Thing 23

This has been a wonderful journey filled with enriching learning experiences for me. I have benefited from not only working through each thing but reading the reflections of others within this group. My thinking has changed from technology being an addition to teaching to technology being a necessity for and in teaching. Our students needs are changing and our teaching styles need to change with them. The world is leaning toward online learners as we have been during this 10 weeks. Being an active learner not passive is also necessary to survive in an online environment. It has become necessary for us to teach our students how to become a good online student that is not afraid to get involved in online discussions or blogs with others in the course as a means of learning and sharing. Students of the 21st century are stimulated more and focus more on what they see. Using these tools to teach will allow educators to reach all the diverse learners that appear in our classrooms today.

I plan to pull as many technologies that I can into my classroom and provide my students with a blend learning experience. With the diverse population of learners that are now entering into my classroom I see the need to be more diverse in my teaching style by using different tools to teach. Varying the tools I use will allow me to reach all my students. These tools will allow me to provide personalized instruction and meet my students where they are while keeping their attention and focus while improving their learning experience. I am able to bring some spice to my teaching as well, I am very excited to be able to learn all that I can about teaching with technology. These tools will allow me to collaborate with teachers outside of my immediate area and learn even more. Over the years I have attended many workshops in the area of Science and received many tools to work with but none have made a greater impact or been able to reach more students than the technology tools. Each of these technology applications serves a different purpose. Many of them are able to be used together.

I will continue to learn about Web 2.0 Tools through MACUL Space which looks like a good place to share ideas and learn new things. Reading other educators blogs is a good way to learn about good resources without having to search the web which becomes time consuming. I value the opinion of other educators enough to take a look at the sites that they recommend. I plan to log on to take a look at this site each day to stay abreast of what is going on.

My biggest take aways from this experience is learning the importance of educator blogs and how to a active participant in a blog. Before I would just read a few blogs and not comment, but now I see the importance and benefits of being actively involved.

Thing 22

really like using a wikpage even though mine is a work in progress and I refer to it when necessary with my students. I have used it as an online closet and bulletin board for my course, so it is kind of messy but I intend to clean it up soon so that it is continuously updated and used. This has been a good place to post my syllabus and any other notes or announcements that students may need to refer to throughout the course. I can store website links here that will direct students to important information and websites to be used during the course. I have been able to place power point or podcast presentations for students to view at their leisure. I am able to control giving my students immediate access to everything all at once or as I pull and post information to the webpage. I can also give the students access to adding to the page. The two tools differ because a wiki can be edited and become a new page while a blog is like an ongoing chronological journal. It is more appropriate to use a blog when you want the information to be displayed in a chronological order. It is more appropriate to use a wiki when you don't want the information added to be in chronological order. Use a blog when you want the students to be able to view others work and make a comment on it and use a wiki when you want a more collaborative edit to occur or no edit at all both edits will happen without comments.
My wiki is @
http://www.chemistryonthebrain.wikispaces.com

Thing 21

I was introduced to wikispaces over 2 years ago and was amazed ate power a wiki has. I viewed several wikis and decided that it would be in my best interest as an educator to create one to use in my classroom. I was excited to see that I could use a wikispace webpage as a place to hold a wealth of information and assignments that I could electronically give to my students and they could access them anytime. I was enthused with the fact that I could also use the site to showcase student work for other students and parents to see. The only hurdle that might stand in the way of using my wiki would be lack of technology or lack of internet service for the students at home and sometimes with in the school. Removing the hurdles would be worth the fight, but in order to remove these hurdles the student must be equipped with some kind of technology device that would allow them internet access. I teach students from poor economic and social backgrounds that have limited technology in their homes. Some are able to access the internet by cell phone and some have computers but these barriers are hard ones to remove.

