Thing 20

This video got my attention because the creator really used technology to his advantage.  This video contained humor but was also educational.  I thought the teacher really captured his audience's attention.  I enjoyed it and thought it was neat how he was able to edit the video of the teacher and made it look real.  I thought it was amazing how he was able to step outside of the video browser. I have never seen editing like that before. A video like this implemented into your lesson will really wow your students.  It is something that they don't see everyday and I believe any students of any age will stay focused when they watch it.   

The below link is to a cite that I explored to that I believe will be a neat tool to use in the classroom.  It is called PowToon.

http://www.powtoon.com/account/signup/

This tool turns your average PowerPoint presentations into fun and entertaining animated presentations. This will surely catch the attention of any viewer. It allows you to create videos, presentations, slideshows, and small video clips.  Any student would rather watch an animated presentation versus a PowerPoint.  This tool is fun to use and I will definitely be using this in my future classroom.

Thing 19

The best advice of social networking for educators is to definitely keep personal and business separate. You do not want to mix or intervene the two because you need a balance of work from home life.  When using social networking for education purposes use it to your advantage.  You want to use the sources to help find different lesson plans or give you ideas to assist you when teaching the curriculum.  When you find something useful share it.  Sharing is caring, so whether you share it verbally with a coworker, or "retweet", "repost", or "repin" it to the another network site, its always best to help others out. If it works for you, it may work for someone else too.  
I am a member of pinterest.  I love pinterest and recommend it others. You can find ideas on just about anything. The most recent "pin" that I found interesting was a blog titled The Top 10 Pinterest Boards for Teaching. You can find it at the link below.

http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2013/01/top-pinterest-boards-for-teachers.html

This blog is helpful because it takes you directly to other pinterest boards that have useful educational activities that were posted by other people. I have been using the Math Activities board quite a lot for the My Quest, and I plan on continuing to use social networking sites throughout my career as a teacher.  

Thing 18

https://twitter.com/punkinstar1984

Honestly, at first I was skeptical on setting up a Twitter account because I thought it was just going to be a bunch of social media drama, but in fact it is not. There is only drama where you allow for drama so if you use Twitter to your advantage and for the right reasons, then you will gain from utilizing this tool.  Upon my search for hashtags, I was able to find some really cool and useful websites.  One such site was TeachHub, which is basically a teacher collaboration community. There are lesson plan ideas, news related to education grades K-12, and different resources that you can use in the classroom. By seeing the daily post on the Twitter feed, you are able to see what is new on the actual web page. It is important that educators keep up and are familiar with social networking because it definitely keeps them up to date on current events and resources, but it also saves time and helps with lesson planning.  Teaching the same lessons can get boring.  You need diversity to keep up with times but, also you need to be able to know more than one way to teach a lesson for those children who don't understand. 

Thing 17

As a teacher I will be able to use social bookmarking and tagging when it comes to finding lesson plans or strategies that I need to revert back to.  This tool will also come in handy when it comes to collaborating with other colleagues. I will definitely use Delicious to bookmark my favorite websites that will help me as a teacher.

Tagging is what you do after you save a link to your collection. You tag it with one or more keywords to describe it. Multiple people can use the same words, so you can search for everything tagged with "technology education" or "elementary education" and get the collection of websites of everything that anyone has found using that tag.

Social bookmarking allows you to maintain a collection of useful links online.  It is very similar to the bookmarks or favorites in your browser, but they are also accessible to others because you post it on your own page. 

Thing 16

For the start up page I used two different ones.  For my laptop I use UStart, and for my tablet I use Symbaloo.  Both were really easy to setup.  I prefer Symbaloo on my tablet over UStart just because the layout is so much easier and more convenient to use, and I like UStart on my laptop because it is designed more like a regular start up on the computer which I am more familiar with and accustomed too. I also like the fact that UStart has options to allow for calendar and even the weather to be right there on the same screen as all your other interests and web pages.  This is a great tool that will keep you organized in the classroom or in your personal life. 

I use Google calendar and I love it.  This is going to be even more helpful to my family once I have my baby.  My babysitters will be able to see my schedule and know what days and times they will be needed.  An online calendar is the best way to keep your family on the same page when it comes to appointments, school and work schedules, and special events.

I have Remember the Milk application on my smart phone and highly recommend that application. It is a virtual to do list that helps me remember what I need to do whether it is my grocery list or what errands to run or what school assignments to do.   Forget the sticky notes and honey-do lists, get Remember the Milk and you won't be disappointed.

Thing 15

Teachers and students can benefit so much by using wikis.  Students can use it for studying or by collaborating their work and answers to problems that teachers have posted.   Ideal for group projects, preparing for tests, and also for the student who is absent.  For teachers wikis can be used for posting class assignments, the syllabus, and even lectures.  I have found the wiki spaces page for this class very helpful and refer to it for every class assignment.  There are so many wikis out there on the web that can be very helpful to students and teachers. Wikis are such a neat innovative web-based tool that I wish was available to me when I was in high school.  I will definitely continue to use wikis throughout the rest of my college years and going forward as I become a teacher. 

Thing 14

For Thing 14 I chose to sign up for the mind map at bubbl.us and for the flowchart I chose gliffy.com.  Out of both of them, mind map was a bit easier to construct a mind map and I have started to use this as a brainstorming and outline for a research paper that I have for my SPED3000 class.  The mind map provides a way to neatly organize note taking while it also keeps focus and interest in the subject.  Your information is not just written on a piece of note book paper.  It provides for a more convenient way of outlining notes where you can visually see information, make connections and build ideas.  Any subject you teach in school can benefit from mind maps and flowcharts.  Most people comprehend better when they can visually see what is going on.  These tools can be used in the classroom for note taking, showing math stats, going over reading comprehension, and/or comparing scientific data.  The use is endless.