Diigo Library

http://www.diigo.com/user/lingilb32 This link goes to my "My Library" on Diigo.com. This tool is very helpful in saving important articles or other resources for Educational purposes. For example, this could be used in my own teaching by catching up on the latest article dealing with Education or to get useful ideas for projects in my classroom for my students. For my own learning, I can use Diigo for when I am writing a paper and need sources. With Diigo's library, I can sort through all the articles and even tag them to my specific topic so it would be easier to look up the specific information that I need. Like I said above, I can use Diigo in my own teaching for updating myself on Educational issues or even the latest article dealing with Education. For the students, I can use this for finding school projects that would be fun and easy for them to do for homework and even show them how to use the website so it can be useful to them for whenever they write a paper or essay in my class.

Using Go!Animate

GoAnimate.com: A Moment in the Break Room by lingilb32

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun! Using Go!Animate was a fun experience! It was cool to be able to make my own small film in a decent amount of time. This is a good resource for educational purposes because it can be a fun teaching tool for a teacher to demonstrate a concept or rule, or it can be a good idea for a student project. A student can use this animated film to interpret a story or get his/her idea across for an assigned project. It extends the use of visual aid in a classroom and can be very useful for everyone!

Using Bubbl.us for Educational Purposes

I previewed Bubbl.us, as you can see by the example below, but the one above is related to my area of teaching: English. I think bubbl.us would be a great resource for the prewriting of an essay. As shown above, I put the main topic of the essay in the middle bubble and linked the rest together by the ideas that came with each new subtopic from the main topic.

Using Bubbl.us

Using Pixton

Using Pixton was a lot of fun and not too much work to do. This can be a fun activity for students to do and can also give them the motivation to complete a homework assignment while enjoying it at the same time. This is can be used not only for projects, but for demonstrations or even for fun! In the Pixton comic that I created below, it shows how you cannot be mean to a new student and judge them based on their skin color. Using this also gets a teacher's values and rules across to the students in a way they can understand, pay attention to, and remember.

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Google Presentation

Google Presentation

Using Google Presentation was in some ways similar and other ways different to Microsoft Word's Powerpoint Presentation. The similarities are that it has the same layout, it can be used in the same way as powerpoint can, and it was very easy to make. The differences are that the Google Presentation automatically saves the presentation everytime you type something new on the slides and you have to personally save your presentation on powerpoint, it's easier to download pictures onto a Powerpoint Presentation than on Google Presentation, and Google Presentation offers a different variety of slide backgrounds than Powerpoint Presentation has. This tool can be used in Education for multiple reasons, but for two precisely are for teachers and students. Teachers can use this tool (like I did in the powerpoint above) to diversify their teaching using Google Presentation. Conversely, students can use this presentation for projects give to the class.

Google Calendar Experiment

Prezi Presentation!

Why You Should Travel to Foreign Countries on Prezi

Video Demonstration for Voicethread Project

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Using Voicethread for Educational Projects

Our group decided to create a project for high school freshman. In order to help them learn algebra, the students will choose an algebraic equation to factor from the textbook and self-explain how to solve the problem on a voicethread. The students should doodle on a "chalkboard" (that can be found on google) and explain the process of solving the equation using a video of themselves talking as well. Concepts: This will be for a freshman year class to help them learn how to factor a quadratic equation and explain the whole process to other students. Standards: In our lesson, the students will accomplish the ask of understanding an algebraic equation in the book by working it out online. This also helps the students get better aquainted with technology. Use of Voicethread: Each student will have a Voicethread account and create a presentation by uploading a picture of a chalkboard, "doodling" the equation on the chalkboard, and then solving the equation. While the student is explaining the solving of the equation, they will have their webcam on so that the person viewing the video will see a video of the person explaining the equation and the solving of the equation at the same time.

Video Thread Project

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Podcasts

Find me on voicethread.com. My email is lingilb32@gmail.com :)

Using Twitter For Classroom Activities

Our group decided on the idea of using Twitter as a means for introducing a new group of students at the beginning of a school year. On the first day of classes, the teacher would introduce the idea of making a Twitter and have the students create a Twitter account at home and upload a profile picture. The next day, the teacher will have the students sign onto Twitter and follow students in the class. Then each student will write a few short tweets about themselves and the tweets will be posted on a projector for the whole class to see. This will help the the teacher and the students learn more about each other.

The benefits of using Twitter will help the students' relationships and the teacher-students' relationships grow because they will get to know each other and learn more about each person. However, the constraints of using Twitter in the classroom may result in bad tweets about the students and help rumors be spread around. This would not be good, especially for the beginning of the school year.

Uses of Blogs in Education

The two blogs I looked at for good uses of Education are http://www.diaryproject.com/ and http://anne.teachesme.com/. Both of these blogs were used for educational purposes, but both are for different reasons. The Diary Project is for new students going to school who would like to talk about their nerves or worries about going to school. Also, it allows students to write their feelings about anything else on their mind because no one knows who the author is and it's a "diary", so students feel able to talk about their problems just as long as no one knows their identity. The second blog is called EduBlog Insights by a woman named Anne Davis. She communicates with other educators in the areas of education, so teachers can get useful ideas and help from the author.

The first blog is directed at younger students below 12th grade who want to publish personal things. There are barely any comments, so I think this is just a write and reflect blog. The blog connects with the audience because anyone can really join and write "diary entries" if they want to. The second blog is directed towards older adults who teach. Teachers are able to respond to blogs and even ask questions. This blog is more about reading and understanding to be well informed. This blog connects with the audience as well because it talks about issues related to education, and educations in turn discuss and give feedback.

When I am a teacher, I will use blogs help me stay up-to-date about current education issues and read stories from other teachers, possibly gaining information about teaching strategies as well. For the students though, I would use blogs for out-of-class discussions so the students can better reflect on stories the class reads or even just maintain journal entries that I can view and look at for grades (this works especially well for me because I want to become an English teacher).

Greetings!

Hey guys. This is my first blog, and hopefully not my last. I'm super excited to be writing on a blog and hopefully it is just as useful to you as it is to me. Thank you!