Thing 12 and 13: Discovering and Using Youtube

Youtube is probably the most popular Web 2.0 player available right now. I haven't used it very much, but I do go to it sometimes to listen to music. After browsing the site, I found a really cute video of two little boys dancing to a song. Here is is:


There are many applications for Youtube in the classroom. It has everything from videos about plants and animals to really cute songs to use in your Kindergarten classroom. Because I am not a big fan of singing, I will definitely use some of the videos/songs on here when I teach.

The video I chose to upload to Youtube is my TEASe video from Educational Applications of Technology. It was meant to be used for a Science unit on animal characteristics. Here it is:


I think having teaching/learning videos available online is an awesome resource for teachers to use in the classroom. The internet is accessible almost anywhere now so these videos can be accessed almost instantly. If you students are having a hard time grasping a concept, you can pull up a video to help them. You can also use these videos to show experiment you may not be able to do in the classroom or videos of historical events.
Uploading student created work to Youtube could be a fun thing for students. It would give them a sense of pride in their work and they will be able to show it to as many people as they want. I think students would work harder and put more effort into something if they knew it was going to be posted on Youtube when it was finished.

Thing 11: Web 2.0 Tools

The Web 2.0 tool i explored from SEOmoz Web 2.0 Tools list was Etsy. It is a really cool website where people can make an account to buy or sell items online. Many of the things you find on this website are handmade or vintage, which is really cool. There are a lot of features i like on this website. I really like how many different categories there are to search through. This helps narrow down searches and make searching less time consuming. There are not many things you can do with this in a classroom, but one idea I had was a fundraiser. Students could make handmade jewelry or art to sell for a good cause.

The second Web 2.0 tool i explore is if then then that. This Web 2.0 tool allows users to make tasks that say if (something happens) then (something else happens). For example, I used a task that said "if someone uploads a picture to my facebook, then add the file to my dropbox." It is a really interesting idea. Other tasks I found would email you if it is going to rain or tweet my facebook status updates. I like this web 2.0 tool, but I don't know how often I would use something like it. Students could use this in the classroom for weather purposes or to get news updates.

Thing 10: Online Productivity Tools

Zoho Writer is a web-based application that allows users to make and edit documents resembling Word documents. I really like this tool because it is easy to use and it is very similar to Microsoft Word. Zoho Writer allows you to write, import pictures, and export document to share with others. I think this would be very useful for teachers who are collaborating to make worksheets or projects for students because each teacher can edit the documents from anywhere. I made a document for fun with pictures of my dogs in their Halloween costumes.
My Zoho Document

Thing 9: Play with Wiki's

I really enjoyed reading the Technology Poppers Wiki. It has lots of great ideas for incorporating technology into the classroom and various different grade levels. I really liked the idea about looking at a weather site daily in your classroom. These sites have a lot of great information about the weather and many students probably do not get to see the weather on the news or in the newspaper. I also liked the idea about students making thier own puzzles online to create crossword puzzles for review. 

I added a comment about a game called Shape Spin. This game can be used online or on a smart board. The students really love it because it is interactive and once you touch the correct shape, it spins around and turns into something different. This game can be used in whole group instruction and individually for review. 

Thing 8: Wiki's

I browsed all of the educational Wiki links that worked, and I really liked what i found. These websites have taken information that is relevant to specific subjects, such as libraries and education, and put it all together in one place for easy browsing. I really liked Book Lovers Wiki. It is a wiki that has reviews on books and short stories. I also liked the Lee County Schools Wiki. This wiki has information about the schools curriculum, goals, and lessons. This would be a good thing for all school districts to have because it is easy to use and easy to filter through the information. I think a wiki of lesson plans would be useful to teachers because it is hard to find good lesson plan ideas thorough Google search. Making a wiki would allow people to get rid of bad lessons and irrelevant information, and it would be easier to look thorough everything. Teachers could add lessons and ideas as they wish, but someone would need to be responsible for editing. I am a really big fan of wikis. I use Wikipedia all of the time, and I also use Wikia to look up information about games, movies, and other stuff.

