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.

Thing #17 Delicious

For other activities I did in this blog, although most were completely new to me, I had at least heard of flickr and RSS feeds but I've never heard of Delicious before.  After watching the Delicious tutorial I realized that the tagging of photos I was used to from Facebook was a bit different from Delicious where I'd be tagging websites with a word or phrase.

Setting up an account with Delicious was very easy and before I knew it Delicious was added to my toolbar!  After typing in educational technology in the search bar I was flooded with results.

The two most popular sites were articles about using Facebook in the classroom and about iPads and iPod touches as resources for students, both having over a 1,000 bookmarks.  The comments I read for both articles seemed to all be very positive.

my results in Delicious!

I struggle with finding an actual benefit that Delicious would have in my future classroom because I see it more as a sight for personal use. Maybe for younger kids it may be a cool tool for them to conduct research but since I am going to be a secondary English teacher I plan to have my students use or begin to use an article database site such as JStor.

Thing #16 Getting Organized

I chose Symbaloo as my start page because I was already introduced to it in a previous class and really liked it! Symbaloo reminds me of the apps on my iPad and iPhone because they are colorful and very easy to use.  Unlike other bookmarking sites symbaloo is great for all ages because children can identify the site they wish to go on by just the icon!One of the professors I work for as a graduate assistant required all her students to create a symbaloo at the start of the year so they could easily access all the sites that they would need throughout the semester.  For my Symbaloo I dedicated the top left corner for academic sites that I will need for school and the top right for sites I go to for fun.Although I like Symbaloo I doubt I'll use it as my permanent home page because I don't go on very many sites on the internet.  I struggled to even come up with some to add to my Symbaloo...

My symbaloo!

I've never kept a digital calendar,  I'm more old fashioned and just write in one that I keep on my fridge. I prefer this method because my calendar is right where I can see it and I don't have to get on my computer to see my schedule for the day or the week.  I used google to create my calendar since I already have an account and their other services like google drive and photos were all very easy to use.  Google calender was no different! :)

my calendar for the week!

Lastly I chose to explore PDF converter because I have had trouble in the past where files I saved on my home computer could not be opened up on the ones at school. PDF converter is definitely a site I can see myself using in the future!

I recommend that people who are big internet users and access tons of sites each day try Symbaloo.  It truly is a great way to stay organized and is extremely user friendly!

Thing #15 Wikis

I've heard of Wikipedia before and used it more times than I can count, like most everyone else in the world with a computer and access to the internet, but never Wikis. I had no idea anyone could create their own Wiki about whatever they want and then others could add and edit information.  The example in the Wikis in Plain English Video was a great one because I agree that so much gets lost in translation when emailing back and forth.  I've had projects in high school go horribly wrong because a group member thought they were supposed to do one thing when in reality they were supposed to do something else. For example in a Spanish class we decided to make and bring in chicken quesadillas as part of our project and didn't have plates but double the amount of soda because of miscommunication.  I believe a Wiki page could have prevented this from happening.

Wikis remind of a google doc that you can share with others and they in turn can add and edit information.  With that being said I still prefer google docs to Wikis because there are more controls available in terms of the editing freedom you allow. For example as an instructor I may want to share docs with my class but not give them the freedom to edit anything and everything about it. In google docs you have the option to only have students view the documents or specify who can edit it. In high school I actually had a teacher who forbid us from using Wikipedia because he did not feel comfortable with us citing information from a cite that ANYONE could edit.  Allowing too much editing freedom can definitely ruin the credibility of the information you get from it.

For the apsu 23 things sandbox wiki I decided to create my own page entitled "my favorite image creations from the 23 things"  Before I could do this however, I had to set up an account which was as simple as typing in my email and clicking on the link I received in my email to verify it.  I could see myself creating a  wiki for students whenever I assign group projects to help minimize the miscommunication I spoke about earlier.

Thing #14 Flowcharts and Mindmaps

I've never been big in creating flow charts and before this exercise had never even heard the phrase "mind maps" before... I think this is due in part to the fact that I was an English major in undergrad and I feel flow charts are more suited for the sciences.

I first decided to use flowchart.com but after waiting 10 min for my invitation email, I decide to move on and use Gliffy.  On Gliffy I was able to create an entire flowchart without even creating an account and it wasn't until I went to save my flow chart was I prompted to create one.  I found Gliffy to be extremely user friendly and liked that I was able to choose the extension for my file such as PNG and JPG.  

