Classroom 2.o

Classroom 2.o is a great website to use for more resources, podcast and tv shows that are full of resources, and it is an easy searching tool for teacher resources. One thing I liked best about this website was you could pick the host you like best on the Live TV Shows and watch only their episodes. You can also search the web easily by using the search tool on the left-hand side. It is narrowed by tool, subject, and area. This will be a benefit when you are in a hurry or want to narrow things down to a smaller more manageable list. This website is a social networking website but you must register for it and explain why and how you will use it. It is for educators and it allows you to discuss various topics with other educators, get advice, share resources, and compare lesson plans. You have your own page or profile page that allows you to make it your own and it will make it easier for you to find people you want to get advice or help from. Classroom 2.o is a great network to use for those people that like Facebook but may want to have a professional page as well. This is the place to go to do this and to meet other teachers just like yourself.

EduTecher

This website has many things to offer for educators looking for resources and to learn more everyday. The thing that I found was amazing and really will be beneficial to educators was the Conferences page. It has a list of upcoming conferences for educators to attend. This is great to have this as a resources because as educators we must constantly be learning new things and trying new ideas. Going to conferences allows us to do this and it is great to be able to go to the EduTecher website and have it right there for you. Another page that I thought was a great idea and the way it was set up was great, Links. This has a checklist for you to narrow down the resources you are looking for by subject and by age. I came across an awesome website using the links page and it is called 4Teachers. It has numerous ways of integrating technology into your classroom while teaching the subjects required. I thought this was really cool and you can get some great ideas from a website like this. Lastly, I found a website using the links page again called 21stCenturyLit. It is great for me because my emphasis is English and it is geared toward 7-12th graders which will also be a benefit to myself as I want to teach middle school as well. You have to register for this site but once you have you can share lesson plans, post lesson plans, comment, print, and download lesson plans and resources. I think this site will come in handy when I need some more ideas!

Kan-Ed Reflection

I explored the Kan-Ed website and realized there so many cool and beneficial resources for myself as a future educator and myself as a student now! I can even have my students use some of the resources available. The first website I explored was the Kansas Education Resource Center. It has a number of resources and offers great tips. For example, it gives you tips on teaching students with special needs and writing a lesson plan. It also has a break down of the standards, benchmarks, and indicators which is nice because they are so easy to locate on this site. I also looked at a really neat website called Financial Foundations for Kansas Kids. It is a GREAT place for students in the K-8 grades. It teaches them things about money and life in general. It is interactive and engaging for the students and I think the students (especially those in lower elementary) will really enjoy this and benefit from it. Lastly, I visited the World Book Student website which I can even use right now in my classes at Kansas State! Its amazing the resources out there! It has quizzes you can take to test yourself, extra information in certain subjects such as biology, news from around Kansas and the world, and even tips on how to research. It is great to know that Kansas offers things like this to teachers and students. I will definitely be using this to study and in my classroom when I'm a teacher.

Podcast Reflection #8: 0055ish TCT We Have Our iPhone 3GS's!

I picked this podcast to listen to because I am getting an upgrade on my phone in August so I wanted to see what the iPhone 3GS had to offer. I know it is not all that educational but I do know the iPhone has some really cool apps for teachers so I though why not see what else it offers. The Tech Chicks seemed really excited about getting the phones so I think I'm definitely going to get one! Is it August yet?! They talked about some of the features that it had that they liked. One of them was the compass which could be beneficial in many ways and a good survival tool. The screen is "oliofobic" described one of them which means it doesn't smudge with the oils from out fingers. The voice control is a really neat tool that allows you to just say "Call Mom" and it will call the number that is listed with Mom in your phone book. You can also say "play Good Morning Beautiful" and it will begin to play the song you stated as long as it is in your library. I think this is a really cool app to have! The camera on the iPhone is really good and it has a autofocus feature and a tap to focus app that will focus on a certain object. Lastly, they discussed the full typing keyboard that is new on the iPhone 3GS's and how beneficial it is.

After listening to the Tech Chicks rave about the iPhone 3GS's I cannot wait to get mine in August!

Podcast Reflection #7: The Heroic Journey Project

This was an amazing video podcast that I would recommend to all English teachers. It was presented by Kevin Hodgson and included examples from real students. It is a project that incorporates technology, English, and creativity which allows the students to have an imagination. I think this is especially important because it makes you feel like a young child again to do things like this. As we grow older we use our imagination less which is not as fun. The students begin the project by reading a version of the Odessy called Odessius. They will use the heroic journey as a plot for their project. Then they will read the book The Lightning Thief  and write about the adventure and the encounters. They students are to make 3 creatures that they will encounter on their way home and put them into the PicasaPhoto folder. Then, they will use Google Maps to show where they will go on their adventure or journey. When pinpointing the place on the map they will add a textbox with elements of their story and monsters. There will be a KML file that will allow visitors to follow your journey on Google Earth. After the projects are done they are saved on Google Sites for everyone to view and enjoy.

