Tag It

I had a fun time with the "Tag It" and "Map It" activities in our textbook. The map activity was interesting because it was so surprising to see how many people from around the world are doing the same thing that you are doing. There were people as close as five minutes from me, to people on the other side of the world. It's amazing to see how many people are becoming connected educators, and it is another indication of the online support system a teacher has to those looking at the map. The Diigo activity was cool because you can go to the archive of the tag used and see all of the websites and resources that others have posted. Having these resources available is important when getting started in connected education. These are lifelong resources available to teachers, and future teachers, that will help guide the journey into being the best teacher that person can be. Coming into class this semester, all of the talk about integrating technology into my classroom in the future seemed far off. It was not something I was used to or ready for, and I truly did not even know where to start. That was really scary for me. But by using resources such as my PLN on Twitter, blogging, and my textbook, I have become more comfortable and confident, and am now looking forward to becoming a connected educator. These resources will stick with me throughout my career, rather than learning subjects in other classes that will soon be outdated.





Pinterest is an exciting tool that is useful to just about anyone! Teachers are using it now as a way to connect with other educators in order to better develop their teaching styles, classroom environments, and lesson plans. It is a neat way to physically see what other teachers are doing. Most teachers pin ideas of their own, which means that other teachers will be able to stick to a cheap budget when taking another's ideas. I also like the idea of using Pinterest here from a student's point of view to organize projects and other assignments.

I enjoyed using paper.li in our class the other day. It is a simple way to organize information from social media websites when you don't have the time to be on all of your sites. You can also follow specific subjects and have that information on your summary, and it is really helpful when you want to learn more about a topic. It is really difficult sometimes to get to a computer, and checking this will allow you to figure out what you've missed in a matter of minutes. Like this site says, sharing your paper.li with other friends is a great idea to get others to be connected like you are.

IFTTT is an easy way to stay connected. You can create a recipe from your favorite bloggers and connect social media websites while really just creating simple recipes. It is important to keep in mind that technology is not flawless, and sometimes there will be issues. Like Cool Cat says, we should probably keep ourselves from the "automatic" features on some sites.