End or Beginning....this is the question

I had never blogged before I entered this class. I have enjoyed the experience, but I don't know what I will do with it honestly from here. There were several things I had never heard of. I feel that I try to stay up to date with Web 2.0 tools. Between my mom and husband already being teachers and me only being a few semesters away from graduating, we all share sites and information with each other. There are some of these things I will be revisiting to use furthermore such as Animoto, online image generators, and delicious. Some of the things seemed to overlap, which many things do anyways in education.  Overall it was very interesting and useful information and experiences.

Thing #23 - Creative Commons

Creative Commons is something still slightly new. I was once told to beg, borough, and steal ideas to improve my teaching. This did not mean to copy them. As a teacher if I find a video that is just awesome, but I don't own it and I have recorded it....can I use it? No, however if I contact the producer and they say I can use my recorded copy in my class I am ok. There are ways to search online for sources that have Creative Commons attached to them. This is a sticky subject and we as teachers have to be careful, not everyone wants their things used for free even in the classroom. Oh how we wish it were....

Thing # 22 - livebinders.com

School sites

Well, here is one of my binders created on livebinders.com. Two others were named Book Reviews and Music. I'm not totally sure how I like this yet. I may have to play around with it some. I liked using the site Delicious better than creating binders, however you can upload your own documents. What do you think about it?

Thing #21 Animoto

Try our slideshow creator at Animoto.

This sight was really really cool!! I signed in through my facebook and it gathered pictures for me to make the short video. Just think, at the end of a school year you could create a video with pictures from the year that parents could see. I was impressed!!

Thing # 20 - YouTube

 This is a video on You Tube that has Candy Cane Crafts. My neighbor and I love to do crafts with out kids and this will come in handy! We use YouTube for a lot of things. I have watched tutorials on how to fix long hair; since my hair is to my knees new hair dos are awesome! :) We have used this actually in my Educational Psychology class this semester to watch the Big Bang Theory clips that associate with the different behaviors we are going over.
The downfall to this site is that every bad thing is not reported. You can accidentally come up on videos that are not appropriate. With every good thing on the internet there is bad that you just have to by-pass.

Thing #19 - Teacherpop

I am currently weighting for approval from the administration to be in on TeacherPop.

Thing #18 - Facebook

I am on Facebook and at one time during the summer my husband called me an addict. My Facebook Page
I can honestly say I do not know everyone well that is on my facebook considering there are 1,187 "friends" on there. There are very few of those that I have not met and that is only because they are some of my husbands family that I have not physically meet. In a way Facebook has become a tell everything site. Parents of some of your students may get on there and complain about you or hopefully bragging about what you are doing in the class. Younger students have facebook pages, that in my opinion are not mature enough for it. I can't say too much about that since I do have a fan page for my daughter. :) She has had multiple health issues and instead of befriending everyone under the sun so they could keep up with her, we made a fan page. I also help run three other organization pages. As a teacher I think it would possibly be appropriate to create a class page that current parents and students could be on that would be another place to find school work information and links for games that go along with the lessons. Most everyone will get on Facebook, but may not go to the school website for the information. I don't like twitter too much, but I really enjoy Facebook. It keeps me connected with friends and family. I have also got to know some of my peers better due to Facebook.