Thing 9 - Image Generators

I spent a few minutes searching around the different generator websites, attempting to find something I could use. The first image I generated came from the Comic Strip Generator. I found a picture of a caveman who invented the wheel and thought that no one actually knows who invented the wheel. His optimism for glory will not be found in the history. The second image I generated came from the Happy Face Generator. I thought about grading in school and the different teachers who said that we should be thankful that they don't grade on a true curve. Once I gathered an understanding of statistics I realized how true that is.

I'm not sure if I'll ever use this image generators for personal use. I feel I extinguished all the creativity I could muster on them today. They may have applications for sprucing up PowerPoint presentations either in the classes that we have now, or when we are making notes for the students to view in our classrooms. A little humor never hurt anyone I suppose.

Thing 8 - Mashups

The above "mashup" is of the vacation my brother and I took to Cleveland, Ohio during the spring of 2010. As you can see we visited Progressive Field to watch a couple of Indians games, and we also made our way to Canton, Ohio to visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We had so much fun that we've gone back to Cleveland every year since.

I'm not sure how I could use Flickr and its various apps in my classroom. I can see some value for history and geography teachers, but its difficult to see how I could apply this in a mathematics class. I'm willing to listen to any ideas though.

Thing 7 - Flickr

As I was looking for photos on Flickr, my goal was to find a photo that reminded me of something in my life.  After a few minutes of staring blankly at the computer screen, I finally had the idea to look up a couple of the places I used to live as a child. I looked up "Ashland, Ohio", and found a picture of an Amish child with her back turned. Finally, I had an idea! From there I looked up more Amish photos until I found my favorite that I could share. I chose this photo because I figured it would be unique among the postings of my fellow classmates, and because I find Amish culture to be interesting. Ashland, Ohio is on the fringes of what people may refer to as "Amish Country", and I still remember seeing the horses and buggies, the animal driven plows, and the horse poop in the parking lots at the Aldi in town. This photo in particular shows how careful one needs to be when driving down the back roads of northeastern Ohio.

(credit for this photo goes to MidwestFarmland from Flickr)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67706637@N06/7546961446/in/pool-amish/

I'm not sure if I'll use Flickr much again after this exercise. I don't see how it can be applied in a mathematics class, and honestly I don't take a lot of pictures so there isn't much use of opening up a Flickr account. It was a neat website to explore for a few minutes though.

Thing 6 - Wikipedia

I decided to choose Wikipedia as the Web 2.0 tool to write about. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that any user can edit. This ability is Wikipedia's greatest strength, but also its greatest weakness. While the open editing policy has allowed for millions of articles to be posted, it also allows for anyone to edit false information onto a page. It is this main reason why Wikipedia is an unreliable source when performing research, but that doesn't mean it is without use in schools. Many of Wikipedia's articles contains cites from reliable sources. On a personal note, I find myself scouring Wikipedia often whenever I'm bored. I'll look up various articles either dealing with history, math and science, or demographics for example. When I find an interesting point I'd like to learn more about, I always click on the citation to get directed to the reference the editor used when creating that portion of the article. If it is a website that I have access to, I'll click on that and look around on there, hoping to gather more new information on the subject I was reading about. Students can use Wikipedia in a similar way. It's an easy website to access and to gather information from, and it also may contain leads of where to find additional, more reliable information that can be used in a proper research paper.

Thing 5 - School 2.0

To me, School 2.0 is essentially the evolution of the classroom through the utilization of modern technologies. The Atomic Learning video made an interesting point that this is not the first transformation of the classroom. Over a hundred years ago schools were nothing more than a room with a chalkboard and teacher at the front, with students looking forward in their desks. Over time the classroom has grown to include items such as textbooks, projectors, and computers among other things. It shouldn't be surprising to see that as technology changes over time, so do the things affected by technology such as school. As School 2.0 gains more and more of a foothold in the classroom, we'll see familiar classroom items change in ways that may not have been conceived as early as a decade ago. For example as tablets become more and more user friendly and cheaper in price we may see schools completely abandon physical textbooks in favor of e-textbooks that can be loaded onto the students tablet. Instead of having to carry a load of textbooks and binders to class, a student may merely need to bring his tablet to school and have everything he needs at the tip of his fingers.

The growth of social networking may also have a profound effect on how School 2.0 evolves over time. The Web 2.0: A Guide for Educators post cited a 2007 national survey in which it was found that about 55% of students ages 12-17 are active on social media. The key word in that statement to me is '2007'. That was nearly five years ago - social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter either didn't exist or had yet to become the behemoths that they are currently today. If a similar survey was taken today, I'd wager to guess that the percentage of social media users in that age group is significantly greater than 55%. That seems to indicate a significant opportunity for the growth of School 2.0. The challenge, of course, would be to harness this source of communication and control it in a way that is appropriate for the classroom. Definitely not an easy feat, but perhaps it'll be a key feature in our classrooms one day.

Thing 4 - Commenting on Blogs

Commenting is important on blogs because it allows for the development and sharing of ideas. Through the use of the comment section, readers can add their thoughts at the bottom of the blogger's post. While in the comment section, readers can debate and discuss with one another or the original author if the author chooses to be active. The Cool Cat Teacher Blog made an interesting point that relationships can be created just by having readers comment interesting points or counterpoints to the original post. If the commenter has a blog of her own, then the original blogger can read that blog and leave thoughtful, meaningful comments as well, thus keeping the cycle running.

