Thing #24

I took a moment before typing this to catch my breath. I am in complete shock that I made it this far. I was not an avid computer user prior to this course. I honestly do not have a favorite "thing" from this assignment. Looking back I view each one as a stepping stone that led me to this beautiful overlook. My long time goals are definitely changed because of this course. There will be no way for me to teach and not include the majority of what 23 Things has taught me. I would feel that I was cheating my future students by not including activities similar to these. I am surprised at how my confidence has done a complete turn around from just a few months ago. I will be taking my first online course over the summer and now, I feel prepared for it. The greatest influence on my teaching style will be that I will not allow myself to be afraid of technology anymore. I will jump in with both feet and figure it out!

 P.S. that is also why I chose this photo for this posting. I had traveled as far as I could without technology! From now on, I will be in the fast lane!

Thing # 23

This assignment asked us to search for and attribution or example of creative commons. Basically, everything we have done for the 23 things project falls into that category. We are blogging about our experiences, and commenting on our fellow classmates as well. We have created avatars using doppelme, manipulated photos with flickr, created word images with imagechef. I believe one of the concepts for this assignment is not only to get comfortable with technology, but to understand how intertwined technology is. The creators of all the applications that we use deserve credit for their hard work and even when it is given to use freely, they should be acknowledged.  In the future, it will be our responsibility to pass what we have learned on to our students. This is the only way to ensure fair use of online technology.

Thing #22

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=872272  My first binder is a collection of sites containing information about the common core standards.

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=872224 My second binder is a collection of sites featuring class activities and useful ideas.

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=872248 My third binder contains several web pages of science projects.

I can see how web binders are efficient in keeping simular sites in the same folder. This could be used for different subjects and grade levels as necessary. It will be another great resourch to have at my disposal. I will be ableto plan ahead for presentations and lesson plans by having all my content for the day in one binder.

Thing #21

james' animoto

I made a sample video using some of my nieces and nephews photos and put it to a sweet song. I am going to upgrade to a premium account and make some more videos! I think that this site is great and easy to use! This could easily be used to make a year end video for my students to share with their parents. I will pass this site on to my friends as well.

Thing # 20

I have used youtube for years mostly to listen to new music or watch movie trailers. Since I have been in EDUC 3040, I have began to notice how many really good and informative posting there are. Of course, the site is full of silly and inappropriate videos. I wanted to post this video to show some of the best things that technology has to offer. I like how I can keep a saved search list for quicker recovery. I can use this site in my class room but I understand that I will have to use caution because there is plenty of content on here not intended for a elementary classroom.

Thing # 19

The only online community I am a member of is facebook. I did join the teacher pop site in order to explore it further. I found the site to be very interesting. I like facebook because it is a way to stay in contact with friends and family I dot get to see very ofter. I do limit my postings to information that I don't mind sharing with everyone. I often see postings from others that I feel are too personal to share with the entire online community. Site like teacher pop are excellent ways to build friendships and get ideas within a specific community. I think that I will learn to appreciate that site in the future. Unlike facebook, it will be filled with only relevant topics to my career.

Thing #18

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharris76?ref=tn_tnmn

I believe that it is important to understand how social networks operate because the majority of us all use them now. I plan on leaving my personal face book private for my friends and family. I would consider setting up a second account to share with fellow teachers and possibly parents of my students. I believe that most people would check face book quicker than they would a basic email account. I was not a fan of twitter, simply because I was not used to it and it seem awkward for me to navigate. Face book is set up in a very user friendly way and i can easily update, search, and view friends posts. Since for my assignment, I have chosen second grade science, I do not feel it is very appropriate to use face book in the class room setting.

Thing # 17

http://www.howstuffworks.com/

I really enjoyed the delicious site. It is extremely easy to navigate and to tag preferred links. This kind of site is like a library data base that does not require such strict search options. There is such a vast amount of information just a click away. I can certainly see using this site with my younger students as a way of getting them used to searching for data on a topic.

Thing # 16

http://www.netvibes.com/privatepage/1#science_news

For this assignment, I found the netvibes start up page to be the easiest for me to use. It is nice having so much on one page and not having so many tabs open at one time. This reminded me of the rss feed assignment we did. This is a good way to stay organized. I do not think I will make this page permanent yet. I am still accustomed to navigating around the web when I need to.

http://30boxes.com/?&tz=300&width=1902

I think the online calender can be very useful. It is similar to the dropbox account where you can access you calendar from any computer. I like the feature where once you put in a birthday, it then automatically adds it to every following year. I still use a small physical daily organizer, but i plan on going paperless very soon. I did find the to do lists to be very time consuming, in fact I needed to make a to do list about making a to do list. I will be better off sticking to a calendar for my notes.

Google docs is an excellent resource available to everyone. I have used it several times already to collaborate on group projects as well as personal documents. I have and will continue to suggest this site to my friends and fellow students.

Thing #15

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Science_and_Industry_%28Chicago%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Museum_of_Natural_History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Chihuly

I have used wiki pages as quick references for years. I understand that they are easily edited and so you must take caution with all the facts you read. I think it is a great, free resource for quick references. I usually get a base of information from wiki sites that I then use to do further research on more reliable peer review data bases. I have added a few links to some wiki pages that I think are interesting.

