Thing #6

Since I know and use a lot of the tools on the webware top 100 list I am guessing I am more technologically savvy then I thought. When I started the project I never realized all the web 2.0 tools I use. Never gave the tools I use a second thought. We have become custom to the fact that we have the internet with all its tools of convenience and do not think twice about how far we have come.

My favorite on the list is Pandora. A girlfriend of mine turned me onto Pandora about two months ago on my iphone. It is an amazing music tool. I do not know if I could ever get through my workouts without it. One of my favorite things about the website is your choice of music. The channel I listen to the most is Vanilla Ice Radio, oh the memories. The only complaint I have with Pandora is the ads, but you take the good with the bad. The good by far out ways the bad. Another on the webware top 100 list that I have used is Skype. Anyone with a loved one in the military is most likely very familiar with this tool. You have no idea how Skype has brought me to tears, because I was able to finally see an image of my husband in real time that I had not seen in months. Many people use Skype for video conferencing. I have even seen Skype used on Good Morning America. The only down falls I have every encountered with Skype is slow feed and disconnects. I always assumed that the slow feed and disconnects was primarily due to where he is at and the internet he is using.

I think it would be neat to use Skype in the classroom. When I was in third or fourth grade we created pen pals across the world. Mine was in England. I thought it was so cool to correspond with someone in England. Today in our classrooms we could do a type of pen pal via Skype. Due to the time changes I am not sure how well across the world would work, but it could definitely be done across our country.

Thing #5

From my understanding School 2.0 means students learning online. Many of my friends home school and have been doing so for at least three years now. When I asked one of them about it her comment was “ She gets on the computer and does her lessons” I was not sure what she meant, but after reading the up about Web 2.0 I do. One of the radio stations here in town has ran an ad for schooling online. In the ad it says something about people learn in different ways. I completely agree people learn in different ways, but I do not think educating students primarily through the computer is the answer. I am all for technology in the classroom. Teachers and students should be using the latest technology in the classroom. However, in my opinion there should be a classroom where a teacher is there teaching. Most likely computers/internet are going to play a prevalent role in education, students possibly will be required to have a computer or some type of hand held device to bring to class. It will definitely be interesting to see where this goes in the coming years.

Thing #12

These tools were fun to play with. I wish I had more time to play with and personalize iGoogle. Maybe it will be something I can revisit this weekend. I like the Google Calendar, I need all the organization I can get. It never fails when I need to look at my calendar I do not have it with me. My iphone has a calendar on it, but it is so small and more of a hassle to enter the information. Maybe just maybe I can keep up with what I need to do and where I need to be. Another thing about Google Calendar is my husband and I can share the calendar. He can add stuff and check to see what we have going on. There will be no more excuses of you did not tell me, or you have to give me more notice than the day of. Oh Google Calendar please organize this family.

Google Translate is fun to play with too. I was listening to how words and phrases are said in a number of different languages. When I had to take my second year of Spanish I used Google Translate a lot. This tool will be very efficient in the classroom with so many ELL students in the schools. Google Translate could become a computer station for ELL’s to work on their English. It is amazing how all the tools of the web can be used in the classroom.

https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/seebert04%40gmail.com/private-fa6641528cac6c4c526ee7c873401e1c/basic.ics

Thing #11

The search tool that I liked the best was Edublogs’ award winners. The reasons I prefer this website first Edublogs is designed for the educator, second they allow the users to nominate their favorite blogs twitters, or other resource websites to later vote on. By doing this they simplify having to look through blogs, twitter to determine how valuable the material is. For the most part all the search tools were easy to use. My only complaint was that some were appeared to be bogged down with ads. Edublogs and Topix both were filled with useful content. Edublogs for the professional information and Topix for personal use. Topix determines your location and displays feeds for your area. I see now how searching for RSS feeds can become addictive, there is so much information out there I more then likely would have never found on my own. I added what seems like a ton of sites to my news feed. My husband has turned me into a news junky, I added Fox News and CNN news feed. I also added Cool Cat Teacher, Free Technology For Teachers, and a bunch more but right off the top of my head these I listed are the ones I like the most. 

Thing #10

I enjoy the fact that every blog and twitter that I subscribe to are located there in one place. With having all my subscriptions in one place makes it easy to follow daily, hourly, or up to the minute. With the Google Reader I do not have to go into each individual blog or twitter. For my personal use RSS would be a time management tool. The RSS would bring the new post to me and I do not have to go and check each blog or twitter account to see if anything new has been posted. One way teachers could use the tool is, in appropriate grades they can keep up on breaking news and have class discussions. Teachers could also use the search tool on Google reader to locate specific concerns they might be having. The search tool then will bring those post to them. An example would be I am preparing a lesson on relating multiplication to division and I wanted to find new data research based activities, I could type my topic in the search box and it would bring me all the information that is available. The main factor of RSS is the time it saves you. It is a face book updater for all your sites you subscribe to.

Thing #9

http://www.happyfacegenerator.com/
http://www.imagechef.com/

I browsed around at the image generators that were listed on the blog for 23 things. My favorite one was the Image Chef word mosaic. Fall is my favorite time of year, so I created a leaf and a pumpkin with words of the season. The other site I decided to use was Happy Face Generator. I used Happy Face Generator to create a logo to use as a title. Both of the sites were user friendly. The sites walk you right through the process.

You could use the Image Chef site to create a word search to see who could find the most different words. Another use would be, you could assign the image chef word mosaic as homework where the student creates their own mosaic from spelling words. You could use Happy Face Generator to create a logo for your newsletter or other documents you might want to put a title or logo on.

Thing #8

There would be numerous mashups you could use for the classroom and many benefits from each one. Big Huge Labs offers a jigsaw mashup that would be a good tool to use in the classroom. You could create your own jigsaw puzzles with images of your choice. You could also use the Mappr mashup for your classroom. These are just two of the ones I like best for the classroom. I also liked the mosaic maker from Big Huge Labs also. The mosaic maker could be used in the classroom or for personal use to make a collage of photos of an event or person.

In doing the 23 things exercise I am becoming more comfortable about the public sharing. I have not shared any photos of my kids publicly and do not think I would feel comfortable with doing so until they are older. For the most part with it just being images of things that I have shared I am okay with it.

My creation

My creation, a photo by tammy1010 on Flickr.

Thing #8

Thing #7

Oh how I wish I could say posting the photo to my blog was effortless. I have had a flickr account for sometime now. My brother-in-law shares pictures he has taken of my two boys through Flickr. It was a super beneficial tool while my husband was deployed. This was the first time I have uploaded any photos myself. It was very simple and quite easy to get the hang of uploading. The problem came in when I was trying to post it to my blog. I ended up calling in help and they could not get the picture posted either. For some reason my photos URL do not have the jpeg identifier and the two of us could not figure out how to correct it. For two nights I tried to share through my blog and for some reason that would not work either. But, the minute I tried showing her how it would not even share it with my blog, it worked just fine.

This is something I will be using personally and in the classroom. Being that my husband is in the military and we have lived a few different places I can share family photos with our now distant friends. I can create albums for when my husband deploys again, and with it being digital that is one less thing he has to pack or worry about losing. Flickr can be beneficial in the classroom. You can use it to share class happenings and set it to private where only the parents have access. Also with Flickr you have access to numerous public images that you could use in your classroom in various ways.

Flickr is the only photo sharing site I have used. I am still skeptical about public sites, but the fact Flickr has a private puts me at ease.

There is light!

100_0970, a photo by tammy1010 on Flickr.