Pinterest in the classroom.

There are so many ways that Pinterest can be used in the classroom. You can type in your subject and it will give you a numerous amount of pins to look through to get ideas, handouts, free lesson plans, etc. Pinterest is such a good way to get creative ideas to make your lesson plans more fun than the normal, boring ones. When teaching English, it is easy to find lesson plans that are very dull and don't seem like they would be very much fun for students. I can remember many of them when I was in high school. But with Pinterest, there are so many ideas to take those lesson plans and build bigger, better and more interesting ones! You could also use Pinterest as a lesson, by making the students create their own board and start to research some of the things that will go with the career path they are thinking about.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9JRaddDNWaPYzZ5d1hvc1FhX2c/view?usp=sharing

Above is a link to an assignment I made for my future English classroom. I found the activity using Pinterest and added it to my own Pinterest page. This goes to show you that Pinterest is a valid place to find and create lesson plans. I also completed the assignment myself after I made it.

I chose this particular lesson plan to complete because I love to write, so this gave me an excuse to write a few of my own opinions and I did have some personal opinions on the subject matter that was found on the assignment. I also chose this assignment to complete because I wanted to see if I could create an assignment and fulfill it as easily as I personally thought I could. It's always a good idea to try to complete a lesson plan so that you know for sure it is doable for your students as well.

I learned that I did make some very clear instructions and used the assignment given to fit some of the curriculum frameworks. I felt that I did a good job in choosing the framework and explaining the assignment well. I thought it was easy to follow my instructions to finish the assignment and I really enjoyed it.

I personally love Pinterest, so I am so exited to know that there is so much more to it than just finding ideas for my home and food! Haha. It can very well be a tool that teachers can use in their classrooms!

Here is an overview of the steps I had to take in order to finish my assignment:

1). First I was asked to review the parts that go into making an argumentative essay. So I researched on Google "how to write an argumentative essay" and this is what came up. So I reviewed each of the elements. 

2). Next I was asked to think about some of my own opinions regarding the topic which was "Should cell phones be allowed in schools or not?" So I thought about it for a little while and wrote down some of my own opinions. 

3). Next I was asked to do some research on the topic. So I turned to Google again and typed in "Should cell phones be allowed in schools?" I came across an article that talked about the pros and cons of cell phones being in schools and got some great ideas for my essay. 

4). Then I was asked to plan out my paper using all of the elements of an essay. So I wrote out each element and then placed at least one sentence by each to help the planning process. 

5). Last, I was asked to type the paper in Word to print and hand it in. So I took all of the things I learned and planned in the previous steps and applied it to my paper. I finished the essay by typing it on Word. 

Web 2.0 Tools.

I was given an assignment by my Education Technology instructor, Mrs. Benton. The assignment is to choose 10 different Web 2.0 tools that I have not learned about in class, and tell how I could use them in my future classroom.

1). Storybird: 

This tool allows students to make their very own digital piece of work. They will get to experience what it is like to be an actual author. This can be used for writing assignments or for spare time writing and creativity assignments. As an instructor, I can create a free account that will manage all of my student's work, make a library of their work and create different assignments. It is private and safe for all students and they can even comment on each other's work, which will teach them about social interaction and digital citizenship. I think this is an extremely neat tool that could be used for a variety of things. 

2). Books:

This tool allows people to search for books or any kind of text. You can simply click on the link to books in Google and it allows you to look through books, magazines, literacy criticism, etc. I think this would be an interesting way to teach student's how to search the web. If I were to give them an assignment over a certain book or other text, they would be able to use this tool in order to find it. 

3). Infoplease:

This is obviously a research tool that can be used in any classroom. In my future classroom, I could let students use this as an alternative to the normal Google or Wiki. They can go to this tool and search for any information I am asking them to. It could be used for research papers, or just any type of paper. I think this would be a good idea just to give student's a larger variety of research tools. With this tool, they are able to search through an atlas, encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, days in history, etc. It's kind of like a library right there on their tablet or computer. A digital library!

4). Questionaut: 

This tool is more of a game, which I think is a good idea for classrooms because you want your kids to stay involved instead of constantly making them do assignments that are simply learning and no fun. This tool gives kids a chance to play a game while learning about English or other subjects. You choose the subject and it gives you a game where the student's can journey through time and learn while doing it. I think this would be awesome for a once a week fun day or something along those lines. Maybe something for good behavior. 

