Thing #19

     I found that Teacher pop was a little like facebook in that you can add photos and leave comments on other members' walls. I uploaded a picture of myself and Cody to the site and commented on my friend Kayla's wall. I tried to get the badge, but my embedding code would work so I gave up! The social communities that I am currently a part of are: Blogger, TeacherPop, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Project Playlist, and IMDB. The new site I chose to join was GoodReads, since I plan on teaching English and I love to read a lot anyway. During registration it has you select your favorite genres of books, and then rate some in each category. It will then automatically give you several new books that are similar to the ones you give good ratings too. You also have the option of selecting "want to read" so you can have a sort of wish list. It will then give you recommendations based on your ratings. I really enjoyed this sight and I think it would be helpful for students who need help finding a book to read on their own. I will try and remember this site to help students who don't like reading so much, or don't know where to look get a head start!

     I also checked out Craftster, and found some neat ideas for the classroom. There are two other sites that I am a part of that I really enjoy finding things to do in the classroom. They are Pinterest and etsy. Pinterest is a board of "pins" from all kinds of users, that give craft ideas, and videos where etsy is more of crafts to buy and sell, but you can choose to search locally so you can pick up things for your students or classroom without leaving town!

I found this personalized hall pass hanger on etsy by typing in "classroom" in the search bar for $40. It will last a long time!

Thing #18

Here is my Twitter account link: https://twitter.com/#!/ashton_ishing
And my Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1073794591

     Social Networking is the best way to share ideas and events that are going on in your classroom, school or community. Teachers need to be up to date on the latest technologies in their students' lives. Also if students see in class that they can use these sites for educational resources, it will make them more enthusiastic about doing their work and sharing their findings.

     From our previous LiveText assignment, I am already following several educational Twitter accounts. Everyday they have interesting facts, and links to current educational issues, and events that I like to check out. Even following Austin Peays accounts on twitter lets me know when things are going on around campus so these should work at a lower level too. I'm not sure that I found anything really new since I have had a Facebook and Twitter for quite a while now.

     I like both Twitter and Facebook equally and have found that they have great features. You can have groups on Facebook, and can "favorite" a tweet on Twitter and you will always have it to go back and look at. Twitter has a page that shows current issues also, but I think facebook is more universal and easier to navigate in a classroom setting.

     I think for classroom applications a Facebook page would be best for a certain class to have, or a group of students to start one for a project or assignment or something like that. At the school I transferred from I had created a group where I friended all of the freshmen that would be coming there in the fall and updated the page for events and class dues and due dates! It felt like a pretty big accomplishment to me and the response was great!

Thing #17

     The idea of tagging things other than pictures and videos is pretty neat. Delicious is a neat site that I hadn't seen before. However, I actually used Digg in high school so it has been around for a while, and I am a little obsessed with StumbleUpon! I found several sites when I searched "educational technology" on Delicious, and I also found some good ones by searching "Language Arts" I was able to see the tags on the side, which helped narrow down the search some, but I was not able to see the comments or anything.


     I didn't really want to sign up for Digg, but the articles, videos and other links that I was able to see were all very interesting. The even have current events which could be good for students in any subject to learn about. Its also very easy to share to your blog, or facebook account from these sights, so parents can see what children are learning about.


     To me, StumbleUpon is my favorite because it is the most visually appealing. At the beginning of the registration process it has you select from a very large variety of interest so it can present you with pages pulled from everywhere on the Internet. A neat project would be for students to be guided to select interest that relate to the class in general or a specific topic they were learning about and see what they come up with. Since StumbleUpon is really random, they will all get different things most of the time.


For my personal use in the classroom, I "Stumbled Upon" this great site with templates for any kind of class list you can think of: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2fOVj5/:1DT1zx3j9:bjI.gljt/office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT010253059.aspx/

Thing #16

     The home page that I chose was iGoogle because I already use Google about 500 times a day. I like the theme that I picked with my little froggy and his pond. He even sleeps at night time! I pretty much left all the widgets on there that came with it, except I edited my weather so that it would be connected with Clarksville. I like how its just everything right there on one page, and the page actually has some color and is visually appealing. I just got excited actually because one of my widgets reminded me of a TV show I was wanting to watch tonight! It is not currently my homepage because my main email account is with Yahoo! but i may switch over to it in the future.

