One last thing.......

How do we say it in the South? Oh yeah: YEHAW!!!!!! Done with the 23 things! I actually really enjoyed this little voyage. It was fun and I learned a ton of useful information about tools and technology that I will definitely incorporate into my teaching.

My favorite tools in this journey were "Delicious", "YouTube" and "Google Docs/Drive". I do plan on using these tools everyday in my classroom. As a life-long-learner, I feel that these will help me to grow as an educator and as a musician. I am surprised that there are actually this many free tools out there. My guess would have been that one would have to pay for many of these. I did enjoy all 23things but honestly, there were times when it felt like busy-work. I will use this process as a point to reflect upon to remind myself of the fun that learning should be. In the future, I will attempt to stay up to date on web 2.0 by continuously searching the web for innovations. There are tons of ways a person can continue to grow through "professional development" and web 2.0 will be a big part of mine in the future. I will start by subscribing to the 2.1 blog. Thank you so much for allowing me to experience this world!

Thing #23

Creative Commons! Wow, I feel as if we have come full-circle. I feel that this course has been somewhat cyclical, seeing how one of our first live-text assignments was about creative commons and now the 23 things ends with it. Creative Commons is a way of protecting a persons intellectual creation. It allows the creator of work an amount of control over it while sharing with others. It also allows people to use it but ensures that its creator receives credit.

After an attempt to chase down the original creators of "the 23 things", I found what I believe to be its origin at 23 things.wetpaint. Here, I found the Creative Commons button indicating "non commercial/share alike".

This, according to the Creative Commons site, means:

In the future, I will introduce creative commons to my students and the concept of intellectual property. I will encourage them to protect their work so that others may improve upon it or use it and ensure collaboration. Being a music teacher, this is a skill/tool that my students will surely be using soon.

Thing #22

Live binders are pretty handy. I did visit the Live Binder site and created a few live binders for myself. The three made for class are called:

1. Summer EDUC 5540
-made up of content and resources from our class
2. Music
-made up of mostly brass-player resources for my private students
3. Projects
-made up of current projects and ideas for future projects (music related)

here is my "music" live binder:


music

I believe that teachers could use live binders to assist students with assignments both inside a classroom setting and outside at home. The teacher could collect specific resources, save them in a live binder and allow students access to them. This would ensure that no questionable or objectionable material could be found by the students while researching the content. I think that one could modify a live binder for activities such as online scavenger hunts or webquests. I think they could be highly useful tools.

Thing #21

Animoto was fun. I could certainly see how students would enjoy playing with this application. I think that this tool offers an entertaining way of helping a student to develop a better understanding of their own identity while learning to create an online presentation. Personally, I enjoyed adding family photos an seeing them through the provided animation. I could see how this tool could release emotions in its users.

I made an animation about my family. Hope you don't fall asleep watching it!


Try our video maker at Animoto.

Thing #20

YouTube is one of my favorite things in the world. I have spent hundreds of hours watching music performances and masterclasses from world-class artist that I may never have an opportunity to meet. A few years back, I even auditioned for the "YouTube Symphony Orchestra". This was a group that was formed through an audition process where musicians sent in auditions through YouTube videos. Once the orchestra was formed, the group met in New York and performed at Carnegie Hall with conductor Micheal Tilson Thomas (my favorite conductor alive!). Over 7,000 trumpeters auditioned for four spots. I did not make it :( I did listen to the concert through a live stream and it was unbelievable.

I believe that YouTube would enhance any library or classroom. Caution needs to be exercised though as a lot of the content isn't policed that well and students may find offensive material.

I have a ton of favorite videos on YouTube. Here is a video of a Bobby McFerrin class. If it wasn't for YouTube, I probably never would have seen this amazing class.

Thing #19

Blogging communities are becoming more and more popular. I think that there are some great opportunities for professional collaboration in these communities. I also think that many of these groups tend to become more social than professional. If that is the intention, then its great but often these communities market themselves as professional communities.

I explored the teacher pop and gather communities. Teacher Pop links teachers and professionals in the education world. It allows users to post comments, photos videos and other media. After creating an account, the user must wait for approval from the site administrator before he/she can access much of the tools available. I found the community fun and professional once I was approved. Gather is a site that I actually liked better than Teacher Pop. It had more content and I did not have to wait for approval before I could enjoy its tools. This site is more geared for news and pop-culture.

I am a member of numerous on-line communities such as trumpet herald and the International Trumpet Guild. These communities offer wonderful collaboration opportunities as well as providing vital information and resources for professional trumpet players and musicians.

I think that I will use both Teacher Pop and Gather as resources as a teacher. Both contain members that are able to contribute educated opinions and comments to questions that I ask. Through this process, I hope to find assistance with school-related questions that are sure to pop up in the future.

Thing #18

Facebook has been a social networking site that I have used for a long time. I enjoy using it to connect with old friends and to keep up with new ones. Being self employed, I have even used it to contact possible clients and discuss business.

I set up a new Facebook account for the purpose of completing this assignment. The link is:
Scott Atchley's Facebook

Social network can be wonderful but educators need to understand how it works and the dangers associated with its use. A member of a brass quintet that I have been in for the last few years recently found this out the hard way. She made the news after being arrested for an inappropriate relationship with a student that she was teaching. Their Facebook communications were used in court. She is still involved in the courtroom phase and hasn't been officially found guilty or sentenced yet. This inappropriate relationship developed through Facebook posts. I personally feel that teachers and students should not socially interact, including on Facebook. My wife founded the Beta Club at her school. She created an exclusive Facebook page for contact between the school and the beta members. It allowed her to inform the members of up-coming events and meetings. She also used the site to allow beta kids to safely interact without having their profiles and comments seen by anyone outside the school administration or beta club. It is still a great place where those kids can belong.

