Thing #23

I really enjoyed the majority of the content in this program. The 23 Things Blog correlated nicely with the LiveText assignments. It was definitely an abundant wealth of knowledge to shift through; however, for the most part it was all relatively helpful both for understanding classroom technology and applying those technologies and/or tools to effectively enhance classroom management. Most of the content covered in the 23 Things Blog and the LiveText assignments I personally considered more useful as educational tools, that when I begin teaching, I could use to get a broader understanding of specific information such as: lesson plans, teaching methods, content information, visual/audio aids, etc. As an educator I would have felt fairly vulnerable with the majority of the "unfiltered" material available in the social media outlets, chatrooms, and blogs. So, instead of having my students explore these educational "outlets" on their own I would supply them with the necessary links in order to better control the information viewed by my students, their parents, and fellow peers. Overall, I truly appreciate being able to explore the countless technologies and tools available for use and decide for myself which materials are appropriate for my teaching methods and grade levels.

Thing #22

Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers is based on Learning 2.0 - 23 Things, a staff development program for the Mesquite 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.

As educators and students a strong understanding of Creative Commons is necessary to ensure that we do not interfere with the rights of concepts, ideas, lesson plans, et., created by others; as well as, others can not interfere with the rights to any of our original ideas, concepts or creations. Creative Commons is important to understand because when used correctly it allows us to share our ideas, improve our teaching methods, learning methods, help solve creative classroom problems, etc. Also, with Creative Commons the ability to change or modify someone else's ideas or have them modify your own ideas is an excellent way to grow as educators; in a way trial and error produces more results when there are numerous people trying an idea or concept.

Thing #21

Thing #20

Thing #19

Thing #18

Thing #17

Thing #16

Thing #15

Thing #14

Thing # 13

I created an account in Zoho and explored Google Docs. I tried out Zoho Writer's features and found it rather confusing. Zoho seems to basically be a interactive or collaborative way of using Microsoft Word Documents. However, it seems like students could still collaborate on assignments and projects by simply emailing their parts to each other (we do this often in the MAT program once we've divided up the work and assigned a mediator/organizer).

Google Doc: English Saying

I love Google Docs! The applications are easy to access and implement. I created numerous documents that would be useful in an English classroom. Students could easily work collaboratively using Google Docs; when they access an application Google asks if they want to make it a collaboration type project. I like that it would be easy for the students to understand how to utilize the application in Google Docs; by eliminating instruction (or rather eliminating the need to re-explain the instructions due to confusing applications) students are able to foster their creativity and focus on the content of the assignment rather than trying to "do" the assignment.