Thing # 14

I first ventured onto the http://www.gliffy.com website. I played with several of the free templates. It was fairly easy to use and navigate around on. I am not sure if this style will be very appealing to my students. I believe the mind map looks more kid friendly and less official looking.

Next, I experimented on the https://bubbl.us/ website. It was even easier than the first site to navigate and use. Both, the flow chart and the mind map can be useful tools in my class room. I can use them to break down long and difficult topics/assignments into easy portions for my students to follow.

Thing #13

 I created the free zoho account. I made a test document of a formal greeting letter to the parents of my future students. It can be viewed by following the link below.

 https://writer.zoho.com/index.do?docId=2998854000000014001&pc=true&wsilent=true

The next task was to explore Google Docs. I have used this site several times before. This is a link to my first Google doc upload for my 2100 class.
https://sn2prd0102.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=AiUfsrDxRUy6bWHBw5BaxPnbxBY5-M8IBn9lU1ZTvSgtyk6Ol_cgitIdLZClRmLbCClB1FH7Cbk.&URL=https%3a%2f%2fdocs.google.com%2fdocument%2fd%2f1nOw6OvtUwFZMOCoCGMtn1osUip_2-dXG7ZrzhU81tRg%2fedit%3fusp%3dsharing

I have to say that I prefer Google Docs over zoho because I am more familiar with it and I do feel there are more options for editing and sharing. Google Docs is also free where zoho requires you to pay for premium services. The benefits to students using Google Docs is limitless. I can create assignments that the students can collaborate on as well as a endless number of interactive assignments.

Thing # 12

I am very familiar with Google. I use the Google Translate to help with my Spanish homework and I also use Google Docs often. I found Google Alerts to be very useful. Google is full of great resources and being able to separate by topic helps refine searches and stay up to date. This will come in handy in my class room to quickly pull up a topic and then search only within those parameters. I can see making an assignment where I ask students to only search within a specific alert area.

Here is an example of one I set up for 2nd Grade Science;
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&q=2nd+grade+science&lr=lang_en

Thing # 11

I just could not believe the number of blogs out there. Blogging is still very new to me. I found that using search tools was very helpful i sifting through the thousands of pages to find useful and fun blogs. http://technorati.com/ was the easiest for me to navigate. It has multiple ways to refine your search and the homepage is not too busy looking. I explored several other search tool sites and I personally found them very hard to navigate.


 I found a blog on emergency planning for schools to be very interesting. In today's society one must always be prepared for the worst. I want to know that if the time comes, I will be ready to protect my students.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/28/taking-action-creating-model-emergency-management-plans-schools-institutions-higher-

One of the oddest blogs I came across while searching for this assignment was a blog about a guy who made a machine to separate oreo cookies. This is just one of many uses for technology and that some people have too much time on their hands!
http://www.inquisitr.com/547184/oreo-separator-physicist-builds-machine-to-scrape-creme-off-his-cookies-video/

Thing # 10

RSS feeds are completely new to me. I had to use every link on 23 Things to understand what was going on. Once I set up my Google Reader account, I began searching for fun and relevant feeds. I am an avid recycler and so I immediately see how this cuts down on newspapers! In fact, these feeds are kind of like setting up exactly what columns you want in a personalized newspaper. This technology will be beneficial as a teacher to stay current and up to date on issues in the education community.

Thing # 9

http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/

 I made this to say: You Are a Star!  This is the kind of phrase I want to use with my students. I thought it was very easy and fun to create.

 http://www.images-graphics-pics.com/signs/safety/clipart.asp?pic=microscope-science





Since I chose 2nd Grade Science as My Standard for our livetext project, I thought this would be appropriate.

I plan on using these sites to create images and phrases to help decorate my classroom and I think I can even incorporate them into some power-point presentations.

Thing # 8

I took this photo in 2008 at Busch Gardens in WilliamsBurg, Virgina.

For this assignment, I used the puzzle app. It was very easy to do and looks real neat too. I will be able to make actual puzzles that can be used in my class. I think that the students will react well to working puzzles with photos of their family pets or even pictures of their parents. I will admit that I am not accustomed to publishing too many personal photos online. I had already posted this on facebok so I was more comfortable using it for this project.




I also used the spell with Flickr app to create my name. I believe that this will also be a fun activity to do with students.

Thing # 7

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbullas/3754767976/
This photo was taken by Dr. John Bullas.
 I found that flickr has an amazing database of photos. I did have dificulty finding images that were not copyrighted that I could use for this assigment. I chose this picture because of the playful spirit that it reflects. One must always remember to be focused but maintain a light heart too. I did explore the groups and found that it was easy to follow a specific keyword to images. This will make it easy for anyone to stay updated along with an entire group.

Thing # 6

I was amazed at the number of apps available on the Web 2.0 site. It was easy to navigate and even has a sidebar to help refine your search. I want to share the site http://kidoz.net/. This site offers an app that filters the internet and only allows pre-approved sites and content. This is extremely inportant in order to protect out young students from the vast amount of unsafe and adult content that is easily accessable. This app may be similar to filters already being used in schools and librarys, I know that my 7 year old nephew browses the internet on a filter too.  This site offers pre approved videos as well as educational games.