        HOW TO MAKE BAR-B-QUE CHICKEN IN THE CROCK POT

my creation in Gliffy! I made it very simple because I wanted it to be easy to understand

Next I went on mindmeister.com to find out exactly what mind mapping is.  However I was quickly turned off from the site when I saw a variety of different prices for the mind mapping software. Although I noticed they had a free trial, I did not want to get caught in a situation where I would begin to be charged once the trial ended so I left the site. I then decided to go to bubbl.us and was relieved to find that it looked similar in appearance to the very easy to use Gliffy.com. I actually found bubble.us easier to use than Gliffy since all I had to do was press TAB to create a new bubble!

Although I have never found a use for flowcharts or mind maps useful as a student I still believe I will make a effort to use them in my future classroom. Not everyone learns or studies in the same way that I do, so even though I don't benefit from flowcharts  and mind maps my students very well might!

I definitely prefer flowcharts to mind maps because I believe they are more organized and easy to understand, however I do believe mind maps serve as a useful way to get your ideas down on paper.  For example if I assigned students to write a paper on a heroic journey, a mind map would be helpful for students to add the elements of a heroic journey and use connectors to illustrate the ones that are related.

Thing #13 Google Drive

click here to link to my blogpost made in google drive!

Not only do I THINK Google Drive is a great tool for collaborative learning but its one that I KNOW for sure I'll use.  Google Drive will make group projects far more easier for students to accomplish.  No longer will students have to find times to meet with one another in person because they will be able to connect with each other from wherever they are!  If one group member finds an interesting website they can share it with their fellow members with a few clicks of their mouse.

A creation made in Google Drive using the drawing tools!

After exploring Zoho I quickly found it to be a site that was not suited to my individual needs.  It seems the site is better suited for businessmen and women.  For example I have no need to use Pulse, which track sales either now as a student or in the future when I become a teacher.

Thing #12 The Power of Google

I decided to first play around with Google Trends, because I've heard about it before but never used it.  On Google Trends the two hottest searches for the day (September 10, 2013) were Sons of Anarchy and NASCAR.  I noticed however, that these "trends" of the day were only for the United States so I decided to change the country to Australia.  For the exact same day I found that the two hottest searches in Australia were Under the Dome (a tv show) and Miley Cyrus.

I next decided to view the trends of the search "Michael Jackson" I limited the years of my search from 2004-present (the site does not allow you to see trends prior to 2004) and wasn't surprised to find that the number of searches not only spiked but peaked the year of his death, 2009.  I only performed this search to test the accuracy of the site....


Next I searched Justin Bieber....these were the results

As expected no one even knew of his existence until 2009.  There were literally 0 searches until June of 2009

Lastly I decided to search "education reform" and was saddened to find that the number of searches of these two terms has been in a fairly gradual decline as pictured below.

I guess it true that people are starting to care less and less about education....

Other interesting hot searches from September 10, 2013, broken down into categories,
are pictured below
                                                                     

 

I never knew google had any type of photo sharing program and because manipulating photos with flickr was so much fun I decided to check out Google Plus Photos.  The process of uploading my photos to Google Plus was very similar to the uploading process on Facebook where they ask you to tag the photo and you have the option to share it.  I then decided to edit my photo and loved all the options they gave!  I could have spent hours manipulating photos and know for sure I'll be back on this site!

I think that Google Trends would prove very useful in a History classroom because students could could literally learn the history/popularity of any term from 2004-present!  Again I still don't see much benefit in a photo manipulation site like Google Plus Photos other than in an Art class...

Thing #11 Finding Good Feeds

I may not have created a circle of the wise in the conventional sense of the word but I definitely think I chose blogs that will keep me entertained and even to some extent inspired. I have NEVER kept up with blogs in the past so I didn't even know where to start when it came time for me to choose which ones to add to my feedly account.  I first began with the suggestion to check out the Edublogs's award winners and decided to subscribe to freetechforteachers.com because I liked the layout and the first couple of posts I read.  And also, perhaps most importantly because all the technology featured is FREEEEEEEE!

