Thing #24 Is This the End or Only the Beginning?

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
• How has this program affected your lifelong learning goals?
• Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
• What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
• How will what you have learned influence your practice as a teacher?
• How do you plan to keep up with new developments in web 2.0? Recommend a way that you have found to be useful.

My favorite web 2.0 exercises included playing around with Flickr (Things 7 & 8), making a little movie in Animoto, and learning about all the uses for Google Drive. 
I will definitely try to keep up with all the changes in technology as much as I can!
There wasn't anything that really surprised me about the program, although I did not know it existed before taking this class and starting the blog.
In regards to how to improve upon the program's format or concept, my only (obvious) suggestion is to make sure to keep it current. Eventually the tools mentioned in the 2.0 - 23 Things are going to be outdated and irrelevant, so it will need to be tweaked here and there every so often to keep it fresh.  
As a teacher I know I will be using technology in my classroom and this program made me aware of tools I may not have otherwise heard about. 
I guess one way I can keep up with new developments in web 2.0 is by setting up a Google alert on the subject and also adding web 2.0 relevant sites to my RSS feed. 

Thing #23 Creative Commons

• Find an example or attribution that shows the Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers blog was based on someone else's work and modified from its original.

• Now that you know about Creative Commons licensing, how will you use it in the future as a teacher?

One example I found which states that the Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers blog is based upon another's work and has been modified from the original is in the credits listed on a sidebar on the front page of the blog:

Credits

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.

Now that I know about Creative Commons licensing, I might use the CC site to find lesson plans and ideas that I can modify to fit my own classroom projects. I will also be sure to introduce my students to CC so that they are aware of what constitutes plagiarism and how they can avoid it. High school students especially need to know what they can and cannot use when completing school assignments.

Thing #22 Keepin' it Together: Livebinders

U.S. History

Key Code: BrightBinder 

The titles of my three binders are: U.S. History: The Civil Rights Movement, U.S. History: The Progressive Era, and American Government. The one I chose to embed is the Civil Rights Movement binder. It includes an introduction to the movement, a video excerpt of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a timeline of events, information about activists, and a few lesson plans. 
This "thing" was somewhat difficult for me to put together. The LiveBinders website directions seemed "clunky" to me and I don't really like the binders' appearance. It might be because I am a binder novice, but I just couldn't get the finished product to look polished. 
A possible classroom use for students could be a "Get to Know Me" LiveBinder. Each student would create a binder and add websites and links to YouTube videos about topics that he or she enjoys. The binders would tell a short story about each student's life. This would be a fun project to do during the beginning of the school year as a way for students to introduce themselves to me and each other.

Thing #21 Animoto

I enjoyed using the Animoto site. It was very simple and easy to use. This would be a good site to create a little movie using historical photographs to show in class. And it would also be fun to have my students create their own 30 second movies they could show to their classmates. I am sure my students would really have a great time using Animoto, I just need to think up a few ways to occasionally incorporate it into my lesson plans. 

               

Thing #20 YouTube and Beyond

The video I chose to embed in my blog is called "Civil Rights and the 1950s." It is from the Crash Course video series on U.S. history. I chose it because the standard I am building my project around for this class is about the Civil Rights Movement, and also I really like the Crash Course videos. They are great for showing in the classroom as they are relatively short, factual, and use appropriate academic language.

I am already a frequent user of YouTube and there isn't really anything I actually dislike about the site. Other than the ads that play before the videos, but you can install Adblock from Google Chrome and that will block those annoying YouTube ads.
YouTube videos are terrific to incorporate into lesson plans as long as they are pre-screened by the teacher to ensure they are appropriate for classroom viewing.
 
One of the tools I liked is called TubeChop and it basically allows you to edit YouTube videos so you can show only the parts that are most relevant and suit your needs. This is a great tool to use in the classroom to trim down YouTube videos that are too long or that may contain certain parts that are unacceptable for classroom viewing.

Thing #19 Beyond Facebook: Other Social Networks

• What did you discover about the best uses of social networking for educators?

• Are you a member of any online communities besides Facebook and Twitter?

• Are any of these social networks appealing to you?

• What did you find that was interesting and that you might use later?

  
Educators can use social networking to collaborate with other teachers, find educational resources, and most importantly, find moral support. Teachers can also use social networks to keep students up to date on important classroom information like homework assignments and due dates.  

I am a member of IMDB and Goodreads, as well as Pinterest. I really like the Pinterest teachers site and and started following some of the boards there. Although I am a member of these sites I really don't have time to post on them, but I do read them for information and opinions on movies and books. 

Classroom 2.0 looks like a good site that I may use later on once I start teaching. I added it to my bookmarks. Tasty Kitchen also looks like a fun cooking site that I will be able to get a lot of recipes from, I had to leave there because it was making me hungry!

