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.