One Last Thing

1.
Throughout my journey of the 23 Things, I learned a thing or two about the vast quantity of free online tools available to do just about any job you might need. The parts I enjoyed discovering most, though, were the videos I found that actually taught something worth learning.

This course has re-invigorated my desire to learn to animate, so that I can make interesting videos that students can watch and learn from. I believe a pre-prepared, clear, and concise explanation with powerful graphics would far exceed those of myself fumbling about in front of class trying to remember every detail of what I'm teaching.

Things to improve on for the program would simply be an update. Much of the information is a little behind the times, and many of the tools that have been discussed are familiar to just about everyone. Perhaps that is unfair, given that those few people that have not been exposed to those tools would be behind if we did not discuss them. I did, however, find that much of the work in the course was a little arduous in that the point was made and the learning was gleaned far before the project was finished.

I keep up with new developments on the web already, so that will not change. My practice as a teacher will only be changing if I manage to learn to animate.


2.
I will not be maintaining my blog because I do not desire to announce to the world what I am doing. Blogs are not for everyone, and while I agree that certain blogs are excellent, mine would not be. I simply do not have the right attitude for a blogger. I will, however, be maintaining my Edmodo website and posting more useful material for my students.

Thing 23

As a teacher with little to no creative capabilities, I am not certain if or when I will be using Creative Commons, since that would imply I did something creative. However, I do have some pretty good ideas on making multimedia cartoons to explain physics concepts; I just either need someone to help me make them or need to learn to animate myself. If I ever find the time to practice and gain skill in animation, perhaps I will use the Creative Commons license to distribute the resulting cartoons, assuming they turn out well of course.

Thing 22

Here's my Physics Binder: My three binders were Physics, Physics Videos, and Pre-Calculus. The Physics and Pre-Calculus binders contained websites for math tutorials or physics explanations, and the Physics Videos binder contains a set of extremely well put together explanations of several classically difficult to understand phenomena.

My experience with this Thing was actually quite positive because I found such fantastic videos that I hadn't seen before. The binders are a neat place to store such things, and I could imagine providing my students with links to these so they could explore the videos themselves. I could use LiveBinders in order to easily organize links for kids in my classes.

Thing 21

Here's my Animoto video:


Climate Change
This is what is happening to our planet because of the needless over consumption of natural resources and rejection of renewable energy across the globe. But, its business as usual for most of us!

My experiences:

Animoto is basically a glorified slide show maker. Perhaps it would be useful as a tool for a journalism or art class. Students could create slideshows that told a story, much like a photojournalist does. In my case, I decided to make a statement about how we're destroying our own planet, and the oddly placed music simply accentuates just how ridiculous it is.

Thing 20

Video Insertion time:

I liked this video about changing the education paradigm. It will be a cold day in hell before this actually happens, I think, but its nice to think about.

I'd say that pretty much everyone who has ever touched a computer is probably already familiar with Youtube. I've used Youtube several times in my physics class so that my students can observe demos that we do not have the equipment to perform.

My chosen link: http://www.go2web20.net/site/?a=GoAnimate

GoAnimate is animation software that could feasibly be used to create a video in which your students learn something. I could imagine it being used to liven up physics problems and to help kids break them down into simpler terms. I've toyed with the idea of creating animations that explain physics problems, and maybe I will act on that when time permits.

Thing 19

For this Thing, I explored classroom20.com and was already familiar with Yelp and IMDB. I found that classroom20.com was much more focused on education, as one might expect, and that made things much easier when it came to looking for topics that were actually useful. There is a lot of advice for new teachers, as well as a significant amount of encouragement. Finding material that is relevant isn't too difficult at classroom20.
I never really thought of Yelp as a social networking site, but after thinking about it, it really is. It enables people to view the opinions of others about particular businesses. Its sort of like Twitter, but focused on individual businesses rather than individual people.
I don't really know if I'd consider IMDB to be a social networking site because of the nature of the site. Sure, people can comment, but the focus of the site is really the movies themselves and maintaining a database of the movie and its content/actors.

As for the actual assignment:

Classroom20 is a good resource for advice from real teachers who experience what you experience.

I'm not a member of ANY online communities, including facebook and twitter, and I will be keeping it that way. I have an Edmodo account in order to upload tutorials/examples for my students, but its nothing more than a drop box and I do not use it for anything social.

I will not be joining any online communities.

I am not interested in any of them either. While classroom20 might be a good resource, I can just as easily ask my co-workers and get similar answers from people who actually know me.

Thing 18

I have avoided Twitter and Facebook because I do not believe in what they stand for. Being connected to so many people at once is just not my idea of a good time. However, in the spirit of doing the assignment, my Twitter account is as follows:

https://twitter.com/Sec_NotSure

I, of course, did not use my real name.

In searching key words like "Physics" and "Math" I found a lot of garbage and a few things worth looking at. A significant portion was, for lack of a better term, crap. Psychologists making claims they couldn't possibly understand about quantum physics and students complaining about their math and/or physics homework were abound; the occasional item worth reading did turn up, though these were severely outnumbered.

Twitter itself is not important for educators. What is important, however, is understanding what Twitter is and how it can be used and abused. Twitter is simply a way for people to socialize instantly with anyone who is willing to listen, but it can also be used to VERY quickly spread rumors or defame a student or teacher. Understanding the Twitter dynamic could perhaps help curb such behavior, however, I can't imagine using it myself for any productive reason. Social media leaves a bad taste in my mouth in general, though.