Is it the End or Only the Beginning?

       My last 23 Things blog post! It's been a good ride. Long, but good. I learned a lot. I also found a ton of awesome tools, tricks, and tips, as well as multiple cool, useful, websites. I really liked the Web 2.0 websites that we got to explore from thing #6 and will definitely be checking out more of those websites. I also really enjoyed the image editors and video makers. I really like making media like that and expressing my creativity that way. This assignment has definitely impacted how I will teach and handle my classroom as a future teacher. I will always be looking for new technology and websites to use and keep the class interesting, fun, and ever changing. I'll keep up with Web 2.0 changes by saving the link of the embedded list of websites in thing #6. It looks like it changes practically every day, so I'll check out what's new that way. Thanks for a great class and a great year! I might even keep using this blog or create a new one. I really enjoyed posting things like this. Thanks again!

-Steven Baldwin

Thing #22

       So this was kind of a cool assignment too. I'm not sure if I will use this tool very much yet, but it might come in handy. I feel like sites like Diigo might do the same thing as LiveBinders, while it does have some other features and uses that Diigo does not. I did create three binders like the assignment required though. They are titled, "Teaching Tips" "Teaching Videos" and "Educational Technology". Here is an embedded look at my "Educational Technology" binder.

Educational Technology

       I would use this site to make binders and then have my students review the links listed inside of the binders to learn and discover new things that might be helpful to them and their educations.

Thing #21

Make your own slide show at Animoto.

       So here's a video I made with Animoto. It was really fun and super easy! It's pictures from the 2011 World Series. The music is from, "The Natural Sound Track". The end product looks great and the song I uploaded from the soundtrack goes great with the transitions. And the best part? It's free! Will definitely be using this website again!

Thing #23

       We learned about creative commons in class actually, so I already had a pretty basic understanding of the idea before starting this "thing". I definitely like it way better than plain ole copyright laws. The internet is an ever changing social beast that shouldn't be chained by copyrights. It should be tamed and regulated with creative commons, but free to roam and grow and be enjoyed by all. (nice metaphor huh?) Since this is my belief and mindset about the topic that this "thing" covers, I, as a future teacher, will use creative commons over copyrights anyday. I want people to use my work and make changes to it so that it can be even more useful to them. That's the point of the internet in my opinion. It's a tool that should be shared. That isn't easy to do with a bunch of people saying, "mine, mine, mine" with all of their works.

Thing #20

Here's a video from YouTube that gives a little insight to what we as future teachers have to look forward to. Enjoy!

       YouTube is ranked right up there with Google and Facebook as one of the online giants. Because of that, everyone and their momma has used YouTube. So why not apply it to the classroom? There are many different ways of doing so. You could upload a video of yourself teaching a lesson that your students could watch at home and take notes on, or have them watch a video in class about a topic you are discussing to maybe help them understand it better. You could even center an entire lesson around a YouTube video and use it as a conversation starter between you and your students. The possibilities are endless.
       I like YouTube, but am not an avid user like most. It is a huge time-sucker and can bleed you of all ambition and productivity for an entire day or even weeks in some extreme cases. The site is easy to use and even makes finding videos after your original search as easy as looking through the suggested videos on the right-hand side or at the end of the video you just watched. It doesn't get much easier than that. In fact, that's how I found the video I embedded in this post. I watched the video that was embedded into the 23 Things instructions for this "thing" and this was a suggested video that popped up at the end.

Thing #17

       Social bookmarking is so much fun. While I personally have an account with both Diigo and StumbleUpon already, I love the idea of social bookmarking. I get on StumbleUpon all the time and even have the app on my phone. Whenever I get bored sitting in a waiting room and Angry Birds is starting to get stale, I pull up StumbleUpon and start "Stumbling" through websites for hours sometimes. I love how easy it is to just like the page and share with friends. If a friend visits a site you liked, it even tells them at the top of the page! Plus, it's interactive and always changing. It looks at what pages you like and dislike and targets your stumbles to pages that you personally would find interesting, fun, or cool.
       These tools of social bookmarking are so handy. I can definitely see uses for it in the classroom because I used Diigo in this very class! We had to post a link to a webpage in a group folder under Diigo and then give a presentation about it. I also used Diigo to save links to other webpages that I needed for this class like WebQuests and more. The possibilities for social bookmarking in the classroom are numerous and I think we've only scratched the surface!

Thing #16

       After I created my online calendar for this "Thing" I went ahead and started looking through the links of other tools that I was supposed to explore. Then I saw the link to LifeHacker. I LOVE that site. It has so many helpful tip, tricks, and tools, to literally HACK LIFE. I've been a long time visiter of that page and has made my life so much easier. Everything from putting a glass of water in a microwave and heating it before cleaning to make cleaning it out a sinch, to flipping hangers around when I wear shirts and pants to see what clothes I wear and what clothes I don't so I can sell them or give them away to Goodwill. That website has so many little tricks that make life a cake walk. I probably won't make LifeHacker my homepage, but I will definitely keep visiting for new tips and tricks. This website is definitely useful to others either at home or at school. I recommend that everyone visit it and learn a thing or two.
       The online calendar was nice but I feel like I won't really use it that much. I already have a calendar on my phone and hanging on the wall of my room that I write events and due dates on to help me keep things in order, so another calendar is probably the last thing I need right now. As for the to-do-list, I feel like that is too much work to keep up with also. I think that's one thing that I will still do the old fashioned way, with paper and pen. It's just way more satisfying writing it out and then crossing the things off as you go. Plus I don't have to get on my computer or phone to check it. The ideas are good, but I just feel like they aren't quite as practical as the real things.