Blog #12

Your tenth post should contain:

• A paragraph on topics you found most interesting from reviewing your classmates’ blogs.
• A paragraph on what technology-related skill you would most like to learn next, and why.
• A paragraph on ways in which you might achieve your future educational technology-related goals

I like reading what everybody thinks about what they are learning in class. I think seeing everyone's opinions can make you think differently about things, and maybe give things you don't like a second chance. I also like reading everyone's ideas about what they will do in their future classrooms because it helps me think of new ideas for my future classes. I think blogs are a good idea for teachers because they can build off eachother's ideas, like my classmates and I do.

I would like to learn how to use pages and the other programs that Mac computers offer. I think they are so cool and the artsy stuff you can do on them is amazing. I have a Mac, so I prefer Mac, and I think it would be not only fun to learn these programs but also useful since I own the computer it is accessible on.

I might achieve my future educational technology-related goals by taking classes or asking around about how to use things. I also may use my newfound google skills to find information and teaching websites that will help me achieve my goals. I think teacher blogs and message boards could be very useful in this respect. I would also use a teacher blog to maybe learn some new ideas about how my colleagues are using educational technology.

Blog #11

I have gotten comfortable using Twitter this semester and I have enjoyed learning about it. I like that you can follow celebrities, businesses, and your friends all at once. I love that everyone has caught the Twitter bug and can't stop using it. I find it fascinating how many people are discussing the same topics as well.

Using Twitter this semester has been unique. I cannot honestly say that I will be using it too much in the future. I have found that I enjoy reading other people's Tweets much more than I enjoy tweeting. I like to know what is going on with all of my friends, and I also like to see when businesses are promoting through their Twitter accounts, but I will not be likely to use this tool for my personal socializing.

I think Twitter is very fun to engage in, but I do not see it as a significantly effective teaching tool for K-12 education. I think it is about as useful as Facebook or MySpace in that sense. I am not sure that students will use it to their full advantage, and I fear that introducing children to this type of website will only cause them distractions. I think Twitter is great for marketing, networking, and socializing, but I am not a supporter of it for education use.

Blog #10

YouTube

A web 2.0 tool that I will use when teaching in my classroom is YouTube. I think YouTube is a great tool to demonstrate things and also to share video and sound clips with students. If I ever assign my students a video project to do, I will also make it part of their assignment to upload the video onto YouTube, because I think that would be a useful thing to know how to do. YouTube is full of useful material that students would be surprised exists. I would be excited to introduce them to what YouTube offers.

When showing powerpoints on a certain subject, I will search for video clips and other materials posted on YouTube to supplement the material I am teaching. One of the things I love about YouTube is that anyone and everyone can contribute their work to it- this is both good and bad, but in the grand scheme of things I think it is an advantage. Having such a wide variety of contributors opens up so many doors and opportunities of things to find on the website. This is obviously helpful for teachers who are searching for new ideas to convey material to their students.

I think web 2.0 is most definitely useful in K-12 education. I am very excited to use the tools I have learned in this class to teach my students with. I think it is important to keep things new with kids, because if they are bored they become disengaged, and then teaching them is useless. I will definitely be implementing some lessons with web 2.0 tools involved.