Thing 19

As I mentioned in my previous Thing, I'm an avid member of Facebook, and have now acquired a MySpace as well! The social networks that I found appealing were Fuzzster (because I love animals) and 43 Things. 43 Things was especially interesting; I liked looking at the random list of people's new year's resolutions for 2011. Some of them, like "think more, react less" and "lend unconditional peace to circumstances that would otherwise drive me crazy" really made me stop and think! I'm going to brainstorm for awhile about a creative resolution of my own, then join 43 Things and post it. :) Teacher Pop also looks like a really great online community; my profile info is still pending approval from an administrator, and once it goes through I plan to become an active member! Networking for professional purposes is something I aspire to do more of as I move closer to beginning my career as an educator, and tools such as these will undoubtedly prove useful.

Thing 18

 Why is it important that educators know how social networking works? What new insights did you gain about these popular sites? What did you like or dislike about each of the sites you explored? Which site had the most useful features? Can you see a classroom or school application for any of these sites?
As a member of Facebook for nearly five years, I cannot imagine my life without the network! Keeping in touch with friends and family would be much less involved, and I would not feel as "up-to-date" with what my friends are doing throughout the day. I like that Facebook allows users to "like" fellow members' posts, pictures, comments, etc. The "like" feature is simple, and provides an easy, fun way to connect on a really casual level with any of your friends' Facebook actions that you agree with. Another fun feature of the network is its personal reminders of events and birthdays. The only aspect of Facebook that I do not appreciate is that at times spam messages from psuedo-accounts get sent to my inbox; if I were to mistakenly open one of these, my computer could be exposed to a virus or my account could be hacked.

For this assignment, I created a MySpace account in addition to my Facebook. The sites are similar in setup, with both providing fields for basic personal information as well as a blog-like "About Me" section free for editing by the user at any time. I am not yet as fond of MySpace as I am of Facebook; perhaps given time to become more familiar with its orientation, I will begin to enjoy it more. Out of the two networks, I personally feel that Facebook's features are more useful.

As a teacher, I would implement Facebook's "Groups" feature as a means of creating a sense of community in my classroom, with my students and their parents getting involved as they choose. This would be a similar concept to creating a blog such as this one for use by parents in order to keep up with classroom happenings.  

http://www.myspace.com/557313337
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=593066306

Thing 17

As I looked through APSU 23 Things's bookmarks on Delicious, I noted that many of the top tags used for the sites involved the tools we've been using in this class-- Web 2.0, wikis, technology, blogs, etc. While I could see the tags associated with each site, user comments were not visible to me from the 23 Things page at Delicious or the "Networks", "Tags", or "Subscriptions" sections..however, on some of the sites (for example, "21 Classes", comments from readers were listed. I think this tool has potential for usefulness in the classroom because teachers can access social bookmarking sites to see what online tools and sites their colleagues are implementing as teaching tools, and possibly begin using them as well.

Thing 16

• Which start page did you choose? Why did that one appeal to you? Will you make it your permanent home page?

For my start page, I chose iGoogle. (I must confess, the main reason it initially appealed to me was the pink background shown in the example picture; pink is my favorite color!) I was astounded by how quickly my own, personal start page generated---it literally took seconds for me to select a theme and page features and click the "create" button, and voila! There it was. :) I settled on the "European Beaches" background because I like to have a calming, serene picture to glance at every now and then. I will probably make this my homepage, it's complete with celebrity news, online games, NPR updates, and even a joke of the day!

• How can the online calendars be useful to you?

Online calendars could be useful in helping me keep track of school assignment deadlines, special occasions like family birthdays and anniversaries, or my personal fitness regime of running & various weight training and yoga classes.

• What about the to-do lists—helpful, too much work…?

I chose to create a to-do list at "Ta-Da"; the name made it sound really fun, but I actually found it quite plain. This is not a bad thing, though, because the site's simplicity definitely caters to the convenience of having a to-do list on your computer.

• Did you find a tool that has some uses for you at the school or at home? Which tool(s) would you recommend to others?

I think my "Ta-Da" account will certainly be put to much use from now on! I'm constantly making these little "lists", and not having to keep up with hard copies of them will make life just a little bit easier. :) I would reccomend this site and iGoogle to others. I also looked at the About.com article on the Top 10 online productivity sites. Some of the sites featured that I found interesting were Google desktop and Google Docs & Spreadsheets. The latter would probably be useful in Instructional Technology!

Thing 15

For Thing 15, I got to finally understand what Wikis are all about! A big fan of Wikipedia for light "research" purposes, I had never fully understood the way these tools work until completing this assignment. As I looked over a few of the options provided for exploration (Princeton's summer book club, Wikinomics--which would have been helpful to me in high school economics class!--and the Teacherlibriarianwiki) the main theme I noticed with all of these sites is collaboration. This purpose was also apparent in the video, Wikis in Plain English, in which we are given the example of friends planning a camping trip and using a Wiki to get organized and all be involved on the same level in planning. The concept reminds me of using a Facebook group to plan an event; once a person joins, he or she can contribute for all group members to see,and everyone stays connected because everyone can log on and see or edit the same page.
As I edited the APSU 23 Things Wiki "Sandbox", I found it slightly tedious to navigate. Luckily, one of the first posts from a classmate I saw on the frontpage advised anyone looking to edit the wiki to create an account first. After doing this, I clicked around until I found a "Create Page" button. My page doesn't show up on the front section, but can be found pretty easily under the "Pages" section. It was a fun experience, a little like participating in an online discussion board but with more options for editing your contribution.

Thing 14

For this Discovery Exercise, I chose to explore Gliffy.com and Bubbl.us. Both sites were interesting and easy to navigate; I set up an account for each in less than a minute. The main difference that I observed in Flow Charts and Mindmaps was that flow charts are typically created with the intention of getting factual concepts across to the reader, while mindmaps are for use by the individual creating them as a tangible, concrete representation of his or her ideas. Indeed, the button I clicked to get started on my mindmap at Bubbl.us was marked, "Start Brainstorming". :)

At Gliffy.com, I created a Venn Diagram that gave a summary of similarities and differences between myself and my two roommates. This was easy to do, and the site was basically self-explanatory. At Bubbl.us, however, I found creating a brainstorming chart of Holiday 2010 plans slightly more difficult. Getting the format of the chart to do what I wanted it to (position, organization, etc.) was tedious and much more time-consuming than making the Venn Diagram had been. I chose these two sites because they looked interesting; I would most likely use Gliffy for producing a flowchart for future academic endeavors, but will probably not attempt to use Bubbl.us again.

Thing 13

I absolutely LOVE Zoho Writer! After creating my free account, I used Zoho to write two journal entries for my online Intro to Special Education class. Sometime in the near future I will need to email them to my professor, and knowing that I can now access them from any computer on campus (i.e., whenever it is most convenient!) really puts my mind at ease. Throughout every semester at school, it seems, I constantly email myself documents in order to print them out or pull them up in class. Using Zoho will make this process obsolete; having my documents readily accessible from the internet is much simpler than having to send them to myself. Using Zoho Writer could almost make any computer seem like your own PC. Talk about convenience!