I think this is a great project for students and I believe they will really get into it because there is nothing more that students now days like better than using TECHNOLOGY! It is vitally important to use them in your classroom and projects like this will engage and encourage the students. I have listed the links to the Google Sites for the students Heroic Journeys and a tutorial on how to get this project done!

Google Sites- Heroic Journeys
Tutorial

Podcast Reflection #6: 0070 TCT-Building Your Capacity

I just finished listening to my first podcast from the Tech Chick Tips. It was really enjoyable and I feel like this was one of the most beneficial podcast so far. They presented a list of websites that they found to be beneficial and great resources for teachers. They started off by talking about one called 21foundation.com. It is aligning 21st Century Learning with 21st Century Learners. It is awareness for the nurturing of 21st century citizens which I think is great! When the world and everything is changing so must the instruction. It has websites or tools linked to it for creativity, its own articles with resources, and tools to support the 21st century learners. Another website they mentioned was Sixty Symbols which is geared toward Physics and Astronomy and is great for upper middle and high school students. It gives information on the scientists that helped make this website and it has videos from the University of Nottingham. Tesconnect is teacher social networking website that you must register for but it will be a great benefit to you as a teacher. It has lesson plans, videos, games, puzzles, worksheets, and much more! It is great for resources, networking between other teachers, and best of all finding jobs. Another great thing about Tesconnect is the advice you can get from fellow educators. TeacherLED is another website they discussed that will benefit those teachers with interactive whiteboards. It focuses on math, english, and geography resources for your classroom and instruction. Lastly, the Tech Chicks informed me about a website called Online College that has many resources and one of them that I am sure I will check out is 100 Essential blog posts for New Teachers. It also has 100 Video Sites for Educators , tips and strategies for teachers, and inspirational videos for teachers and students. I think this site is one to remember for sure and to add to your Delicious site!

The Tech Chicks also gave their two favorite apps and one of them sounded like it would be worth it. It is called EduTecher and I think it is something I will look into when I get my iPhone in August!

Podcast Reflection #5: A 12 Year Old's Favorite iPod Touch/ iPhone Games

I listened to this podcast by Wesley A. Fryer with Moving at the Speed of Creativity Podcast to figure out what games or apps 12 years enjoy. He started out by describing an app called InstaPaper that sounds really interesting and beneficial to all students. It is an app that allows you to download offline the copies of books, chapters, and newspaper articles that you may be studying. He said he spend the most of his time on the this app in particular, about 6 hours a day! He said it is FREE or there is a Pro version that you can buy. It sounds really interesting to me and I would like to look into it as an educator and as a student. It would be really neat to be able to read or do research offline or somewhere internet is not accessible. He also talked about a number of games that I believe most 12 year old boys would enjoy that have them shooting aliens or killing monsters. One app that he mentioned was called Civilization Revolution and it sounded really interesting and fun. It is a game that allows you to choose the civilization that you would like to be in like the Aztec, Greek, US, China, etc. From the beginning you have to start a civilization and build a community. You have to find ways to survive and invent numerous things. It allows you to destroy other villages as well. You pick how fast you want time to go by and it is FREE with a Pro version available. I chose to talk about only two of the many games he discussed because I thought they could be most beneficial to students or teachers.

It is important for future educators like myself to know what is popular in technology and figure out how you could incorporate it into the instruction in your classroom. It is vitally important that it be educational. For example, everybody knows that game Angry Birds and that it is really popular with children and adults for that matter but it teaches nothing educational. Exploring your options is very important and that is why I chose this podcast. It is around the age I would like to teach so I wanted to know what was popular with students of this age.