5). Diffen:

This tool is for comparing and contrasting things, which is obviously something that happens quite often in an English classroom. Really, this tool makes it easy for anyone to do so. If I were to give an assignment on comparing and contrasting, the students could use this tool for it. All you do is simply type in what you are wanting to compare and contrast and it loads all sorts of information to do just that. I think this would be something that even I could use for assignments now, and especially once I am making my own assignments. It literally does the job for you! This could save people a lot of time.

6). Studentpublishing:

This tool allows you to actually publish your own work and that of student's. I think this would be an extremely neat way to get the student's more interested in writing assignments. This could spark some serious creativity in my writing classes. If I were to tell student's they were going to create a story and then I was going to publish them and actually hand them their own paper copy of it, they would probably try a little harder on their stories. I would have loved this when I was in school because I loved writing stories, so I would have felt like a real author with this! 

7). PreZentit:

This tool is a way for student's to present their work from assignments I will be giving them. They can work on things alone, or collaborate with other student's anywhere at anytime. They can also download and present their projects without having to use internet connection. I think this would be something different than just doing a normal slideshow or poster board. It would give the student's a new way of presenting their work and working with technology to do so. 

8).FindHow:

This tool is literally what the name says. It is a resource where you can search and find how to do almost anything. This could help students not only in the classroom, but also in every day life. It is always a benefit to know how to do things yourself. Like changing a tire on your car, because you aren't always going to have cell phone service to call someone to help with that flat tire. But my main thinking on using this tool would be for a Speech class. It would be so helpful when writing a speech on how to do something when you could go straight to this tool and look it up and get details on the exact thing you're going to write about. 

9). MyBrainShark:

This tool is used for presenting things and I think it gives a very technological spin on things rather than the normal ways of presenting projects. It allows the student to actually narrate their own presentation instead of having to speak during it in front of the class. They can make their entire project while being their own narrator just like documentary. This would be a neat thing to use if I were to ever give an assignment on documentaries. They can also upload photo albums that talk using their own voice. I think the student's would find this very interesting to use in the classroom! 

10). Penzu:

One of the teachers that I felt like influenced me in high school was my English teacher. She used to make us bring a journal to class every day and write in it. Some days she would give us a topic and other days she would let us freely write about whatever we wanted. A lot of times, I wrote about the things I was going through, but she only read the ones that were assigned. This is a tool that allows student's or anyone to have a personal journal that is on the web instead of having to bring one to class everyday. It is private, so no one else could see it, but it would give student's a way to do things that are assigned and some on their own if they want. Sort of a twist on a discussion board posting. 

Beautiful day.

 

My daughter and I are outside in our yard playing and enjoying this gorgeous day, so I thought I would snap a few pictures just to give everyone an idea of how beautiful my view is everyday. I absolutely love living close to the mountains, in a small community. Seeing nature and the outdoors like this just makes me feel even closer to God. He's given us such beauty to admire and I'm so happy I'm getting to spend the rest of my life here. Also, pictured above is our precious little mutt dog Skeeter who is about to turn 2 in November! I'm not sure what all breed of dog she is, but we rescued her at 6 weeks and have been blessed with her ever since! I hope everyone is getting to enjoy this day as much as we are! :) 

Facebook - good or bad?

 

http://nickbarricella.hubpages.com/hub/The-Positive-and-Negative-Effects-of-Facebook

There are obviously millions and millions of Facebook users all over the world. I, myself, am one of them. I use Facebook for all sorts of reasons. I have family in Utah that I don't get to see often, so I keep up with them on there. My dad lives 7 hours away in another state, so he gets on my profile to see pictures of my daughter. I'm always posting statuses about the cute things she does or says. And I am constantly posting pictures of her, mainly because I think she is the most beautiful little angel in the whole world! Haha. But seriously. There's a ton of things you can do with Facebook, but there's a lot of debate on whether its a good thing or a bad thing. Clearly from what I just said, I agree with the author on the positive things he says about Facebook. It does make it extremely easy to keep in touch with family. Instead of trying to send a picture to each of your family members, you can just upload it and everyone can see. Another thing that I find helpful is the "create event" part of Facebook. Instead of trying to write down everyone's address and pick out invitations and remember to get them all sent out on time, you can create a simple event on Facebook and invite everyone at once with a click of a button. You can also create group messages to send to everyone you need to and much more. It's also easy to make new friends, although I don't try that too often because I'm not just real social with new people! Lol. But you can see who your friends are connected to and you can connect with them too. Or you can add people once you meet them and connect that way. It's also a good way to express yourself being that you have the freedom to post anything you'd like to on your profile! It's also an extremely good way to express the things you care about. You can create pages for certain things, share prayer chains, show people pages for charity, post about your faith, scriptures, devotions, etc. Being a Christian, I believe that Facebook can be a great tool to minister to people all over the world! 

