The end...

My favorite discovery exercises were the ones using Flickr, Live Binders, and the Google suite.  Each of these resources are ones that I will continue to use in both my professional and private life.  I learned quite a bit through the 23 Things program and found some useful web resources.  I will be more committed to finding new web resources and using them now. I really liked some of the blogs I found this semester and plan to use them to keep up with trends in education. I also discovered how easy it is to use a blog and would consider blogging in the future. Overall this program was really helpful, although some of the activities seemed a little redundant and may have covered things too closely.  For instance, most people know how to use the Google suite of products by now.

Thing 23... Finally

The Creative Commons are a great tool.  Since we learned about them in class already, this exercise was just a review.  Under the credits area of the 23 Things for Teachers page, another author is attributed.  Someone else created the original idea and then APSU built on it for its Teacher Education program.

Creative Commons are a great tool for the classroom.  Sometimes, a teacher finds a resource on the internet. If the resource was copyrighted, the teacher could not legally use it without permission.  A Creative Commons license allows a person to make their work available for people to use, and they can even specify how the work will be used.  If I created a great WebQuest, an exceptional PowerPoint, or even an especially moving lecture,  I could use a Creative Commons license to share the material with other history teachers without charging them.  I could even specify the work not be modified and credit must be given to me, which could help maintain the integrity of my original work.

Thing 22

History Binder
The titles of my binders are History, Common Core, and Educational Technology.  Each of these binders contains some resources for each of the topics.  As a teacher Live Binders seems like a great resource, as I could easily organize all my favorite content based on subject.  If I used certain websites often, I could put them in a binder to find the information again and use the site quickly.  As a student, this site is also great.  I could very easily organize on line research or sources for a project.  I could have my students create a binder for a WebQuest or another project.  Each student could contribute to the binder, allowing students to organize their research easily.  Live Binders could also be used by students with technology in the classroom to organize notes and class resrouces.  Instead of just saving notes on a USB drive, students could save them to a cloud (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) and link that to a binder.  If the class all shared a binder, they could all post their notes in one place.  Live Binders is a great way to get your on line life organized.  I think this may be one of my favorite sites yet!

Thing 21

Copy of Fortner Video

I absolutely loved Animoto... at first. The service was so easy to use.  I created an account and got started in less than 30 seconds.  Animoto automatically uploaded all my photos from Facebook, so I could easily select from hundreds of pictures. However, I struggled a little with actually making a video, as the program kept only letting me add 7 photos.  I eventually found a theme that allowed me to add 8 photos, but that was the best I could do.  I  Although the program has great potential, I think the restrictions on the free version make it almost too difficult to use.    

I do not know that I would ever use this in the classroom.  Although the videos are of excellent quality and have tons of possibilities, I would not use this in the classroom.  I prefer pictures to be in PowerPoint, where I have more control of the formatting and more easily talk about the photo.

Thing 20

American Women in World War II Video

Youtube can be a great tool.  It is extremely easy to find thousands of videos on a topic. Finding this video wasn't too difficult, I just had to sift through quite a few results first.  This is one of the largest problems with Youtube.  The large amount of videos makes it difficult to find educational videos.  If you find a good channel on Youtube, it makes finding videos extremely easy.  The channel I pulled this video from is a personal favorite of mine.  The channel has tons of historical film from various archives.  History teachers often use PBS or History Channel videos in their classroom.  Teachers do not use primary source videos as much as they should though.  Primary source videos are an excellent resource for a teacher, as they allow students to fully immerse themselves in a time period. A primary source video, like the one above could interest students in a topic and make them want to study it more. I would use Youtube videos for this reason in the classroom extensively, especially to introduce a unit.  

I also looked at the website http://www.go2web20.net/site/?a=Glmps.  This is the website that is conncected with the Glmps App.  This app would be great for use in the classroom, as students could easily take photos of a site (or a project) and share it online.  This would be great if I was taking the class on a field trip, or if students vacationed in a historically significant site and shared their photos/videos with the class.  

Thing 19

I guess I knew other social networks existed, but I never really explored more than Facebook and Twitter for my personal use.  I already love Pinterest and can easily spend the afternoon pinning various items.  I absolutely loved Pinterest for Teachers!!! It had a ton of great resources and classroom ideas.  I was a little disappointed that their was not a board  for High School History, but the board for Middle School Social Studies was also really useful and had a lot of ideas for the classroom.  There were some lesson plans for teaching Ancient Egypt, which would be a wonderful resource for me, as ancient history is not my specialty area at all.  I followed all the board that were included in Pinterest for Teachers so I would be updated on new resources and could easily find all that information again.  I really liked Bakespace too, but I don't think I would use it much in the classroom (unless I baked for the class!).

Thing 18

Social networking.... We love, We hate, We cannot live without it!  Social networking has become an everyday part of life.  Almost everyone using Facebook now (even my grandparents!).  Twitter has become more popular, most especially for younger people.  Teenagers love Twitter.  Twitter allows them to quickly share their thoughts and pictures.  I have a teenage brother and he loves to tell me Facebook is only for parents and old people now.  Twitter is the new, cool thing.  Educators must understand what their students are doing in life.  This applies not only to their home life but social media.  No one wants to be that teacher who sounds out of touch with reality because you don't have any clue what Twitter is.  I have used Twitter quite a bit, although I still don't use it on a daily basis.  So, I didn't learn much about Twitter in general.  However, I did look at Twitter a little bit differently.  I never thought about using Twitter to find more out about education.  There are links to TONS of educational articles and links to websites that could be helpful.  Its really fast and easy to go through these posts which contain a lot of useful information.  I do not know if I would actually use Facebook or Twitter in the classroom.  I believe the potential for students to be off task is just too much.  Students would chat with friends or catch up on their Twitter feed more than they would do any actual work.