Sunday, October 7, 2012

Thing 12


I really liked being able to use the google calendar and translator.  The calendar I could send the URL to parents and students so they could keep up with class assignments and events.  Google translator I could use to help with ELL students and instruction. Here’s the URL to my calendar page.

Thing 11


I went on the Google blog search and for the school library 2.0 I found the original source for the 23 things.  The topix.net took me to the local news feeds from Clarksville, TN which I thought would be helpful, I currently use ClarksvilleNow.com.  The Technorati had several educational blogs that I thought was interesting and it had the easy click icon for subscription.

Thing 10


I like the way RSS works in combining the new posts from all your favorite sites into one place.  I have subscribed to several sites and receive emails from them, but I prefer this because it keeps my email account open to only what is pertinent to my daily activities.  As a teacher, I could use this for a class project for each student to find a site that makes daily post about a certain subjects and add it to our class site so everyone could go in and it read it regularly and discuss in class what is going on with that subject.  Also as a teacher I can see using this to keep up with my favorite sites to help with professional development by keeping up with current trends in education.

Thing 9




I found the happy face generator quite easy to use and it had cute options for creating cartoons.  I thought that would be something nice to share with students in the future and have them create their own cartoons as a class project relating to some subject matter.

Thing 8


I was not able to get this mashup thing to work.  I wanted to use Mappr and take a map of the U.S. and put photos (historical and current) of different places along the Oregon Trail.  Since I’m going to be a social studies teacher, I feel I could use this application to create interesting visuals to tie into lesson plans about things like the westward expansion, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Trail of Tears, and so on.  Sorry I couldn’t get something to post for the visual.

 

Thing 7



“Still of the morning”  Groups Seascapes and Shorelines, tags  bay, beautiful, pier, the photographer is Michael T.

Flickr seems to be an amazing website for sharing visual imagery. I used the words pier, bay, and beautiful and got this photo.  It is also listed in groups under Seascapes and Shorelines (group 373, 103).  I am almost overwhelmed by the amount of visual information you can obtain from this site, even accessing historical photos from the library of congress, which will help me since I’m going to be a social studies teacher and can use those images in power points.  Sorry I couldn't figure out how to get the actual photo to post to my entry, maybe because it was copyrighted.

Thing 6


Etsy.com is online market place for selling handmade goods that you would not be able to find in the commercial marketplace.  Things can be one-of-a-kind creations that you can order from the artist or crafter.  People can have a complete online shop for their goods on this site. The useful features of the site are that you can search for anything, you can choose by the categories listed, and they have choices for ways to shop such as for a gift for a certain occasion. For education, I think in a classroom you could set up a sight where each student had their own “shop” where they could put entries, photos, or videos of things that were of interest to them and the other students could use that to learn more about their classmates.
This is the website I used to find Etsy
This is Etsy's website

Thing 5


Web 2.0 is an awesome advance in the way the internet is used to join people as global participants in the creation and sharing of information.  For school 2.0 I see it as being so necessary to get all students literate in how to access, assimilate, and use the visual information obtainable on the web.  Since 55%+ students are already using social media, this isn’t the challenge it would have been 10 -15 years ago.  I see podcasts and skyping being useful innovations to teaching because a student can access the lesson from anywhere in the world.  With skype you could actually join classrooms with another class half way around the world and share information.  For the future of schools, I see it as our students are going to be very literate in how to obtain the information they need for any subject they are researching.  For teachers, I see it as a way to connect through blogs to share information about what works and what doesn’t.

Thing 4


I think commenting on blogs you like is way to join a community that shares your interest and concerns and is a way of joining the conversation.  Two tips I like from experienced bloggers were; be prepared for negative people to make nasty comments, and respond to comments on your blog to keep the conversation going.  I commented on 6 people from my class, but I don’t know I’m supposed to list the 2 of choice here since I haven’t got to thing 10 and 11 yet.  The six people are:  Ashley Martin, Jillian Anderson, Alexis Wyler, Jordan Swift, Mariane Spencer, and Alana Mcleroy.  The comments I chose to make were responding to things in their posts that I thought were good ideas that I would like to use myself.