Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Nickerson's Thoughts One Last Thought

I have to say that I learned quite a bit while completing the 23 Things. There are so many different websites and producs that I did not know existed. If had to list some of my favotites hay would have to be:

1. Google Lessons - I thought this was a genius way to have kids learn about history and also build on their problem solving skills at the same time.

2. Animoto - I thought that it was very interesting to upload some pictures and add music and the site puts the pictures into a slideshow and plays it to the music.

3. Podcasts - although I had heard of podcasts, I did not know what they were for. As I listened to the podcast on The Boston Tea Party, I thought to myself that this might be an interesting way to help students learn about History.

Nickerson's thoughts Thing #23

I googled web 2.0 23 things and came up with The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg, it appears that ehy not only had 23 things but they had 43 things in total. I think that it is alot of information but as a teacher you need to know when you can use something from the internet, book or a magazine and when you need to get permission or how long you can use it.

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #22

I have always been a fan of learning about the History of The United States. The Podcast that I listened to was a Podcast about the Boston Tea Party. This Podcast comes from the www.odeo.com, and the title of the Podcast is Matt's Today in History. I think that as a teacher it would be worthwhile to make podcasts for students, there are a few good uses for the podcast. A teacher could make a podcast to refresh students on what they have learned during the course of a week or a teaher might use a podcast if he or she is going to be absent so the students will have some sort of lesson. I actually saved the link to Matt's Today in History so that I might listen to the podcasts in the future.


http://odeo.com/episodes/23776997-MTIH-396-The-Boston-Tea-Party-1773">

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #21

I never knew that this site Animoto even existed, I really enjoyed putting together a slideshow although I did not have ten pictures. I used all of the ones that I had available. My slideshow is pictures from when I went to London wtih APSU, in the Winter of 2007-2008. So it was only right that I used The Clash, and a great song, London Calling. Using this site was very easy and as a teacher you could have your students make a slideshow with history pictures.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #20

I have been using Youtube for a long time, I sometimes go to this site just to mess around and watch videos. There is so much that as a teacher you can do with this site as I have found many intersting videos about History on here. These videos would help a student understand a particular part of history. The only problem with the site that I have is sometimes you think you are going to a specific video and it goes to another video.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

Friday, November 20, 2009

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #19

So I checked out TeacherPOP, and made myself an account. I found it really interesting that there were so many teachers on there trying to find information from other teachers as well as sharing iniformation about different websites and methods to teach students. I will be using this site for sure especially because these teachers are mostly from around Clarksville. I will be lookingfor information on teaching History and geograpy as these will be my major areas of concern. below is the link to my TeacherPOP page.


http://teacherpop.ning.com/profile/MatthewDNickerson



http://rachelmorris-apsuthing2.blogspot.com/2009/11/thing-19.html?showComment=1258826129984_AIe9_BEHgnnaVQBInxrEKb49A1AvtbTBLr4mUS7okC5cCpjNq1sgz0icl8VJdFBa9z9skaby7mgHvsauJwVGRbjJNf61OxvYsXlxqMb9kCf5tqvIfp1X_phCQ5F5VZa_lUx6tfm3GDkVspj5h6iN7HCYvJPiRR7a-flnaBbNd04Wz0Kk6M9-A9dUNlDBL7yM6JdeW8Kl9YXftIjv7yIc6r9GOG7-1T4CUoiX35dKOpMtw4S-XwqGOOk#c395910300217111520

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #18

Well I have been a member of Myspace for five years now, but I have only been using Facebook for two. Both of these sites are great for networking and finding old friends and family or just being able to send a quick birthday or get well message to people. I think as a teacher this site might work well if all of your students had an account, but unless you are a Middle or High School teacher the probability of your students using these sites is very low. You could post messages giving instructions or if students had a question they could message the teacher and you would be able to answer them in real time if you kept it open an available. I think they both have two redeeming qualities, on Myspace you can personalize your page with HTML, a music player, pictures, and any text style you want, this is not offered on Facebook. Facebook on the other hand lets you know what other people are doing in real time as they post thier status.



