Thing # 24 One Last Thing...

Throughout this blogging adventure I learned a lot about recourses I didn't even know existed. Some of my favorite discoveries were the Wiki and the flow chart makers. I didn't realize until this blog how handy Wikis could be and that many different people could get on and edit them. In my chemistry class I'm drawing flowcharts all the time, and with my slight OCD, sometimes they aren't always perfect. Gliffy allowed me to create a flowchart super quick. These apps could be a great way for students to review for an exam.

With all of my new tools in my toolbox, I hope to integrate as many of these tools in my classroom to aid my students in learning and keep myself organized. To improve the blogging experience the tasks could be updated. Some of the activities were things I already knew how to do, or had resources that I enjoyed more. For example there are awesome presentation generators out there like Prezi. Those are the types of things you will use everyday in your classroom and will be engaging to your students. As a whole I'm glad that this is my last blog post. I enjoyed learning new things, but will probably not keep up this particular blog. I do hope to be able to better use my teacher website for my students, and this experience has really helped me realize what all needs to go into keeping up a blog.

Thing # 23 Creative Commons

Below is an example of how the 23 Things was taken from another source and modified for the technology class at APSU:

CREDITS

Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachersis based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things, a staff development program for theMesquite Independent School District. That program was based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers and adapted by the California School Library Association and others. Content and style for Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.

One thing that students struggle with is understating that plagiarism is wrong. Though I do not teach english, I have helped a few students with papers and in-text citations, and wow. The really need as much help as they can get. Creative Commons could help students realize how important crediting the source of information is. In a classroom you could have students create something of their own, and decide how they want others to be able to use and distribute the material. Setting these limitations may help students understand the importance of creative commons, and be more likely to carefully use materials the way they were meant to be used in the future. 

Thing # 22 LiveBinder

Gas Law LiveBinder

You will need this access key to visit this LiveBinder - khschemistry


The titles of my LiveBinders are Gas Law, Chemistry Resources, and Classroom Management Tools. I chose to embed my gas law LiveBinder in this post because I really like the way it allowed me to put a demonstration of the gas law, then a worksheet, and a quiz. I see how this could be really helpful in some situations, but not so helpful in others. For instance if you have all of this stud already organized on a flash drive, it might not be worth it to you to create the LiveBinder, but if you were just starting to teach it would be a great way to organize all your information. For students, I think it could be a great  way to compile information for a research paper. I like the fact you can access it from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection and don't have to worry about leaving it in the back of a computer and losing it, like a flash drive!

Thing # 21 Animoto

My Video

I have more photographs on my phone than I do on my computer so I decided to make my video using the Animoto app for the iPhone. The app was really easy to use. I picked pictures from when I was in Key West over spring break. I really like the way the video turned out, It makes me feel like I was back on the streets in Key West. The themes you could pick to put your pictures to were really neat and there was a variety of options. Even with me using my phone, it was easy to link my video to my blog. Enjoy!

Thing # 20 YouTube

First of all, I love Kid Present and so do my students! I was excited to open up thing # 20 and see Kid President, so I decided to share another one of my favorite videos of his. Okay back to the post.. I really enjoy integrating YouTube videos into my Prezi presentations. YouTube videos are engaging to students and can help students see the real world application of standards. Sometimes I'm my class some students will be confused as to what I'm trying to say and getting another person to say it is as easy as opening up YouTube. I am glad that YouTube is controlled in CMCSS, and can only be pulled up on teachers' computers. This helps teachers use YouTube to facilitate the learning and not be a distraction.

Another useful tool in the classroom could be the video hosting site vine. This website allows you to put short video clips together, and repeat the whole video on a loop. This would be great for all science classrooms. You can take clips of something, like hatching a chicken egg, and loop it together to see the whole process very quickly. I found a vine of chemistry students making ice-cream. I usually do this lab with my students to show the affect of freezing point lowering by adding salt particles to ice. In this video you just see the kids shacking the ice-cream bags, then eating the ice-cream, but when teaching colligative properties if you were to show this, your students could tell you what exactly was going on in that bag.

Thing # 19 Other Social Networks

I think there are two main uses of social networking for educators. The first use is the collaboration of resources between teachers and the other being a professional way to communicate with your students. The main two social communities I use are Facebook and Twitter, but I did sign up for the Tasty Kitchen social network, because every recipe I saw in the few minutes I looked at that site looked yummy.

Your options are really endless when talking about social communities, but enough is enough for me. I don't have much time to get on Facebook and Twitter as it is, I don't really need to join anything else at this time. I think they are good to know about, but people who become so consumed in every little thing posted, doesn't really have time to be the best teacher they can be.

Thing # 18 Tweet Tweet

Follow me on twitter!

It is important that educators understand the importance of social networking, because its all our students know these days. Students use phrases like "follow me" or "hashtag" in everyday language, and if you understand what your students are talking about, they will be shocked. Educators also need to understand the importance of social networking to be able to collaborate with people across the world in their field, and follow the newest developments in your subject area.

I have used twitter for years, so I didn't necessarily learn anything new, but I did begin to realize how twitter can be an educational tool, and not just for pure social means. My search of hashtags made me think I could put together a hashtag for my classroom such as #KHSChemistry and students could see the trending posts. Following this trending hashtag would allow students to discuss what they did in class or to get help from each other on homework questions. To see hashtags I believe you have to have public tweets or be friends, so you could also create a twitter account for your classroom and allow teachers and students to follow the account. You could tweet your weekly schedule, homework hints, and reminders to your students. Students would really enjoy and appreciate such a use of twitter, because its something they check so often!