Thing #21 Animoto

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
I like this so much I'm going to share it on my Facebook page!  This was so much fun and so very easy I could definitely get hooked on making these videos especially since you can use videos as well as still photos because my husband bought me a digital video camera for Christmas.  I might have to upgrade from the free version so I can make some awesome videos of Emily.  I think this was my favorite thing!

Thing #20 Youtube

I chose this video because I think the kids sound amazing and I love how much they get into their music.  I also like the fact that many of them seem to be using ASL as they sing. I think that is truly awesome!  I found this video by searching "elementary school students" just to see what would turn up.  I found another cool video for kids about Healthy Eating Decisions and how to choose good food during lunch at the school cafeteria.  I like it, but it didn't give me goosebumps and the singing kids did!  The thing I like about Youtube is also the thing I dislike about it and that is the fact that anyone can upload anything to it.  You have to be careful about what you type in your search phrase!  I also like the suggestions that pop up when you find a video you like.  I think this is an easy way to find related videos.  I also like the subscribe feature.  I think that it would be neat if a school library website could have "suggestions" for books that are similar to ones that you like and if you could subscribe to a certain author or genre and get updates when a new book comes in that matches what you like.

Thing #19 Social Networks

I guess they are social networks because if they were anti-social no one would want to talk to anyone else.  But I digress.  Am I a member of any online communities?  Yes.  I am a member of Facebook.  My community is small, consisting of family and a few friends and that's the way (uh-huh uh-huh) I like it (uh-huh uh-huh).  I am now also a member of TeacherPop along with everyone else who has ever taken, or will ever take this class.  Are any of these social networks appealing to you (me)?  Well, I checked out Fuzzster because I like pets, but I couldn't really figure out what it's purpose is.  Is it a dating site for dogs?  Maybe a dating site for pet owners?  The profiles are written from the animal's perspective "Petunia the Pig is here to make other pet friends."  Really?  Did Petunia type that herself?  I guess it's not all that strange.  I used to joke about writing a letter to Purina from my dog: "Dear Purina Beneful, my mom is helping me write this because I am a dog and I don't have any thumbs..."  but I never actually wrote it.  I  have veered off track yet again.  So I like the idea of TeacherPop but as far as I can tell the only people on there are APSU students.


Visit TeacherPop

I plan to check in there occasionally to see if any teachers have posted anything.    What did I find that was interesting that I might use later?  I liked Shelfari, although I haven't joined it.  I think it is a really cool network because you can join an existing group that focuses on a subject you enjoy reading and you can create a group of your own.  As a teacher I could create a Shelfari group for my students and post books that they are supposed to read and discuss or let them post books that they have read and enjoyed. 

Thing #18 has me all 'atwitter'

Like many of my classmates, I already had a Facebook page before this class started.  My page is as unpublic as I can make it and still use it.  I really don't want the whole wide world to have access to my life.  I don't publish that much on Facebook.  I mainly use it to post pictures of my daughter so friends and family can see her.  It's also been a good way to keep in touch with people I had lost track of,  like my best friend from Junior High.  Anyway, I won't be posting a link to my Facebook page to this blog but I will post a link to my Twitter page.Twitter  I never used Twitter until this class.  Honestly I'm not sure you can say I've actually used Twitter since I've never Tweeted.  I am a Twitter eavesdropper.  I follow people and listen in on their conversations but so far have not been inspired to join in.  I think Twitter is designed for people with smart phones that can connect to the internet and post highly urgent information like "I really want a Starbucks right now".  I don't have a smart phone.  I guess it's not completely stupid, it can take pictures and send text messages.  I suppose it could connect to the internet if I ever tried to figure it out but I've never felt the need to be that tied to the web.  So, why is it important that educators know how social networking works?  Well, because our students live by social networking.  They don't pass notes on paper in class, they send tweets or text messages.  Students pass gossip around on Facebook and instead of drawing insulting cartoons of one another, post embarrasing photos and videos.  It is important for educators to know how social networking works because we will need to know how to use these aspects of student culture as assets to our teaching.  Not that we need to friend all of our students on our personal Facebook pages, but a classroom page might not be a bad thing and could possibly be used to build classroom unity.  What new insights did I gain about these sites?  Hmmm.  Well I'm not sure I gained any new insights about Facebook and everything about Twitter was new to me.  What did I like and dislike.  Well I like the fact that Facebook lets you post photos and videos and that you can limit who can see your page.  I like the fact that Twitter is such a quick and easy way to get the word out.  Not that every tweet is newsworthy, but many are and the fact that you can get them on your phone (if you so choose) can make them very useful. As for which site has the most useful features I think that depends on what you want to do.  If you just want to send a quick message then I think Twitter is the most useful.  If you want to share photos or more than 140 characters of information, then Facebook is more useful.  I believe that these sites could be used in the classroom or school.  The more popular twitter becomes the more likely it may be to replace texts for emergency notifications.  And as I mentioned earlier in this now very lengthy post, a classroom Facebook page could be useful.  Students are likely chatting with each other on Facebook already so they could use the classroom page to discuss homework and since it's a classroom page the teacher would also be on the page and have the ability to answer questions or even post notices to the class about upcoming assignments or special events.

