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.

Thing #17: Delicious

Delicious is a bookmarking site that lets you access your bookmarks from anywhere. It is very similar to Diigo, but I actually liked it more because of its clean and simple navigation. Though there are many sites for online bookmarking, I think this is a good one to use in the classroom. When you pull it up it shows "Me" which is YOUR links, as opposed to advertisements or things that other people post. You can be sure that what you show your students will be what you planned to show them, which is good because you never know when using the internet. This is the reason teachers MUST take advantage of social bookmarking sites. You can't just Google everything you want to show your students, because it isn't a site that can always be trusted.

Thing #16: Online Organizing

Organization is an important part of all of our lives, but how can technology help us stay organized? In this post I thought I'd talk about a few of the different means of online organizing.

I customized my starter page on iGoogle and found it much more convenient than I presumed it would be. For one, as silly as it may be, I love that I can have a weather widget on my starter page. I am constantly checking the weather so this is helpful and time-saving. I could also check my email and see updates on feeds I am following all from my home page. The only term I can think to describe this is "nifty", because you have everything you need at your fingertips before you even start searching.

Online Calendars are useful to me, because although I am obsessed with my planner and try to have it me at all times, it isn't always possible. I am constantly on the go and if I'm not organized, I'm not happy. I'm the type of person who needs everything planned to a tee or my day just feels like a chaotic mess (which it sometimes is). The point is, staying organized helps even the most stressful day feel like an accomplishable task.

As far as to-do-lists go, I like them a bit more tangible. Sitting down and physically writing out everything I need to do, though sometimes overwhelming, puts my nerves a bit more at ease. Although as discussed before, sometimes you might not have that list on you, and that's the time where an online to-do-list would come in handy!

How do you feel about the role of the internet in organization?

Thing #15: What is a Wiki?

Much like Google Docs, Wikis are editable documents between a shared group of people. I must say that I am a fan! The video Wikis in Plain English puts it simply by explaining a practical use of a wiki page: organizing a camping trip. However, Wiki pages can be used for all sorts of collaboration. Perhaps your class is going on a field trip and you need chaperones or you want to create a sign-up for parent-teacher conferences. These could be sent out and edited through a Wiki that could be linked on a blog you've set up for parents at the beginning of the year. It could also be used by students to collaborate on group projects. I am all about any way to save time, and online collaboration is just that!

Thing #14: Flow Charts

Flow charts can be extremely helpful when teaching a point in the classroom. There are a few sites that let you create flowcharts including Gliffy, Bubbl.us, Flowchart.com, and Mindmeister. Through further investigation I found that these are all awesome sites, but the one I liked the most was Gliffy. Gliffy was the easiest to navigate and I thought it made it simple to make your flow chart exactly the way you wanted it. This could be used for any subject or grade-level and is definitely something I will be using in my classroom.

Thing #13: Zoho vs Google Docs

I am new to Zoho, but it seems to me to be similar to many of the other sites we've seen that are based on web collaboration. Zoho is very business based, and I feel I would probably use a different site in the classroom. Google Docs, however, I am very familiar with. We often use this to share and edit documents in my sorority. There is always a t-shirt list, date list, and other endless Excel sheets that need to be constantly edited and added to. Google Docs pretty much run our chapter. I find them extremely useful because of how easily accessible they are from anywhere. This could be used in the classroom by the teacher to create spreadsheets, and students to share information with group projects. Let's be honest. In today's world we don't always have the time to meet up with people, so this is an easy way to just send out a document and allow others you are working with to tweek it as they will.