One of the points I found to be important came from the Blue Skunk Blog. The point the author made was that when people write online, they enjoy knowing that others read and care about what they have written. You don't have to be a blogger for this to be true. Even on Facebook, there is a sense of satisfaction when someone comments on one of your posts, even if that post was not necessarily directed at that person. I assume it will be no different on this assignment as well considering we have to post comments on five of our classmates blogs. I'd appreciate a comment, and I'm sure if anyone else actually reads this they would probably appreciate one as well.

The other important point I found came from the Cool Cat Teacher Blog. The point the blogger made was don't be afraid to comment. I'm fairly certain that before today I have never commented on a blog. I've read plenty of them in the past, but I've never actually attempted to contribute to the discussion. Now it may not be fear as much as it is reluctance to put my thoughts out there, but the end result is ultimately the same. Perhaps nothing will come of a comment - it may be one of a thousand comments that get lost in the shuffle. However there is a chance that someone may read it and have something meaningful to add in response. You never know until you try I suppose.

The "23 things" blogs I decided to comment on were the Adventures in Learning blog, the LearnLiveMoore blog, Crane's US HIST-tech experience blog, frankE's blog, and the Samples of Learning blog. I chose those blogs because after I read them I found interesting points from them that I wanted to acknowledge. I tried to explain why I agreed with the point I referenced, and in the case of the Adventures in Learning blog, I appreciated the flashback to my old middle school social studies class.

The two blogs outside of our classroom I decided to comment on were the Major League Bastian blog, a blog written by the Cleveland Indians beat writer from MLB.com, and Men of the Scarlet and Gray blog, a blog on Ohio State athletics. I chose those blogs because I'm a fan of the teams the blogs cover, and I felt I had relevant opinions that I could add to the discussions that were going on there. The comments I made dealt with my frustrations with the Indians this year, and my questioning the blogger about his positioning of the Northwestern football team in his rankings.

Thing 3 - How I Would Use a Blog in the Classroom

I admit it was initially difficult to come up with ideas for this subject. It's been less than a decade since I was in high school, but even with that short amount of time between then and now it's hard for me to comprehend that blogs may have a place in the classroom. However, after looking over a list of ideas provided to us and then thinking about how I would actually want to use a blog as a tool, I've come up with a few ideas.

My first idea I had was to use the blog as a platform for my students to discuss some relevant topics from our physical classroom. This would be similar to the message boards I've encountered while taking online classes at Austin Peay State University. Given that I'm aiming to teach math in high school, an appropriate topic in this setting could be quadratic equations. I could ask the students to state their preferred method for solving quadratic equations, explain how it works, and then why they prefer that one method over the others. On the flip-side, I could also ask which one they least prefer and the reasons for that. I imagine this could have a couple possible benefits. If there are overwhelming answers in either direction, it could indicate to me as the teacher that I have done a good job in teaching one of the methods, but I may need to spend some more time on one of the others. Also, this could allow a student struggling with one of the methods to read about one of their classmates explanations. Perhaps one of those explanation may be phrased in a way I wasn't able or hadn't thought of doing, and therefore help give some understanding to the struggling student.

My second idea was to use the blog as a bulletin board. I could post the homework assignments, reminders of when the next test will be, study guides, etc. Essentially those posts would be reinforcements to what was stated in class, but it could potentially be helpful if a student forgets to write down which problems to do for homework or misplaces his study guide, among other things.

My third idea for the blog would be more for the parents than the students themselves. I could post items like the syllabus so they can know for certain what is expected of their child in my classroom. Also I could provide occasional updates of the content we've covered so far, and also post recommendations for additional problems to work on if they feel their child needs more practice with certain things we've been covering. Finally I could also post links on the blog to neat websites that breakdown many of the ideas we'll be discussing in the classroom.

Thing 2 - Why This Blog Looks Like it Does

My experience creating this blog was enjoyable. I had never created a blog before so this was new to me, but most of the process was self-explanatory and I tried to keep it as basic as possible for now. Perhaps in a few months there will be a bunch of bells and whistles on this page, but for now I'm going to keep it basic.

My posting name took all the creativity I could muster. I merely took the front part of my personal email address and made it my user name. The title of my blog is a little less obvious, but no less creative. I just took my nickname and put the word "thoughts" right next to it. After all, this will be "Cleanup's Thoughts", and I figured it was a little more inspired than my original title which was "Chris Carroll's blog". Like I said, I was feeling very creative when I came up with this.

I attempted to make my avatar look like me, although I will admit it was tempting to give it a handlebar mustache or something equally crazy. I gave it red hair, made it a little unkempt, and then put some clothes on it. In order to make my avatar more unique I gave it a baseball and bat since baseball is my favorite sport and I figured I should give some allusion towards that.

Thing 1 - 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners

After viewing the 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners it was clear that there were a few habits that have or will come easily to me, and that there are some habits that will require more learning and/or understanding. The habit among the 7 1/2 that I believe is the easiest for me is #4 which is to have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. Throughout my life I've always had confidence in my ability to learn, especially in math or logic based areas. It may sound a tad arrogant, but in a lot of areas I believe that if other people can figure something out and understand it, then I definitely can as well.

The habit I believe will be the hardest to implement is #5 - to create your own learning toolbox. As of right now, if I was asked to describe the contents of my learning toolbox I would probably stutter and stammer around, reluctantly choose my brain as one of the contents and then draw a total blank. The title of the habit seems rather vague. What is a learning toolbox and what should I include in it? I suppose the key word in the name of the habit is 'own.' Apparently we all have unique tools in our toolbox, and we choose these tools based on what works best for us in the learning process. I still have a long way to go before I'll be able to accurately state what belongs in my learning toolbox.