ONE LAST THING..

I thoroughly enjoyed the class. I have never really been good with computers, but I realized it was because I had never pushed myself to really discover new things with the computer. My favorite thing with this class was creating this blog. I realized what a great teaching tool this could be and plan on continuing my blog and finding a way to incorporate it into my teaching. I think that my middle school students will really enjoy this. I have enjoyed watching people view my blogs and posting comments. I realize that to be an effective teacher I am going to have to indulge the computer age as this is what is most effective with our kids.

I'm very glad that I took this course and feel that Debbie was very helpful in giving me feedback and guiding me through the course. I will recommend this to my other friends in hopes to create more active learning.

THING 15

DELICIOUS....

I had some trouble tagging during this thing. Well, I had trouble coming up with the tag names that would help me remember the sites I chose to tag. You want to pick something specific enough to help you remember why you decided to tag that website in the first place. Since the specifications for tagging is so unstructured, it was difficult for me to complete this part. I like more rules so that I know I did it exactly right. I think that it is so awesome that someone created a site solely dedicated to helping people find resources. Instead of having to search the site over and over again for resources, here is a one stop shop to find resources that you may need.

I could see me using this in my professional life because I am always looking for new and enriching resources to help me develop lesson plans or gain new insights to my field. This is a great place for me to go to find resources that have been tagged by other people that I might not have found to begin with.

Here is a link to my delicious account

http://delicious.com/texasteacher12

THING 21

GOOGLE TOOLS...

First I created a Google Calender in my Gmail account. Here is a link to it: GOOGLE CALNEDER FOR SHIANN SCHEU I desperately need to keep my everyday life mapped out in a calender. If I do not write it down, then I will forget it. This tool will be extremely helpful for me, particularly because it is mobile. I can access it from my phone and do not have to tote around an actual calender. Having students keep a Google calender would be helpful because at the middle school level (which is what I teach) students struggle with organization. I tell them everyday that it helps to write things down on a calender, especially things like science project due dates.

The second tool I chose to play around with was Google Custom Search. I set up a search for news on several different websites I chose and that I frequent. A link to my custom search is here: CUSTOMSEARCHPOLITIC This could be a great resource for student projects. If you only want them to look at particular sites, then you could set up this custom search engine before you give the students full reign on their projects to make sure they are only going to the particular websites and searching for a particular topic.

THING 18

TEACHER TUBE.....

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS!!

I found so many cool videos on teacher tube for Math. I did not think I was going to be able to find anything for Math, but I found an awesome Math rap song featuring perimeter and area.

Here it is....

I also found a video explaining how to multiply fractions. I definately plan on using these videos in my classroom because it gives the students some excitement, something different instead of always the same old same old thing. I thought this rap video would be so funny for the kids to watch, but still gets the point accross.

The videos are a great way to insert technology into your classroom to get the students engaged!

THING 14

WORDLE......

http://wordle.net

The tool I chose for Thing 12 was to create a Wordle. What it is..you enter words and it makes like a cool puzzle out of the words...I inputed a ton of math vocabulary words and created a really cool picture...

I thought this tool would be great for doing a vocabulary review. You could have the kids input the words on their wordle, but have to say the definition as they are putting the words into their wordle..Or you could have each could create a wordle and then swap them between classmates and have them write the definitions to those words in the wordle...

This could be a collaborative activity if you asked them to create a WORDLE together, but more importantly you can share your WORDLE with everyone. You can publish your WORDLE and it go out all over the world wide web for all to see. This would be really cool for the students to see that what they did, everyone in the world whom uses WORDLE can see!!!:)

THING 9

SANDBOX WIKI...

I had a lot of fun doing this activity....I struggled with editing the page at first because I could not figure out what was meant by Heading 1 and Heading 2 or 3. I just kept looking through the tools until I found out where they were.

Here is the link to my page in the sandbox...It is titled AggiesRUS...http://misd23things.wikispaces.com/AggiesRUS

I thought this was a really cool excercise...especially I enjoyed looking at everyone else's sandbox page. It was really trial and error for me. I had to keep playing with the toolbar to see what each tool did. It was really similar to that of Microsoft Word...but there were a few different tools...

THING 20

GOOGLE DOCS.....

