Thing #21

I actually really enjoyed this Thing assignment. Especially once I got the website to cooperate. I had some difficulties with uploading more than one photo at a time and for a while I had to refresh the page after every time I would upload a picture and it wouldn't let me do another one afterwards. I so ended up making a quick video of my family because they mean the world to me; link is at the bottom of the post. I think this is a cool website and easy for people to use (as long as they aren't technologically challenged like myself). I could see this being used as like a project for the the first week or two of school as a way to have students introduce one another in a fun and creative way. Instead of having to do the awkward stand up and say three things about yourself and so on.


My family

Is it the end or just the beginning??

To be perfectly honest, I am so glad this assignment is done. I mean it was very educational and I got a lot out of it, but my word did it take forever with some of the blogs. Also I think I downloaded somethings incorrectly due to the fact that my computer is a little bit slower now...but I digress...I think that the title means that it is only the end of this assignment and soon to be the end of this class, but it is the beginning stepping stones to what we hope to be our dream careers. Teachers! I mean who wouldn't want that job? Well I didn't when I was in middle school and high school. I said the last thing I ever want to be is a teacher...and now here I am...funny how these things work out....

Thing #23

Learning 2.0 - 23 for teachers  did not originate from myself. I was just assigned to follow the instructions given from the link I listed in the beginning. The original creator of the 23 Things was hoping to guide people, obviously teachers in this instance, to become more organized. Even become more connected to make lives easier for themselves, other teachers, as well as their students. I personally have no clue how I'm going to incorporate the Creative Commons Licensing to my future classes. I will have to do more research on it and make sure I never use anything without asking for permission first...or else that would make my future lessons on this topic pointless for no student will listen to the teacher about not committing a crime when she herself did the very same thing she was telling them not to do. Basically using the "do as I say, not as I do" rule.

Thing #22

LiveBinder is an interesting website. I liked how when I made a binder and allowed for it to have access to google which made my search even easier. I did like the websites that came up with my search. The names of my "binders" are Art Project Ideas, Art Supplies, and Artists. The reason why I chose those was that they would allow for my students and students' parents to see what I have in store for the most part. Maybe they could even give me suggestions on which projects they would rather do.
Here is a link to one of my binders: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=818737

Thing #20

All I have to say about the "What Teachers Make" video is: wow! I mean, WOW! He was able to put so much power and emphasis into expressing what he wanted to get across about teachers, what they do and accomplish. He was very moving.
I am an avid YouTube user. I am always on it, whether I am watching it to find videos to catch me up on what I missed on my favorite TV shows or to just watch random funny cat videos. Yes I am admitting to that. But once you start it's hard to stop...anyways...I decided to do a search on inspirational teaching related videos in hopes to find ones as the one previously mentioned. I watched several videos and the one I liked the most was the one shown below:

I always enjoy reading inspirational quotes, so of course I thought this one was great and felt the need to share it with everyone. 

Thing #19

I did signup for the TeacherPop website, but am currently still waiting for approval. So I shall continue on with the next part of the Thing 19 task.
I am obsessed with music. I need it for just about every daily activity. When I workout, working on framing, walking from class to class. It always calms me or just matches my mood depending on what it is. So when I was given an option to tryout a network made strictly for music, not gonna lie, I was ecstatic. Playlist.com is a fabulous website!! I was able to find playlists for all my favorite artists and add them to a giant playlist or create my own so that I can listen to them at anytime. It's so cool!

Thing #18

I am from the generation where everyone practically thrives off of social networking. Some are obsessed, some use it off and on, then there is the rare species that never uses it at all. What I mean by obsessed with it is that the person has an account in every new networking cite and are on it every day. My guilty pleasure is Facebook. I am on it practically everyday and post just about everything on it. I basically treat it like twitter except there are no character (amount of letters I can use to post) so I get picked on by my family--mainly my little sister--for posting my life story on there. Which now that I go back and look at what I post...she is right...I really need to work on it. I just like it because I was able to find people that I use to go to elementary school with while I lived in Germany 10 years ago. The night we all got back into contact was the coolest thing ever. Especially because I got back into contact with my best friend from second-fourth grade. So I see how the social media is necessary. It helps people keep up to date with everyone care about without needing to call them every day...not necessarily a bad thing...it allows for everyone to share things that they think whom ever is their 'friends' on Facebook would like.
I did create a Twitter account so can't wait to see how this goes....

