Thing 10

Well guys like I have been saying all along here is another "thing" that I had no idea about. I know about the copyright law, but I did not know what creative commons or CC. I found it very interesting that people want to share their work and this is a way that they can do it without having to contact the creator directly. With creative commons they can let you know exactly how they want to share their work and how you can use it.
As for me obviously I have not seen the cc on websites or other things. Now I do not usually share things on the web. In the classroom the lessons that I create are mine, but the materials that I have are copyrighted by the company. The videos and images that I use fall under the fair use policy to use for educational purposes. I think that if I can understand it better, then I can teach my students to understand it and maybe we would have less copyright issues with students and their projects.
As I continued my research, I really liked the OER Commons, because I could just type in a topic and then I would have a list of things that I could use to help me in my classroom. I also liked this one because it will will give you the way that the creator wants it to be shared. Now the CC Content Directories website is helpful to know what is used in a CC capacity. They want people to add to their website to help others know that is CC certified. But you must remember that when in doubt contact the creator.

Until next time,
Michelle

Thing 9

Wow what a thing. I can not lie and tell you that I really enjoyed it. The wiki was not one of my favorite things. For me because I was so unfamiliar it made it so hard to get use to using the wiki site. Now I know that wiki stands for quickly, but for me it was long and hard. I will admit that my wiki is not my grade A stuff, but it really took me a long time to make the wiki. I think sometimes because I am not technology savvy it takes me longer to accomplish wiki tasks. I have to read instructions over and over to make sure that I am getting. Here is the link to Michelle's Wiki. I know that it is not much of a wiki, but it was my first time. I hope you enjoy and I will talk to you soon.

Michelle

Thing 8 Stretch

I never use Wikipedia so when I looked up Aristotle I found it interesting. It was very informative and had lots of information. I thought it was written by someone that had to be educated. It made a lot of sense, but if you do not know enough information then it really could hurt your research. After looking in the discussion part there were several things that had to be changed. Then when I looked in the history I was really surprised because there was a long list of things that had been changed. When we do research in my class I do not allow my students to use Wikipedia because of the inaccuracies that I have heard from other people. I think that Wikipedia is good to get the "just" of information and scrap the surface, but for deep researching I would not use it.

Thing 8

First blogs and now wikis!! When will it end? Oh it wont. We are in the day and age of technology and it keeps getting better and better. As I watched the tutorial for the wikis, I felt kindof stupid because I had no idea that this existed. I tell you I am learning so much here. I have heard of wikis, but I did not realize how simple they were to use.
Is there a wiki in my future? Well lets just say that I am going to try. Some ideas that I was thinking about would be a group unit that I do. Have the students to create a wiki and giving them a specific problem and do some problem solving within the wiki. I also thought that we could have a speech topic wiki. This could help the students to come up with different topics and then they could comment on how you could expand on that specific topic.
I really liked Schools in the Past wiki. It amazes me that even 5th graders can take a project and use technology to accomplish it. Just the fact that you can set up something and have people work on it at the same time have a finished product is awesome. The second blog that I enjoyed was The Discovery Utopias wiki. When the students had questions they would comment on each others postings. I find it so refreshing that these kids want to learn and work on a project. This wiki had collective pages that the kids did together and it also had examples of fallen utopias.
Another wiki that I looked at that I really liked and would like to use that is The Westwood wiki It had the courses along with a calendar of when assignments are due. It had a place where you could turn in your NHS hours and know Mrs. Davis' schedule. It has everything that the students need without having the teacher.

Thing 7

Well I honestly did not know that there was commenting etiquette. I think that as a blogger commenting is important. I am the person that needs feedback to know that I have said something of importance or that someone agrees with me. As someone that is not a great writer I find it tough to comment because I do not want to say something stupid or something that does not make sense. I am working to try to make my comments meaningful. For me its sometimes just hard to know what is meaningful and will make an impact on a blog. Because I do not want to sound stupid or uneducated.

Until next time friends,

Michelle

Thing 5

Hello All!!! While I was suppose to write about something that stuck out to me in Thing 5 I was so wowed by the things that you can do with the RSS. I had no idea that you could just push a couple of buttons and the information comes right to me. I have been missing out on a world of knowledge because I am technology challenged. And the Google Reader you only have to go to that and put in the address and it comes to me. I do not even have to go to the many websites for the information, I just go to my reader and it does it for me. How could I have not known about this? How long has it been out there? I am learning so much. The best thing about this, is its all in one place. This class is just teaching me so much. Things that I did not even think about or know that it existed. I feel like I am on cloud nine learning all of this technology stuff. Maybe I can teach someone. Well friends that is all for now.

I really enjoyed the 2.0 blog. It is really good for students to have a place to put information that is helpful to them.I think that it is so good to see kids that care about their education and the future of it. The one that I liked the best was the beginning where the student is getting ready to apply for college. He is blogging so that everyone can see his progress. When reading the comments it was great because there were people that were young and old making comments.

Until next time!!!
Michelle

Thing 4

Well by now you would think that I am a total pro at blogging. However, I am not feeling like I still need a little more practice. So as I was reading the blogs I realize that I might be the only one that is not blogging. I did enjoy reading the different blogs. It amazes me on how many people are blogging. There are educated adults to children posting blogs.
There are several blogs that I really enjoyed. I love Patrick's Update. I think it was so sweet how he wrote about working hard to pass the 5th grade and that he was going to pass all of his other grades. Just the thought that he would think to post a blog on the internet just amazes me.
I also thought that the Students 2.0 was a good blog for teenagers. I know with teaching high school students that they always need a venue to either help them or to even vent.

Well I am still working on becoming a pro, so until then!!!

Michelle

Thing 2

Here we are again. Thing 2. Now that I have one blog down I think this blogging thing is not so bad. Sometimes I get a little tongue tied. With learning becoming so technology geared, it is important for me to keep learning and doing more technology geared activities. As a teacher I need to use the resources that MISD has for me. I need to take classes like this that will help me to learn and keep up with our kids in this technology age. It can help change the way I give a lesson. Instead of me giving not on the white board I can do a power point with the words and have it more interactive. Also, instead of just making a poster of something, the students can use photo story or even make a comic off of the computer. The technology age has changed the way that our kids learn and even the way I learn. I want to learn so that I can help my students learn.

Until next time,
Michelle

Thing 1

Well here goes my first blog. I really am a little nervous about this. As I am going through the reading and trying to understand all of the technical terms that I am not use to dealing with. I am trying to get my brain focused on learning the terms so that I can use them to help my students and to educate myself. I really think that the most important thing is to become a life learner and have motivation for myself to learn more things. I know that sometimes I fall into the mindset that I can not do something because I am not smart enough. I am trying to break the habit of saying that. I have enjoyed writing this for you. I hope that you enjoy it too.