I really enjoyed playing around with the Google Docs program because I do not have Microsoft Office on my home computer, but like they said I can use this for free!!! Google Docs is very user friendly. I was able to figure out how to change the font, insert a table, change background colors very easily. It is pretty much the same as Microsoft Word. I find this a very useful tool for an education setting. I have come up with several uses for Google Docs in my classroom. First, I will have my students use Google Docs to explain in their own words a topic that we have recently covered. I will require them to use several different features, including insert a table, change the font color, as well as font sizes. Also, I will have them each create their own math quiz using Google Docs. Then they will share these quizzes with the other students. Each student will be required to find and complete two quizzes other than their own. Finally, I will use the spreadsheets in order to keep up with each of my students progress as we continue to grow closer to TAKS, including their milestone scores, as well as benchmark scores.

THING 19

VOICETHREAD.....

I watched many of the Voicethreads presented in Thing 19. I particularly liked the one titled, "WHAT IS A FUNCTION..." because I am a math teacher and have found my students greatly benefit from explicit instruction (word for word explanation) as is shown in this voicethread.

I also liked the one titled, MEASURING WEIRD OBJECTS because each student got to contribute something to the presentation using their very own voices.

I really liked this idea and look forward to incorporating it into my classroom. I feel that technology really gets the students going and when they get a chance to add their own touch to the assignments then they really get involved. I will use this along with the podcasts for my area, perimeter, and volume assignment that my students will do. I will have them add their voices to explain during their podcasts.

This is a great tool to get students involved and learning.

THING 17

PODCASTING....

I viewed several different podcasts including: Jamestown Elementary's Famous Americans Podcasts... I thought these were awesome because the students could put themselves into their learning and create their own podcasts. I absolutely loved these.

I also viewed Bob & Rob Show...Lesson 155. I thought these were quite interesting and educational as well.

The directory that I primarily used was the Education Podcast Network. I have never seen Podcasts used in an educational setting before so this was very exciting for me. I was able to find many great educational podcasts using this directory. I am curious to search other directories out there to see how informational they are as well.

I will definately begin to use Podcasting in my classroom as part of my attempt to make my classroom more technology friendly. As we have discussed before, students love to get involved when they can use technology. I plan on having my students create their own podcasts over Perimeter, Area, and Volume when we get to that chapter during the year. They will use their podcast to explain when to use perimeter, area, and volume.

THING 16

Library Thing....I have to admit that I am not much of a reader (sorry to all the librarians that are doing this class)! However, I must say that I did find this Library Thing website very helpful. I absolutely loved the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series and I loved the feature on the Library THing where you can type in a book that you have read and it suggests other books that you might like to read. I am also in graduate school and have to do a lot of research and I can see how this website will save my life with my upcoming thesis paper. I love to be able to type in topics and the websites do all the work for me!

As for my classroom, I am not sure how I would incorporate the Library Thing in math, but I can see how it would be extremely helpful for reading teachers, especially the group feature. You could have your students start their own group and list all of the books they read throughout the year as well as add a mini blog about what the book was about and what they enjoyed most about the book.

THING 13

I made images using the Trading Card Maker and Mosaic Maker. My image for the trading card is here with the fire background: This was actually really easy. You just click on this link: http://bighugelabs.com/deck.php and you can begin to upload your photos to whatever background and trading card you choose. I chose the fire background because this is a picture of my husband at his fire station. The next image I created was with Mosaic Maker. With the Mosaic Maker you can make a collage of all different kinds of photos, including your own photos in your library. I used two photos of me one of my wedding and the other of my wedding shower to create like a mini collage. The picture is to the left. It was also easy to create. You go back to the website: http://bighugelabs.com/mosaic.php. From here you just upload your own files to the mosaic maker or you can use some from Flickr. I found this to be a great experience because I felt one could use this for many uses in the classroom as well as personal uses. In the classroom, wouldn't this be a great way for students to add their own creativity to an assignment. For example, in math I could ask them to create a collage using the Mosaic Maker of all different equilateral triangles to see if they understand what an equilateral triangle is. I have found in education that the more students can add their own into an assignment, the better they do. For personal use, I found this very helpful. You could use the Trading Card maker to make shower invitations and such things and you would be able to add your own personal touch to the mix.

THING 23

I just got done exploring Classroom 2.0, and found many things to be valuable on this educator social networking site. I was scrolling through the Forums and found a woman teacher asking for any pointers on a "paperless" classroom. I thought to myself, I wonder what she means by that and who posted comments on her forum. So I clicked on it. I found many comments to her forum from educators around the world, and I thought to myself what an excellent source for educators to get comments/ideas from people all over the world from all different genres of teaching! I could definately see how these educator social networking sites could be of great help to educators. What an excellent tool to use to share ideas that worked or ideas that might work in classrooms. I found this a very useful tool that I added into my Gooogle Reader so I can spend some time weekly going through the forums and looking at all the educators comments/ideas and also responding with my thoughts.

