Is it the end or only the beginning

While completing this assignment my two favorite things were the mashups and animoto. Both of these tools are extremely fun to use. However, these tools do not really apply much to education, but they were still fun. This assignment has made me realize that there are always new and excited tools and technology out there that I can take advantage. There are probably many more things that I can find that I could use in my classroom.

Throughout this assignment there were not really any unexpected outcomes. I did what was asked of me and learned lots of new things along the way. I really like this assignment overall and I think it was extremely beneficial to me, especially from a teacher's standpoint.

The majority of the things learned during this assignment can be used in the classroom and can make many things a whole lot easier. Especially when it comes to sharing information with others.

Now that this assignment is over I do not think I will keep up with this blog. I am not much of a blogger, but after I become a teacher I think I could use a blog to my advantage. However, it will not be of much use to me know.

Thing #23

Before I took this class I had no idea what creative commons was. I knew some about the copyright laws, but I was always under the impression that this was showed who owned it and that was that. I did not know about the options that are present in the creative commons. Knowing about creative commons licensing and knowing how to use things that are created by others will be extremely useful in the classroom. Now I know I can search the creative commons website to find things that will be useful to me without having to start over from scratch.

Thing #22

For thing 22 we were to create a livebinders account and then create 3 education binders. The ones I created were called third grade math, math worksheets, and helpful math websites. Here is the one I created for third grade math http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=696349. On the third grade math I just put in math games that a third grader could choose from to play.

I think that livebinders can easily be used in a classroom. They are a great way to share information with students and parents and sometimes even other teachers. The only way I would personally use them in a classroom is to share information. I would not make an assignment out of it.

Thing #21

Animoto is a really cool website to use. I like how you can easily make short videos with pictures and music. I had fun picking out pictures to use and then picking out music. I like how there was a bunch of music to choose from. For my short video that I made for this thing I just picked some pictures of my family to create a video of. I think that it was really cool. Here is the video I created hope you enjoy.
My Family

Thing # 20

YouTube is a great way to find videos that illustrate your point and show more examples of what you are teaching your students. These videos can help you teach a lesson or just sometimes make a lesson more fun. The only negative thing I found on YouTube is that you cannot really let a student explore it because they might end up finding a video that they do not need to be watching if they are not careful. 

While exploring YouTube I decided to search for math videos, since I would like to be a math teacher. There were tons of videos out there that can help the students learn the concept by showing them what it means or in my case another example of how to solve a problem. While searching I came across a video called Area of Complex Figures- Subtraction Method (video 2). This video is shown below.

I picked this video because, like I said earlier, I wish to be a math teacher. This video gives another method of how to find the area of an irregular shape. Videos like this will be extremely helpful in a math classroom and can show students some alternate methods on how to solve certain problems.

Thing #19

Visit TeacherPop

Before this assignment I was not part of any online communities other than facebook. However, looking through some other social networks I decided to join GoodReads. I love to read so I think that this social network will be fun. It looks really cool. Hopefully I will continue to like it.

I think that GoodReads will be a great network for parents and their students to go to. Just from me browsing through it, you pick the genre you like and then it gives you a list of books to go through and rate and when you rate a book it brings up suggestion for you to look through that are similar to what you rated.

I also think that the education social networks will be useful. I just have to join one other than TeacherPop. Also I think teacher pop is a great social network to become familiar with.

Thing # 18

I think it is important for teachers to know how social networking works because it is another way for teachers to spread ideas, events, and other news, just like the facebook page for the College of Education. I think that this is the best way to use social media for educational purposes. I did not really gain any new insights. I already know how to do most of the things on facebook and twitter based off past experiences. Twitter is probably better to spread news in a classroom because there are less distractions because the main point of it is to follow people and as long as you are not following a extremely high number of people you will get the news. Facebook is great at spreading news and events, but it has a lot more distractions. The biggest distraction on facebook is the option to play games. This is the only thing I really disliked about facebook if you are using it in a classroom setting. I personally cannot see myself using facebook in the classroom, but this is just my preference.