Thing # 5

Web 2.0 is a new term for me. I have learned that it means the evolution of the internet into a fully interactive and collaborative resource. This same concept is being applied to the class room environment as School 2.0. This means that the instructional approach to teaching is evolving along with technology. After reviewing several sites and list, I see that the possibilities are truly limitless. Web based software and internet access now allow for a higher level of involvement of the student into their own learning experience. I found this site by Steve Hargadon to be very informative. http://www.stevehargadon.com/2008/03/web-20-is-future-of-education.html  The site lists the Top Ten Trends that are important to educators and learning with Web 2.0.
Trend #1: A New Publishing Revolution.
Trend #2: A Tidal Wave of Information.
Trend #3: Everything Is Becoming Participative.
Trend #4: The New Pro-sumers.  
Trend #5: The Age of the Collaborator.
Trend #6: An Explosion of Innovation.
Trend #7: The World Gets Even Flatter and Faster.
Trend #8: Social Learning Moves Toward Center Stage.
Trend #9: The Long Tail.
Trend #10: Social Networking Really (Opens Up the Party. 
I found this site to be extremely informative and I will be using it as a guide to help further my learning process into this new age of technology.  

Thing # 3

Once I have completed the 23 Things assignments, I feel I will be prepared to utilize blogs. I already have ideas on how to incorporate blogging into my classroom. I plan on creating a blog for my students and parents as well. This will be a more open and interactive way to communicate with them. I can post announcements, games, and suggested projects to further learning opportunities. Along the way, when I find interesting sites and resources, I will post them to share them with my blog community.

Thing # 4

This assignment requires us to comment on five blogs. At first I wanted to only post on people that I was familiar with. I decided to read and respond to blogs that I was not familiar with. This is a good way to start and branch out of  my comfort zone. I understand the value of building a base a friends and collegues within the teaching field. This will undoubtedly be a priceless resource in the future. Blogs allow a way ask for help, research, and post oppinions. I responded to blogs that reflected a positive outlook and offered helpful advise. Here is a list of blogs that i commented on. Matt Little's Thing 6 at http://frenchiemaj.blogspot.com/. Ashley Beazley's Thing 8 at http://beazley1.blogspot.com/. Jill Hutchisons Thing 8 at http://jhutchison23.blogspot.com/. Amanda Bartons Thing # 12 at http://amandafaithbarton.blogspot.com/. And Pollie Armstrong's Thing 10 at http://pollieann.blogspot.com/. I commented on these blogs because I shared a similar view with each one. I feel that each blog was informative and professional. My responses we meant to say that I agree with the views they posted and often I learned something beneficial from reading these posts. I understand the value of the blogging community within the education field.
For the section of the assignment where we look for blogs of personal interest, First I chose NPR's music blog because the site offers a massive collection of styles and genres. I am a huge music fan and this site also has an almost scholorly feel to it. They also take their music very seriously. Here is a link if interested http://www.npr.org/music/blogs/. The next blog is chose to follw is for go big or go home travelers blog at http://gobigorgohomeblog.com/. This site if fun to visit and get ideas for my next expidetion or simply to live vicariously through others. I highly recommend checking out this blog.

Thing #2

I have successfully created my avatar for my blog page! I am very happy with the way he turned out because he actually resembles me and he even has a cup of coffee. I gave him a smile and sensible shoes to reflect my personality. This was my very first attempt at building a blog page and avatar. The directions that were given for this assignment were a life saver. I followed very closely and still had a few bumps in the road but it finally came together. I thought it would be best to use my real name and the topic of this excercise as a title. I have stated before that I am not up to speed on technology and was certain that this would be a difficult task to complete. The only advice I would give is that adding my avatar was easier once I changed my page to simple from dynamic. Now that its done, I feel I can easily go in and make changes to my blog and avatar when desired.

Thing #1

After watching the presentation on 7-1/2 habits, I found myself pondering the quote at the end by Confucius; "even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".  This is my first ever blog posting so it is in fact a first step! We are required to reflect on the 7-1/2 habits by determining which of these will be the easiest and which will be the hardest to implement. I will begin with the hardest since I would like to end the post on a happy note. The hardest habit will be #6; the use of technology to my advantage. I am a non traditional student who has limited computer experience. In my three semesters at Austin Peay, I have been exposed to quite a bit of computer time. I feel that I can do this and it will get easier. I step out of my comfort zone each time I attempt a new assignment like this. I do like the feeling of accomplishment that comes at the end of a assignment. Technology offers a almost limitless amount of resources as a current student and as a future teacher. The easy habit for me is #7; to teach and mentor others. This is the true reason I decided to go back to school and become a teacher. I have a very nurturing quality to my nature. I have never enjoyed seing others struggle or suffer. Once I learn a process that is beneficial, I will happily pass it along to others. I find great enjoyment in seeing others realize their own potential and often then, they to in turn pass it along. I look forward to what this course and semester will expose me to, to push me further along in the right directon.