THING 7B

When I was looking at classroom 2.0, the social networking site for teachers, I found a lady that asked for any pointers on going "paperless" in the classroom. Then I found a link to this Blog The Innovative Educator. It talks about this teacher in Manhattan that goes "green" in the classroom and the classroom becomes virtually paperless because everything is done through computers and via projectors. The students carry around a flash drive and all things are done via laptops. I found this an incredibly interesting thing. I thought I bet this classroom is incredibly engaging. No more pencils and paper and boring book that the students don't really care about, but fully engaging them in the technology that they are all accustomed to! I hope that this is going to be the wave of the future. I hope that all schools take a good hard look at this and realize the potential impact this could have on our students!

THING 22

Social Networking. I already have a facebook account created. The link is Shiann Scheu. I think it is important for educators to know about these social networking sites because this is what our kids are all about. You can ask any student from around 5th all the way to high school ,and they will all tell you that they either have a facebook account, myspace account, or both. As an educator you can use these new technologies to inspire your students, but you have to be careful with such networking sites because not all information is filtered. I like that you can establish security settings where only your friends can see your profile. I think this is important because of privacy. As an educator, we must set an example, and you have to be careful how you present yourself on these social networks. I do not like that you people can get on there and keep making status updates and when you log on you have pages and pages of updates to weed through...most of the updates are not even interesting, but will be about now washing my car or something. Again, this could be a useful site, but one has to be careful under the realm of educaiton as not all information on these social networking sites are filtered.

THING 12

Okay...I think I did it...here is my slideshow: http://www.rockyou.com/show_my_gallery.php?source=ppsl&instanceid=154337463

The pictures are as follows: The brown building was called Natchez, Miss The link is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179061292/ It is from the Library of Congress. The planet sphere picture's link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2941498070/ It was from the Smithsonian and the name of it is: The fifth planet from the sun

as seen at a distance of about 400 million miles. The third picture was that of a clothes line and it's link is as follows:http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkreileder/2973224980/ The author is Jurgen Kreileder. I will use this to show them real life examples of two dimensional and three dimensional shapes.

THING 11

This photo is by Uploaded on October 25, 2008
by Jürgen Kreileder Here is the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkreileder/2973224980/

I loved this activity because there is so many wonderful photos that you can use for classroom projects/ideas/presentations. My idea for this photo was to use it when we start talking about Quadrilaterals to show them what parallel lines look like, especially a real world example which they all need. Another way I plan on using Flickr is when we start studying triangles, as well as three dimensional shapes so they can connect their learning with real world examples. I would not normally put so much effort into searching for photos for a lesson, but now that I have done it I can see how useful Flickr can be for educators.

THING 7(A)

I found this on one of my readers, School Matters blog. The title alone will ignite a fire under many teachers, "Memphis city schools line up merit pay..." The blog is at http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2009/10/headline-memphis-city-schools-line-up.html. So Memphis is teaming up with the Gates family hoping to revamp the educational system. They want to make the education system resemble those of corporate based systems that follow market guidelines and such. This will be a great "bait" for many future educators, who do not know what they are getting themselves into. Anyone that would push merit based pay has not been teaching recently when the tests are getting harder and our students seem to be left behind. If they want to offer merit based pay on top of a salary, then I am all for that, but just going solely to merit based pay is unreasonable and I feel will hurt the education system in the long run. I'll be watching this blog for further information on this topic.

THING 10

Okay, so we all get that speech every year about copyright laws. It is usually during staff development and it is usually long and boring. However, this particular "thing 10" got me thinking. I might actually need to pay attention to the cc logo more often. Everyone thinks that copyright is something they don't do, but really it involves very touchy things. If you use even a small part of someone's work, even if it be images, you have to put their name on it. If you copy multiple things out of a book and make mass copies, you have to put their names on the parts that you used. Copyright can be very tricky! We need to teach our kids about it, just like we are taught. However, it might be helpful to teach it in a more interesting way rather than a typical boring power point!