I also agree with the negative effects he talks about. Cyber bullying is one of the main problems I see with social media. It's entirely too easy for people to sit behind a computer and keyboard and bully someone when they don't have to be face to face with them. There have been multiple stories of suicides, people being put into mental institutions, etc etc. due to being cyber bullied. That being said, Facebook is just one of MANY sites that can be used for cyber bullying. I can say that I have known some relationships that have been ruined because of how easy it is to I guess to sneak around on Facebook or because of some posts, or whatever the case may be. However, if people are going to do those things, they'll find another way if not Facebook. I can definitely agree that it could be a distraction. I can honestly say that it's distracted me before. Maybe someone is trying to talk to me but I've just found a post I'm really interested in reading so I kind of just tune them out. Yea, it's happened before. Don't pretend it hasn't for you! Haha. But really, sometimes we get so wrapped up in making sure we post about our perfect lives and making sure everyone likes those posts, that we forget to just live and enjoy the moment. Insecurity has been the subject of many Facebook debates. I can see it, someone has a bigger house, a nicer vehicle, a prettier face or body, nicer clothes, a better job, the list goes on. I can't say that I've never been jealous of some of my friends on Facebook. And about the stalker portion.. Well of course there's that potential with every site you put information on. That's why you set your profile to private so only people you give permission to can view your profile information. And you have to ALWAYS be careful of who you add and let be friends with you. 

There are pros and cons to every social media website, but as long as you're careful and use it for the right reasons, I think Facebook is an awesome tool! 

Twitter - an educational tool?

 

http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/how-twitter-can-be-used-as-a-powerful-educational-tool/

I will be completely honest in saying that I rarely ever use Twitter. I have an account that I used to use quite regularly, but I've drifted away from it as I've gotten older. I guess I kind of feel like I have better things to do than tweet everything that happens throughout my day. Which is why I thought this article was interesting. Because it made me consider that Twitter  could be much more than that. I think it's very true that this social media can provide global communication and exchanging of information. People from all over the world are conversating and putting their ideas out there on this site and you can simply type in a keyword or "hashtag" and learn all sorts of things about that topic. You're able to broaden your thinking by seeing what other people have to say. I thought it was really interesting that the author put the idea out there of creating a classroom account and using certain hashtags. This could be a tool they use to ask others questions about certain topics and receive ideas from all over the world. It's a way of connecting that was never possible before social media. I also thought it was interesting that one teacher got an account on Twitter to communicate with her students outside of the classroom with bonus questions and reminding them of things they learned in class. This could possibly be a way for students to retain more information than just from seeing it in the classroom. I'm so happy that I came upon this article because it has sparked ideas for my future classroom and has given me a new perspective on Twitter! I definitely have more appreciation for this particular social media site than I ever have before. It doesn't have to be a waste of time, it can actually be something that helps many people, including teachers and their students. 

A little about me and my blog.

First off, you will learn quickly that I never take pictures of just myself anymore, which is why the above is of me and my little girl.. So, a little bit about me. I am 21 years old, will be 22 in March. I am currently attending Henderson State University to finish my English degree. I've been married for two years and we have our beautiful 15 month old daughter, Hadley. We live in a very small town and own chicken houses. My absolute favorite things to do are anything that involves spending time with my family. I thoroughly enjoy a good book, and could spend hours reading (if I had that kind of time), and I love movies as well. I love to write, whether it be poetry, journal entries or novel ideas. I plan to write many novels throughout the rest of my years on earth. I'm also a very big fan of decorating my home and making DIY crafts. I am a Christian and I am furthering my walk with Christ every single day. I also love animals, doesn't matter what kind and food! I am currently on a weight loss journey as well, even though I have gotten off track recently. But anyway, those are just some things that will be on my blog. I know, it is kind of a random assortment of things, but at least there will be something different for each post. I will be trying to post as often as I can, and there will probably be just random thoughts, ideas, or things that are going on in my life on here. So enjoy! :)