Thing #17

So my experience with delicious is that the tutorial is way out of date and the page that you get doesn't look anything like the page on the tutorial which for me made the tutorial rather pointless.  So I stumbled around and figured out how to find other users comments and tags at which time I noticed that most of those are rather outdated too with only one or two from this year.  But enough with the negativity already!  Sorry.  Maybe its the weather.  Or maybe its because I'm doing homework on Spring Break!  I can see how delicious can be quite useful.  The fact that you can save all of your bookmarks there and access them from any computer could come in quite handy.  It is good that you have the option of making your bookmark private because I'm not sure all of my bookmarks need to be shared.  I think this could be useful for sharing information with colleagues as well as with students.  If you created a class page, like the APSU23things page, it could be used by the students to bookmark and share websites for a class project.  It would be interesting if another class somewhere else in the world was working on a similar project and the students could share bookmarks on a topic.  Social studies, math, reading, science.  I think it could be used in any subject.  I think the ability to get the viewpoint of someone from outside of the US would be a great contribution.  I've been studying for my diversity midterm, does it show?

Thing #16

I chose the iGoogle start page because I have so many things in Google now.  I actually already have something similar with Yahoo called myYahoo so I don't know if I will make iGoogle my permanent home page.  I didn't use Google for anything other than searching until this class so everything else I have is through Yahoo.  Because I've already set up two online calendars in Google, and because Remember the Milk was a web site I blogged about earlier, I chose to make a to do list with Remember the Milk.  At first I couldn't figure out how to add a new task because I kept looking for a calendar but then I realized that all I have to do is type in the name of the task and when it's due, like Wednesday at 3:00 and it puts it right in.  The other thing I like about this is the option to share tasks.  I think this could come in handy with my husband because he can put the Remember the Milk app on his iphone and I can send him things like dates and times for our daughter's doctor's appointments.   Exploring some of the other tools I found Chalksite which is designed for teachers to use in the classroom.  It lets teachers create a class website, and lets teachers and parents communicate as well as allowing students to chat about homework.  It's pretty cool I think.  I would recommend Remember the Milk and Chalksite to other people. 

Thing #15 wiki wiki wiki

The word wiki reminds me of an old '80s song.  So ways to use a wiki, it seems to me that wikis are great tools for collaborating so any group project might lend itself to a wiki.  My only question is, can you limit who has the authority to change things on the wiki?  Or can anyone from the public edit every wiki?  If I were going to use a wiki as a classroom tool, I would definitely want to be sure that only my students and I could edit it.  I like the fact that you can create links to other pages so you don't end up with one document full of so much information that you can't find what you need.  I have to say the only limitation I can see with most of these School 2.0 tools is the students access to computers and the internet.  I've observed in two classrooms so far, one in public school, first grade and the other a private school.  The private school had laptops the students could use.  The public school had a few computers in one corner of the classroom but I never saw them in use.  There were more students than there were computers so I don't know how they would use them unless they break in to groups.