http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=1182169245

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #17

All I have to say is Wow! I did not have any idea that there was such a thing as Social Bookmarking. The thought that you could save your favorite websites and be able to access them from any computer is genius. I can see where as a teacher this would come in extremely helpful, the ability for you to bookmark sites and tag them and also be able to search through others filecabinet to see what they have bookmarked is amazing. As a future teacher I will definately use this website. I am always surfing the internet and with this site, I can find other sites that I never knew existed and get ideas that never would have come to me.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #16

I decided to go to rememberthemilk.com and check around on that website, I thought that it was very easy to navigate and the controls were very understandable. I am not super technical with many devices but I could see myself using this site in order to organize my homework schedule. I think that as a teacher you could have your students sign into that website and put thier due dates for homework in there every week that way the would have a way to check. You could also give the site to parents so they could check to make sure that homework is being completed by their children.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #15

So messing around with the Wiki was a very interesting thing, it took me five times to get myself logged in so I could update the page to place my picture. I think this would be a great tool to have students on assigned days place something interesting in thier lives on there and the class could have a quick discussion about it on a daily basis. I think this might be a great way to start a class instead of having a word of the day or a quick writing assignment.

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #14

I set up accounts on Gliffy and Bubbl.us. Gliffy is a Flow chart as where Bubbl.us is a mind map. I used to take Architecture when I was in High School, and being able to make floor plans and use the different symbold for doors and windows was very easy. I also played around a bit with Bubbl.us and I could see where as a teacher you could assign a project to students and have them first come up with a mind map in order to have their thoughts organized. I have saved both of these sites as favorites on my computer for later use.

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #13

I really like the Zoho Writer program, one reason that I think that it would be good is instead of having to pay for Microsoft Word, you can make documents on Zoho. As a teacher this would be useful to save money in the classroom as this program is free, so classwork such as papers and reports could be completed internally in the classroom. The extra money that would normally be used to update Microsoft Word could be used for other purchases such as supplies or other needed programs.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #12

So I just messed aroud with iGoogle, I can see how it is a great way to organize yourself and have different news feeds, Quotes of the day, videos , and sports scores, but I don't really think that the idea works for me. I am not one to have a page of everything there for me to have to fool with, I don't have the patience to move things around, reorganize, change colors of the page. I am sure it is useful to some, but for me maybe sports scores and the weather.

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #11

It was really interesting searching around throught the various tools in order to find the right websites for me. The RSS reader is a great tool, but for me, a person who does not do much "Surfing" I can do without it. The part where you can find local news by using your zip code was a fast way to be able to check news in many places without having to search for the actual newspaper site.

http://stephanieseducationaljourney.blogspot.com/2009/11/thing-11.html#comment-form

Nickerson's Thoughts Thing #10

Well I guess I wasn't as interested in the reader as everybody else was. I do not do much internet surfing unless I am studying. I have Yahoo as my homepage and pretty much get my news, sports , and weather from there. I guess if I was a person who did alot of surfing that this would be a much easier way to keep all of the surfing to a minimum and be able to go to one or two pages.


http://billiealbert.blogspot.com/2009/10/thing-10.html?showComment=1259080441901_AIe9_BF5fh8A1ielT8sdEs-5YYzpa7O8__4IEY0FwndKwMiKxz3jLzDhJasymmmyz9111UGg_Ojw5R91M1oNE_hCY3_pw_GNQp2idXQpsPDzlxEVFZC-yv0AxUURfuWt56ACYV8VLeigVaZGYx3HTAl15zYpuai3LA8Uc0XcdSOOdYBwLX_RweigvrAhYqeaVBBN6FcksvYk-wJR8GrXTO_WHXqQ7WoyEA#c597563318392688358