Thing 20

I used the search tool Education Podcast Network to search for science podcast. The majority of them showed NO CURRENT PODCAST PROGRAMS LISTED. When I was using Podcast Alley each time I tried to download I received a message that said The PCA Forum is receiving some scheduled maintenance. We're sorry for the inconvenience. Using iTunes seems to be very easy and more organized than the others. It has a podcast directory and search tool which are simple to use. My preference of podcast search tools would be itunes because it it easier to use and more organized plus it has free podcast that everyone can subscribe to. Most students already have iTunes accounts and can easily show others how to set one up. I subscribed to Chemistry Lab Procedures by Nancy Gardner to use in my courses with my students to demonstrate proper laboratory techniques. I plan have my students to subscribe to this podcast and listen to the different topics as I assign them. I hope to find more useful podcast that will assist me with my course.

Thing 19

I found these two podcast interesting.
http://k12science.net/Podcast/Podcast/Podcast.html
http://www.psucast.com/techpodzone/
The first one has been around for years and is the first that I had ever heard. I subscribe to it through my email and get alerts when there are new podcast available. The second one was interesting because it had various technological sites that are listed that I am interested in.
These two podcast interest me and would be useful in my chemistry courses with my students when we are covering elements and compounds.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/podcast/element.asp
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/podcast/CIIEcompound.asp

Thing 18

Introduction To Chemistry

View more presentations from Bro. Oh Teik Bin

I like the presentation that I embedded because it was an introduction of the elements that shows the common everyday uses of elements. I plan to use this when I introduce chemistry to my students this year as being something we experience everyday. I could use slideshare to have my students report out on their African American Chemist research project that is completed during black history month. My student would also be able to complete their research report on an element using slideshare incorporating beautiful pictures of the elements and information on slides. I believe my students will love slideshare because many students like to showcase their work and critique others, but this will reach learners like my self that like to see things happen and pay more attention to something that is more colorful and attractive than a textbook. This would also be a good way to quickly assess students and build portfolios of student work that they will have to keep. I would be able to use slideshare to post my lessons so that students who are absent can still benefit from the lesson missed. As a teacher I am able to share with others and save time using slideshows that have already been created. There are many valuable uses for slideshare in an out of the classroom.

Thing 17

These tools would be helpful in building creative word walls that could be printed and hung around the room. At the end of each chapter the students could build their own wordle using wordle.net or tagxedo using tagxedo.com with the vocabulary from the chapter. The students could use bubbl.us or gliffy.com to build venn diagrams, flow charts, or concept maps to connect vocabulary and concepts. They could also use bubbl.us or gliffy to take notes linking concepts and skills together. Sometimes in chemistry a multi-step process is used bubbl.us or gliffy would be useful to organize this information. For myself it would be a good lesson starter to ask the students to identify words they already know and discuss them in groups then as a whole class. These graphic organizers and word walls can be embedded into various things such as documents or presentations. I think the students are going to be excited to use these and may choose to post them on their web page. Of course these could be use during professional developments to stimulate thought and start discussions. The number of activities that these tools can be used for goes on and on.

Thing 16

Well I did not see the document that should have been shard with me to alter and send back, but I have used this tool before and found it fairly easy to use. It also gives you the edit history which would help if I were using this with my students and needed to see who added what to the final project. Google Document templates will help me save time and allow quick lessons to be created and edited with ease. This is also a useful tool for teachers who share common subjects to collaborate and create together without having to meet together to do so. With our busy schedules we are often unable to meet to create assignments together or share assignments but with this tool all things are possible. I am also able to use Google Documents applications to have my students produce group projects and share group projects without having to provide meeting time to complete this task, it may be done out of class without being face to face.

Thing 15

RSS is becoming easier to understand and I recognize the benefit of being able to subscribe to the daily news and only the portion of the news I am interested in without having to peruse the whole site to find what I need. I haven't mastered the art of remembering to check my feeds regularly because I don't use this email address as my daily or personal email account it is only for educational technology in my classroom. It is not a habit or obsession for me yet, but I see where it would become one if it were connected to my email that I use daily from my smart phone.