Podcast Reflection #4: iQuiz

I listened to this podcast from Learning in Hand by Tory Vincent. It is a really interesting video that is full of information on an ipod app that is called iQuiz. It is only 99 cents, its a game which students will love, and it is educational. There are many pros and cons to this app that I would like to share. First, it is an app that you can use as a teacher to make quizzes for students but is also a game so the students will enjoy it. It is already installed on the newest ipod nanos so you don't even have to buy it! It has graphics, music, and gives statistics on a students individual level. It is a multiple choice quiz or you can make them True/False questions. One of the benefits of this is if the  answer is false, at the end of the game it will explain why it is false so the students learn the correct answers and why. All of this can be done on a Mac or Windows computer that will allow teachers to make the quizzes, put in the correct answers, and give explanations for wrong answers or false answers. You can change the fonts, colors, and backgrounds to make it more fun for your students. Also, the winning and losing message is adjustable so you can put in anything you would like for motivation and praise. Now, this sounds like a great app and I believe it is but there are a number of drawbacks. First, the only ipods that can use this game is the 5th generation and newer. Since it is a video based game the ipod must have the video option. Also, the game has a timer on each question so you must answer it in a certain amount of time or you miss the question. The timer cannot be turned off or slowed down which is a drawback to the educational purposes. The game iQuiz drains the ipod battery very quickly. The biggest drawback to iQuiz is if a student brings their ipod to school and syncs it with the schools iTunes they can access all of the quizzes saved. Now, once they go home and connect it to their library it will be deleted but it is still not a good thing for they students to be able to access them ahead of time.

iQuiz has some really cool options and could be beneficial to some students but you have to be careful with this game as well. If you would like to get quizzes from other people there is a website that you can go to, http://iquizshare.com/ and it has quizzes that can be edited to fit your students. I would recommend looking into this app for your students or children to play with but keep in mind its drawbacks.

Podcast Reflection #3: Rural 21st Century Learning

I watched this podcast by Kevin Honeycutt who interviewed the Walton 21st Century Rural Life Center principal Mrs. Vogt on the charter schools approach to education. They are an Ag-Tech based school that focuses on collaborative projects/problems, hands on instruction for diverse learners, and promoting technology and agriculture. Each of the classes is sponsored by a farming family who allows the students to come to their farm and study various things for educational benefit.  For example, the school had lower scores in the measurement category so the farming families allowed the students to come and measure tires, acres, formulas for planting crops, and various other objects. The school held a salsa making project where the students measured their own ingredients, made their own recipe, and had a taste-test for the best salsa. It was a project that the students really enjoyed! Mrs. Vogt said she would the school to get in touch with other schools for collaboration and they did do this one time, for instance, with Flat Stanleys based off of the book. They had the other students take the Stanleys to various farming events and it taught the students quite a bit. Walton is an elementary school the Kevin said has "a better greenhouse than most high schools." The school does numerous farming projects at the school as well as on the farming families ground. At the school they were chosen one of only a few schools to have a windmill put in from the Wind For Schools Project. One of the students from Walton had a goat from home that he donated to the school for their mascot and they also have chickens that they use for research and egg production. The students use the farm ground by the school to plant seeds to grow natural Kansas prairie grass and weeds. It is a project that requires lots of time, hard work, and attention.

I found this to be a GREAT podcast because I think it is important to get ideas from other schools and it is amazing to see what students and a community can do when they come together. I believe this is their 3rd year of being a charter school which means they will no longer be a charter school after this unless chosen again. I think they set a great example of how we can use natural resources that we have in Kansas to help learn many subjects, teach students about the hard work required behind agriculture, and how it can bring families and communities together. I would love to tour this school and use some of the ideas in my classroom! 

Fun With Text

Wordle and Tagxedo are two great websites to make cool shapes or posters with words. I used Wordle prior to EdTech class but I really enjoyed doing it again. I especially liked Tagxedo because you can make it into a bunch of different shapes or figures which Wordle does not offer. However, Tagxedo takes longer than Wordle does so you have to leave quite a bit of time for Tagxedo. Both of these websites would be great for educators as well as students. The students could use them for projects and they are both easy to use. Wordle may work better for the younger students and Tagxedo would be best for the older students. Teachers could use these for many reasons whether it is a poster, a cover page of a binder, cover page of a hangout, or just for everyday fun. The best thing about Wordle and Tagxedo is they are both FREE!

Using Twitter as an Educator

When we first started using Twitter I was not a fan to be honest. I was not sure what the point of it was and didn't feel very comfortable adding people I did not know. Also, the fact that people can add you without your permission somewhat worried me. After exploring Twitter for a couple weeks and adding other educators I see that most of them do not use it as a social network but for professional reasons. This made me feel a lot better about using it and I was happy to find that most of  the posts were very helpful! I explored a few of the websites posted and its amazing how many resources are out there they we may not know about. Twitter could be a great resource for other resources and it is important to pass along the information you get. I have listed a couple helpful and interesting websites that I will probably check out when I have my own classroom and students!

Twitter4Teachers

Reading Comprehension

Charity for Classrooms

My Twitter Profile