Thing #21: Animoto

APSU Sophomore Year

I found Animoto to be an incredibly user friendly website. It took me no time to pull the photos I wanted from all my social networking/school/storage sites and upload them. The music library they offer is hardly extensive, but it wasn't impossible to find songs for the video. I'm sure this site would be perfect if you were a paying user, however, there is no reason for me to do this at this time. Overall, I really liked Animoto, and would probably use it again if a situation for that type of video (wedding, bridal shower, etc.) arose.

Thing #20: You, Too, Can YouTube

This video features teachers from Hubbard Elementary School, as one of many videos done by them for their Friday assemblies. The reason I felt this video was worthy of putting in my blog was it shows the teachers having fun. While I understand this isn't part of their job description it is important for students to find their teachers approachable. When students see their teachers as real people rather than just a figure in the classroom, it makes them easier to talk to.

YouTube becomes more user friendly each day. I often use it on my iphone and can search using my voice, which often saves me time. The only thing I don't like about the site is how quickly it becomes filled with junk that has no value or videos which no longer work.

Thing #19: Beyond Facebook, Other Social Networks

While Facebook can be entertaining and can suck you into the games quickly, it provides little to no professional or educational interaction. Sites like TeacherPop are providing a place just for educators to interact with one another with questions and concerns and ideas that they have about teaching. While it took my quite some time to figure out the navigation, I found that I really like the site as a whole. While exploring teacher pop I replied to a question posed by Adrienne with an idea of how she could make her curved grading fair, commented on an adorable photo of a child interacting with a deer, and uploaded a profile picture to my account.

While I thoroughly enjoyed exploring teacherpop, of course I was excited to see a social network specifically about animals, Fuzzsters.com. Fuzzsters offers a place for proud pet owners to show off their furbabies by creating a profile specifically for them. While I really enjoyed admiring other folks pets, I don't have the time to do the same for Raven (my dog). In the future when I have more time it may be of interest to me to give Fuzzsters.com a second look.

Thing #17: Tagging and social bookmarking with Delicious

Prior to beginning working on Thing #17, I had only ever used StumbleUpon out of the tools which were mentioned. I am still more of a StumbleUpon fan than I am a Delicious fan, however, I can see useful features of them both.

When I created an account on Delicious and began searching for things on there using the keywords "educational technology", I came across many useful things but did not find the tags to be very helpful in finding what I was looking for, other than finding TeacherTube on the site. It took more time than I felt necessary to find things on the site that would be useful to me, however that could have been my error in entering keywords.

Within the classroom, I would prefer to use Diigo, as it was easier to navigate for me, both in the mobile and desktop formats. Social bookmarking tools are very useful to teachers because they offer opportunities for teachers everywhere to share their resources with one another for free, at any time on any day. This is incredibly important when you look at it as a nationwide aspect. Teachers in California may "StumbleUpon" a great web activity for teaching students long division, post it on Diigo or Delicious, and then a teacher in New York or Florida could come across it minutes later as the perfect thing to complete her lesson plan. Collaboration is important within the classroom, within the school, within the community, but also nationwide. Collaboration has only positive aspects for the educational world.

Thing #18: Explore Social Networking

Social networking is a way which folks of all ages are connecting with each other in the 21st century. People who graduated high school twenty years ago are catching up with people whom they have not heard from in years, friends that move apart are remaining in touch by keeping up with status updates, tweets, photos, and private messages, and some folks are even meeting on social networking sights. I personally have a facebook and a twitter account. I use my facebook account for the purpose which is described above. Twitter, however, I use more to follow people whom I don't know but find entertaining or informative. For example, I follow The Ellen Show, Renfield the Corgi, and many of my favorite artists as well as a few friends.

It is important that educators know how social networking sights work so that they can help ensure their students know how to be safe when they are online, especially on popular sights such as these. It is also important if they have a social media account, because they must understand that anything they post on facebook, can be seen by others if you have not adjusted your privacy settings. While educators are still free to live their lives, they may go on vacation and wear a bikini which they do not want their students and/or their parents to see(especially as the students get older and have more freedom on the internet).

Honestly, I feel it would be best for facebook, twitter, google+, and all those other social media sites to be left out of classrooms and schools. There are too many risks associated with sights like these and they do not currently offer any contribution toward education for the students. Facebook is intended to help you get to know each other on a personal level, educators and students should not have this type of relationship.

Thing #16: Get Organized With Web 2.0 tools

The iGoogle customized home page is a feature which I used to use when my computer everyday. I found it to be much less annoying than the yahoo or msn home pages which often showed things I was not interested in reading about. However, since I purchased an iPhone and an iPad I rarely use an internet browser outside of school assignments, in which case I don't have time to browse through a page filled with things I am interested in. In the future, when I have more need to be on a computer daily I could see myself using something like iGoogle again.

Currently, I use the Google calendar to syn my school assignments. The majority of online accounts I use are linked to my gmail address so entering my assignments into that calendar often helps to keep me on track.

I created an account with GradeFixed, however I did not like how difficult they made editing tasks after they had already been created. The concept sounded appealing but there is certainly room for this program to grow. Personally, I did not find this site to be helpful. I will be looking for a similar tool that is better developed in the near future.

Thing #15: What in the World is a Wiki?

Wikis are used for many purposes online. They are used both for general information purposes, as well as for educational purposes. Some people use them more as a blog, for book reviews and reviews on travel destinations. I attempted to make a post in the sandbox but was told I had insufficient access to that. I have often used wikis to find general information which inspires deeper research into whatever topic I began looking into. Wikis were incredibly helpful to me when I was looking to adopt a pet, when I found this information on corgis, I ended up adopting Raven. Below you will find her picture: