Is It the End or Only the Beginning?

This experience was very enlightening.  I learned about websites that I had no idea were out there.  I am very happy that I learned so much, I even have passed some on to my family that they would like.  As far as changing anything, the only thing that I did not like was when it said to 'embed' the image or livebinder in the blog.  I had to use YouTube to figure out how to do that.  And just for anyone else, you have to change over to the 'HTML' instead of 'Compose' in the top left corner of your window to be able to embed, otherwise it will just have the long code in your blog.  YouTube is such a wonderful tool.  I plan to use many of the things that we did in my future classroom.  This has encouraged me, there is so much out there that I didn't know was available.
I think I might still use my blog sometimes when I do have something to share.  When I do have my own classroom I do plan on either having a wiki site or a blog for parents to look at and see if their child is telling the truth about no homework.

Thing #23

Now that I know there is a place out there in beg world of the web, where I can find different pictures to use in my classroom, I will be using it at least everyday.  I will encourage my students to use the same site and to make sure they are giving credit to who deserves it.  By the time I have my own classroom, even if it were tomorrow, there will be even more wonderful things out in the world wide web that if I were to use them I would have to give credit to.  My future students will become experts on copyright laws and the wonderful world of Creative Commons.

Thing #22

I created three binders with the titles of Math, Reading, and Useful Links.

Math

In the classroom I will use Live Binders to help my students keep track of the website they use when researching a subject.  They will be able to have a different tab for each subject and then in the sub-tabs they will have the different helpful links that they found helpful.  This will make proving the research they found so much easier later.

Thing #21

I created an Animoto of the time I took a cruise to the Grand Bahama Island with my mother and step-father last June.  It was so much fun and beautiful.  I so want to go on another cruise, this time with my husband and kids.

Using Animoto was very easy and fun.  Not a lot of choices of music to choose from but its nice to be able to upload your own music too.  For the free membership, you can only have ten pictures so that made it limited, but still lots of fun.  I thought I was going to have to do the work in thinking how to get the pictures to zoom in and out but once I clicked publish I was done.
This was a very fun Thing to do.

Thing #20

There are so many great videos on YouTube and also so many very bad videos but this video really made me appreciate my daughter for yelling at me when I tossed a gum foil wrapper out the car window last month.  My little girl is always asking me what we can do to help the environment and when can we plant a tree.  She loves to be the driving force in our family to do better for our world.
YouTube can be very educational and very bad.  There really are no rules as to what people can put up on this site so there is everything that is not rated X on here.  Everything that our children and young students are just a click away from seeing.
There are videos on here that really help people learn.  I remember when I was taking my first college class after 9 years of being out of college.  I couldn't tell anyone what a MLA paper was made of or how to even begin to write one, but I learned how to write one from a YouTube video.  This is a website to keep up because there are many great videos on it.

Thing #19

I am now a member of TeacherPop and Whats On My Bookshelf.

TeacherPop is really good to show the future teachers of the Austin Peay that we can create our own Ning for our future students.  They can discuss the books we are reading in class, the homework that is assigned, or what was discussed in class that day.  This would be very helpful to the students that were absent and also for the parents, for them to find out what is going on in the classroom without actually being there.
Whats On My Bookshelf is a great way to expand your reading library without spending hours in the library trying to find a great book to read or spending the money on the books.  The owners can leave a comment about the book to let others know how they felt about the book.  No more reading book reviews from people that have a paycheck behind the review.  Even if your not wanting to read for leisure, but you need a textbook for class, you might be able to get the book without buying it or renting it.  This is the best idea for college students that don't want to spend so much money on textbooks.  I know I will be using this site for leisure and for study.

Thing #18

Learning about all the educational uses with Facebook and Twitter is very informative.  Knowing that we, as students, can access any form of communication with our future students is wonderful.  Our future classrooms can have its own Facebook page, students will be able to ask questions and even form a study group online.  Who needs physical contact when we have the internet?  All of us still need that.  Our students will be able to succeed in our class and the parents will even be informed.

My FaceBook page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1460353385