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.