I was hoping that all I would have to do to subscribe to this blog would be clicking that now familiar orange RSS icon on the page but was unable to find my reader (feedly) listed in the drop down choices.  I ended up having to go into my feedly account and search for the blog there and then click +add content.  It wasn't very difficult to do for this first blog but after subscribing to 4 other blogs and then repeating this same process, it got extremely tedious!

The next blog I found from an earlier "Thing" post, called Its not all Flowers and Sausages, which is a very candid and heartfelt written by an oftentimes very frustrated teacher.  This is probably the most unusually written, but entertaining blog I subscribed to.

The 3 other blogs I subscribed to I found directly from my feedly account.  I simply typed in what I was looking for example I subscribed to a cake blog called HalfBaked, which I found by just typing in
"baking."

Thing #10 RSS

                  

=

???

Its funny I've seen that little orange square that looks like the symbol for a wifi connection on a number of websites but have never stopped to ask myself what it does or even what is stands for.  The idea and functionality behind RSS and newsreader is no doubt genius but for someone like me, who doesn't use the internet much, it lacks any real benefit. I mostly only use the internet to check my email and Facebook and go on live text and D2l to complete my assignments.  Of course I also use it as a research tool and to order things from Amazon and other clothing sites, but as far as keeping up with sites, I don't.  I added TMZ and Perezhilton to my feedly account only because when I was younger I used to go on these sites quite a bit but haven't been on either in 4+ years.  I also added epic fail to my feedly account because I have been on it a few times in the past and have always found it pretty entertaining,  I added one food blog, smitten kitchen, because of its popularity and mouthwatering pictures. Lastly I added the cool cat teacher blog to my reader because it looked the most interesting out of the suggested sites we should add to our feedly account.

Although I don't have any use for RSS and other news readers in my personal life, I can definitely see the benefit for teachers!  I mentioned in a previous post that I'd like my students to keep a weekly blog  for personal reflection in a effort to get them writing and like the idea that by subscribing to their blogs I would get notified whenever a new post is made.

Thing #9 Online Image Generators

http://dummies.book.cover.txt2pic.com/

http://www.fototrix.com/

Out of all the activities I have done thus far, this one was by far my favorite!!! I was a little hesitant and weary of this activity because there were so many links to choose from and they seemed a little poorly organized, but I quickly got the hang of navigating the site and was playing around on it for upwards of an hour!  

I first went to http://dummies.book.cover.txt2pic.com/ which allowed me to completely customize the cover text of the popular   ______for dummies book.  I found the site very user friendly and really liked how clear they were with describing where the text you were writing would appear on the cover.  The only problems I had were the slow load time from once you finish your cover to when to image is finally downloaded and fitting all my text on the cover.

I next went on www.fototrix.com which allowed me to choose from around 50 different frames to put on my digital pictures.  This site I also found to be easy to use, I just wish there were more updated/modern frames to choose from. 

I can definitely see myself coming back to both these websites to explore more of the tools it has to offer and also recognized the benefit of a book cover creating tool for my future english class.  Hypothetically if I had my students keep a weekly journal/blog it would be a fun activity to have them create a custom cover for it at the end of the semester.

                                             

Thing #8 More fun with Flickr

   

For this exercise I chose to begin with using the spell with flickr mashup because I've seen it used before on other sites but never knew how to access it until now.  I found it fun to search for the different letters but got very frustrated a few times when I accidentally exited out of the page and lost all my work.  I found myself trying, whenever this happened, to get the exact letter combination that I had before but quickly learned that this proved impossible.  This interactive tool, therefore creates 100% unique and individual looking words! :) 

This spell with flickr application would be GREAT for younger children who are just learning to spell because it is fun and allows them to be creative, all while practicing spelling words.

Next I decided to explore creating puzzles with my flickr photos and found it really easy to link up to my flickr account and locate my pictures/sets.  However, maybe I just couldn't figure it out, but I found myself unable to customize  the look of my puzzle.  I was hoping to be able to drag and drop pieces of the puzzle to different locations, to create a completely unique photo.

IF there is a way to drag and drop these puzzle pieces, this would be a great activity to say perhaps learn the states or countries of the world, because students would have to understand the location and boundaries of these pieces of land.

For both activities I could not seem to find any way to post the pictures into my blog other than simply taking a screenshot of them, saving them to my desktop and then uploading them. For the spell with flickr mashup I was able to locate the section where they provided a url code, but when I copy and pasted it into my blog all I saw was the url code, not the cool picture that I had created...

