Summary

The discovery exercise “Learning 2.0 – 23 Things for Teachers” has exposed me to numerous creative tutorials that will enable me to be successful with my goals of lifelong learning. My favorite activities were related to the video and audio sites. I especially enjoyed creating the photo montage using Animoto. Also, I enjoyed exploring YouTube because I managed to “peel the onion back” on its many features and discover its use beyond entertainment. A big takeaway for me is the confidence I have gained when considering how to incorporate technology into the classroom. The world has come along way from the days of a simple chalk board, and pencil and paper. Learning how to use technology, being creative with its implementation, and knowing where to go for information about its legal use has garnered me the necessary tools to be the best educator I can.

In the future, I plan to keep up with technology a few ways. First, I will make a concerted effort to remain active by blogging and staying involved with the blogs I currently subscribe to. I also, will expand my participation in new blogs of interest when they are created. Second, as an educator it is important to remain current on technology as it applies to the classroom. This is done by taking some continuing education classes and seminar/webinars discussing the current trends in technology. Finally, I feel that it is beneficial to self reflect on where you are in your career. Teachers are lifelong learners, so understanding what your current level of knowledge is and where your education needs to be in the future can be the carrot that is needed to continue to grow as an educator.

Thing #23

The Creative Commons tutorial exposed us to the subject of copyright and fair use of copyrighted materials. As a teacher candidate it is very important to understand what it means to use copyrighted material and give credit to the proper person or entity that owns it. With Creative Commons subscribers can have the confidence to know that the material used via this particular website is lawful to share with others. In the classroom, the educator can freely use another’s ideas because the owners put their particular work on the website and granted that use through Creative Commons. In addition, users of the material can remake much of someone else’s ideas as long as credit is given to the original owner. This is particularly beneficial when students complete projects and conduct research where the proper use of copyrighted material.

The concept of the “Learning 2.0 – 23 Things” is a variation of Stephen Abram’s article, “43 Things I (or you) may want to do this year”. The use of our particular learning activity is granted through the use of the Creative Commons website. When doing current research for my classes, I often find myself asking whether a particular piece of work, article, or other idea has already been copyrighted, and who really the true author is. In the future, I can see where the use of sites such as Creative Commons will assist me as I complete my own education, create projects and develop lesson plans for my future students to complete.

Thing #22

Music

The LiveBinders lesson provides the student with a unique exposure to building a binder on that is virtual and stored on the website. For this lesson I created three binders titled education 3040, music, and history. I chose these titles because they interest me and are easy to recall. I am embedding my music binder into this blog post. There are two songs from my favorite band, Dave Matthews Band, "Ants Marching" and "Grey Street". I can see a good deal of use for these virtual binders because they enable a teacher to organize lessons by subject, then save information and data into each tab. These binders can be expanded by adding new tabs as information is gained and entered. Websites such as LiveBinders also give an educator a place to store large volumes of work on the virtual web; eliminating the need to build physical three-ring binders to store on shelves and closets in the classroom. This will be a real space saver in the long run. Students will also find this beneficial as they can build their class binders virtually, and then have them forever stored and retrievable via the web. In other words, students can create binders as soon as they begin school their first year. As subsequent years come, these students can build on these binders all the way through high school. This will eliminate the need to carry binders, books, etc. to and from school. The student of the future could move from class to class and grade to grade without carrying anything along. That is the school I envision for the future!

Thing #21

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Exploring the Animoto video creator was a good experience. Until now, I had not created any video using photos from my own collection. The site does have some fairly adequate instructions but required a little bit of trial and error for me to figure it out and get it done. I chose ten photos from my family vacations over the past few summers. The vacation photos centered around water, so I chose the Animoto clip that incorporated a water theme into its creation. I chose music that described our “Beautiful World” in a melancholy sound. This was a fun lesson to experience and one that I plan to continue using in the future. For the classroom, I think educators will find Animoto useful for creating personalized lesson plans that use photos from the teachers own discoveries.

Thing #20

YouTube is one of my most visited websites I frequent. I always enjoy watching the funny clips of the crazy things that people do. Mostly, I enjoy watching music videos by my favorite artists. The video of Dave Matthews Band playing their song titled, “You & Me” is perhaps my favorite. The song’s lyrics are reminiscent of me and wife as we enter our 24^th year of marriage. In the classroom, sites such as YouTube are a great asset because the videos are easily incorporated into any lesson and because the site stores the data, you can retrieve it from anywhere. For me, there really is nothing to dislike about the website. I find that the majority of the material I am in need of is readily accessible through YouTube. One of the components I find to be useful is the ability for others to comment about each video. The comments often provide useable feedback about the video which allows another’s analysis to be considered when deciding about its applicability in the classroom. In the future, I feel that websites such as YouTube will be my go to site when preparing or presenting lessons for the classroom.

