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

Thing #17

I checked the post of TED.  I found this site from a previous 'things' and I fell in love with the site.  After seeing the comments on this site, I am not alone in this feeling.  Using Delicious.com in the future will make research for papers very easy.  Just type in the search line the subject needed and a list of websites that others have found will show up.  Its like having the whole internet of people give you ideas on your subject.
In the future, my students will be able to use this site at home to assist in their homework.  I will be able to use it in the classroom for demonstrations and research for future lessons.  This is a very useful site.

Thing # 16

I choose to use iGoogle as my home page.  It was real easy to use since I already had an email account with them.  I changed my background picture and even was able to add a doppler gadget so I can see the weather in the area.
In the classroom my students will be able to keep up with current events and many other items on the internet.  The students will love this home page.
Using Google Calendar, I will be able to not only set my appointments but also plan out my day on the areas I will teach.  Being able to print the agenda or monthly calendar will be a money saver too.  All it will cost is the ink and paper from our personal printer. 
This will be a great tool for students.  They will be able to schedule their classes and when homework is due and they will be reminded about upcoming tests.
I set up a Remember The Milk to do list.  I think it will be very handy for me to use this instead of the sticky notes that is on my Kindle.  I will be able to check things off as I complete them and I can access it on my phone.  I will be able to get to my list from any computer and my phone as well as my Kindle.  It is very accessible.
Students will be able to organize their homework and be notified when they are coming up due.  A very useful app.

Thing #15

Creating a wiki space for my future classroom will be used for projects and collages.  The students will be able to add pictures to the space and quotes from the books they are reading.  The parents will even be able to go on the wiki space and see what their child is learning about.  A different page for the different projects they are doing to keep everything organized.
The concept of wikis is really great.  Being able to create a website, adding your own stuff, and other people to add more to your site.  Its a brainstorming group that includes the whole world.  A website to state your own opinion and then get feed back from people all over the world is a great use of the internet.
The way that the libraries are including wikis and other web tools is amazing.  Technology has come a long way since the big clunky Apple II-e that I had back in 1985.  Those used the big floppy disks and was in black and white.  Now we can see what books are at the library without even getting out of bed.  Technology is AWESOME!

Thing #14

I explored Gliffy's flow chart and found it to be very easy to work.  It was a lot of fun creating my flow chart.  My future students will be able to use this program in class to make flow charts for just about anything ranging from the life cycle of animals to words.  The students will have so much creating their personal chart to look as unique as they are.

I used mindmeister.com to create a mind map for a paper I will be writing.  Once I figured out how to use it, it was very easy.  It's so much easier than using the old fashion paper and pencil brain storming.  Once I created the main ideas of the paper, I could move them around and connect different sub ideas to other ones.  So much easier!  I loved it!  My future students will be able to do the same thing as I did.  They can also have other people help them work on it by sharing it.

Thing # 13

Zoho Writer is very much like Microsoft Office Word.  I was able to create a document and insert a table very easily.  The best part about Zoho for our students is when it comes time for the students to work on a project together they will be able to do everything through Zoho.  Should a student be sick at home or on a family vacation they will still be able to work on the project with the rest of the group as long as the have internet access.  No more will students have to huddle over one computer and email back and forth to complete a project together.  There is even a time sheet for the proof of how long each student worked on the project.

I created a spreadsheet using Google Docs, creating the spreadsheet was very easy if you know how to use Microsoft Excel.  Both programs are very easy to use.  The best thing about using Google Docs in the classroom is that all the students can access the document from any computer.  You are able to share the document with whoever you add.  That is the best idea.  Group projects just became so much easier.  Not only can our future students use this tool but we as current college students can use it to work on our paper from any computer.  Such a GREAT idea!

Thing #12

After exploring the Google Tools, I realized that I have not been using Google to all of its advantages.  I have always used it to view pictures and of course to search the web for something.
I explored Google Translate and it is really amazing.  I wish I knew about this when I was in my Spanish class, it would have made learning the language so much easier.  It not only has translation to Spanish, it also has Vietnamese, Thai, Dutch, German, Greek, and so many more.  The way I would use this tool in my class room is to have my students write out a letter to a 'pen pal' in the class and then translate it using this tool and see if the other student can figure out what language they used.  The student will then have to translate the letter.  Of course they would have to use the vocabulary words and underline those so it would be easier for the younger ones.  The tool also has a great function of being able to speak the words typed in most of the languages.
Using this tool I found out how to write "Hello, my name is Sabrina Miller" in dutch, which I have ancestors from.  It is like this:  Hallo, mijn naam is Sabrina Miller.  
The other tool that I explored is Google SketchUp.  This tool is awesome and other teachers found this out too.  They have a gallery on it that has some of the sketches that were made, there are some from a few high school students.  
http://picasaweb.google.com/gallery.sketchup/EducationK12#
This program is to sketch a 3D drawing.  It even has a SketchUp for K-12 Education page that explains everything.  Students can even use it for free, and nothing beats that in today's school system.  There is a video of a high school history teacher that had his students read the first few weeks then they had to design the town using this tool.
When I become a teacher, I plan to use this tool whenever I can.  Having my elementary students read a story then have them design the house that they think the character lived in.  Such a fun tool and great for our students to use technology to learn.