Since I am an active Facebook user, I am comfortable using it to post comments. While I do now have a Twitter account, I probably will not continue to use it after EDUC 5540. It is a good site that allows quick posts but I'm not a person who really wants to post very often. For my needs, Facebook is a better tool. I feel that Facebook also offers so much more in social networking. There are games that people can play and "likes" that people can explore. I like the profile section on Facebook better as well.

A teacher could adapt both Twitter and Facebook for use in the classroom but most schools block these sites so that they can't be opened using the school server.

Thing #17

Social bookmarking with Delicious. I really like this concept. After setting up a Delicious account, I easily began bookmarking sites. The "save on delicious" icon in my toolbar allows me to bookmark anything in seconds. Tags are a great way to organize bookmarked sites that allow teachers to sort by content (tags) and save tons of time. I like that it allows me to store on-line so that I can access these sites from any computer. I also like that it allows me to use the tags of others to find sites.

I think that this is a wonderful tool for teachers. This could be especially helpful in schools that departmentalize content. I think that actual real-time use in the classroom wouldn't be as effective as using Diigo or other web-site grouping tools. I love it and have already began tagging and bookmarking favorite sites.

Thing #16

First of all, I am in constant need of organizational tools. In fact, this "thing" might be one of the most helpful tools that I get out of this class. I am constantly looking for information or dates/times of events. An Internet-based organizer looks like the answer for me.

I have been using a "My Yahoo" customized start-up page for years. I like it because I can customize its layout and content so that I can get all of the information that I like to get in a glance. After spending so much time in this class using Google tools, I decided to create an "IGoogle" start-up page. I like it way better than the "My Yahoo page". I like the customizable layout for appearance and content. I really like the "gadgets" available for the page. Especially the weather gadget and the google translator. It is also very convenient that I can glance at my gmail on my start-up page without having to go to a separate link. There are so many options for content that I am going to use google as my home page.

I like the google calendar very much and plan to use it from here out. It is easy to use and efficiently organized my important dates. As far as the "to-do lists", I can't say that I will be using them too often. By nature, I am not a list maker (my wife is endlessly making list).

One tool that I am going to give a trial run at home is Remember the Milk. This tool links to google calender and gmail to provide a notification service that reminds you of upcoming events and tasks. It appears to be easy to use but I am going to use it for a month before I really decide.

Thing #15

I believe that Wikis are a fun and useful tool. I enjoy any tool that can enhance collaboration. Wikis are constructed by collaboration.

I uploaded a few photos into the APSU23THINGS sandbox for others to play with and edit. I also experimented with editing the images and posts that were already there. This idea is a lot of fun but I could see how it could create some problems. First, someone must police other people's edits if used in a class-setting so that nothing is offensive. Second, someone must ensure that the information uploaded is fact. I can envision data uploaded to wikis by students that is not fact-based. I think that students would enjoy researching topics and working in teams to post and edit wikis. As with most Internet-based tools, the teacher must consistently monitor the students' activities when using wikis. I think its a great idea that could inspire teamwork in students.

Thing #14

Flowcharts and graphic organizers! Okay, so these are both highly practical tools that every teacher should be able to use. Being a very visual learner, I appreciate the clarity that visual representation of information offers students.

The first tool that I explored was Gliffy. This is a web based tool that allows a user to create flowcharts and data-organizers from templates in the Gliffy database. I created numerous Venn diagrams and explored various templates and how information could be displayed and organized. Gliffy offers a 30 day free trial when you set up an account. After I did, I was pretty much given unlimited use of the site. I really enjoyed the ease of creating diagrams with this tool. I think it could greatly enhance instruction.

The next tool that I explored was Mindmeister. This site is dedicated to creating mind maps. I found this tool to be very useful after I completed the tutorial, which I highly recommend viewing. Once I got the feel of the site, I could easily organize my thoughts into visual organizational maps. Although I certainly see the benefit of using Mindmeister to organize my thoughts, I do not believe that this would be the most effective tool to introduce material to students.

Flowcharts and mind maps are both clear ways of organizing information and I could see myself using them on a regular basis. To me, mind maps tend to allow for the user to organize his/her thoughts when during the creation step of a project. I could imagine using mind maps to greatly assist in brainstorming. Flowcharts seem to work better in presentations to groups or individuals. This tool can clearly express information and relationships in a visual manner.  Both are going in to my toolbox.

Thing #13

So, I investigated Zoho and Goggle Docs/Drive. I do see the usefulness of these applications. I really like the idea of being able to collaborate on a document or presentation with a group whose members may be scattered throughout the world. That opens up wonderful possibilities for me in music or in education.

Although I liked Zoho, I felt that it was a wee bit awkward to navigate at first. This may be a problem for some students if it were used in a real-world setting such as a classroom. I did enjoy playing around with the various tools it offered.

I loved using Google Docs or Google Drive as it is called now. It was very user friendly and easy to set-up. I created a document to share with parents about summer music lessons that I will be offering. I feel that students could work in groups without ever having to find rides to after school collaboration events. I really like that Google Docs automatically saves changes made so that no new work can be lost. Again, this is a wonderful and effective tool for students to use in group activities or when wanting to share information or work between peers. I feel that I would rather use Google Docs than Zoho and I believe that my students would feel more comfortable using it as well.

here is the link:

summer lessons with scott atchley

here is a snapshot of the document: