder

The use of live binders is obviously contingent on the whether or not the class I am placed in has regular access to computers both at school and at home.  Hypothetically, if my students had regular access to computers it would be a big time saver for them to be able to research material at school, save it to their live binder and then have access to it at home.  And because live binders allows you to have MANY tabs and sub tabs, my middle school students would really only need to create one binder and use it for all their classes.  And say I had a class that had access to computers every day and students took their notes digitally rather than by hand, they could add their notes to their live binder and never have to worry about losing them! I think live binders could also be a great way for students to keep organized warmup writing activities and/or a journal/reflections.

 I, however can definitely see myself using live binders to keep track of my lesson plans since as a secondary English teacher I will have multiple classes with multiple lesson plans.

Thing #21 Animoto

I really really liked using Animoto, so much so that I created two videos instead of one.  Setting up an account was simple and easy and although the free version only allows you to create a video up to 30 seconds I was still happy with the results.  Uploading pictures was also very fast and hassle free because it just linked up to my Facebook account.  I thought it was a nice touch that site allows you to upload your own custom music because this helps personalize your videos. For example for the first video, displaying various pictures of me and my boyfriend, I decided to use one of our favorite songs as the background music. I can definitely see myself coming back to this site and creating cool new videos! I'm even considering making one for my moms birthday!

Thing #20 YouTube and Beyond

The following video is a very poignant and heartbreaking video about one of the poorest rural school districts in South Carolina.  Being from South Carolina and an education minor during undergrad, I watched the video in class and 4 years later it has remained on my mind.  Funding schools based on property taxes is inherently unfair and leads to situations like the one below....

CORRIDOR OF SHAME

I chose this video because in 6th grade I went to a similar school as those depicted above. It was built close to 100 years ago, we had leaks in the ceiling and problems with our heating and air.  I got the feeling that the teachers didn't want to be there, by how much they complained about the facility and I felt almost like I was a burden to them.  I always say that had I finished middle school at that school and graduated in that district I would not be in college right now.  We had very inadequate resources and though I was in sixth grade in 2001 I cannot recall a time we had access to a computer or internet in school.  I was not prepared for my seventh grade year when I moved schools and it took me the whole year to catch up. However, not every chid is as fortunate as I was to have parents who worked extremely hard to move so that I could go to school in a better district.  For those students who stay in these poor rural districts their future is oftentimes very grim.

From the other online tools and applications site we were redirected to I was excited to see Vine listed.  Vine is a site that allows you to upload short videos, only 6 seconds in length, and they run on a continuous loop.  Its amazing to see what people can accomplish in this short time frame and how funny a looped video can be!  I think having students create a video in vine would be a fun activity to do since it won't eat up too much class time, only about 6 seconds.  I think it would even be interesting to have them create a tutorial about how to do something in Vine.  For example maybe show/explain the method for tying their shoes.  This will help students become more concise in their writing and learn to differentiate between important and non important information.

Thing #19 Other social networks

After reading the tips and guides on how best to use your social networking sites I found one common thread; be VERY cautious about what you post!  It fairly obvious that we should never post inappropriate information or materials on a social networking site, but I believe it should be stressed to all teachers and potential teachers to never ever vent about a student online either.  Keeping our Facebooks or Twitters private is not enough to ensure that those we don't want seeing our profiles don't, therefore we should only post things that we are comfortable with EVERYONE seeing. I know teachers have been fired over what they posted on Facebook or even denied a job after the principal read the contents of a teacher candidate's Facebook.  In many districts a teacher candidate won't even be hired until the principal has checked their Facebook.

For educators I believe one of the biggest uses and benefits of a social networking site is the fact that its an outlet to be creative and to become inspired.  Hence why I chose Pinterest for Teachers as the most appealing social networking site for teachers. I am big into decorating and believe if I create a warm and welcoming environment in my classroom my students will perform better.  If my walls are bare and there is no character in the room, students won't want to even be in the room!  My favorite teacher was my 3rd grade teacher partly for the reason that she created a room like non other.  There were no bare walls in her classroom, it  was either adorned with the works of her students or beautifully decorated boards.The reading area of the room was a bit like a jungle with real and fake plants, stuffed animals and comfy cushions to sit on and read.  Students WANTED to read so they could go sit in this neat area of the classroom.  Pinterest for Teachers is FILLED with ideas and beautiful examples of ways to decorate a classroom and I am certain that I will go back to this site for ideas when I finally get my own classroom.

dull and boring

VS.

cool and colorful

WHICH ONE WOULD YOU PREFER?

I am not a member of any social networking sites other the Facebook and have considered on more than one occasion to just delete it for good.  I get frustrated by the idioticity, whining and complaining, or general annoying and useless posts made by my Facebook "friends." I only keep it because its just a small few that make me want to pull my hair out and Facebook is a great and perhaps only way of keeping up with old friends from high school.

Thing #18 Social Networking

Although I've had Twitter for over 3 years, I've used it only a couple of times. A friend set it up for me back in undergrad because she is a Twitter addict and I guess she was hoping I would become one too...To her dismay it didn't happen since my last login and my only tweet was from March 03, 2010.  All the people I am following were chosen by my friend so please realize my Twitter is in no way an accurate representation of myself. You can access my twitter here.

The educational hashtags that were of most interest to me were... #edreform #achievementgap #strugglingreaders #schoolchoice because they are all hot topics that I am very passionate about.  The hashtag search was a little weird to me because I was expecting that I would get results from high profile and famous people, but instead I saw the tweets from a bunch of random people.  It took me a minute to realize that results are ordered from newest to oldest.

I don't particularly like twitter which is the reason I have never really used mine.  I don't think people should know or would even care to know every little aspect of my life.  I can imagine tweeting "hey bout to go eat breakfast" or "going to class" like who cares!? I can only understand having a twitter if you are a celebrity, famous athlete or politician because they are all public figures and the general population is intrigued by their day to day lives.  For the normal everyday person though I think its odd to want every aspect of your life to become public and also very dangerous.

There have been cases where people have been stalked and/or killed because the suspect was able to find out where they were, where they were going and what they were doing all from their twitter and/or Facebook.  I strongly believe that if you choose to post such information on a social networking site, you should make it private and only viewable to those people you know and trust.

I spent awhile pondering over the potential benefit Twitter could have in my future classroom.  At first I thought no way, Twitter is definitely not appropriate for school! However I realized if nothing else Twitter could be a great way for my students to get to know each other and help build a community within my class. At the beginning of a new year oftentimes the children will not know the vast majority of their classmates and I think by having my students set up a Twitter and follow one another they could get an inside look into their classmates lives.  I could perhaps assign them to tweet at least once every school day, for the first few weeks as a fun, get to know each other, beginning of the school year activity.  I would warn teachers however to make sure the students create a Twitter for only this purpose.  And if they already have one to not follow anyone other than the members of my class to avoid the dangers I spoke of earlier.