Thing #17

Hmmm...what is there to say about the website Delicious. I had a hard time figuring it out due to my ineptness in technology. I've read others' posts that said that they loved it and that it was great to use. If only I had their skills...Oh never mind. I went back and tried it again. It is an awesome website. I like how when you type in something in the search bar and other peoples' bookmarks popup and they give you an option to view them and decide if you would want to bookmark it to save it for later.

Thing #16

Well where do I begin. iGoogle is actually pretty neat. I forgot that I actually had an account setup for it when I signed up for a gmail account forever ago. I like that I can personalize it to match my personality...granted it is just the my main profile for iGoogle but still. I mean, who doesn't like to express themselves in anyway--within reason--that they can. I cannot express how cool online calenders are!! I am now addicted to them because I live off of the one I have on my phone. I try and try to use actual planners, like book and pencil, but it never works out. I always start out strong with the 'I will do it!' mentality but it never lasts long. Like maybe a week at the most. I really, really, really need to get better with 'to-do' lists because I always lie to myself and say that I will remember to get it done...yeah right...I never remember whatever it was that I promised myself to not forget till the last minute. I'm pretty sure my horrible procrastination wouldn't be all that bad. It's definitely one bad habit I am having a hard time to shake. I liked the Sticky Notes because I am always on my computer so it's a lot harder to lose actual reminders that are in my computer...the actual little yellow pieces of paper never stay in place for very long or they always get jumbled up....

Thing #15

I like the concept of being able to add your own comments or tweaking someone else's work. I'm not meaning that in a mean way, but sometimes there are posts you see that have a word spelled wrong. So of course you would want to "help a sista' or brotha' out". I mean if I had posted something for the world to see and I had said or spelled something wrong, I would like for someone to either let me know or just fix it for me. Lord knows I am not the greatest speller in the world. That's just a minor example of what I find interesting about the wikis.

Things #14

For the mind map portion for this assignment, I used the bubbl.us website. I tried that one out first and I actually enjoyed it. It really is quite simple to use--though it took me a minute to figure it out because I am tech-challenged at times--and a little fun. I don't know why I chose the topic I used to do my 'brainstorm', but it just came to me and I just went with it. Here is a sample of what I did:

(I apologize in advance if what my 'brainstorm' says offends anyone--this is just what I wrote)

As for the flowchart section I used the flowchart website...yeah....didn't like that one at all for it was too complicated for me to use. I mean I did get something done but it was the most basic option I could do. I tried to do the family tree or the brainstorm template...didn't go over so well. Mainly because I didn't know how to get it to work or get it started. No matter how hard I tried. So I ended up just using the vertical timeline template. I did like using that one, mainly because it was really basic. Here is a sample of my handiwork:

Yes there is an option to make it all colorful and pretty, but I didn't realize it till after I saved it. Oh well, it gets the point across.

Thing #13

Zoho Docs is a pretty cool website. I like that it gives you more options in spicing up your text and so on. It even allows for whatever you write to be edited by others and will let you know if something was revised by someone else. Like if you shared a word processed document or a spreadsheet of some sorts it will let others make corrections and give you advice on what to say in your, for lack of a better option, a lesson plan or something. Meaning that your fellow teachers could let you know if they have tried what you are planning to do and can tell you what they thought worked better for them. Or maybe even just comment on it and say that they never thought of that and want to give it a shot themselves. I also liked the concept of using the Zoho Show. I thought that was a pretty niffty, yes I said niffty, feature. After clicking the tab it provided a short film telling us what we can do to share your presentations, how to fix it or make it stand out.
In the Google Docs I was exploring around and I actually found an old document I did in high school that I shared with a friend. We were working on a project and we needed to send documents back and forth to each other. So my friend had sent me the document and I had no idea how to get to it--I needed this document (high school days) about six years ago. But it all worked out in the end. I think that it was cool that you could also have someone else edit your work. Like at the top of the page it next to the "Edit" option it said, "last edited was made 6 minutes ago by greeneyesHEK". Granted that was myself that had "edited it".  I tried messing around with the document and it wasn't as easy to work with as it was on Zoho Docs. However, I like that you could make a quiz or something and you could possibly have your students create a test of an assigned book they read or from a chapter in a text. Then have other students take the test and then create a spreadsheet from the results of their "quiz".