about me

Hello. I am Darlena Gary. I have created this blog during a technolgy class required for my major. I am a student at Austin Peay University in Clarksville, TN. I am pursuing a degree in English with a minor in Secondary Education. I hope to teach middle school English; however, I am willing to teach any grade level. I am a non-traditional student because I am 33 years old. I absolutely love learning ways to help me become an outstanding teacher.I hope to continue blogging about my experiences as a student and later as a professional in my community.

One Last Thing

23 Things was a very interesting activity.When first presented with this task, I was a little overwhelmed and unsure about technology in the classroom. Having completed this task, I am excited about using what I have learned to educate students in the future. One of my favorite activities was creating a video using Animoto. This tool will help me reach visual learners in the classroom. I can make videos using words or pictures to make a point.Something unexpected was you tube. Until this assignment, I had never used this resource. I am now up to speed on how this can be used for educational purposes. I will be using this tool in my classroom as well.I believe the set-up of 23 Things is perfect. I would not change a thing. All tools and resources were linked appropriately in the correct section of this assignment. Now that I know what RSS feed is, I plan to use this tool to keep up with my favorite resources using this tool. All updates will be sent to me automatically. How cool is that? Although this task looked to be daunting at first, it was completely worth while and has moved me into the technological world. Thank you 23 Things!

Thing 22

Pod-casts are a very cool tool that may be used to reach students who may be away from the classroom. They can also help students to gain crucial information in a fun manner before class or after class to study. Grammar Girl is my favorite pod-cast to follow because it has many different sections dealing with common grammar issues. I will definitely be using this in my classroom. Also, I just realized how simple pod-casts are to create and I look forward to making more for my classroom as well.

Thing 23

Inside the APSU 23 Things blog, everyone's posts are evidence of unoriginal material. There is also the You tube symbol at the bottom of that link verifying its origin. There is also copyright information at the end of the page. Inside our individual blogs, there is also borrowed material. Thanks to creative commons, we are able to borrow this material without obtaining permission.

Thing 21

Animoto is awesome. I had so much fun creating a video. I have never been a picture person, so I don't have pictures of me or family, but now that I can turn them into really neat videos, I will be a picture taking fool.This can be a useful tool in my future classroom to put together amazing videos of related material. I feel the students would rather see a video than look at a boring power point.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Thing 19

I thought Teacher Pop was a pretty cool tool. I was able to see what some other teachers were doing in their field.I am a member of Facebook and now I am a member of Teacher Pop. Both tools are useful in collaborating with other professional in the teaching profession.

Thing 20

I liked using youtube. This was the first time I have ever explored. It was very easy to use. I feel like one could have search overload like those popular Bing comercials. But it was very easy to find something worth while. I chose to add "The Canterbury Tales Prologue" spoken in middle english. I wanted to use this video because I feel it is important to recognize how much the English language has changes throughout history. This goes out to all English Majors. Enjoy!!!

Thing 18

When I was younger, I had a myspace account. It was a fun place to meet people. In fact, I met my husband on this networking cite. Myspace became a place known for adult content and I was no longer comfortable being a member. When I started college, I learned about facebook. I created an account and began to add friends. My husband is in the military, so I try to keep my account private. However, for this class I am making an exception. http://www.facebook.com/home.php? I think facebook is the better cite because of the activities that may be done in this one place. You have a calendar, you can add groups and follow them, and you can share pictures and information with all your contacts at one time. I believe it is important for educators to be aware of these networking cites for a few reasons. First, this is what the students are doing, and it is always important to know what the students are into. Second, you can use these tools in the classroom. I am an English major, so I could create an assignment for students using one of these cites. They could create an account and use correct grammar and punctuation to express themselves. Third, teachers can use one of these cites to collaborate. It is a good way to reach alot of people with one post.

Thing 17

Delicious was very easy to use. I like that it is a tool that may be accessed from any computer. This will be helpful to students doing research. The teacher can direct students to certain places through a tool like this to help them with their searches. This will also help students working in groups to track searches made by other group members. Collaboration made easy!