I mentioned this earlier in my previous post but I am not a big fan of posting pics on the web for the public at large to see.  Family and friends are the only people that I think both should or would even care seeing my photos.

Thing #7 Flickr

I've never used or even heard of flickr until now but can honestly say that I really enjoyed my experience using it.  At first I was a little confused with understanding what "sets" meant and figuring out how to post to my blogger account but quickly figured it out.

I really liked how this site links up with other popular sites such as Facebook, twitter and blogger, which made posting very simple once I realized all I had to do was click on share and then the blogger button.  I LOVED the fact that I could even login using my gmail so I didn't have to go through the hassle of creating a new account.

Looking through other peoples sets I was amazed by how clear and beautiful they all were and wondered  why mine weren't as vibrant when I uploaded them.  It wasn't until I played around a little  on the site and saw a classmate adding creative elements to her pictures that I realized there was an EDIT button!  Once I saw all the ways you could manipulate the pictures such as applying filters and adding stickers, I was very surprised that the site was absolutely free!  I can see using this site for younger kids as a modified show and tell activity, but for high school I am struggling to see the true academic benefit of the site.  It would be a great site to use for an art class, not so much an English class...

Other than I guess Facebook I don't use any photo hosting services and even then I usually don't upload photos but are rather tagged by friends.  I don't really like the idea of  sharing my photos with the public so if I ever chose to use flickr again I would most likely change the privacy settings.

Thing #6 Exploring go2web2.0

I chose to explore the website http://plnnr.com/ This website is used for travel and allows a person to choose a destination and then the interface creates an itinerary for you.

When you enter the site you are prompted to choose a place for travel, I chose Berlin Germany because I was born there and have always wanted to go back and visit.  Next you must choose the dates for your trip I chose the October 11-15, our fall break, as if I was actually going to go there...I WISH!  Then you must select a theme, the options are "with kids," "outdoors," "culture," or what the site describes is the number 1 and most popular choice "the best of." I chose the best of since it has been so frequently chosen among other users.   Next I chose the level of intensity I wished my trip to be, ranging from light to extreme.  If my mom was using this website she definitely would have chosen light because she always says a vacation is for rest and relaxation.  I, however chose extreme because if I ever got the chance to visit Germany I would want to see EVERYTHING!  After I clicked on the "extreme" button I was asked to select how many stars I wanted my hotel to be, because this trip is pure fantasy I chose 5.  I did really like this option to choose the luxury level of your hotel though because had I been really planning a trip I'd like to have this control.

Lastly I was taken to this page.....

my personal itinerary!

I really liked this interactive website and only have one major complaint.  I wish there were more options to choose from so that I could better personalize my trip.  I definitely think this is the kind of website that could be used in a geography classroom in an effort to better understand/visualize the many countries of the world.

Thing #5 Web 2.0 and School 2.0

School 2.0 means to me a new type of learning that goes beyond the traditional form of teaching, involving a teacher lecturing and students taking notes using pencil a paper. Instead imagine a spanish classroom where students all have iPads that they take notes on and post questions to each other throughout the lesson in a specialized chat room created for their class. And then perhaps in the place of a teacher lecturing there is smart board with a live video of a teacher instructing the class, not from her home a few blocks away, but from Spain!  And then instead of the traditional method involving students looking at pictures in their book to get an idea of the country's culture the teacher simply takes the camera outside and shows them Spain in real time.

This is just one example of how I envision the future but if I had to sum it up I think school 2.0 is something that incorporates the use of technology in virtually every aspect of learning in an effort to get everyone involved. Some students are shy, I know I was in grade school, and would have very much liked to ask questions during class time but was too embarrassed to do so.   Being able to comment on things and ask questions virtually is something that I wish was around when I was in K-12.

Steve Hargadons article was one that made me realize things that I had overlooked more deeply. For example I too, like Steve, base my purchases on the reviews of others.  For example I look to see if others have described an article of clothing as fitting small or made out of poor quality.

I never thought about regular shopping sites such as Amazon and Zappos as part of the Web 2.0 community but they definitely are not just static sites. In fact when I really think about it, I am hard pressed to think of a site that isn't interactive in at least one way...

