THING 23

For the remainder of this school year, I will use the items I learned in this course where I can. I feel that to get the full benefit of the "Things," I will need the summer to reflect and come up with some different ideas.

What I think I liked most about the course, was that I learned about things that I can not only use in my classroom, but I can use at home too. Flickr is one that comes to mind.

I believe that the main item I will use professionally, but will need some time to think about how best to use it, is Wikispaces. I believe it could be a powerful tool for students, and I need to find an approach that best works for me.

I will communicate different useful things to my colleagues through departmental meetings. I feel that many of the items in this course could be of great benefit to other teachers.

I want to make sure that in the future, I keep up on Web 2.0 and beyond. There are many exciting things that seem to be coming out to empower teachers everywhere.

I feel that the best way to stay connected is through Bloglines. They are a nice way to keep up on everyones' Blogger posts.

THING 22

I have already used Michigan LearnPort before and found it extremely useful. I was able to get 1.0 SB-CEUs which also counted for 10 contact hours by taking an online course that focused on the basics of NCLB.

I would gladly use Michigan LearnPort again if I needed SB-CEUs or contact hours. It is nice because many of the courses are free. I believe that the main advantage of this site is that many of the PD courses are self-paced. As teachers, we become very busy through the year, and PD that is paced can sometimes become very difficult.

The only disadvantage I can think of involved tech issues. My first time through LearnPort, I encountered a variety of difficulties when it came to site navigation. My first course took me awhile to get through due to the difficulty I had finding what I needed to. Once you get used to the site, it is quite handy.

THING 21

Youtube is a site that I am fortunate to have access to through my school. I do believe that there are many advantages to this site. The video I embedded below is a good example of an advantage. I took a trailer from a BBC version of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and showed to my class before we began reading the story. This gave them a chance to see what the story was about before we even opened the book.

Unfortunately, there are also disadvantages as well. For one, watch the search results like a hawk. Something inappropriate may come up even though what you are searching for is completely innocent. Also, trusting students to use Youtube appropriately can be a dangerous idea as well.

I believe that Youtube can be a powerful tool in the classroom if used properly.

Youtube

THING 20 continued

I believe students would enjoy podcasts. It is an interactive, unique way for them to learn. It is something they are not used to, and would find interesting. I believe they would enjoy both learning from a teacher's podcast as well as making some of their own.

For personal use, I enjoy podcasts from http://espnradio.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/index

I enjoy hearing the latest about sports.

For professional use, I found this one interesting http://www.drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/
It has a nice listing of books and E-Books for teachers as well as anyone interested.

THING 20

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THING 19

One Podcast that I listened to was "Mr. Langhorst's Speaking of History - Unit 5 study cast." When I listened to it, I could immediately see the benefits. He has a unit review right there for his students to listen to. This would be huge for a teacher. Students could study at home for a test with not only the book, but their teacher explaining it to them. A teacher can make references to class discussions, or comparisons and analysis they used in their lectures.

I also listened to an "Our City" Podcast about Lincoln Park from a group of 7th graders from Lincoln Park Middle School. Students reported on a podcast about their hometown. What I liked about this, was that students would get to work with technology they were familiar with, and see how it could be fun even when used for educational purposes.

Podcasting is an engaging way for students to learn and something I would love to try in my own classroom.