Thing #18 Explore Social Networking

• Write a blog post about your experience that addresses these questions. Why is it important that educators understand social networking? What new insights did you gain about Twitter? What did you like or dislike about your hashtag search? Can you see a classroom or school application for any of these sites? 

 

I created a Twitter account, my user name is @Historyandcats (yeah, I know). I did a hashtag search for #ntchat (new teachers chat), #histedchat, #sschat, #edtech, and #edchat. I did find some good links to articles this way, especially under #ntchat. This seems like a good one to check often for moral support, we all know the first year of teaching is the hardest.

Before this "Thing" I never used Twitter, it just seemed unnecessary for me because I am already on Facebook to keep in contact with friends and family. I think I'll keep my account open after this semester at APSU and the "Things" blog are over. I can use it to search for teaching resources and support.

It is important for teachers to understand social networking because the majority of our students are on different social networking sites. I am sure they are all on ones I haven't heard of yet. I know once adults are on a social networking site, all the kids leave it because they don't want to be where the "olds" are! 

I can see the benefits of social networking for teachers and schools. It's a great way to keep students, parents, and teachers informed and on the same page. I might use this account to post homework and class assignment reminders for my students if enough of them are on Twitter and my school allows me to do so.

Thing #17 Tagging and Social Bookmarking with Delicious

• Can you see the potential of this tool in the classroom? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere? How can teachers take advantage of social bookmarking sites?

I explored Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious. All the social bookmarking sites are easy to use. I can see myself using Delicious to tag and find information about lessons and educational topics that interest teachers. As a new teacher I know I will gladly use all the help at finding resources that I can get!
I don't know whether I would use it in the classroom or not. I might because many students are probably already familiar with Delicious and the other social bookmarking sites. I am sure it would be a helpful tool for students to use when doing a webquest assignment or other online research. The tags would help point them in the right direction so they are not lost in all the information that is available on the internet. 

Thing #16 Get Organized with Web 2.0 Tools

• Which start page did you choose? Why did that one appeal to you? Will you make it your permanent home page?

• How can the online calendars be useful to you?

• Did you find a tool that has some uses for you at the school or at home? Which tool(s) would you recommend to others? 

For my start page I chose Symbaloo, I like the simple design and how easy it is to use. There are a lot of tiles to choose from to add to your page to personalize it. There is even a JSTOR tile. I am probably going to make it my permanent home page because it is so convenient.

I already use the Calendar tool from Google. I like how it is integrated to work with all the other features in my Google account. I have it set up to give me reminders on my smartphone. I use it for appointments and to remind me when school assignments are due. I would really be lost without Google Calendar!
                                                                           
The PDF converter is one I can see myself using both at school and at home. It will be especially useful to convert PDFs to Word documents to edit and then convert back again to PDFs. This tool is helpful for school and personal use. I would recommend the PDF converter, Symbaloo, and Google Calendar to others.

Thing #15 What in the World is a Wiki?

• Create a post in your blog about the experience. How might you use a wiki? What did you find interesting about the wiki concept?

I enjoyed adding to the APSU 23Things Sandbox wiki for this "thing." I added my name, Mrs. Bright, using the the Spell with Flickr site and also a simple flowchart I created in Gliffy for Thing #14. It was fun and interesting to see what my classmates have added to the wiki so far.  I might create a class wiki for my future U.S. history students to add to as part of their class assignments. It would be great for them to see how their wiki develops over the course of a school year. I like that so many people can be a part of a wiki at one time. I can see how the wiki concept encourages people to work together in a creative manner.

Thing #14 Go with the Flow

After exploring the differences between mind maps and flowcharts, I realized that I prefer flowcharts over mind maps. The reason for this is because mind maps are a little too chaotic for me. I prefer information to be arranged in a linear concept that is easy to understand and follow. I played around on the mind map site Bubbl.us, but I did not create a map that was suitable to display here on my blog. However, I did make a very basic flowchart in Gliffy that shows three Civil Rights Activists and one brief, but major accomplishment of theirs: 
 

I will definitely use flow charts in my future classroom, especially since historical concepts and events are easier for students to understand when flowcharts and time lines are used. I would also encourage my students to use mind maps when they are brain storming ideas for essays and class projects.

Thing #13 Google Drive

After exploring all that Google Drive has to offer, I created a blog post per the instructions for Thing #13.

I also created a quiz question in Google Forms:


Google Drive is a wonderful tool that can be used by my future students to create group history projects. My students could also work on documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and forms from home thanks to the Google Drive Cloud. I prefer Google Drive over Zoho because it is already set up in my Google account. Although I do think Zoho would be a great tool to use by people who own and operate a small business. For me personally, Google Drive is the better choice. I love the all-in-one capabilities that Google gives you when you sign up for an account with them.