Thing 14

chemaster99 is my delicious username. Delicious will assist me with providing my students and colleagues a collection of websites all at once, which will save time and effort. The students will be able to all access the necessary website with ease, efficiency and correct spelling which saves classroom instruction time, limits confusion and enhances my productivity.

Thing 13

I did not know that you could add tag button to your browser which would make it easier to a bookmark. Tagging is a useful way to organize digital resources because there are so many great sites and organizing them by topic allows for easy searching. Using multiple tags allows you to get to what you want faster which is an advantage of this tool. The sharing of bookmarks that have been tagged by other educators is another advantage because it is a quick and useful way to find good sites. Once you begin to share with someone who has a good method to organizing all of the great sites in your content area it will be like finding GOLD. I can't think of any disadvantages of tagging other than it becoming overwhelming when you run out or use the same tag over and over causing the list to become long and tiresome to search. It is important brainstorm for terms that will help you to assign tags that assist with grouping and distinguishing sites. Grouping tags will be useful to someone searching all of your content on a topic, while distinguishing tags will be useful for you and others when looking for specific items within a group.

Thing 12

I am pretty comfortable with embedding code. Yes, I belong to several online communities. I believe that online relationships are as meaningful as face-to-face relationships in today's world of ever advancing technologies. With today's technology tools such as Skype and Webinars online relationships have just as much meaning if not more. You can be in two places at one time and benefit from being able to reach distant places in a moments notice through the use of these tools. MySpace and other social networking sites are so popular with kids today because the get instant responses and are able to contact and keep track of all of their friends no matter where they are. It gives them an inside view of others worlds in just a few clicks of the keyboard whether it be a computer or cell phone.

Thing 11

I am not comfortable commenting on someone's blog that doesn't now me. If I am going to make a comment it will always be positive and respectful never hurtful or demeaning. I do like to read blogs about things I am interested in because you can learn a lot this way and get someone else's opinion when needed. I actually didn't know I had my first comment until I was about to answer no to this question, then I said let me look further. When I saw my first comment I though someone is actually reading my blog and then noticed that it was more than one comment. One of the comments invoked me to make a comment on that comment, which created a conversation. The comments left told me that the reader found my post interesting. Commenting is important in online communities because sometimes it provides assurance that you are not the only one with this view. It is also a source of more information on a topic if the person is commenting and sharing information. Students who are sharing their writing online may become more conscience that others are reading it and put only their best writing out there for the world to see. They will also be invoked to have a say and an opinion instead of existing quietly.

Thing 10

I chose this video because it is something that I can use in my classroom that will help me to save time. It helps to show and reinforce the concepts that I cover. I was able to download this video as well and plan to use it this year in my classroom.

Thing 9

YouTube video resources can be used to help me differentiate my instruction and support the various types of students that enter my classroom. The more interactive I can make my lessons, the more my students will enjoy, extract, and retain information from my lessons. With the diverse population of learners that are now entering into my classroom I see the need to be more diverse in my teaching style by using different tools to teach and video and audio tools will allow me to reach all my students. This tool will allow me to provide personalized instruction and meet my students where they are while keeping their attention and focus while improving their learning experience. YouTube is unavailable in my classroom at this point and until our district specialist decides that it is a good tool. I have assigned videos to be watched at home by my students who have computers at home to watch. To bring YouTube into my classroom I use Zamzar media converter and convert the format to a mov file.

Thing 8

I spent several days coming back to explore all the items that are in thing 8. I like the spell it with flickr mashup because it was easy to use and can be incorporated into a presentation easily by just pasting the embed code and there wasn't anything to download. I plan to use it with my students and also for making titles or interesting headings when I want to be creative. Big Huge Labs and Image Generator hold a vast amount of creative tools that I’m sure my students are going to love. Image Generator was overwhelming and time-consuming you need a whole week just to be able to see everything this site has to offer. These tools take the place of using clip art or word art to create banners or headings. The amount of thing that can be created is endless. My students will be able to add originality, creativeness and variation to their projects through use of these tools. The only frustrating thing was trying to figure out if the sites were free or had a cost associated with it. Some sites are just asking for a donation but seeing paypal would lead you to believe that there is a cost for usage which may discourage students if they don't carefully read through the site. All of the ads that are posted on the pages are also a bit frustrating.

