Thing #22

Hello,  Today I listened to podcasts.  I went to EPN (The Educational Podcast Network) http://epnweb.org/index.php?request_id=445&openpod=11#anchor11.  I then went to the Subject Specific Podcasts section and clicked on Social Studies.  I found some interesting things, the first one I checked was the First Amendment Minute.  It is a podcast that tells about Supreme Court cases that involve Freedom of Speech. http://epnweb.org/player.php?podshow=http://www.firstamendmentminute.com/Podcasts/FAM_2007-10-01_Truth_or_Consequences.mp3&podcast=First Amendment Minute&program=Truth or Consequences

I don't think that this podcast would appeal to everyone, but it would appeal to Us History teachers and fans of History.  It could be used in classrooms to educate students on real court cases.  They would hear real court cases and real decisions and the reasons for these decisions. 

I also went to Podcastdirectory http://podcastdirectory.com/ and I noticed that they had a lot more categories.  They had art, music, culture, and comedy.  They have education as well, but it is not a focus of this site.  If I followed a podcast it would be this one because of its diversity. 
Both of these sites were easy to use.

Thing #21

I was really excited about this one, it looked fun right off the bat.  I could not wait to share this on with family and I have not even started making it yet  It strarts off by picking a theme.  Then you upload your pictures or use theirs.  I chose some pictures from our Ocean City, MD vacation.  I uploaded 12 pictures and then I had to choose some music.  I was going to use my own music until i read that you had to have the rights to it.  So to avoid the hastle I just decided to use one of theirs.  I tried to find something "beachy"  It was hard to find something, but I did manage to find a surfer song.  It turned out pretty good.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Thing #20

     I have been using Youtube for a little while now.  It is perfect for history/government teachers because of the amount of historical footage that they have.  I had a Civil Rights project this year and youtube had the Bull Conner speech and footage of the march which drew the ire of the world.  I like the fact that you can easily get the video embeded code just by clicking on the embed button.  If you are collecting videos for a project due now or for future use, you can either put it in a temporary quene, or for long term placement in a play list.
     I chose this video because of its historical signifigance.  This speech was the pivotal moment in the career of Martin Luther King Jr and the pivitol momeent in the Civil Rights movement.

Thing #19

     Well the first thing that I did was join Ning teacherpop.  It said I would have to be approved by the administrator.  The first thing I saw when it opened was one of my classmates from my 5540 class, so I decided to leave her a comment.  Then I discovered that I could not leave a comment until I was approved.  No worries, I will just move on to the next exercise. 
     I am a big movie buff so I tried flixter.  http://www.flixter.com/  It is interesting because you can set up where you can veiw movies that are now playing.  You can set up a theater that is closest to you.  You can see new movie and DVD releases. It also has some cool quizzes, I took the superhero quiz.  I also joined in on a forum.  I will definitely use this to track movies I want to see.


I have just been approved for teacherpop.  I left a comment for my classmate Jennifer.  I also got my badge.  I also uploaded a picture.
Visit TeacherPop

Things #18

I have had a facebook account for a little while now. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1528141966   I never had a myspace account because I am a very private person and I am very skeptical of people having that much access to me.  I decided to get a facebook page under the urging of my friends just to stay in touch with them.  I have to admit that facebook does get you in touch with people who you may have lost contact with.  I have reconnected with a lot of people I went to high school with.  I like that feature of how you can find friends and you can comment on their status.  Every time someone makes a comment on your status you get an email or you can get an alert on your phone. 
   I feel like teachers should know about the dangers of social websites.  They should be careful about pictures and statements that they post.  Because if those posts are deemed improper, they could be fired.  Teachers should also be leery of accepting friend requests from their students.  This could lead to relationships being viewed as improper.  I do not think that a teacher should use a facebook/myspace account for educational use, because of all the potential dangers.  I think that teachers should use educational social networks where only the students, teachers, and parents have access.  I have enclosed a link of some of those sites.     http://www.educationalnetworking.com/List+of+Networks