Thing #12 Google is Not Just for Searching Anymore

Google is a great multifaceted web tool. I use Google maps all the time, I have alerts set up that go directly to my email, and I use Google calendar. I also regularly use Google Scholar when doing research for grad school. So pretty much Google helps me run my life! I have also used Google translate on occasion to help me with articles written in languages other than English.

For this post I created an alert for educational technology. I think Google tools are great for students and teachers. Students benefit tremendously from all the articles and books that can be found on Google Scholar, and Google calendar is a terrific tool to help organize assignments by due dates.

Teachers can use Google Earth in the classroom, it has many lesson plans available that correspond to different locations all around the world. It is truly amazing! I know I will be using the various Google tools when I have my own classroom. It is too difficult to choose only two as the directions for this post specified. I am already a Google devotee!

Thing #11 Finding Good Feeds

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?
I found that the Google blog search method was easiest to use, even though some of the sites it found were not blog, which I thought was odd.

Which was more confusing?
I did not like the Technorati site very much. I didn't join it so maybe that is why I did not have much luck finding many blogs. Also, it is not visually appealing in my opinion.

What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels?
One I like is called Tracy's New York Life, it is not really an educational blog per se. I am going to NYC this week for Fall Break, and this blog has a lot of great information for me.

Or what kind of unusual ones did you find?
I didn't find any unusual blog feeds, maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough!

What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?
The easiest way to find newsfeeds for me is simply through Feedly.com. Sometimes the most obvious method is the best!

Thing #10 RSS Reader and Feeds

I like that having an RSS reader allows me to receive updates from my favorite sites all in one place. It saves me time, and as a future teacher I know time is valuable! Although I think I went a little overboard and added too many sites to my feed. I added thirteen sites and this morning there was a lot of new information for me to read. Haha, I could spend hours reading all the new articles.

In my personal life having an RSS feed is very convenient since all the different website updates are in one place. Also, as a future teacher, it will be helpful to keep up with educational blogs that I follow. 

Teachers can use RSS feeds to aid their students, for example if a teacher has a website that is frequently updated, he or she can ensure that the students use an RSS feeder so they receive the updates. Also, if students use blogging in the classroom as part of their assignments the teacher can use an RSS reader to check the class's work easily.

Thing #9 Online Image Generators

After exploring various online image generator sites, I found a few I really like. The license plate one is fun.

I also think the Smiley Face generator is cute.

But my favorite one has to be ImageChef. This one is great! You could really spend hours playing around with online image generators, if you had the time. 

I can see myself using the ImageChef site to make various pictures to hang up on my classroom's bulletin board. I was a substitute teacher in a science classroom where the teacher put a "joke of the day" image she created on her bulletin board. I really liked that idea and I had always wondered how she made them. Now I know :)

Also, students could use the ImageChef newspaper headline generator, or magazine cover generator to make covers for research papers.

Thing #8 Flickr Mashups

In your post, talk about some ways Flickr and/or Flickr mashups could be used in your future classroom or personal life. What are your feelings about sharing photos online?

I will probably use Flickr mashups for fun in my personal life, since I really enjoyed playing around with all the various sites, especially Spell with Flickr.
But I don't think I will use it in my future high school history classroom. I just can't think of a way I could make it relevant to studying U.S. or World History. But if I can think of a possible way later on I would definitely use the mashups!

As I said before, I am pretty open about sharing photos online, provided that they are not personal photos of my family. But pictures of pets or landscapes I have no problem sharing. This was another fun "thing" that I loved trying out for my blog.

Thing #7 Explore Flickr

I enjoyed exploring Flickr. I have used other photo hosting sites, namely Photobucket and Instagram. I think that the photographs on Flickr look richer and more appealing. If I was a photographer I am sure I would know a better way to explain what I mean by that!
I personally do not mind having some of my photos on a public photo hosting service, particularly these photos since they are just my cats. I would mark photos of family members, especially my daughter, as private.
For this "thing" I chose to photograph two of my four cats. Yes, I am a crazy cat lady! The cats seem to enjoy being models, and everyone on the internet loves pictures of cats. So it's a win-win "thing" as far as I'm concerned.
My Flickr account is one I think I will keep, along with the other two I use. I can see myself using Flickr in the classroom, for example, I might use it to show my students photographs from Creative Commons during a lesson about Copyright law.

