Is it the end or only the beginning?!

This is only the beginning for me and my use of technology! In all honesty I had a lot of fun with the 23 things this semester. I enjoyed using Flickr and YouTube, but by far my favorite learning activity has been creating this blog as a whole. I have enjoyed the writing process and discovering new technologies to use in my future classroom. I cannot wait to discover other fun ways to incorporate these exercises to my teaching, and my own personal learning as I myself continue in my education. I am surprised at how much I learned about programs and technologies that I did not even know existed. I thought I was pretty technologically savvy, but now I realize that I only knew it at surface level. I do not think that there is anything that needs improvement, because I think that everything is explained well and is very informative. I have found it very useful to keep updated with the RSS feeds that I have decided to follow. I am ecstatic to jump into the process of teaching with all of the tools that I have been given, and I will definitely teach my students as much about technology as possible. My resolution is to write a new post on my blog once every two weeks. Just to stay updated with everything, and to keep delving into the world that is technology. This experience has been a great and exciting journey.

Thing 23!!!!!!!

Yes! Finally, I am on my thing 23! Our Learning 2.0-23Things for Teachers blog was originally an idea based off of this link http://misd23things.blogspot.com/2008/05/about-learning-20-23-things.html
I found this information under the blog post titled About Learning 2.0-23Things for Teachers.

Creative Commons is an amazing resource to have as a future educator. In the future I will be checking on this website for resources that I know I am allowed to use, and the proper credit that I must pay them in order to use them. This is a source that I will teach my future students about so that they too can do the right thing and give credit where it is due. It is important to learn from an early age that it is wrong to play off someone else's ideas as your own.

Thing 22 :) Almost there!!

Livebinders is an amazing organizational tool that helps organize tools, websites, and sources into one consolidated place. I love this website, because it is like having an actual binder without having to carry it around or keep up with it over a period of time. I made three binders one for my educational technology. In this binder I placed links to sites that we have been using like Diigo, Livetext, and Austin Peay. In the second binder, I titled it Sped 3000, I placed resources and informational sites that will help me with my Special Education research paper on visual impairments. The last binder, I included a link, I entitled Educational Sources and Sites for Teaching. In this you will see that I have tabs for different links. One for teachers, and the other a tab that has sites for the students. In the future I would love to have binders for the classes I teach and keep up with important documents, and helpful resources over the years.

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=372063

Thing 21! :) My Animoto Video

I love projects that involve saving memories! This website is not only a great personal attribute, but is also an educational tool that can be used in classrooms. I could make videos about what ever subject I am teaching and have each student look at them. This website was extremely user friendly, and I might even purchase a better membership, because I really liked the way it worked. Here is a video of some photos that I have taken this past year.

My Animoto Video

Thing 20 :) YouTube!!

I love YouTube, and I am one of the biggest fans and supporters for it. It is a great web source where one can find anything from the latest music videos, news clips, t.v.shows, and even educational videos. I love watching music videos on a playlist while I am studying, and the little commerecials are not even that bad to sit through. All in all I think that it is an amazing source if varying information, and can be useful in the classroom. I am posting this video by Julian Smith, because although it is not educational, it is commical. I felt as though all of us could use a laugh this close to finals. I hope you enjoy!

Thing 19!

Social networks are expanding and growing more everyday. Almost everday there is something new that comes out for social networking. Whether it be through updates on Facebook or Twitter, or new sites like Pinterest. Social Networking is by far the most popular form of technology use as of today. I myself am not a fan of Facebook, so I do not have one, but I do know that everyone always looks surprised when I say that I don't have one. Although I am not a fan of Facebook, I am an active member of the Pinterest community, and I have slowly become addicted. Pinterest is a place to find things that interest you in categories and when you find something you like you re-pin it and add it to your boards. I love the idea of Pinterest because I have found so many cute ideas for crafts and projects that I can use a future educator. As for teacher pop, it was fun to comment and post on, and I think it is a neat way to communicate between fellow teachers.

Thing 18- Let's Tweet!!

Twitter has grown into a social media force to be reckoned with! At this point it is almost at equal popularity with Facebook, if not it has surpassed it. Twitter and Facebook are forms of social media that most educators at the beginning were skeptical about using for educational purposes. It is understandable because the main purpose in creating these sites to begin with was for interacting with friends and staying connected with what is going on in their lives. Although these are some uses and although they can have negative effects like cyber bullying, they can also be educational and useful technology for the classroom. I did not really learn anything new with Twitter, I have had one before but got rid of it. I was not enjoying it as much as others, but I can also the educational things that come from it. I think that Facebook definitely offers more features, but that Twitter is more educational. They can both be used as tools to keep parents informed on what is going on in the classroom, but also as tools for finding educational resources.
@ShelbzRogers is my username!

thing 17 !

Bookmarking makes it easy to find things when you need to save them for a later time, or when you are in the middle of researching and are working on finding articles and outside information over a period of time instead of one setting. Well, the site Delicious has been created to help us all with this problem. Through the site you can join for free, and make an account. Through this account you can search for anything in particular and the information will pop up in order of most relevant. Along with each source are the tags that show what words were related to your search. When searching educational technology in Delicious most of the tags were the same. Some were science, education, technology, research, and resources. Plus, you can see comments left by other users on the relevance of the resource and whether or not it was helpful. I think that this is a resource that I would tell my students they could use on their own time, but no one in the classroom. It is something that I myself will definitely be using in the future.

Thing 16!

Customizing a home page never really seemed interesting to me, until I learned of the different benefits and tools that iGoogle had to offer. It is intriguing to me that I can set up one page that has everything that is geared right towards the user. I can add my favorite music groups and other interests, and add widgets or tools that I know I will use. From now on every time I get on the Internet I am not just brought to a generic home page that has useless information, but instead I can go to straight to things that are of interest to me. This could be a useful tool for computers in the classroom because I know exactly what my students will see when they open up the Internet on the homepage.
The use of calenders and to-do lists through these applications and widgets will be extremely beneficial to me as a future educator, because I can give the parents and students fun and creative calenders and check lists to keep them up to date on what is going on in the classroom, and also when assignments are due.  I recommend exploring all of the above tools, because they are all great and useful!