Thing #17

I looked around on the 23 things and I found some interesting sites and I also read some of the comments.  I felt like I would understand it better if I set it up for myself.  So I set it up and imported bookmarks that were previously on my computer.  Once I did that I started searching delicious for history bookmarks and I found an excellent historical picture site.  This site has been saved over 11,000 times.  I searched the comments and I found that there were a lot of history teachers that were sharing this site.  Some of the tags that were used were history, images, and teaching.   I included a picture of the Apollo 11 moonwalk from the Life site. http://images.google.com/hosted/life    I think that this would be a good thing for teachers because they could bookmark popular sites so they could always reference them.  Another way this could be useful for teachers is the social networking aspect.  A teacher could check the bookmarks of other teachers/researchers and use those sites in their classrooms.

Thing #16

     I tried both of the start pages, igoogle and pageflakes. I must admit that I liked pageflakes better.  I think it was easier to load RSS feeds and pageflakes had better gadgets.  I also liked the look of it.  I will probably use pageflakes as my home page if I can get it to work properly. 
     I set up the google calendar a little while ago.  I think it can be used in classrooms if you made it public for students and parents.  You could put assignment due dates, important historical dates, and when report cards are due.  You could put Parent-Teacher conference dates and set up automatic emails to parents to keep them informed of everything. 
I used the online to do list "ta da list". tadalist.com  It was incredibly simple.  You just name a list and then add items to it.  You can share your list or have it emailed to you.  It would be better if it sent alerts to your phone. 
     I also tried Joe's Goals. Joe'sgoals.com  It was different from the other sites because it allowed you to set goals and prioritize them with grades and animations.  This could be used for setting personal goals as well as classroom goals.  Such as high test scores, book reading, and student individual goals.    

Thing #15

     When I got to the APSU site it looked like fun and I could not wait to add something.  It sort of like immortalizing yourself except someone can edit you.  I was a little disappointed to discover I had to create another account.  It seems like I have created 1000 accounts.  However,  really wanted to add something so I created yet again.  It took me a few minutes to figure out how to edit but once I did, I edited someone who had used a mind map.  She had a mind map that was school related and mine was a personal use mind map.  That way people get of example of both uses.  It also makes me wonder about wiki's.  Someone could go in and edit and add incorrect information.  I am a history major and since I have edited APSU's wiki, I am going to add something to one of the historic entrees on wikipedia. 

Thing # 14

     I must admit that I didn't understand the mind map at first. In order to better understand it I decided to try something that came easy to me. I chose to use our summer vacation. I tried bubbl.us and it does help you organize your ideas. You just type a main idea into a bubble and then type subsequent ideas into a child bubble. You can also connect two bubbles with a directional line. I like the color feature. When you change the main bubble all the subsequent bubbles change to a different color and their child bubbles change as well.
     The next thing I tried was gliffy.  I have had more experienced with flow charts.  When I was in the Army, we used them for phone rosters and various classes.  For this one I chose a flow chart for the three branches of Government.  It was very easy.  They have a large group of shapes to choose from and a wide range of colors to decorate them.  You can color the background as well.  This would be very useful for making charts diagramming things like how a bill becomes a law or duties of the Vice President. 

Thing #13

I am trying out this Zoho and so far it seems a lot like ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Microsoft word. I do like the fact that you no longer need to have the latest upgrade in word to type a document. I was checking the features to see if there were any differences between the two and the first thing I discovered was that Zoho does not have as many font selections. However it does seem to have a lot more features in the tabs. For instance in the review tab has a "find and replace" feature that will find a word from your document and replace it with another word of your choosing. The insert tab has equations, table of contents, and watermarks. You can also publish documents, post them to a blog, and digitally sign things. You can insert local style sheets from your computer. It seems a lot like Word only better. It seems a lot easier to use than Microsoft Word.