Thing Eighteen: Social Networks

    I already have a Twitter account: https://twitter.com/callieedavis but I don't use it very often. Even those most reluctant to joining social networking will eventually have to admit that it is useful, and probably one of the most powerful tools we have available to us today. Educators need to understand that ours students are immersed in a culture full of social media, and all the negative hype it brings doesn't always tell the whole story. Further, we can be very effective educators by using these tools appropriately.
     I can't say I really gained any new insights into twitter. I am comfortable using it, as I have had an account for over a year. What I liked about hashtag searching on twitter is that it brings up more relevant information to me, and surprisingly was more appropriate than Delicious. Delicious brought up all kinds of things that I have no interest in and would never use. Twitter may not bring up everything that is necessarily classroom worthy, but it at least fits my search criteria. For example, when I typed in "second grade" Delicious brought up a few relevant things, but had some sites with the tags "sexy" and various other ridiculous things. Twitter brought up plenty of pictures of cute second graders and tweets about first days of school, but it also helped me find some education tweets to read and follow.
    I think social media can absolutely be used in the classroom. I had a professor that created a twitter for our class and used it to tweet us homework tips, interesting articles relevant to our studies, and reminders for class. It is a great way to keep in touch with students, parents, and other teachers, as long as it is used in the right way.

Thing Seventeen: Delicious

     Although I think tagging is a great idea and can be extremely useful, I can't say Delicious is one of my favorite ways to do so. Delicious brought up an extremely wide range of results, which to me is inefficient. I would much rather just Google exactly what I want. I would not use it in my classroom, or personally, but I think for some it could be useful. It is another way to get more ideas about a subject, or find more sites on a subject. It is unique in that your bookmarks can be accessed anywhere, and for some teachers, this might be helpful. For example, teachers that do not regularly use powerpoint presentations could use Delicious to quickly pull up a web page they want to show students. My preference would be to just link the site I want to use in my lesson to my powerpoint presentation or whatever program or tool I will be using already.

Thing Sixteen: Being Productive

    I used  UStart to create my homepage. Mainly, I liked that it still looks similar to other pages I have had, like Yahoo or AOL, but it is customizable. Maybe I'm a little too easily distracted, but I don't think I need my laptop looking like my iPhone (which Symabloo would certainly do), or my productivity will decrease instead of increase. However, I probably won't make it my homepage for a similar reason- I would rather read the news and gossip online than start my homework. I think plain old Google is the best choice for me.
     I really like online calendars because I have access to my schedule just about anywhere. I still can't survive without my planner, but an online calendar allows me to have a back-up plan just in case I do forget my planner one day.
     I am already a huge fan of Mint.com. I really can't think of a more useful tool that does, in fact, increase your productivity and save you time. It puts all of your financial accounts on one page for you. You can make budgets, start savings goals, and pay bills all in one place. I would 100% recommend this to everyone! My finance professor recommended it to us during an undergraduate class, and I only agreed to try it because he assured us he used it personally, and could vouch for the safety of the site. Now, I am so glad I gave it a try.

Thing Fifteen: Wiki

    I never knew there were so many wikis out there! I thought the Book Lover's Wiki, which was designed for everyone involved in a summer reading program, was a great idea! I also really liked the educational blogging wiki. As far as adding to the APSU 23 things wiki, it was slightly confusing. Since I have never been on a site like that before, it took me a few tries to figure out how to sign up, gain access to the page, and then post on it. However, now that I know how it works, I think it could be a very useful tool. I would like to have access to something similar to the educational blogging wiki, but maybe for local teachers only. I like the idea of sharing ideas in this way and how easy it is to add to what someone else has said.
   The thing that is so interesting about wikis is that they seem so open to what anyone has to say. There are protective measures in place, but it still seems strange to me. Perhaps the idea will grow on me, but for now, I would rather just keep my own thoughts and words my own without someone else editing them.

Thing Fourteen: Mind Maps and Flow Charts

     I chose to explore bubbl.us and mindmeister because they seemed the easiest to navigate. Mind meister even lets you try it without signing up, which I found really appealing. They are both simple to use- basically you just start typing your first idea, and the program tells you exactly which keys to press to create the next bubble/ box you need to keep forming your image. This could be a useful tool for me to quickly show students how to use brainstorming tools so that they can use them personally. I could also use them for class discussions, to give them a visual representation of the content we are going over. For example, if we are discussing learning tools, I could make a mind map showing all of the ideas my students and I come up with during class.

Thing Thirteen: Google Drive

I created a blog post in Google Drive  
and a drawing

Thing Twelve: The Many Uses of Google

     As previously stated, I am a big Google fan. It is so simple and gives such a large variety of results. Today, I began explore Google Calendar and Google Alerts. I absolutely love these two tools. Google calendar allows me to schedule my day down to 15 minute intervals, and the most unique aspect is that I can sync it to my cell phone calendar. I would probably use this one as my personal calendar, since I have a Microsoft Outlook calendar for my work schedule that I share with everyone else. This one, I could use for all of the personal reminders/ appointments that I need to keep track of. Google Alerts is a really unique tool. It sends you alerts when there is new news on a subject that you have chosen. I chose not to create an account, because I really don't need any other applications notifying me with things that will distract me from being productive. However, it would be very convenient to have news stories delivered immediately if I do want to keep track of a current event. It could be used as a tool when I become a teacher, allowing me to keep track of new laws in education or other current events to discuss with my students.