Thing #16

I stuck with google for my homepage. I feel most comfortable working with google and have already used it for a lot of "things" so far. I have my homepage set up to display the date and time, the weather, news, tv guide listings, football scores, recipes, celebrity news, and more. I've also set it for a halloween theme for now...

I had already created an online calendar for a previous "thing" and I used google for it as well. It's set up to send reminders to my email account which I get all the time. I liked setting the calendar up but will probably just use it for when I have a classroom. I think it will be great for parents to view anytime they want. And it will also keep the students on track. We have a desk calendar that we use for our personal things, and call me old fashion, but I still prefer using it. It's right here on the desk and it's just where all our events and trips are written down. But the online calendar that allows others to view it will definitely be something I will use once I'm a teacher.

The other website I tried was "Remember the Milk". I make lists like crazy. But my biggest problem is that I make multiple lists which "they" say not to do. But, I do it. I have lists all over for different parts of my life...the wedding, school, personal, etc. So, I thought I would try out "Remember the Milk" because it would be a way for me to have one list. It was ok, but mainly I thought it just wasn't worth it. It's just easier or as easy for me to get out a sheet of paper or write my "to do's" on my calendar. Again, call me old fashion, but I think that's just how I prefer to do my personal things. OR, just a "to do list" in word on my computer....that's just me, I guess.

I also tried out Zamzar which was pretty cool. It will be useful since you are always on different programs with different versions. Or if you have a word document that you want to convert to excel...very useful. I've already used it for personal use...I had a document typed up for my bridesmaids and 2 of them cannot read docx...so I used Zamzar to convert it to something else~!

Mystickies is also a cool application. I'm a literal "post it note"...at one of my previous jobs, I had stickies all over my computer. They are just so helpful and useful when it comes to things you need to refer to often or important things you need to do...so, stickies on websites is a very cool feature.

Thing #15

The first thing I thought of after reading about Wikis was how useful this would have been on numerous occasions. The first that comes to mind is one New Year's Eve when about 10 of us were trying to make plans...and it was constant emailing back and forth. And it became quite ridiculous. Then I thought about the beach trip we just took in July with 2 other couples...which was again, quite ridiculous in the amount of emails back and forth in planning and talking about who would bring what and so on and so on. The perfect solution would have been a wiki that we could have all gone to update.

The second thing that came to my mind was the wonderful wikipedia which I use ALL the time....

I added something to the images and photos section of the APSU 23 things sandbox.

Thing #14

I tried out bubbl.us, Gliffy, and Mindmeister. I think I liked bubbl.us best. Bubbl.us was the easiest to use and the easiest to figure out for me. I put the flowchart to the left together by using bubbl.us.

Flowcharts are helpful in learning steps in procedures, cause and effect, and so on. They keep the steps of a procedure in order and easy to see to follow. I would encourage my students to use mind maps to get their ideas in order for a project or paper. I use "mind maps" for projects or papers but I guess I have just never referred to them as "mind maps". They are also useful when studying. It outlines a topic in an easy way that is simple to view and decipher.

Thing #13

Zoho was something that I had never heard of...which didn't really surprise me as there are many things I've done so far in this class that I've never heard of! Which is what makes it interesting! Zoho not only allows you to upload documents you already have on your desktop or on your computer to an online source, but it also allows you to create documents. The best thing about it is that you can access documents that you create or upload to Zoho from anywhere; not just your home computer. Why even buy the software? It's useful for documents that you may need to access on a regular basis or need to send to other people to work on it with you. The first thing I uploaded was my resume. And then I went to Zoho sheets and uploaded the excel worksheet for my wedding that I am constantly changing and altering. It also has a place for presentations. You have to have internet access to use Zoho, but you are still saving money if you do not have to purchase the software. This is something that I may not only use myself but also something that I could recommend to my students to use. Really no excuses for not being able to do an assignment with this available. Even if you have to go to the library to use internet connection, you can do you work on Zoho. There is also an online organizer and a forum to use to ask other users questions about Zoho. Pretty useful for group work as well and collaborative writing.

Thing #12

The first thing I set up and could really enjoy is the Google Calendar. However, I'm not too excited about making it public but that's what the directions say to do. However, I did just set it up so it just shows when I am busy...not what I am doing. It's nice to have a calendar set up for personal reasons and for me now as a student but will also be useful once I am a teacher. Making the classroom calendar public and accessible to everyone in my class will let them know what is going on when with just a quick glance at the calendar. Students and parents will know of tests and when homework or projects are due. It's also a cool way to share birthdays of other students with everyone in the class. Everyone will know of holidays, field trips, guest speakers, etc. No surprises!

At first I was hesitant on google alerts, but when I looked more into it, it's not so bad. I use to have outlook at some of my previous jobs and while I loved the calendar aspect of it, I found the alerts popping up extremely annoying. However, that's not what this is. You can follow news stories, sports, etc, and have email alerts sent to you. You choose how often you want to updated and what you want to receive updates on. And if it every becomes annoying or you find that you are getting too many alerts, you can manage the alerts or just delete them all together. This will help in the classroom with any current events that my classroom may be following. We can always stay on top of developing news.

Thing #11

The easiest for me was google blog search or just google reader. I like to just be able to type in a keyword and have options. Technorati was easy, too, because it was similar to google in that it provided a box to type in keywords. I didn't spend too much time exploring topix.net because just the look of the site stressed me out. I hate when websites aren't user friendly and this one just didn't appear to be user friendly at first glance. I'm very big on first appearances of sites. So, needless to say, I didn't bother too much with it. I also just went to some of my favorite websites to add the feeds that way. Technorati also had a list of subjects to the side that I could click on and search by.

Thing #10

I chose Google Reader because I think it was actually the simplest one and made most sense to me. I already had an account so it wasn't too hard to set it up. With google reader, even if you don't know a name of a blog or website that you would be interested in following, you can just put in keywords and different websites and blogs of interest will come up. So, say you want to subscribe to a blog or website about wine. All you have to do is click "add subscription" and then type in "wine" and all kinds of different websites and blogs on wine will come up. It will also show you how many subscribers each one has so you can determine which ones are popular.

Having a google reader set up comes in handy because it is just one place you can go to to check all of your favorite websites and you can see as updates to each website are made. It's better than having all of your favorite sites listed in "my favorites" because you can go to one place instead of visiting each site. I subscribed to Cool Cat, Betty Crocker Recipe of the Day, Wine Lovers Page, Stephenie Meyer's website, the knot.com, and Fox News. I can use this in my personal life to keep up to date on what is going on in the news or friends' blogs, etc. I can use this in the classroom if I have my students set up a blog. I can subscribe to their blogs to see when they are updated instead of having to visit each individual blog.