Thing 16

I chose to use the Google calendar because I already have a Google account and homepage. Google has a lot of cool things accompanying their free e-mail account. I will try to use the calendar more often, as I can see that it will be beneficial and is in a place I visit daily. The Ta-da list will not be used by me because it is too much work. I can create a list like this anywhere and it will be readily available. I would certainly recommend Google homepage and calendar to anyone. It is helpful to have all my favorite things in one place. I get e-mail, news, weather, and "quotes of the day" in one place on my iGoogle homepage.

Thing 15

Wikis are much neater than I thought they were. I have learned that anyone may create a wiki for their needs. The only wiki I knew about was Wikipedia. I now know that teachers can create wikis for their classrooms and the students can edit and add information as it comes about. This will create an interactive classroom that absent students may view when away from the classroom. I explored a wiki for 23 things and commented on the blog area of the sandbox. Too cool. Sandbox is a place inside the wiki intended to be a fun space. I believe I will use a wiki in my future classroom for book discussions.

Thing 14

The difference between a flow chart and a mind map is that a flow chart shows a sequence of events,stemming from a main event, and a mind map shows one main idea and it's sub-elements. In my English classroom I could use flow charts for story lines to show sequential order. I could use a mind map for many lessons. I plan on using Bubbl.us to create a mind map using nouns. The main bubble will be "Nouns." The sub-elements will be types of nouns, such as "Proper" and "Common." There are many other types, but for the sake of time, I will stop there. These are very helpful cites and I will definitely be using them for my future classroom. I have tried to make bubble maps inside word documents and it is very time consuming. Bubbl.us is a much better way to create mind maps.

Thing 13

Zoho Writer is a neat tool because it allows you to create documents on any computer with internet access, even if it does not have Microsoft word installed. Zoho Writer allows you to create a document, then transport it anywhere. You can convert the document into different types of files if needed. This document, for example, was created inside Zoho Writer and was transported into my blog. Too Cool!

Thing 12

I have had a google account for years now and I love all the wonderful things I can do with it. I have an igoogle page that has a tab for local weather, a tab for famous quotes, and a tab with my horoscope. This page can be used in an educational setting for me because the famous quotes are beneficial to literary scholars. It could get the students excited about famous people in history and the wonderful things they had to say. I also have a calandar inside google. This is beneficial for the obvious reason. What professional does not need to keep up with event in their personal or professional life? I did not create a link to these places because I feel like my iggogle page is private. After all, it has a spot for my email as well. My calandar is aslo a private place I do not wish to share.

Thing 11

I am a big fan of Google, so of course it is the one I feel was easiest to navigate. It had a claer place to input the blog you want to search for. I couldn't find a place like this in Topix.net, so I am picking it as the most difficult. The others were not too bad, but like I said, I am a fan of Google. I was able to use Technorati to find education related feeds, which will be useful in my professional career. Topix.net had information relating to Clarksville,TN as well as around the world. There was some stuff about the winter olympics. The most unusaul thing I found was a gossip blog stating that Simon Cowell of American Idol is engaged. How Wonderful!!!!

Thing 10

RSS and newsreaders are pretty cool creations. It is nice to get current material from blogs or websites that intrest me. In my personal life, I can follow blogs that I like and in my profession, I can use RSS to obtain the most current information to pass on to my students. Keeping up to date on current affairs is valuable to any teacher, reguardless of their field. Students are able to relate class material to what is happening in the world.

Thing 9

I went to comic strip generator to create this one-eyed-monster. I searched for a comic charachter that I liked, added the text and clicked the button to create my image. Then I copied and pasted to my blog. The website for this generator is http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/

Thing 8

I had alot of fun with the spell with flickr mashup. I added my name to my homepage and I thought that was pretty cool. This particular mashup may be used in my future classroom. I am going to be an English teacher and can use this mashup to do vocabulary terms which will be fun for the students. I don't mind people posting pictures online. I feel like it is part of being an American. We are free people and I feel we should be able to post pictures if we so choose. I can see how some people would not want certain pictures posted, but if you are acting in a way you don't wish to share with the world, don't allow your picture to be taken.

