Is it the End or Only the Beginning?

     My favorite exercises in this learning journey involved creating something new.  I loved the Youtube and Animoto exercises because I was given a lot of freedom with what I chose and I got to create something that was really cool.  I also enjoyed the activities that involved the social networking sites.  I feel like some of the other posts might be a bit boring because there are not many pictures to look at.

     This program has affected my lifelong learning goals because I now really want to know more about what is out there in educational technology.  I would love to develop something that my students can do online that will help them learn, and I would love to share that with other educators.  There is now so much out there and it is constantly changing.  My lifelong learning goals now include technology and to keep on a level that will continuously help my students.

     I was surprised at how much was actually out there for educators to use in their classroom.  This experience also gave me a new way to look at tools that I already had access to.  I plan on looking at a number of different things I do online in a new way and attempt to gear it towards my classroom.

     I think the best way to improve this program is to break things up a bit differently.  I know that similar things are grouped together for a reason, but I think that if the more fun activities were mixed in evenly the blog would be more interesting and people would enjoy it more, at least I know I would.  Other than that, everything was great!

     I have already spoken a bit about how this activity will influence my practice as a teacher.  Students love technology and they love doing activities on it.  I will try to incorporate much more of this in my classroom time.  I feel much more confident with how to do this and can't wait to start.

     I plan to keep up with new developments in Web 2.0 by simple Google checks and looking up the latest research.  A good way to do this is watch for new things on Pinterest and Twitter.  People are constantly posting new things out there.

     I hope to re purpose this blog when I get my own classroom or even start a new one just for my experience as an educator.  This is not the last that you will hear from me on the edublog front!  That I can guarantee.

Thing # 23

I found this Wiki for the 23 things blog for the Georgia Department of Education when I Googled 23 things.I searched around a bit and found a Creative Commons mark.  Here is a picture of it:

This shows that it was developed originally by Helene Bowers and that Shelley Paul, the person who is responsible for this particular site, is using it and has adapted it.  She also asks people who are planning to adapt her version of 23 things to contact her.

I think that I will use Creative Commons as a teacher as I discover new things that I want to use in my class.  If I find an interactive thing like 23 things for my students, I will make sure that it is covered by Creative Commons and that I can adapt it to my students needs.  I will also make sure to use images and other resources that are covered by Creative Commons.  I will also make sure that any original things I make that pertain to education I will put a Creative Commons license on.  I will want other teachers to have access to my work and fix it for their students' needs.

Thing # 22

     I created three binders in LiveBinder.  I named them Student Teaching, History for Fun, and Economics class.  Below i embedded my Economics Class Binder.  Creating my live binder account was pretty easy, but embedding it in the blog post gave me some problems.  It caused everything to shift around and wouldn't always show up when it needed to.

  I think that LiveBinder could be useful for assignments with students.  I could make a public binder and have my students use the links provided to create something.  I think it would be cool to put up different history websites and have them make a pretend newspaper of the times that were presented in the the binder.  I could even offer different binders that were specific to certain eras (for example: A victorian England One, Roaring 20's, Vietnam War Era, etc.).

Economics Class

Thing # 21

     This is the video I made using Animoto.  I used pictures from my Facebook account, uploaded a song that I had on my computer and liked.  I really liked using Animoto.  It was really fun to use and allowed you to pull stuff from all over your computer and the internet to incorporate.  It had great pre-made templates for you to use.  It's kind of a bummer that you have to pay for a full video, but I could see myself making more of these in the future.




Class Project

Thing # 20

     I actually really love Youtube.  I use it all the time and it is really easy to find a video that you are looking for through a description or a few key words.  It also links you to similar videos that you simply click on and they play.  I chose this Youtube video because it is a fun way to look at an economic principle.  It features John Maynard Keynes and Frederic Hayek.  Two very influential economists of their time with opposite view points.  It's a quick way to get an idea of their work and beliefs.  It uses good imagery and captures the personalities of the two economists as well.  There is also a Part 2 if you are interested and like the first one as much as I do.

     I think there are several features that could be applied to a classroom website.  I could collect different videos for my students to watch about different economic principles.  I think a search bar that is as easy to use as the one on Youtube would also be a good component to add on a classroom website.  I also like that similar video suggestions will popup and I think that would be useful.

      The new tool I visited was called Powtoon.  It is a site that allows you to animate videos and presentations.  Here is a screen shot of what I was playing around with while I was poking around the various sites.

     

     This site could have several  possible uses in the classroom.  The main one would be to spice up a presentation that you will give to your student.  It also allows teachers to make their own animated videos that they could show their class.  For some reason, students love watching videos, even if they aren't particularly interested in the subject.  This could really enhance the ability of an educator to reach their students in new ways.  As well this is something that students oculd play around with if they were to make a presentation.

Thing # 19

    I liked the discovery resources for this post.  I was only able to access Teachers Guide to Social Media and Pinterest for teachers.  The other two links were broken and I was unable to see the content that those two pages could have provided.  The Teachers Guide to Social Media provided a lot of information on how educators should just be smart when they use sites such as twitter and facebook.  This includes privacy settings and appropriateness.  Pinterest for teachers was about a site that Pinterest has set up specifically for educators.

     While I looked at the sites, I found that the best use of social networking sites for teachers is to connect with their students and their parents and to share information with one another.  A site called Edmodo was mentioned in one of the articles.  It is a way for teachers to communicate with their students on their level and it allows the teacher to communicate with parents as well.  Pinterest for teachers will be an excellent source for educators to share information that is subject and age specific to them.

      I am a member of Pinterest and LinkedIn.  Those are the communities that I am a member outside of Facebook and Twitter.  Now that I know there are others out there that could be useful I will make sure to sign up for those as well.  I found some of those on the list very appealing and I have used them before, even though I am not a member.  I use Yelp and IMDB often for restaurants and when I watch movies with my family and friends.  I found Open Source Food and Bake Space very appealing.  I love cooking and I love food and I hope to use these social networking sites for Thanksgiving.  I found these interesting as well and I will hopefully use them soon.

Thing # 18

     I already have a Twitter account.  I love using it to keep up to date with all of my friends, shows, and news.  My account is set to private so that only people who are following me can read my tweets and I have to approve of my followers, but here is a link to my Twitter account.  I kept my name as Rachel Hannabass because I wanted it to be easy for my friends to find me and I think that twitter is pretty secure.

     I looked up the #edtech hashtag and these are some of the tweets that I found about it.

     I think it was interesting to see the variety of people that were using this hastag and the different news sources and information that it led to.  Way more people were using educational hashtags than I expected and I hope that I can use some soon.  I liked the hastag search because it was easy and showed a variety of results.  The only thing I did not like is that it shows all results regardless of quality or relevance.

     It is important for educators to understand social networking sites because they can be very useful tools once they are properly understood and used.  I follow several education based organizations now such as The Tennessee Board of Education and it is useful to see the different thing that they post.  Twitter is an excellent way to stay on top of hot topics in education and tags can be used as a way to get in a conversation with other educators.
     
     The new insight I gained about twitter was that it can be used for way more than just social fun and following your friends and yes celebrities.  It can be used to stay up to date with what is popular in education and if anything controversial is happening in the area.

     There are many school applications for a social networking site like this.  Teachers can use it to follow one another.  A teacher could even start a twitter page that their students could follow.  It could talk about up coming tests and what assignments occurred in class.  This would also be a good way for parents to get involved with their students academics.  They could see that a test is coming up and help their student study.