I do use digital photos and videos in my teaching, but always make sure that the cc logo is somewhere on them. I make sure to give credit to those who made these photos/videos in order for me to use them. When you ask students to make projects which include photos/videos, it is important to tell them that they must include the author's name and publication in order to avoid copyright infiringement.

THING 8

At the beginning of the school year, we were introduced to Wiki, but I just kind of brushed it off thinking ok I have way too much to do to worry about another thing on my plate! However, I got involved in this class, and it has really opened my mind up to the endless realm of possibilities of technology. I would love to create, and WILL create a Wiki for my students. I want them to be able to share information with one another, and all of their different ideas! It is so great when I am teaching, and one of my students will give me a different way to solve it then I had ever thought! I want them to be able to teach each other like they have been able to teach me!

THING 7

Commenting...I'm not a woman of many words. I do not always voice my opinion when I read things that either inspire me or ignite a fire in me. Instead of responding with words, I tend to reflect inward! It is hard for me to give my comments because I generally want to fly under the radar so to speak. I am definately not one to rock the boat! However, after reading and posting comments for this class, I have come to realize how helpful people's comments can really be. It can provide great constructive criticism, and help you create ideas from other people's ideas. It really is a great way to communicate. I have really had to come out of my comfort zone for this class, and it has been an amazing experience!

THING 6

I subscribed to a feed called I want to teach forever. This is a blog full of extremely helpful information for specifically math teachers, which I am. I scrolled through all of the blogs and found some extremely helpful information on things such as how to make tutoring more exciting, and new creative ways to teach certain topics. Not only was this blog extremely helpful, but I really enjoyed searching for blogs that interested me and subscribing to them. It is amazing how many wonderful ideas one can get from other people just by reading the feeds. I feel that the Reader is an extremely helpful tool for me to stay current on my issues that I am interested in. I will definately continue to subscribe to feeds that I am interested in.

THING 5

I found this on the Infinite Thinking Machine Feed. It is about this little girl in Oklahoma that posted this YouTube video about President Obama's Speech. Her mom is writing about having to go through all of the comments and decided which ones to allow to post. In this feed she states that she is glad that her child was open-minded enough to see the speech and that the little boy in her class needs to open his mind up. The little boy said he wasn't allowed to watch Obama's speech because he was a Republican. Now, I did not agree with Sarah's mothers comment. I think that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. Whether it be Republican or Democrat, it is important for you to decide for yourself what ideas you want to believe in and be associated with. That is what makes America great is that we get to decide. So what if the little boy's parents said he couldnt see it. That is their belief, and that is how they best see fit to care for their family, just as Sarah's parents felt she needed to see the video. I feel that we should always reserve the right to choose what we want to believe in and what's best for our families.

Criteria for moderating comments on a viral video

by infinitethinking@gmail.com (Infinite Thinking Machine)

2 people liked this

THING 4

I am knew to the world of blogging, and I am very impressed at the many things one can do with blogging. It is a wonderful way for different people to express their different ideas/opinions. I think that diversity is a wonderful thing, and we all have something to learn from everybody. Blogging is a great way to learn from others.

As a teaching tool, I think that blogging encourages students to take ownership of their learning. It is important that students have stock in their education, and having them blog is a innovative way to keep them involved in their education. As with this class, blogging takes some time to think and respond. After all, everyone can read your thoughts. I feel that blogging encourages ingenuity and thoughtfulness which is something that all of our students could benefit from.

THING 1

It is amazing to me the technology that our 21st century learners have come to know and depend on. In fact, many of my students can tutor me on the technology i use in my classroom. It is so important for educators to incorporate the newest 21st century technologies, as this is what our kids are used to. Technology is a powerful tool to get the attention of our students, not to mention get the 21st learner engaged in learning rather than take a back seat.

It is undeniable that technology is going to become an integrated part of the classroom whether you like it or not, and why wouldn't educators want to use this engaging technology to better the education of our students. There are so many things you can do to make education come alive if you just try.

THING 2

I will struggle most with being confident in myself with regards to my learning. Sometimes I feel that I am not smart enough to tackle certain challenging topics. I must remember that technology is a tool that is meant to make your life easier and not harder. So often I ignore technology because I feel that it will simply take too long to teach me to work the technology and it would be faster to just go on and do it the old fashion way to save time. However, this is really contradictory, as technology is meant to help us. I need to pay attention to Habit 6. Habit 7 will also be a challenge for me because since I am new with this technology I will be reluctant to want to reach out and teach others for fear that i do not know enough myself.