     I chose the online calendar 30 boxes, and found that it was very basic, but its simplicity would definitely be useful in a classroom. Each day gave the local temperature which I liked, and you can add due dates, test dates, field trips, etc. to everyday. You can also add email contacts (parents) and a to do list at the top that students could use as a homework check list. I wasn't able to actually go to any of the other ones because the links didn't work!

     I picked the to do list, Remember the Milk because I like the name. I also saw that you could link it to your iPhone. I signed up but after playing around with it I didn't really like it. I would honestly just rather use the to do list that is on my 30 boxes calendar, because having another website to go to just for a to do list seems like a lot of work.

     The extra tool that I look at was the PDF converter. I feel that this would be helpful in any classroom setting because it would eliminate worksheets, and parents would be able to see papers themselves and print them if the child lost it on the way home from school. It is also great to have when reading from selections that you may only have one copy of and students can get on the computer and read your upload.

Thing #15

     I liked the video on Diigo about the camping trip wiki! I thought that was a neat idea, since I have been in situations where lists needed to be completed and there was so much confusion that they never were fulfilled. I found it was very easy to get into APSU sandbox and add what I wanted to the page. I added my Thing #6 about Web 2.0 tools, mine was Pandora, because I feel it is a good thing to have in the classroom to increase creativity levels, and there is music to go along with just about any books time period.

     I really wish I had more time to make my own wiki, because my friends and I are in the process of planning a baby shower and we all live in different places, so it is hard to figure out who is doing what! The only down fall that I have, is that ANYONE can sign up and edit your pages, potentially deleting important information, or posting incorrect information. Also it is hard to have a leader of the group since everyone can make as many changes as anyone else, and I usually like to take charge with planning. I'm sure if you were using for a classroom setting though, it would be important that the teacher does show some leadership so the editing doesn't get out of hand and the students wouldn't misuse the wikis.

Thing #14

    For this "Thing" I chose to create a mind map on bubble.us first. It was pretty cool. I loved how they color of the "Child Bubbles" changed automatically to a different shade eventually changing colors. It was very pretty, and I think that students will love the visual appeal to these charts. It was very easy to figure out. The editing features were great and I would definately recommend this to educators. I think I will most likely us this in my classroom for character or event maps of our required readings.
    The flow chart site I chose to experiment with was Gliffy Flow Charts. I enjoyed the large selection of bubble shapes, and found that this was quite easy to edit as well. I thought the mind map was a little more visually appealing because the graphics seemed up to date and would be a first pick of our "technology-aged" youth. Both of my charts are below.





Below is the Mind Map from bubbl.us



Thing #13

     It feels really weird/good to be doing this again, since I took a little break. First off, I want to say that it is gorgeous outside today, I am going to watch the hunger games tonight AND its the big revenge match-up between UK and IU. GO CATS!!!!! (sorry I have just been a little beside myself all week waiting for this day).

     Anyway to get on with Thing 13, I created my account on ZOHO and made a small document using ZOHO writer. I thought the tabs, and editing resources were helpful, just as in Word or other programs. I thought the structure was pretty much the same. I really enjoyed learning that you can save these online and they will be open for your friends or colleagues, even students and their parents to open and edit without any troubles. That is a huge help when dealing with jump drives, and incorrect formating, which leads to a mess. My document from is saved online and on my computer, but I really couldn't figure out how to upload it as an HTML or a picture, so that is the only fault I have with it.


      Next I explored Google Docs. First I made a simple drawing, which the program was very similar to paint. The Link under the picture goes to my sample Google Word document.

     Google Word Doc

   Google Docs would be good for students who were working on a visual project to be able to help each other out, edit and review. My only concern is that a student may make changes without permission from the group, but I understand that you can put boundaries on who makes changes.

   Overall, I think I enjoyed the programs to an extent, and I do like how you can share them for open editing, but I guess I am old fashioned, and most likely will just use regular Microsoft programs in the classroom.