Thing 23

I am so very glad that I had the chance to take this class and experience all the possibilities on Web 2.0. Overall, I found all of the tools very accessible and easy to use. Google Reader is by far my favorite tool to use. I check it everyday and always find something new that is interesting. During our last "thing", we had the opportunity to explore some really fun and nifty tools. Blabberize is a really cool tool and all the kids that I have showed mine too have loved it. This is a great way to liven up presentations and lessons. I wished I had known about some of the data organization tools while I was in college. These tools are pretty amazing, especially for high school and college kids. I have also enjoyed doing these blogs, which was a new experience for me. I do plan to continue using some of these tools and look forward to all the new technology to come.

Thing 22

I thoroughly enjoyed playing around with all the different tools that was offered to us. It was very hard to pick my favorite two but I chose Blabberize and BeFunky. These two tools are very creative and allow for endless possibilities. Both of my projects from these cool sites can be found on Amanda's Sandbox. I found both of these tools to be very user-friendly (hence why I chose to use them.) I am a huge fan of bringing laughter into a lesson and both of these tools could be a great way to achieve such a goal. If the kids are enjoying the lesson or laughing at something within the lesson, then they are more likely to learn. I know first hand just how boring it is to sit in a classroom and be lectured. Sometimes, that method and style cannot be helped but if we could spice things up using tools such as these, then why not! If you are not able to create something along the lines of what you are looking for, then you can search already created items on Blabberize. I'm not the most creative person I know and if the creative people are willing to share there creations, then they should definitely be shared with your class.

Thing 21

Let me start off by saying that I thought that Digital Citizen Quiz was a great scenario and I thought I did well until I received my score of 54/100. I thought I knew more than that but I guess I was wrong. I did much better though on the last quiz we had to take. Teaching Digital Citizenship is everybody's responsibility. If you use the internet, then it is your job to make sure that you are teaching your kids and your friends the proper way. I know that the teachers that I work with and myself are constantly correcting the kids manners at school and that we should take it one step further and extend that toward their manners on the net. Students need to know just how scary in can be on the internet and how important it is to know what, when, where, and how much is appropriate to post.

Thing 20

I chose to use Simply Box for my thing. After reading the descriptions of each one, I believe that I would get the most use out of Simply Box. I found it very user-friendly after I followed all the directions and read through the materials/hints provided. The content that I chose to box was the history of fractions. In our math class, a lot of the fifth graders have been asking about the history of fractions so I thought it would be cool if I did a little research to see what I could find. There was some great material out there as you can see on my sandbox page. What I loved most about Simply Box was that it provided a link for you to go back to the site that you boxed the material from. I just love that feature, especially for bibliographies. I do plan on using Simply Box in the future. I sure do wish that I had known about Simply Box during college. Simply Box would be a great asset for all English and Language Arts teachers to share with their students.

Thing 5d

I cannot say again how much I love my Google Reader! I am on it everyday without fail and am constantly finding new stuff on there that is interesting and relevant to some aspect of my life. The article that really caught my attention this week was the article: Free Online Math Resources For Teachers from Dynamite Lesson Plans. Within the article, there is a huge list of resource sites for teachers to go to. I have found it incredibly hard to find sites that will create math worksheets with no strings attached. There was a site within the article that creates free worksheets that I have already utilized during the tutoring sessions I have. There was also a site for math games and other way cool math tools. I am really excited that I found these sites and plan on using them in the future.

Thing 19

I enjoyed creating my podcast. Actually, I enjoyed this thing more than I thought I would. I had some problems at first thinking of what I was going to talk about and then I was restricted by time. After I solved those two problems, recording, uploaded and converting was really easy. Podcasting with math might be a bit hard but I can defiantly see using podcast in the classroom. Reading, Social Studies, and Science are some of the subjects that I see that could really take advantage of this tool. How awesome would it be if you could post your lesson for the day on podcast so that students that were absent could listen and not be left behind. Some of the students that are absent a lot at my school could REALLY benefit from listening to these podcasts (since they have gotten really behind!)

Thing 18

I have always heard of podcasting but have never felt the urge or the need to explore this concept further. However, I really enjoyed searching and listening to all the different podcasts that were available to us. I listened to quite a few that were suggested from Grazr. I especially found the ones in the different subject areas interesting and enjoyable. I subscribed to the one in the history section. It would be great to use these podcast to help supplement material that was covered that day. The kids would enjoy the podcasts and the information that you find might not be in the text. Not only would you be able to keep the kids engaged, they would also be learning some very interesting material. I also thought the ones where the kids actually participated in them were really awesome. There was one podcast where the kids defined and talked about bullying and what it means to them. It was really cool to hear their definition of the word/concept. It would be amazing to have the students utilize this web tool in a project or assignment.