Thing 7

I have never been to flicker before and i was AMAZED at all the wonderful photos. I was expecting to see random photos, which is what I got, but these seem to be perfectly artistic and beautiful. My favorite is of a dog, a sheltie I believe, sitting with a cookie on his nose. I can only imagine how hard it was to get this photo. The photographer is runs with *scissors*. You can get to the picture by going to www.flickr.com/photos/imnotcheap/

Thing 6

I explored Im Cooked, which is a sharing website for video recipes. Not only do you get the recipes for new foods, but you get to see how to make the recipe. This is helpful if there are some techniques you may not be familiar with. One downside to this site is that I was not able to find a list of ingredients. I wonder if they expect you to write while you watch. This was just one flaw inside an otherwise neat site. You can visit it at http://www.imcooked.com/

Thing 5

School 2.0 means that children will have many different ways to learn in the future. They will have the classroom, the community will act as educators, and new technology will help them learn material that is not covered in a classroom. For children, this is a really bid deal. Children who have difficulties learning in a classroom setting will be able to get information through other sources. Also, as the children grow into members of the community, they will have a better understanding of how the community works and they will be able to contribute their knowledge.

Thing 4

Commenting creates a sense of community and interaction among people with similar interests because you become part of the bloggers life. You can inspire a blogger or you can hurt a blogger with your comments, so it is important to be courteous.Not only is it important to beware of negativity, but also be specific and heartfelt. A blogger can tell if your comments are just there for the sake of commenting. Another thing i learned about commenting is to create a new post if your comment is very long. For my five classmates I chose people that I either already know or who I wish to know better. I chose Tracie Cannon, Ashley Channel, Lauren Finley, Sarah Willey, Nicole Lee(Short Haired Momma). Two other blogs I have posted to are serendipitylulu.blogspot.com and chunel123.blogspot.com. I chose the later because it was in the top 100 blogs and the first post I read about our pets knowing us better that others was appealing to me. I agreed and stated that my pets love me more than peanut butter. The other blog caught my eye because it had a quote on the first page that made me smile. The quote was "Normal is a cycle on a washing mashine." I commented on this post because I don't feel like there is any certain degree of normalcy. Sarah Willey posted about using blogs to communicate and I agreed and said that research I have done for my website-of-the-day has suggested using a blog post fro communication between teachers, parents, and students. The post I commented on for Nicole Lee was similar and dealt with the same information. Tracie Cannon posted that blogs are similar to facebook and I agreed that I should be leaving more comments because I get bummed when I make a post and noone comments on my page. Ashley Channel wrote about her experience creating an avatar. I wrote that it was not easy for me and that someone with her knowledge of technology should enjoy this class. Lauren Finley wrote about her difficulties as a lifelong learner. I found her post to be very thoughtful and I commented on that as well as saying that computers have helped us tremendously as college students.

Thing #3

I hope to be a middle school language arts teacher. In my future classroom I will be able to use blogs instead of handwritten journals. Journals are a good way for students to release personal thoughts in a safe setting. It also help to get their creative juices stirring. An online blog would be better suited for my students because they spend time on their computers throughout the day, giving them ample opportunity to post. Also, many students prefer to type over writing.

Thing #2

Creating a blog was fairly easy for me. The directions were easy to follow without having substantial knowledge of technology. Creating an avatar was pretty easy. My first attempt was a failure because I did not copy the entire code. Silly me. I thought it was only one line of text. When I realized my mistake, everything followed smoothly.I tried to create my avatar as close to what I look like as possible. I believe it is a good resemblance.I named my blog after myself because I am not very creative in this aspect. Also, because I am the focus of the blog.

Thing 1

I believe I am a lifelong learner because i have a tool box of books and websites. I also always try to start my learning process with an end in mind. I always know exactly what I want to accomplish. I have a hard time accepting responsibility for my own learning. Unfortunately, I have come to rely on others to help me when I reach a tough spot. I would have to say that habit #3 is the hardest for me. I tend to view problems as problems and not as an opportunity to learn. Habit #5 is easiest for me. I love to collect books and websites that I can use for teaching and learning.