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.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
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.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thing #9
ImageChef.com Photo Frames
The picture above is my fiance and me. I did this using the ImageChef.
To the left is a very true statement! 2 months exactly today until I am an old married lady.... These cute post its will come in handy in the classroom for sure to remind students of projects due....
I did the logo to the right using online logo generator. It is obviously the name of my blog.
This "thing" was pretty fun and less frustrating for me than thing #8 now that I have figured out how to upload the images. The post it and logo were easy because the site just said to right click on it and save it to your computer. That way I could just upload it as an image. The picture was a little bit of trial and error in finding the right link and all. All of these features could be used to "spice" up any classroom. If it makes things more fun and interesting, then it is way worth the time and effort.
Thing #8
Oh my goodness...I don't know why this was so hard for me...but it was. I had no problems doing the mashups, but could not figure out how to post them to the blog. This took me waaaay longer than it should have. And I did have a great mosaic, but again, I could never get it to post correctly. And now that I have figured it out, it won't post the actual pictures...maybe because it was pictures taken from the flickr website and not my own?? And even doing that mosaic took forever because some places would come up blank if the photographers did not want to share their photos or something. I don't know...I'm just glad I have finally figured this out so I can mark this "thing" off my list.
Now that I know somewhat of what I am doing using these tools, it would be fun to use again in the future for classrooms. This would be a fun thing for students to use as well. Flickr and the mash ups could be used in my blogs for my students and their parents. I could put together mosaics and slideshows of pictures from field trips, etc. I think it is perfectly ok to share photos online as long as the people in the photos do not mind and as long as you are careful about what you are posting.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thing #7
This is the Sugar Bear. She is one of our Elkhounds. Most elkhounds are gray, but this little lady came out yellow. My mother in law to be named her Sugar Bear and it just kind of stuck. She is a wild woman! (Sugar Bear...not my mother in law).
This was my first time using Flickr. And I haven't really used many other photo sharing sites except for like walgreens.com so that I can send albums to people and they can buy their own photos. Flickr was really easy to use and I will probably continue to use it.
I'm not too concerned with sharing my pictures in a public place...I do it all the time on Facebook. I do however make sure that only friends can see my pictures on Facebook instead of just anyone. And of course, I am careful about what pictures I post. I was going to post a picture of my fabulous nephew instead of my dog, but then read the part about photo posting etiquette and how it's not too cool to post pics of minors (he's 3). So, Sugar Bear it is....
This was my first time using Flickr. And I haven't really used many other photo sharing sites except for like walgreens.com so that I can send albums to people and they can buy their own photos. Flickr was really easy to use and I will probably continue to use it.
I'm not too concerned with sharing my pictures in a public place...I do it all the time on Facebook. I do however make sure that only friends can see my pictures on Facebook instead of just anyone. And of course, I am careful about what pictures I post. I was going to post a picture of my fabulous nephew instead of my dog, but then read the part about photo posting etiquette and how it's not too cool to post pics of minors (he's 3). So, Sugar Bear it is....
Monday, September 14, 2009
Thing #6
For this "thing", I picked the Web 2.0 category of "Events" and picked http://upcoming.yahoo.com.
I picked this website because since I am still new to Clarksville, my fiance and I are always looking for cool things to do in this town. Upcoming.yahoo.com is a pretty handy little website. All you have to do is put in your town and an entire list of events will come up. You can also narrow the events down by only clicking on sub categories such as "family", "comedy", "music", "politics", "social", "sports" etc. There is also a calendar that you can click on to see what events are going on during a certain day. So, say you were going to be in Atlanta on October 16th and were interested in what was going on in Atlanta that day. You can go to this site and pick the date and location to see a listing of events going on in Atlanta when you will be there. Or if you know there is a particular concert in Nashville but not sure when it is, there is a place to type in keywords. So, if I was looking to see when the next Taylor Swift concert in Nashville was going to be, I would just type in "Taylor Swift", change the location to "Nashville", and it takes you to it along with the date, time, and a place to click on to buy tickets. It's all right there. You can also set it to include events nearby.
I think this is really cool and would have liked to have known about this sooner! How convenient! Plus, if you join, (which is free with a yahoo account) you can form your own calendar to hold a list of your events that you are interested in or will be attending. If you are a member you can let the community know you are interested or going to a particular event. Plus, you can see what your friends are going to. Plus being a member means that you can actually add an event. But even if you aren't signed on as a member, you can still find out the important things and find out what is going on where and when.
While the first use of this website that comes to my mind would be entertainment, it can also be used in education because there is an actual "education" category. I clicked on education and had it show me all education related events occurring in or around Clarksville over the next 30 days and events such as financial freedom seminars, lectures, free PSAT practice tests, free college counseling, and more popped up. This could be used in the classroom if I was going to require my students to attend some of these events or if they wanted to attend for extra credit. It is also a way for the student themselves to explore what is out there and what could be beneficial to them. Plus educators can add events such as lectures or seminars.
I will be using this tool a lot in the future from here on out!
I picked this website because since I am still new to Clarksville, my fiance and I are always looking for cool things to do in this town. Upcoming.yahoo.com is a pretty handy little website. All you have to do is put in your town and an entire list of events will come up. You can also narrow the events down by only clicking on sub categories such as "family", "comedy", "music", "politics", "social", "sports" etc. There is also a calendar that you can click on to see what events are going on during a certain day. So, say you were going to be in Atlanta on October 16th and were interested in what was going on in Atlanta that day. You can go to this site and pick the date and location to see a listing of events going on in Atlanta when you will be there. Or if you know there is a particular concert in Nashville but not sure when it is, there is a place to type in keywords. So, if I was looking to see when the next Taylor Swift concert in Nashville was going to be, I would just type in "Taylor Swift", change the location to "Nashville", and it takes you to it along with the date, time, and a place to click on to buy tickets. It's all right there. You can also set it to include events nearby.
I think this is really cool and would have liked to have known about this sooner! How convenient! Plus, if you join, (which is free with a yahoo account) you can form your own calendar to hold a list of your events that you are interested in or will be attending. If you are a member you can let the community know you are interested or going to a particular event. Plus, you can see what your friends are going to. Plus being a member means that you can actually add an event. But even if you aren't signed on as a member, you can still find out the important things and find out what is going on where and when.
While the first use of this website that comes to my mind would be entertainment, it can also be used in education because there is an actual "education" category. I clicked on education and had it show me all education related events occurring in or around Clarksville over the next 30 days and events such as financial freedom seminars, lectures, free PSAT practice tests, free college counseling, and more popped up. This could be used in the classroom if I was going to require my students to attend some of these events or if they wanted to attend for extra credit. It is also a way for the student themselves to explore what is out there and what could be beneficial to them. Plus educators can add events such as lectures or seminars.
I will be using this tool a lot in the future from here on out!
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