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Summary

23 Things has been an awesome experience for me. This class has allowed me to discover valuable tools to use in my classroom, again if the district will unblock some things, that will benefit my students. We, educators, are all the time talking about the different learning styles of our students so why not use all the different teaching styles that are being made available to us. The textbook and worksheet method of teaching is losing our students, lets reach them on the level. Let's use the technology they are using to communicate with them, to teach them. I am very thankful for this class. It has also allowed me to catch up with some long lost friends and that is great. Thanks for the class.

Thing #23

Not having a TAKS tested class allows me to try and explore more options to try and teach my students. But one concern that I have is that I float to four different classrooms and not all classrooms have the same technology equipment. Some classrooms have the equipment in the room but it is not set up for me to use. Other classrooms have equipment that only works half of the time. This makes it very difficult to plan the use of outside technology in my class. My other problem with our system, as mentioned before, is the blockage of certain sites by the district and until that changes it makes it difficult to incorporate technology at its fullest potential.

Classroom 2.0 has great resources that are already set up for the teacher to use, which is very helpful. Great teachers borrow great ideas from other great teachers that is how it should be. Some times we are not sure where to go to find information, Classroom 2.0, is a site I will surely share with others. Just as Teacher Tube was shared with me. I am always looking for websites that I can use for World Geography and I found one that was very helpful. It is called Where in the world are Interactive Geography lessons? So if anyone is looking for some I hope this site helps.

Thing #22 - Social Networking

My daughter has been using social networking since middle school. She started with Xanga and then went to MySpace and now she also has a Facebook. I remember all the times that I have told her to get off the computer and stop taking those quizzes and stop filling out those surveys. Now I find myself doing the same thing she was doing without the quizzes and surveys. My son also has a MySpace, he had a Facebook also until he found out my wife and I also had one. He proceeded to get rid of his because he thought that was weird. I have heard all the negatives about how these sites are dangerous and have talked to both of them about it, but this is how this generation communicates, through the internet and text.

It is important for us as educators to understand how times have changed. Just look at the ages of kids that are now getting cell phones, it gets younger and younger every year. Spending hours and hours on the telephone talking to friends is no longer the thing, both of my kids say they hate to talk on the phone. And when I call them to try and talk to them, they don't conversate very well, so I believe them. They know how all their friends are doing by checking the blogs and posts of their friends web pages. Educators need to figure out how to use this to our advantage, it is a very powerful tool. Posting messages on Facebook to remind your students of an up coming test, or dead lines for projects, or to post a homework question and have them comment or link to a related site would be very a great tool to have in your toolbox.

As far as the the issue of MySpace vs Facebook, I pick Facebook. I found it much easier to use, not as crowded, and I it helps you find people from your past that you may have lost contact with. I have been catching up with old friends that I grew up with, went to middle school with, and high school but just for one reason or another lost contact with them. Having taught and coached for the past 12 years I have even found former students and athletes on Facebook. Being able to keep up with them has really been neat.

Thing #7c - More from my Reader

Oh how glad I am to live in the United States. As I look at the Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ and the chaos that is going on in Athens over the death of 15 year old. Pictures of rioting and tear gas being shot into a local university make me appreciate the country that I live in. It is not perfect, as nothing is, but it allows us the freedoms that too many Americans take for granted. I wish I could get this across to my students as they complain about petty things that happen to them through out the day. Reading up on events that happen in other countries makes me proud to be an American.

Thing #21 - Google Stuff

Google Maps I have used this tool before to look at my house and the houses of other coaches in our fieldhouse. One of the coaches typed in his address and it showed the place but there was no house. This makes me wonder how often a picture is taken of the locations. At the time someone had taken the picture his house was not yet built. My wife told me about my parents' house and when you typed in the address my Dad was out front. I had a good laugh with my Dad when I called him and told him to look it up so he could see himself. It is a weird to see the picture of the actual house where someone is.
Google Maps also allows you to create your own maps for whatever purpose you want. My wife showed me the one she found on Barack Obama's Journey. When you find a map that interests you, you can save it to your own map collection. This would be very helpful in Social Studies to show the routes of the Roman Empire as it expanded or trade routes.

Google Translate Using Google Translate lets you put any URL in the translate a web page box and it changes it from one language to another. I put in the URL for the ESPN website and translated it into Spanish. This would be great for the kids who have trouble with English, it would allow you to translate into the language that the student needed. Then they could see the translation in English when they scroll over the words, so they can compare the two. This is a great tool.