Thing #19

The social network sites like Ning, Gather, and TeacherPop seem to provide professional people with a place on the internet to share and collaborate as part of an online community. The discussions and dialogue exchanges enable professionals to engage in thought provoking ideas concerning important issues. Unlike Facebook, TeacherPop’s membership appears to be composed of educators and not just anyone seeking to join. This style of communication does have some purpose and can be beneficial. The benefit should be limited in scope and not be used to socialize outside of the school. The idea of joining social network sites and actually participating in one of the sites I explored during the lesson is not very appealing. I do not necessarily support the mainstream philosophy that just because it’s technology that teacher’s must get on board with it. As a private individual, I feel that one must be careful with how they use the internet. That means that one must consider carefully the consequences of joining social sites that are designed to be social, but used as a means to monitor its activities. I will never share information with one of my students on a social site, nor will I continue to be a member of them once I begin my teaching career. I will limit my social communications to those few Facebook friends that I have in order to closely monitor what information is out their about me. For me, the idea of socializing via the internet is not what teaching is. Instead, it is the concept of enabling my students to learn and grow through engaging lessons, and well delivered strategies. This is where educators should place their focus.

Thing #18

Social networking sites serve as a modern communication service for the planet. The fact that someone can sign on for a free account, search for friends and colleagues, and subscribe to favorite groups and pages makes social networking services a premier method for people to share information. This information sharing is important for educators because social networking opens the lines of communication across classrooms in multiple areas of the world. Teachers can use these services to stay abreast of current real time issues with friends and group members without having to do much more than sign in on their account using the internet. In addition, educators can use these sights to seek answers to relevant questions via a query of their colleagues. Since I currently use Facebook, I am most comfortable with it and its features. Facebook enables me to reestablish friendships with many people that I haven’t seen in years. Without this tool, I may have never heard from any of them. Also, Facebook groups are a great way to be active in issues and participate in communities that may be important. I check my Facebook page daily, but seldom update my status or make comments to others as these kinds of activities are not what I enjoy. I mostly send messages, or wish happy birthday to my friends and leave it at that. One downside to social networking sites is the fact that the language of its rules can be lengthy to read and complex. So, you must be careful when signing up or you may find more information is open to the public than you thought. I also do not like the use of social networking for work or school. I find it offensive when my work attempts to pressure us to join their page. This is a big issue with me as privacy is a right of all individuals. As a teacher candidate, I am not a supporter of having students, or my colleagues searching for information about me via social networking. I do encourage the use of social network sites, but feel their use should be for the social aspect and not so much for information sharing and educating.

Thing #17

The use of websites such as del.icio.us and Digg.com allow the educator to create a virtual storage place for tags of important information that may be beneficial for the learning environment. I found them extremely friendly and easy to use. The information available on the web today is so abundant that a good strategy to keep what is important organized is needed. These tagging websites give the user this organization. The benefits for the classroom can be endless including the tagging of key words for easy retrieval during a lesson plan, or storing tags on the website when students are conducting collaborative work assignments from multiple locations such as the school or home. Other sites such as Digg.com also provide a means to categorize information in a virtual storage place for retrieval as needed by the user. One of the downsides of using these types of websites is the fact that many networks in use by public education block this activity because they may be considered a security risk. Another issue is that some schools lack adequate internet service and low band width may prevent or restrict the accessibility to these sites. In the future, I feel that school systems will move forward with their rules and regulations regarding internet use and these issues will disappear.

Thing #16

For this activity I explored several different web based programs. These tools are designed to help students increase their productivity by organizing all of their internet based data into a more streamlined application. I really enjoyed learning about the many gadgets available that might assist me in organizing the numerous events, assignments and appointments I have each day. After looking around the different start pages, I chose Google. I guess I am just a creature of habit, and prefer to keep things under a uniformed appearance. Google just requires you to sign in and within a few seconds your start page is complete. I am seriously considering using this as a permanent start page because the one I currently use is too generic and no longer supports my needs. Plus, I can access my calendar I created with Google by adding it to my start page. I believe this online calendar is useful for tracking some of my appointments, and my class schedule. I am not sure that I would put my entire schedule on an online calendar because I worry about the security of my personal information.

For me, the to-do list programs were not very functional. I did not feel that the final product was worth the effort. What I did find useful was those programs that converted file types so that they could be read on my computer. In the past, I would attempt to download and open a document only to be prompted that I needed additional software to view it. Having the PDF converter enables me to convert the document into a portable document for viewing. I definitely will be using this one in the future.