Tools that use FLICKR photos

The states I've visited!

http://bighugelabs.com/map.php

I searched Big Huge Labs and especially liked maps among many tools.
I can use Map Maker while I teach L2 learners English.
The lesson plans can be numerous. I can teach geography using map. Students can visualize the location of each state while learning the name of each state. Maybe I can start my lesson by asking several questions to students like: Do you know how many states are in U.S.A., names of all states, correct pronunciation of states, each state's characteristics, etc. I can let students write an essay relating travel: Where is your favorite place in U.S.A.? Where have you traveled in America? Where do you want to visit if you can? etc. Further, we can discuss the cultural differances between our own country and America. Later, we can expand our interest to the whole world and learn more.
To check the understanding of student's geographic knowledge, I can make a puzzle using this map. By trying to match the puzzle, they can have fun and check their knowlege.
According to the level of learners, I can create different kinds of lesson plans using map.

The various types of creative commons licensing.

While using internet, I have enjoyed lots of great pictures taken all around the world. Through this Module, I can know there exist various types of licenses which protect the copyright of those pictures.
Here, I would like to describe the various types of creative commoms licensing, I can get this information from About The Licenses internet site.

First of all, the role of creative commons licese is like this:
This tools' purpose is to grant copyright permissions to creative work done by from individual creators to large companies and instituions in a simple and standardized way.

*Licenses

1. Attribution CC BY
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

2. Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

3. Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND
This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

4. Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

5. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

6. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND
This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

How I might use microblog for my own professional development or for teaching?

 Twitter! I heard so many times about it, and wondered what exactly it is. I made my own account and followed several twitters for a few days. My first reaction? I am truly living in the technology time. Everyday seems same to me, but it does not apply to the world. It is changing every time, actually every minute or second. Many things are happening around the world and they are delivered to me like real-time. It feels like more faster than media. As a graduate school student in education field, I am wondering how I can use these microblogging in actual classroom or for my personal development. I read two articles that can give me some hint or resources.

The first one I read was: The Ultimate Twitter Guidebook For Teachers.
From this site I can get some insights I would like to apply in my future classroom.
First, I would like to use it as "Communication device" for parents and students. I can share many thoughts that can be arouse in classroom with parents. There is no necessity to have designated time or space to meet to talk about some issues, we can share our thoughts in real time, actually any time. I can let parents know what's going on in classroom. I will give assignments deadlines, information related to class, etc.
Secondly, I would like to use it for classroom activities. If we have a literature class, then I can make students share their thoughts about that book using twitter. They can know what others are getting by reading that book and can ask some questions: the meaning of certain words that used in the book, what character do they like most and why, how the story will develop, etc. If we do not decide which book we will read yet, and then we can use twitter to pick a book.
Third, I want to use twitter to expand students' cultural knowledge. Many people say you can see as much as you know. If my students can know cultural differences between countries through twitter, then they can expand their understanding about cultures. I think twitter is connecting people around the world. I really want to use this great factor. Learning a language is really related with learning a culture.

The second article that I read was: Twitter-Professors.
I want to be a life-long learner. However there are so many things that I cannot cover by myself. When I use twitter, I can get lots of resources from twitters who are professors in that area. How great it is. There is no limitation like geographic distance, time or even tuition. I can learn lots of knowledge from twitters. This is the most favorite thing to me using twitter. And I ask questions related to my teaching. If I do not know where I can get certain resources, then I can ask twitters in that area. I can know what is going on in education world in real time. Many information is shared in twitter. There exists no barrier any more regarding time, distance, culture, or race.

I know there are many ways to use twitter, and I want to use it like above mentioned ways among them. I think if I use twitter well, it can give me lots of advantages.

Kirsten Winkler's blog - Interview with Michael Schutzler

I like hearing what other people are saying. I found a post including interview in Kirsten Winkler's blog, Kwestions for Michael Schutzler - the eBay of Language Learning. In this post, she talked with Michael Schutzler, the CEO of Livemocha. I found personally this site is interesting for language learning. People are learning language through the communication with people from different countries. I want to know his thought. They are saying about Livemocha's new business and how this site is helping people who want to learn language. This interview was interesting and I enjoyed it.

Social Networking Group

I think Classroom 2.0 is the place to get lots of help in my knowledge of technology. I am really novice in technologies and this social networking group is created to give help to people like me. I want to be a teacher in my near future and this group is consisted of members who have interest in education. It means when you need some support while doing some job using technology, you can have direct help from this social networking group. This networking site is actively operated by many participants and has lots of ongoing online events. Many members are working in the field of education, so you can get more practical information from here. This is important for me, because I have no experience in teaching more than 6 students. I hope to have lots of help in my future from this social networking group.

The learner of today

To better illustrate the learner of today I would like to use some kind of modeling.
 Sun wakes up in the morning and the first thing she is doing is to check her e-mails, blogs, and text messages in her i-phone. Usually she uses e-mails and text messages to communicate with her friends. She is a business woman working in the field of computer engineering. Thus it is hard to make any time to meet her friends in person. Almost every night she visits lots of blogs that related to computer engineering. There are many experts who want to share their knowledge through blogs. Even though her major in undergraduate was computer engineer, there introduced so many new knowledge and information after her graduation. So she is considering to take On-line course to better catch up the new information.

 I think the leaner of today is a person who continuously studies to expand his or her knowledge. Right now we are living in the world of technology. It means formal knowledge does not last forever. George Siemens' article,"Connectivism", quoted Gonzales (2004) about the challenge of rapidly diminishing knowledge life like below:“One of the most persuasive factors is the shrinking half-life of knowledge. The “half-life of knowledge” is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years and is doubling every 18 months according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD). To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.” You need to keep learning to better understand quickly changing world. To do this, you can use internet like blogs or Wikipedia in which many people share their knowledge. In this digital age, "Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing (from "Connectivism")." Furthermore, if you stop learning, there exists strong possibility that you have wrong knowledge that is not accepted as right any more. I would like to finish my writing with quotation from the video, "The Changing Nature of Knowledge", "It's not just what we know today that's important. It's our ability to continue to stay current as knowledge changes." 

Educational Change Challenge

I watched Education Change Challenge video from Youtube.
It really motivated me to think about our current school system. I think this video explains why so many students lost their interest in learning. Right now we are using the curriculum or method that can inspire and support students' interest or curiosity? I do not think so. We are just too accustomed to the ways that we were using in the past, and many school officials or teachers hesitate to introduce new technologies in school. Maybe there should be so many reasons that they cannot utilize technologies right away in school.
By watching this video, I can conclude that our current teaching system is focused on teacher's side not student'. I want to be a teacher in near future, and this video made me think about fundamental reasons to learn and teach. As educators, we have responsibilities in leading students' inspiration, motivation, creation and curiosity. I would like to quote the last sentence from the video.
" Do I create life-long learns and am I prepared students for my age or theirs?"