Thing #12

I am in love with iGoogle!! I have no idea why I have waiting till now to start using it. Every morning I check the weather and my Facebook page, well now I can do all that on my home page and it’s perfect! It makes everything so much faster. Another one of the Google tool I started to try and use was Google Calendar. I love to take notes and I always have to have all my plans wrote out or I’ll forget about them, so I thought I would love this as well. I don’t really like it. Nothing is wrong with the program and it was really easy to use, it is just not something I can see my self using right now. Once I start teaching, on the other hand, this could turn out to be a great and really helpful tool to stay organized and prepared.

Thing #11

I didn’t find any of these sites confusing to use, but I do like Technorati the best. I really like the top 100. Although, they are not all in one category, it’s still an easy way to see which blog is doing well. There are also so many different blogs! One of the search engines that I did not really like was Topix.net. I don’t really have a reason why I didn’t like it as well as the others, it just wasn’t as easy I thought. I also use Google to find blogs and newsfeeds and that was really easy also!

Thing #10

I liked the RSS and newreader. It’s a great way to stay up to date with how ever many different resources without having to visit so all the websites. This is one reason I normally don’t reads that many blogs, because it takes so much time. Well, this makes it so much faster! I might use this in my class room to stay connected to educational blogs and resources that I find are helpful for what I’m teaching at the time. This is perfect for websites you know you are going to visit everyday!

Thing #9

       I used image chef (http://www.imagechef.com/) to make this image. I always write in the sand when I go to the beach, so I thought this was neat. Anything you can think of, you can make! T-shirts, signs, edit pictures or add words to an images, so many differnet ideas. Another great thing is it's so easy! I know it took me less than a minute to make this. I don't know if I would ever use this in my classroom. I'm sure there is a way to involve it into something, but if not, kids would at least have fun playing around with all the differnet programs in there free time.

Thing #8

Flickr has so many different programs that allows its users to make mashups and they all are so much fun to do! I played around with just about all of the ones that are listed on the 23 things page, and truth be told, they are slightly addicting! I think, if your creative and willing, you could include all the eight mashup ideas in a class room at least once. Mappr would be great to show what different areas look like, and even to travel back in time and see what a town did look like, maybe before a hurricane or an economic depression. Flickr color Pickr would be a great tool to bring some life to a boring classroom wall. Mosaic Maker would also be cool to hang on your wall if you made one that included pictures of all your students. Clockr would be fun as a screen saver, and creating puzzles with your class would also be a new idea. I favorite was Spell With Flickr. I have a ring that says the word hope so that is the word I picked, but you could pick anything! You could print out subjects and make labels or just let you students see how many different ways they can make there name. I love taking pictures, but I’m not really the type to put a lot online or do a lot of editing. I normally just print them off and put them in a photo book, but now after seeing all the different things Flickr lets you do with your pictures, that just sounds really boring. I’m still not sure if I will ever put a lot of my pictures out there, but I know for sure if I do want to share them, I have all these tools to help and make them great.
  This is my word, made with Spell with Flickr.

Thing #7

Thing number seven asked us to explore Flickr and find out everything the website has to offer. Just like a lot of the website in Thing number six, this website was also new to me. I have heard of it before, but I’m not really that in to uploading and editing pictures, so I never checked it out before. First, I started by taking a tour of the site. That informed me a lot about all the different things users can do with there pictures and how they can involve friends and even connected there account to there Facebook and blogs. When I started looking at pictures, I just type something in the search bar and so many pictures can up. It was crazy how many hits I got for everything I searched for. It was also great how easy it was and how many different types of things are there.  In the end, I found this really awesome picture of the London Eye when I searched London. I'm going to London in March and I can not wait to ride this. The view has to be amazing! This guy did a great job taking this picture!
Here is a link to the picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/5012303654/

Here is a link to Flickr's home page:
http://www.flickr.com/

Thing #6

As I was looking around the top Web 2.0 winner, I was in shock by how many of the website I have never heard of before. There are tools out there that can do anything and everything and they are not even that well known. I was also shocked by how much Google had to offer. In just about every category, Google had something special to give, and once again, I have never heard of it. After looking around some I found this website called Evernote. It is Amazing!! I already created an account and downloaded it to my computer, just so I can always have it at hand. You can also download it on a phone in an app form. Evernote allows its uses to be able to take notes in your account and be able to see those notes on any computer, phone, or device that you sign back into. It also allow its users to save pictures you saw on a website or upload a picture you might have saw in a maize to your account, so you can always see your ideas. Another thing it lets you do is save web pages, so you can go to them when ever you want too. I think in a class room where students are able to use computers or ipads to take notes, this would be a great tool. If you download the program (it’s free!) you do not have to have internet connection to see the notes you took earlier. As students can take notes in class with there lap top, go home and study still being able to use there notes. Teachers could also use this as a to do list or take after Pinterest and same all there ideas on to Evernote. This is a great Web 2.0 tool and I can not wait till I start to really see all it’s benefits.

This is a link to the top 100
http://www.cnet.com/html/ww/100/2009/winners.html

This is a link to Evernote
http://evernote.com/

Thing #5

When I was in middle school or even High school, I only rarely used the internet for any projects. I went to the library and looked up the information. I looked in books, encyclopedias or talked to the librarian for other help. Now, only two years later, I use the internet for everything! I don’t go a half a day with out checking my email, getting on Facebook, Googling for some information, or watching a TV show I missed from the night before. Web 2.0 and School 2.0 mixes all the great things the internet has to offer with education and is a awesome new addition to all classroom. Anything from creating a social calender to share upcoming events with your students to pulling up Google Earth in class to show what London really looks like, I really believe the internet is a prefect approach to a new kind of learning. I scare myself sometimes when I talk about how much technology I plan to use in my classroom someday. I’m so new to some of these tools, but the great thing is it’s so easy to learn! Times are changing and in my opinion, schools need to be on the same page as there students. If teachers like it or not, the internet is a great part of their students lives. My thought is if teachers don’t let students use the tools we have, there going to sit in class on their phone and use Facebook for something more entertaining. I’m not saying everyday should be action packed with a new program, I just think the internet has so much to give, why should we hold it back?

Thing #3

I will definitely be using a blog in my classroom. Calendars can be posted so students and parents know what to expect in the following weeks. Homework assignments can also be listed, so even students who were not present in class can have knowledge of what happened in class on that given day. Homework examples can be included if it is a difficult chapter and I can tell some students need the extra help. I also want my students to make one. Students can learn about the internet and start sharing there ideas with others. An entire class can be involved in a project or homework assignments and not even have to be in the same place. To me this is a great way to really get your class room involved and learning together. I would allow some class time everyday so everyone has the opportunity to use the computers. Students could look up experiments they would want to try in class or comments on a classmates thoughts. I think blogs would be a great addition in any classroom.