Thing 7

This will be a useful site to give to my students when they are completing multimedia projects. They are able to search, edit, share and store photos using this site. I plan to use and share this tool with my students and colleagues who will be able to create an endless amount of gorgeous presentations using various types of media tools. The only issues that might arise are when students locate pictures that require special permission to use and copyrighted material. I ran into a few pictures that required permission during my search.

Thing 6

I searched Flickr by using the keyword Chemistry and found some interesting pictures. Then I searched again for chemistry lab. I found this picture interesting because it was a black and white photo and the lab looked like the one I worked in with my students two summers ago at Wayne State University. The lab at Wayne State was just as unappealing to the eye as the one pictured from way back in 1956. Technology advances every day and new techniques are discovered everyday but a lab such as this still exist today with chemical in it that are older than myself. WOW!!!!

Thing 5

Creating the account was very simple since I already have a Google account. This offers a simplified view of web articles that I have subscribed to down to just text, pictures and video so that I can pan through the information as fast as I pan through my email. This is a good way to gather a shortened version of information from one site and be able to easily access only what you want. I still need to go back and begin folders for this information to be stored which will make this tool even more valuable. Sharing of documents from these folders seems easy although I haven’t tried it yet. I still have a lot to learn about this tool. A good article for Newbie’s like myself is http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9745368-2.html . A good website on RSS for everyone is http://www.feedforall.com/rss-videos.htm it contains video on how to use and the usefulness of RSS which I plan to watch and share with my colleagues and students. http://www.blogdigger.com/index.html is a site I plan to explore to create group of feeds for all of my topics of interest. This is a wonderful easy to use tool, which I plan to share with my colleagues, family, and students.

Thing 4

That task was easy enough anyone can do it. Now that I am aware of what the RSS symbol means I plan to subscribe to more sites as they come up in my searching and reading of emails. I subscribe several sites that have to do with professional development and free technology. I plan to manage my subscriptions by creating folders to house all of the feeds that come in daily, so that I can open them to read depending on what my interest is for the day. I prefer to just click on the RSS symbol. Adding it to the favorites bar was as easy as clicking and dragging it to the bar. It was not necessary to go through all the drop down menus as seen in the video

Thing 3

Reading other educators blogs is a good way to learn about good resources without having to search the web which becomes time consuming. Blogs are a good place to share ideas and learn new things. It is good to have educators who have the same set of content standards as you discussing the technologies and state expectations all at once under similar conditions. I can use blogs to subscribe to sites that have to do with professional development and free technology. I value the opinion of other educators enough to take a look at the sites that the recommend. I will probably have my students read a certain passage on a new science topic and post each week as a weekly blog assignment, which becomes the new way to do current events. The newspaper will probably be one of the sources that I will have them use to research a topic. When students are doing research they can set up accounts at Bloglines or Google and add feeds that will collect information for them to look through. My only worry with using blogs with students is the possibility of improper behavior from students through posting of profanity or other improper items.

Thing 1 & Thing 2

I am participating in 23 Things because I want to know what 23 things there are that teachers should know about web 2.0. I am interested in learning more about the current technologies that are used in the classroom and how to implement and use them to increase learning and achievement. My thoughts were about how powerful technology has become and that I don’t know how we would ever live without it. The comment that a student only gets to ask one question every 10 hours in a classroom had the greatest impact on me. The question that stood out the most from the video was “To whom were these questions addressed B.G.? “ Before Google. Knowing that anyone can read my writing won’t change the way I write, I will just make sure I use spell check. Lol

5 chemical reaction types