I agree with Steve and think that electronic textbooks are quickly taking over the world but have yet to consider all the possibilities digital reading has to offer that he did.   I abosultuely love the idea of being able to read a book on a kindle or iPad and be able to comment on a sentence or single word in the text!

I am excited about the whole idea of incorporating more technology in the classroom but was shocked to read in the NMC Horizon report that schools are considering changing their no cell phone policies.  I think the idea of letting students use their smartphones in class is a recipe for disaster.  

Thing #4 Commenting

Commenting, more so than simply writing the blog is what I believe makes it such a popular form of self expression. It is what allows blogging to be considered a form of social networking because without commenting a blog would not much be much different than your run of the mill website. If commenting on blogs did not exist, the blogger would have no way of knowing that their blog was proving beneficial, interesting, or even being read by others.  Being able to comment on blogs creates a sense of community because oftentimes, or at least I did, commenters will post about something they can relate to or identify with.  Its a nice feeling to know that experiences you go through or challenges you face are shared by others around the world. 

The two points from the readings that I found to be especially important were both from the 10 techniques to get more comments on your blog.  I liked the advice about being humble because I find that some of the most popular blogs are those about everyday working people going through challenges; people like me and you! I also think its important to ask questions in your blog or at least be open ended because this gets your readers thinking and also most importantly gives them something to answer and therefore comment on!

I chose to comment on Stephanie Freeman, Stephanie Fortner, Alexa Aguilar, Whitney Butts and Catherine Ericson's blogs.  And as far as outside blogs goes I commented on Smittenkitchen and Bakeralla (two recipe blogs)

For Stephanie Freeman I commented on her way of describing a blog as a "giant, well organized yearbook," which I thought was a great way to describe it! I commented on this because it really stood out to me since unlike Stephanie, I haven't thought to describe a blog as anything other than just a blog.

For Stephanie Fortner I commented about her experience creating her avatar.  I wanted to know that her stuggle and time spent in Doppleme was shared by at least myself, which is what led me to make my comment.

For Alexa Aguilar I commented on her mention of being a competent, effective learner as her most difficult lifelong learning habit.I commented on this part of her post because we both share the same hardest lifelong learning habit.  In the end I told her that we both need to realize that we are in fact competent and effective learners or we would not be in graduate school!

For Whitney Butts I commented about how I, like herself, have been unable to write for pleasure because school has been consuming so much of my time.  I chose to comment on this section of her blog because I found it to be an interesting commonality that we share.

For Catherine Erikson I commented on her use of humor to describe the appearance of her avatar and made mention of my failed attempt to use my Doppleme coins. I wanted to say something about her humor because I have yet to explore adding some comic relief to my blog posts.

On Smitten kitchen I commented on a recipe for zucchini crips which look like zucchini potato chips.  I remarked about how even though I do not like zucchini that this may be something that I might have to try because of how good it looks. 

On Bakeralla I commented on a recipe for peach pies. They looked absolutely delicious and I loved how clear the directions were to make them so I commended the author on that in my comment. 

Thing #3 The usefulness of a blog in my future classroom

I'm excited at the idea of using a blog in my future classroom because as a future English teacher I believe there are are countless uses for this form of social networking!

The most basic and obvious way to implement a blog in my classroom would be to assign the students the task of creating one and then writing a weekly post and response to their fellow classmate's posts.  Because I am a big proponent of self reflection/expression I'd allow the blog to be written about literally anything. I want to get my students excited about writing which I believe can be accomplished if they are allowed this freedom. Not only will the blog get my students writing, which is integral in an English class, but will also help build more of a community in the classroom.The blog will allow students to get to know one another better, and studies have suggested that students oftentimes put more thought and effort into their writing if they know their peers will be the audience.

Another interesting way I think a blog could be used in an English class is by having students write a post as a character from a particular novel they are reading. For example take the novel A Separate Peace, I'd ask the students to create a post as any character, and to really embody that character by writing in a style or about a subject that that character might write about.  If they chose Finny, the ultra athletic nice guy, they might want to keep their writing upbeat, positive and lighthearted and perhaps choose the subject of sports. I believe this will be a great way for students to understand character and also help foster their creative skills.

In short,  I am a big proponent of blogging in the classroom and will most certainly be figuring out new ways to add blogging into my future lesson plans!