Concluding Thoughts

As I come to the end of my 23 things experience, I've decided to reflect upon the different activities. My favorite thing was getting to discover so many useful knew sites that I know I will be able to use in the future. Some of my favorite new discoveries were Animoto, Comic Strip Generator, and Blogger itself. I definitely didn't expect to learn so much on my 23 things journey and am excited to be proven wrong! Many of these new technology discoveries will be implemented into my future classroom and luckily I will be able to keep up on new technology by all of the feeds, tweets, and blogs I'm following. I am excited to continue my life-long learning and welcome technology into this adventure!

Thing #23: Creative Commons

Creative Commons is extremely important for teachers to be familiar with. Following proper copyright procedures is crucial in the classroom. Sometimes it feels as though you can't use anything, but fear not; Creative Commons are here to help. CC allow you to have some rights reserved as opposed to all rights reserved. This was as long as you know what you can and can't do with that work, you are free to use it for its directed purposes. This even allows for alterations and collaborations at times.

Thing #22: LiveBinders

LiveBinders is a interesting site that allows you to create different binders and save different information there concerning the subject. It also has the option to fill your binder with Google, in which it will take things from Google that fit your binder subject. I created three binders entitled Art Teaching Ideas (for lesson plans), Organizing Your Classroom (for great organizing tips), and Display Your Work (for bulletin board ideas). Though I found this site a neat way to organize information, I don't know if it is necessarily one I will use. I think some of the other sites we've looked at throughout the term were much more efficient. Here's an example of my Art Teaching Ideas binder: Art Teaching Ideas

Thing #21: Animoto

Animoto is an awesome site where you can create your own videos! I made one to show you a little about myself. This could definitely be used in the classroom to make all kinds of videos. It's very simple and the videos are surprisingly good looking.

Try our video maker at Animoto.

Thing #20: Youtube

Youtube has many videos that can be useful in the classroom. There are informative videos such as The Elements of Art, which explains the elements and would be an upgrade from a simple PowerPoint presentation. You can also use Youtube to show things that you are learning about that you can't physically show students. Say you're teaching a lesson on cave art and you can't bring the students to a cave. You can show them a virtual tour of the Lascaux Cave Art.
The only thing I think you should be weary of on Youtube is that you cannot control what pops up in advertisements or similar videos. I recommend using a bookmarking site to have the actual video ready and then keeping your projector off until the video is running just to be safe.

Thing #19: Social Networks

Social Networks have become a huge portion of our daily lives. I can count my friends that don't have Facebook on one hand. With the rise in technology and smartphones, more and more social networking sites seem to come out of the woodwork. You've got Facebook and Twitter, yes, but you've also got Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Flixster, and the list goes on and on.
I personally have tried out almost every social networking site I've heard of, just to see what all the talk was about. Some were great and others just seemed like Facebook with less people. One site I recently started using is last.fm. As I've discussed before, I love music! The thing that's difficult about music is that there is so much of it. Everyone's taste is different and it's hard to sift through and find the stuff you'll like. Any site that I can find new bands that I might like is a good site to me. Last.fm allows you to take the bands you like and find other people who like those certain bands and see what else they're listening to. Now this probably isn't something I would use for educational purposes, but it is a great site for me to enjoy in my down time (even though sometimes that's nonexistent in the education world).
That's the great thing about sites like this; you can find a social networking site based on almost ANYTHING you're interested in. I really like the idea of this because it makes the internet seem much more personalized.

Thing #18: Social Networking

I am constantly on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. I do think these have the ability to be helpful in the education world by simply giving you another way to interact with your coworkers, peers, and teachers around the world. However, I prefer to use these sites (Facebook more specifically) for more social uses than professional uses, though you should still keep it classy. I use Facebook to interact with friends and family. I like to use other sites for educational purposes because they keep me more focused.