Thing #6

After searching through the Web 2.0 Awards I choose Google Calendar. I had never used this tool before, but I really like it. I'm the type of person if I do use a planner or calendar than I probably will not remember where or what I am suppose to be doing. Google Calendar is pretty neat it is a web-based calendar where people can sign in to their account and add events or projects to it. Another feature is phone notifications. Users can set it up to where it will send notifications to your phone so that if you are not online looking at it than you will not forget your appointments. Color coding different events is also and option. As well as being able to send your calender to others and they send theirs to you, or just sending a specific event. As a future teacher I could see this program coming in extremely useful to keep appointments and events organized in one spot. Also, if other teachers have Google accounts and use the calendar option than you could collaborate with your co-workers by sharing your calendars with each other.

Thing #5

School 2.0 basically means Web 2.0 technology is going to be part of educating our students. The articles that I read were informative. I did think Web 2.0 a Guide for Educators was probably the more user friendly out of the ones listed. Michael Wesch's video that he put together was an eye opener just like the video that we watched in class at the beginning of the semester "Did You Know".  I think it is critical that we learn how to implement these tools into the classroom. Students are definitely able to operate technological devices better than most adults.  However, I will say I think as teachers we need to be well aware of the availability of technology outside of the classroom. What do I mean by this? Simply put some students do not have access in their homes to either a computer or Internet access. I think we as teachers need to be sensitive to this fact. I know technology is expanding, but some families today still can not afford to by their children school supplies or pay full price for lunch. (I'm not putting this in here to make anyone feel bad or to show elitism, but to just remind some that not everyone is as fortunate as others.)  Another factor might just be geography, my in-laws live in a little valley in the country where they can't even get Internet service. All this to say I'm not against using technology in the class room, but I think it needs to be just that in the classroom. Even though I'm still a "newbie" to blogging, I could see how fun this could be for students. They could discover information for themselves out on the Internet and then share it and their opinions with others. As a teacher I could easily post topics and have allotted time for responses. I believe people do feel a little more comfortable posting their responses than speaking out loud amongst their peers.

Thing #3

Just to be honest as of right now I am not a hundred percent sure how I would use blogs personally in the future, but I will say I can see how reading other professionals' or students' blogs about their experience or ideas that they might have could come in very useful. After reading some of the ideas online, one of the ideas I liked was keeping a log of training experiences. This would be helpful to reflect experiences and how I benefited from them and things I need to learn. I like the idea of using blogs in the classroom either for calendars of events, reading and writing prompts, book clubs, or newsletters. I suppose the options are really endless on what could be done. After having more experience with blogging maybe some will open up that I may have never thought about.

Thing #2

Creating a blog was not difficult to do, because I have had previous experience creating a blog.  I choose "Little Morgan" as my name because I am very short and my last name is Morgan. I have been used to being called anything that has "little" or "short" included in it and little sounds more cute than short. When I was creating my avatar I choose to do one that looked something like me. It never dawned on me to do one that did not look like me. I am not positive on how similar it looks like me, but I did my best. I choose clothes that you might actually see me in and I placed my background as the classroom. I figured the classroom best represents where I would like to be.

Thing #1

These Seven and one half learning habits are all great suggestions for being a life long learner. I would say out of the suggestions the most difficult one for me one probably be view problems as challenges. Most the time I would say when problems arise I am not looking at them as challenges, but as problems that I do not want to have to deal with. As far as the easiest suggestion, I would say that one would probably be teach or mentor others. I love teaching and helping others already and I haven't got my degree yet. I love see the "ah ha" moment when someone gets it.
As far as web 2.0 tools, I suppose I would just like to further familiarize myself with them so that I may uses them in the future in a classroom setting and it not be scary. I think with the direction are world is heading that children will understand and learn well with technology at their disposal. Setting up the blog I thought it was very simple, but I also have set a blog up before in the past.