Thing 5

I will not be around my computer next week so I am going to thing 5 now. What I liked about wiki is that you are able to collectively discuss plans and ideas to meet the common goal. I liked that you can use it in the classroom to encourage student involvement with notes, ideas, projects, and even test. To me, blogs are more for social communication and it is harder to discuss and make plans. You post an idea and people comment back, then you have to go back and change your idea. With wiki you can post your idea and have it changed as you go along from people editing it with their comments. Wiki is a faster more effective tool to use in group planning, projects, and classroom information. Students can benefit from using wikis by learning and teaching other students. They can use wikipedia to get information. They can share their ideas and information and keep building on that idea with information from others.It can be a constant learning and teaching process that can be fun along the way. The wiki I liked the most was the 2nd grade wiki. It was a neat page full of color and information. It used the mushing we just learned about. I liked that it had all subjects listed and you can check them all out. It was kept current even though it is summer. I like that the students posted stories or things that happened to them and drew pictures of themselves. It is interesting and it would capture the interest of the students. I did not like the wikinomics. For me it did not capture my eye. I felt it was a little bit difficult to read or understand. I guess I like colorful fun looking wikis. I think wikipediahas a place in the classroom if it is used properly. It is a great learning tool that the students can gather good information. On the other hand, if the students misuse it or don't understand how to use it, it cannot be a good thing. The teacher would have to set guidelines when using wiki and wikipedia. I myself feel like I need to learn more about it to use it properly and effectively in my classroom. From what I leaned about it so far, is that it is a tool to use personally and professionally.

Thing 4

I really liked using flickr. I did not know that there is a website to backup or upload your photos to the web for everyone to see. It is nice that you can have your setting to private or public. I like all of the ideas flickr gives you for editing, posting, making books, and etc. Image generators is a neat way to make everything more interesting. I really liked the mosaic generator. It is a cool way to display photos that have something in common. I like the use of tag words to help you find photos or images. It is very easy to use and it pulled up cool photos. I use the tag word beautiful for my flickr photo and it pulled up many cool photos. I liked the Caribbean photo above for many reasons. The first reason is that is just a pretty picture. The next is that it reminds me of my honeymoon and all the fun we had. The last reason is that I wish I were there now. I can see students using this tool because it opens to door to see photos of places they may never see. Students can take photos of places they been and share them with their friends using flickr. They can create a photo book of their class for memories of that year. They can pick and choose the photos that the teacher or other students have taken to create this memory book. They can use the image generator to add creative touches to their book. I did not know that there was a Creative Commons License. The students need to know this to give them the rights they need as users. They would need to know which photos need to have the permission of the owner to use and ones that they can use with certain limits. The mosaic image generator was my favorite. I did create a mosaic of sunsets but could not get it to copy over to my blog. I also liked the spell generator. It is like the framed picture letters of my last name in my house. It is also neat that you can change the letters just by clicking on them. It would be neat to make a mosaic of the the students doing basketball activities or any other type of activity. Or at the end of the year have each student create a mosaic of themselves to do p.e. activities. They can make trading cards of themselves doing an activity and trade them with their friends. There is so much you can do with flickr and image generator that the ideas or endless. I think it would be a neat hands on activity for the students to enjoy.

Thing 3

Here goes with the 2nd try. I was almost done with it and my computer froze, so now to start over.I like using social media sites to keep in touch with friends and find out what is going on in the world. I already was a member of facebook, but only did the easy stuff on it. From doing thing 3, I learned that facebook has so much more to offer. I like using this site, it keeps me informed from day to day activities. I never been a fan of twitter, but i know there are advantages to using that site. For me, I would rather use facebook to communicate with people than the phone or face to face. Sometimes you get the answer faster than any other way. Some of the positive sides are easier to communicate, can get ideas from groups that you join, and you can do so much more while you are on the computer. The negative is that all your information is out there for anyone to see. If you are not careful and know what you are doing your information can be accessed for the wrong thing. Students are more advanced with technology and understand the uses of these sites. For some it is easier to learn from these sites than in normal classroom setting. They can look up information on a topic and have all the details discussed in a matter of minutes instead of days. They have access to so much more by using these sites than back in the day. There is interactive learning and if you were absent you will not miss anything if teachers used these sites. All classrooms need to be equipped to encourage this type of learning. I love using facebook, but now I learned new ways to expand its use. I can become a better teacher by incorporating ideas and strategies from the groups I joined. There is always something to be learned and these sites can do it.

Thing 2

WOW!!! There is so much information and ideas web 2.0 provides. It is very interesting to see where technology is taking us in the classroom and in our personal lives. What surprises me is that there is so much available for us to use. There is a wide variety in web 2.0 for anyone to use and be successful at it. It is an eye opener that more and more people are using the web to get information about everything. I hope to learn more ways I can use web 2.0 for my personal and professional use. I can use web 2.0 tools as a way to communicate with students. To bring in information and interaction about any physical actives and health and fitness. Maybe follow a person's journey on cycling, training for a marathon, etc. The students these days are technology oriented and will be able to use web 2.0 in all school activities and in their daily lives. The students will constantly be learning about everything with web 2.0. These tools open new doors for me. I can experience more of what the web has to offer because now I am a minimal user of it. The students can share ideas easier with each other. They can communicate through the web and complete group tasks in a more efficient way. Being able to integrate subjects together will help the students to learn and grow in school. They will have information they need to be successful. The school environment in "A a day in the life of web" can be possible if everyone gets on board and does it. For now at Smithville ISD we need to up to date technology for everyone and more of it. We would have to train everyone on the uses of web 2.0. Which should not be hard. The main thing would be for everyone to use it.

Thing 1

By learning 8 things, I hope to have a better understanding of a blog and how to use it. I would like to use a blog as communication tool as well as something that is fun to use and look at. Creating and designing a blog is not hard, it just takes time and creativity. I liked the information from the day to day activities. It made you feel like you were apart of the learning enviroment. I liked the pictures and videos from some of the blogs. It is a nice way to show what is going on in the classroom and around the school. Some of the blogs had information and pictures about the animals they learned about. I did not like all the extra stuff, like ads, it made the blog look to busy. I like the simplicity of blogs that are easy to read. Having my thoughs and words posted on the internet make me more aware of what I write. I have to make sure of what I am trying to say comes across the correct way. If it is not worded correctly someone can take what I am saying the wrong way. I can create a p.e. blog to communicate with students, parents, and elementary staff. I can use it as an informative tool on health and nutrition. I can post important informaion about what is going on in class. I feel that learning how to create and use a blog is a good thing.