Thing #6 Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

The sheer selection of Web 2.0 sites out there was a little daunting at first! I poked around a for a bit just to check out the all tools that are available. People could literally spend hours looking through them all if they had that kind of time to spare.
The tool I finally selected from the Go2Web2.0 site was Grammar Base, the "instant grammar checker" tool. I chose it because I think it can be a helpful site for students to use to check their assignments for errors before turning them in for a grade. The site says that it checks for: "grammar, punctuation, style, plagiarism, and contextual spelling."
What I like about the site is that it does what it claims to do. I typed in a few paragraphs with errors and it found the errors. Then I tried typing in several sentences that I knew were correct and the site gave me a message stating, "Congratulations! There are no critical mistakes in your writing", so I know it works.
I did not like that Grammar Base advertises itself as a "free" service, but then attempts to convince you to purchase their "professional proofreader service" for $15.45 per page (!) I understand they have to make money somehow, so I guess I cannot really fault them for trying.
While I like the site, (I might use it to check my research papers before submitting them) I don't think it would be a good tool for use in school, because it asks for a payment. However, I can see it being used in a public library setting.

Thing #5 My Perspective on Web 2.0, School 2.0, and the Future of Education

After reading the Wikipedia page about Web 2.0, I was a little surprised to learn the concept of Web 2.0 is really nothing new. According to Wikipedia, the term "Web 2.0" was created in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci, and its common usage began in 2004. In technology timelines, this makes the concept of 2.0 somewhat of a dinosaur. I have been using Web 2.0 all this time with Facebook, YouTube, blogs, wikis, podcasts etc. Only I just didn't know it actually had a name! (Maybe that common usage wasn't really so common).

1) What does "School 2.0" mean to you?
 
For me School 2.0 is about the incorporation of various technologies into the classroom for the benefit of teachers, students and their families. The use of these technologies should make the education process a more well-rounded experience for everyone. This has already been happening for the past decade in many schools. I enjoyed Steve Hargodon's blog post Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education,it is amazing that it still relevant now despite being written in 2008.
However, I don't think that "traditional" teaching methods should be completely abandoned. There are many students who do not have access to technology at home and they would fall behind in classrooms that put too much focus and importance on using education websites such as Edmodo etc. to get class and homework done.
I'm by no means a Neo-Luddite, but I do think that there needs to be some balance in the classroom so that the students who need the basics in order to level the playing field get the quality education they need and deserve.

2) What does it mean for schools of the future 

I think to a certain extent the future is already here as far as schools utilizing Web 2.0 technologies. Classrooms will become even more computer and technology dependent in the future. This means that older school buildings will need to ensure they have the infrastructure to support school wide WiFi capabilities. Also, they will still need to have backup lesson plans just in case their computer systems go down for an extended length of time. 
I believe that much further into the future there will be fewer brick and mortar schools and many children will attend classes virtually. I wonder how this will affect future generations as far as students developing relationships with children their own age. I suppose there will still be clubs and sports for children to join since that is what children who are home schooled now do for socialization. 

Thing #4 Why Blog Commenting is Important

I was unable to complete part two to this "Thing".  As a class we were unable to get the  links to our classmates' blogs in time for the Midterm.


Blog commenting helps to create a sense of a community with the readers of the blog and the writer(s). The blogger wants to "heard" and likes knowing what people think about the various topics he or she writes about. Commenters also like to be heard by the blog writer and by other people reading the blog. Entire conversations can and often do occur in the comments section of blogs. Typically those who comment on blogs are also bloggers themselves. People who regularly read and comment on the same blogs often become friends both online and in real life.
 
Doug Johnson from The Blue Skunk Blog made a great point about saying thank you to people who comment on your blog. He said, "I just think if a person has given up a chunk of life to read and craft a response, I should be grateful." Johnson acknowledged this is not something that is widely done in the blogging community, but I think it's a good habit to get into when blogging and that it will likely encourage readers to comment.

Another point on blog commenting that I really liked was on the Cool Cat Teacher Blog. Vicki Davis wrote in her post about blog commenting that it is important to "Criticize Kindly" when leaving a comment on a blog. I think this goes both ways and that we as bloggers should make sure to be polite and civil when responding to a comment that disagrees with a topic we have posted. It might be tempting to simply delete a comment we don't agree with, but as long as the comment is respectful I think it is important to leave it up and respond to the comment in a professional manner.


The names of the seven blogs (5 from our group + 2 others of your choice) you selected to read and comment on and tell why you selected them
The other two blogs I chose are US History Teachers Blog and New Teacher Talk. I selected them because they are both relevant to me as a pre-service high school history teacher. The US History Teachers Blog has so many terrific posts about how to get students engaged and interested in US History. The New Teacher Talk blog will probably be one I go to for moral support as a new teacher. It is nice to read advice to novice teachers from those that have been in the "trenches" of teaching for a while.


Discuss the comments that you chose to make and why you made them
The comments I chose to make on my two personal choice blogs were both ones about how I was excited to find their blogs since I am currently getting my M.A.T. 
I also told them I will be reading their blogs in the future for moral support as well as ideas I can incorporate into my future classroom.