Thing 7: Image Generators

The first Image Generator I used was Wordle. This Image Generator allows you to paste text into in and it will create a word cloud for you. You  can also paste a link from any blog and it will make a world cloud with posts. The cool thing is that the more often a word is used, the larger it appears on the word cloud. Here is the word cloud I made from my 16 Things blog.

This tool can be used by students in many different ways. Students can use it to consolidate information on a website or blog to find out what is mentioned the most. Students can also use this to find the main idea of a body of text, such as a section from their text book. One assignment I would have my students do with this image generator is to create a cloud about themselves. This can be done at the beginning of the year to help students introduce themselves to the other students. 

The next image generator I played with was FlipSnack. This is an image generator that allows you to create a flip book of pictures. There are a couple of things I did not like about this website, such as it only takes PDFs. None of my pictures are saved as PDFs, so I had to convert all of them. The website is also kind of slow uploading pictures. Another issue I had was embedding the flip book in my blog. When I viewed it on the website it worked fine, but once embedded, it did not have all the photos. I made a flip book with pictures of my turtles. Here is the link because it could not get it to work properly in my blog. 

There are a lot of different ways students can use this image generator. Students can collect pictures about whatever topic they are researching and make a flip book. In younger grades, the teacher can take pictures of students work and make a class flip book. One assignment that can be done with this image generator is to have students collect pictures on a specific topic. They can then put the pictures in chronological order or in some order that they can present or talk about. 

Thing 6: RSS and Newsreaders

I originally had a lot of trouble trying to understand RSS and Newsreaders. After playing with it, I decided it is not something I can see myself using very often in the future because I feel like  I would forget to look at my blogline. If I could get into the habit of checking it, I think it would be a nice thing to have everything I want to see in one place.

Thing 5: Mashups

After exploring many different mashups, I really liked BigHugeLabs.com. The application I used was Framer. This app allows you to take pictures from your Flickr account and add different kinds of borders and frames.

Thing 4: Flickr

A Night at Mt. Rainier - Part 4 - 8:43pm, a photo by David M Hogan on Flickr.


I had never used Flickr before today, but it is actually really cool. It is a great way to share your pictures with friends or even with the world. It is a great resource to have because the quality of the photos are much better than what you would get from searching Google. I found a library a guy made that has amazing photos from his hiking and camping trips. The picture above is my favorite photo in his library. 

Thing 3: Photos and Images

This weekend my boyfriend's sister got married so there were about 220 pictures taken with my camera. These are some of my favorite pictures.

This is me dancing with my boyfriend's 10 year old cousin. He is too cute.

This is my boyfriend, David, and me at the reception.

More dancing with the cousins. 

Thing 2: Blogging

I made a blog once, and posted once. That was about 6 years ago. That is all the experience I have had with blog making. I read blogs on a regular basis, though. I love looking at blogs about cooking and baking, and a good friend of mine has a blog about running marathons and competing in triathlons. I always thought making my own blog would be too much effort and would take too much time. I found that using blogger.com was actually very easy and fast. I set up my blog within a matter of minutes and found a background I liked on the website. I decided to keep my page simple so it would not be overwhelming for people to look at, and I am happy with how it turned out.

Thing 1: Lifelong Learning

The  7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners was very interesting to watch. I learned that I have a some qualities of a lifelong learner, but there are areas I can improve on to become a better lifelong learner. The 7 1/2 habits include:
1. Begin with the end in mind.
2. Accept responsibility for your own learning.
3. View problems as challenges.
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner.
5. Create your own learning toolbox.
6. Use technology to your advantage.
7. Teach/mentor others.
7 1/2. Play!

After viewing the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners, the habit "View problems as challenges" is the easiest for me. Instead of looking at problems as a bad thing, I try to be positive and look at problems as a challenge. This helps me get things done and be happy while doing it. The habit that I need the most work on is "Accept responsibility for your own learning." Sometimes I lack initiative to try new things, and I feel like this a big obstacle for me.

I hope to become a better lifelong learner in the future and to teach my future students to be lifelong learners as well.

Here is a link to my Learning Contract.