Thing #11

The easiest feed that I found was a toss up between Google Blog and Topix.  They both work very well but Topix is for those of us that don't really know what we are looking for.  Google Blog is a great tool to use if you are searching for something specific and it works just like the search engine Google, which is also a very handy tool.  Topix gives you more of the news and top stories, not blogs.
Technorati was confusing to me.  The home page looks just like the Yahoo! home page.  Then whatever subject of blog you are searching for you can either search for it in the bar at the top of just go clicking on buttons.  They even have a blog directory of more than one million blogs.  Of course they are all in categories but that is still a lot of blogs to go searching through.
During my travels with the feeds I found a new blogger, Dave Sladkey.  He is a math teacher from Naperville, Illinois.  He not only has a blog about the fun he has in his math class but in his other blog, Energizing Brain Breaks, he gives some very interesting moves to perform in your class to energize your students.
It was very informative to see all the different styles of searching tools that are out there in the great beyond of the internet.

Thing #10

RSS Reader is a great tool to use.  I get tired of going to different site to see what, and if, they added since the last time I went to their page.  I subscribed to:
Cool Cat Teacher Blog
Free Technology for Teachers
TED Talks (Video)
Teaching Ideas Additions
Latest Activity on Elementary Tech Teachers
Each of these sites post ideas and new projects that teachers will be able to use in their classroom.  Teachers do not have very much free time to try to come up with new great ideas to show their class something fun and great to help with learning.  Of course, all teachers can look at something and think to themselves the wonders things they could do with a roll of paper in order to teach the class. 
Now  that technology has improved then we, as teachers, have a huge bag of tricks we can pull from.  We can add our own ideas to the bag of tricks for another teacher to use.  Teachers have to talk to each other and share ideas since the world continues to change and the students we teach are becoming smarter every year. 
RSS can help every teacher become a great teacher as long as they are willing to put in the effort and use the wonderful technologies that are available to them.

Thing #9

http://www.imagechef.com/
I used ImageChef to create the two images above.  ImageChef has many different types of creators that is offered.  It ranges from photo frames to word mosaics.  This is a very fun site and you can even create your own design.
Using this program in the classroom will be very fun for the students.  We could take pictures of the students and put their picture in one of the many photo frames.  Making signs like these and hanging them around the classroom is a wonderful way to make it more personal.

Thing #8

I used Hockneyizer to create my photo.  It was really easy to do.  I could have made it look like a bunch of Polaroid frames to make up my photo.  Using this tool would be a new way to show the students how to create a new image out of something plain.  The other flickr tools would be handy in the classroom to see if the students could create something new out of something old.  On art projects, since funding for that has gone down, we could have them use Spell with flickr to create a word then print it out and they would get to color it how they want to.  This would be great for Mothers and Fathers Day.  

As for sharing pictures online, I think if we were to make a class flickr account then it would have to be private and only give access to the pictures to the parents of the students.  We would have to have the parents permission to upload the pictures of their child first.

Thing #7

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smiller2010/6866880307/lightbox/
Using Flickr was a new experience for me, I have never used just a photo sharing website.  I have shared photos on Facebook before but it just takes so long to upload pictures from different photos in different folders on my computer.  With Flickr I just kept picking photos from the different folders and when I picked all of them, I clicked 'upload' and all the pictures were uploaded at the same time.  The system went down the list, one by one, and gave it a green 'check' when it was uploaded.  I really liked the option of marking on the map where the picture was taken.
Using this site in the classroom would be very nice.  Showing the students a picture of a different culture and having them guess where and when the picture was taken.  Looking at the older photos and discussing the background and the clothing would be a great way to show the class how the world around us has changed and the change in the fashion world.  We could even compare an old photo and a more recent photo of the same location and have the students tell us what has changed and why they think that changed between the times.

