Thing #4

I did not have experience with blogging before this course. After posting a few blogs, commenting on a few blogs, and reading about blogging, I can see the advantages.
In posting a blog, it is like you have started a conversation. You might ask questions, might just comment, or may even have an educational purpose. When someone comments on your blog, they are conversing with you. They may be answering your question or adding to your comments. The commenting back and forth helps create a sense of community and interaction because you are interacting. You are in an online conversation with others who have the same interests as you.
I found, from the reading, that is is important to leave you blog open ended. Give the readers the urge to comment, or something to comment about. Also, be nice. You may not always be 100% correct, so be prepared to admit it. If you see something not right in another post, be kind in the way you comment. Pretend you are in a living room carrying on a conversation. Would you say to someones face the same thing you may blog about?
When selecting the 7 blogs to comment on, 5 from our group, 2 from another, I knew I wanted to comment on 7 different topics. So, I chose a Thing #1 - Thing #7 that interested, or stood out to me.
#1 Brian's Brain - I liked his name. By reading his blogs your getting an insight to what's going on in his brain. :) His post was on commitment, and how setting goals is easy, but following through, committing, is the hard part. Couldn't agree more.
#2 amyonts - Again, the name caught my eye. Turned out to be her first and middle initial followed by her last name. I liked her post because she prefers things simple, as I do. We both created an avatar with much thought or concern as to how much it looked like us.
#3 Reid This - I like the ideas he had for using technology. Some of them were to create active participation for shy or quiet kids. Another was to use it for foreign language classes.
#4 Hill's 23 Things - I enjoyed her thoughts on being gracious to other bloggers when giving or getting comments.
#5 Nickerson's Thoughts - I picked this blog because I felt I had so much in common with it. I went to high school in the 80's and know much less technologically than most of my students will. That was the topic of this blog.
#6 Reid This - This blog was on Flickr. I love pictures, hadn't gotten this far in the 23 things, and found it very informative.
#7 Rachel Morris-APSU 23 Things - She had several pictures of flowers that I couldn't pass up. I take pictures of flowers myself. I liked her post.

Thing #2

Thing #2 post Wendy Matheney

I had a great experience creating my first blog and avatar. In deciding how to post my name and the name of my blog, professionalism was on my mind. I used my actual first and last name as opposed to an anonymous name. The name of my blog was also my name, with a brief description of that blogs topic. I will not write anything in a blog that I would be afraid of a future employer seeing, and I preferred it just be simple.
My experience creating the blog was good. The steps were clear, and it was a smooth process. There is a lot of information on the 23 Things list, so you have to be careful not to skip over an important sentence. Our teacher walked us through it, was there if we had questions, and the instructions were easy to follow.
My avatar does reflect my personality. It is simple and non dramatic. I am a quiet, conservative person. I did create the avatar to look like me. She has brown eyes and long brown hair, which I have. She is wearing a green sweater, one of my favorite colors, and jeans, which I love to wear. I wanted the avatar to loo like me, so that a reader could visualize me a little when reading what I wrote.
Please don't get me wrong about using my name and an avatar that looks like me. I think it's great for someone to pick a name and avatar that are fun and reflect their personality, but I preferred to keep mine simple, and it was a great experience.

Thing #3

Thing #3 post Wendy Matheney

There are a lot of things I can think of, that I might use a blog for in my teacher education program, and in my future classroom. I can see keeping a log of experiences from my teacher training for other teachers to read about, or teaching tips for others to benefit from. A blog would be a great place to put how-to's on technology or lesson plans. It would be nice to put up a blog about something I learned from another teacher, to give her thanks and credit for the help I recieved. In the classroom, that would be a great place to put a school event calendar, or homework schedule. In elementary school it would be a way to communicate with parents, and post photos of our class activities.

Thing #1

I am Wendy Matheney. I am an Education Major, 4-8 with a Social Studies and Science cognate. This is my blog for Thing #1. I watched the video slide for Life Long Learning Habits, and I feel the easiest habit for me is setting up goals. I have always been a list person, carrying a small notebook in my purse. I often keep track of my goal for the day, all the way to my goals before I die. I feel like by writing them down I won't lose them. They are always on my mind though. If I don't achieve a goal by a certain time, I don't get upset, I just keep it on my goal list. If it is a goal of time sensitivity, I make it a priority. The habit I felt was the hardest for me was using technology to my advantage. It is a good thing I'm in this class. If I am using a computer, VCR, anything technological, and it doesn't pop right up for me, I get upset and that makes it worse. Not knowing enough about them, and the fear they won;t work makes me avoid them. I hope that by learning to use the web 2.0 tools I will be more comfortable with technology. Setting up this blog today, was easier than I expected it to be. It gives me a confident feeling having completed it successfully. I look forward to the remainder of the 23 things, and this technology class.