Thing #6

messenger.yahoo.com
I choose Yahoo! Messenger because it is so easy to use.  Being a military spouse, I was able to talk to my husband while he was deployed.  I had an app on my phone so even if I wasn't at my computer and he was online then we could still talk.  The useful features on this site that can be used in the school or classroom are to be able to connect two different classrooms from different parts of the country or world.  It could be like a modern day pen-pal.  The different students can talk on the computer in the classroom or at home.  Some of the features include being able to send videos, picture, making phone calls, and being able to video chat with someone.  I adore Yahoo! Messenger for all these reasons.

Thing #5

I read Web 2.0 is not about version numbers or betas and Web 2.0: A Guide for Educators. Both of these articles were very informative. Tim Bray explained what Web 2.0 is all about, I didn't really have a firm grasp on the idea of it until I read this article. Once I figured out what exactly it was I realized that I already knew what it was, in short it's similar to Yahoo! Answers. For myself, viewing the collection of people sharing ideas and discussing issues is just like asking your neighbor a question and getting back an answer from your whole street. Some people will give you a bad answer but you will get the right answer back from someone.
The children today were raised on electronics. Our students were raised by computers, video games, and the TV. Most kids can operate a computer easier than most adults. With this in mind then we as teachers would bring in what they relate to the most to help them learn better. Students in schools today can come home and not have any homework yet they can always get on the internet and work on math or can read a book and take the comprehension test on the computer.
If the students in school right now are doing all this with computers then just imagine that by the time our grandchildren are going to school they won't even have to get out of the house to go to school. They could be sick at home in bed yet not miss a day of school. We may not have to wait that long.

Thing #4

I commented on Kelley Poole, Alyssa Kniffen, Shelby Lynn's, Ashley Paul, and Lincoln Farmer blogs. Commenting on other peoples blogs helps them know that they have reached someone. If someone was to just create a blog and just wanted to write their own thoughts, that's great, but most people that start a blog is because they have something they wanted to share. People like to know that they are not just talking into space. When we read or hear something that moves us in a good way or a bad way, we like to voice our agreement or disagreement. Just like our mothers use to say "if you don't have something nice to say then don't say anything at all," yet we can disagree with other people but we have to do it in a respectful manner.
I commented on the five people that I did because they had something to voice of their own and I just felt the need to tell them that they were not the only ones in this big world that felt that way.
I am following On an e-Journey with Generation Y and Coolcatteacher. E-Journey is a teacher from Australia that works in a school in the middle of nowhere. She takes her students to far away places by using technology. That is a wonderful way to use technology in the classroom. Coolcatteacher is a woman that has taught for many years and I believe that I can learn a lot from her.

Thing #3

When I do become a teacher and have a classroom of my own, I think that using a blog will help to communicate to the parents of my students.  I can post upcoming projects that are due, that nights homework, and even the school events that are coming up.
To save paper, I can just post a message on my blog and the parents can check it and even comment back to me.  If my students have a problem with their homework, they can post questions that I will be able to respond to.  If one student has an issue with the homework, then other students could have the same issue.

Thing #2

When creating my blog I choose my future.  I am currently attending school to become a teacher and my students will call me Mrs. Miller.  In the future I will be a teacher.  I combined the two together and came up with my blog title, Mrs. Miller, Future Teacher.
Creating this blog has been a new experience for me.  I have never had my own blog and have only read other peoples blog a few times.  With the help of Prof. Wall's blog and my instructors help, I believe that it will be very easy for me to get a handle on it.
I tried to create my avatar to resemble myself as much as I could.  I usually keep my hair pulled back since I don't like it in my face and I do wear skirts many days in the week.  I also do like cats, even if I don't have one currently.  I wanted people that viewed my blog to see me and not some character that I created.

Thing #1

Once I was finally able to view the presentation, 7 and 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners, I learned that the easiest habit for me is Habit 6:  Use technology to your advantage.  I use technology whenever I can to help me learn new things.  One of my classes had us read a book and with my busy life it is hard for me to sit down and read so I found the book in digital form.  I uploaded it onto my MP3 player and listened to it while I was driving to and from school.  It made it so much easier for me to finish the book in the shortest time amount of time possible.
The hardest habit for me is Habit 3:  View problems as challenges.  When a crisis occurs in my life, I tend to worry and then overreact.  I deal with the issue and then put it behind me.  I need to start viewing the crisis in my life as learning opportunities instead of just putting the crisis behind me.
I look forward to learning more about Web 2.0 and creating a blog.  So far, creating this blog has been very easy.  I just hope the rest of the projects I can pick up as easy.