Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Thing 17

I found Del.icio.us interesting and user friendly. I like having bookmarks online so that I do not have to be on my personal computer. I have a lot of bookmarks on my personal computer at home. I love bookmarking. I used to write all websites down or copy and paste them in a word document to be able to use them later until I was introduced to bookmarking. I used to be technologically stupid and my 3040 class has helped a lot along with friends that are technological geniuses.

Social bookmarking can be  used in the classroom. Social bookmarking can be used to provide links to websites to students, parents and colleagues. You can provide educational websites for your students, websites with great course materials with colleagues, and informational websites with parents. All websites you share with your students can be shared with parents and colleagues as well as websites your share with parents can be shared with colleagues and sometime students.

Thing 15

I found wikis useful but confusing at the same time. They can be useful but not always correct. I had a really hard time figuring out how to use the wikis.

I found that students can share educational information and their personal opinions about it with fellow students and teachers. That would have been useful when I was in school. I have been looking for more wikis that are helpful to me and my concentration in teaching.

I would create a wiki for my class so that they can find information they may need or want to know and so they can share their researched information with others. This could help my students to do better in class.

Thing 18

Facebook
Twitter

It is important for educators to know how social networking works because it is how to communicate and keep contact with students, parents, faculty and staff. Teachers can have a professional facebook account and a personal facebook account in order to keep their professional and personal lives separate. Teachers can use their professional facebook cite to post homework or lesson information. This also allows students to speak with their teacher if they missed class. Teachers can set up a time that he or she will be on facebook, or twitter, that students know they will be able to talk to the teacher if they have questions about homework or class. This also allows parents to pose a question about school that they can make public or message it to be private. This allows parents to see what is going on in class and what the students are doing the next week or to post links to helpful online tools they may have found for other parents as well as the teacher.

I feel that facebook is better than twitter academically in that if parents want their comments and conversation with a teacher to be private twitter does not offer that. Facebook has multiple uses and is less confusing. I am still trying to understand twitter but facebook is blunt and in your face.

Thing 16

I chose iGoogle for my start page I had fun playing around with it and designing it. I need to customized it some more but that is going to take tons of time. I chose iGoogle because I use google for everything already so this way I know it will be useful. The best part about it is that it is online so I can access anything on it if I have internet which is not hard to find these days.

I created a to do list on Ta da list. It was so easy and I made it in like 2 minutes. There is no catch and no tricks to it. It is just an online to do list that you can access from anywhere. I love ta da list. I need it on my phone.

An online calendar can be useful in that you don't have to be at home to look at your calendar for the week or the month. Everything is online so if your at work you can still check it. If you have internet on your phone you can still check it. I really like having an online calendar cause I'm always forgetting important dates and now I won't hopefully!

I found all the gadgets and online productivity tools helpful and useful the only problem I found is that some were only free for 30 or 60 days and then you had to pay monthly. That does not seem right. I'm not willing to pay someone to look at and sort through my to do lists and calendars. Can you say stalker. No thanks.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Thing 14

Using MindMeister I created a Mind Map for 3rd grade writing on the steps of the writing process. I found using MindMeister was easy. I also used bubble.us. I found that easy as well. Mind Maps are useful for creating webs for lesson plans or for teaching concepts in the classroom.
The Writing Process


Flowcharts are good for organizing something in order for a lesson. They can be used in lesson plans or to teach cycles such as the water cycle or the writing process. I found MindMaps more fun however, for kindergarden and first grade students a Flow Chart will make more sense and be less confusing.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Thing 13

Zoho Writer to me was a little confusing at first but the more I worked with it, the more I understood it. Zoho had pretty much the same tools at Word but I still find it difficult to use. When compared to Google Docs, I would have to say that Zoho is more difficult and more confusing.
 I really like how it is like Microsoft works online. I was able to make a powerpoint presentation in google docs and it was so simple. I can also copy my slides from my presentations on my desktop to my google docs and have it available. This way I can have something prepared even though I may not have internet at the time.
Google Docs
I prefer Google Docs over Zoho. I couldn't really figure everything out that well. 

Students can use Google Docs to share their works and to give each other feedback about their work. If students are working in groups this is a good way to create a presentation online when group meetings are difficult. 

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Thing 12

This was interesting. I created an iGoogle homepage. It was fast and easy.
The google translate was cool. I searched for something in French and had it translated to English. I can also have English translated to Spanish. This could be really useful as a teacher. I can turn assignment and tests into an understandable assignment or test for and ELL student. Also for when I need to right a letter to a parent that does not speak English I can have it translated and then send it to them or if they send me one and I can't understand it I can have it translated and be able to work the parents better.

Thing 11

  • I found using Google Blog Search the easiest to use. I had a hard time figuring out how to find the blogs I wanted. I wasn't wording things right. I was looking for educational blogs so I typed into the search box "education" that didn't work I got like 1 blog that was useful. When I typed in "educational techonology" or "learning 2.0" I got a lot of blogs. It isn't hard to find blogs you just have to know what you are looking for.
  • They were all confusing at first but once I figured one out, I got the idea of all the other search tools.
  • I found a website that gives information about video games and children and how to work with the techonological generation of our time. This was eye opening. It's funny because a lot of stuff is true. My daughter understands technology better than me and she is 7.
  • I had fun looking for blogs and newsfeeds to read about. There are many useful blogs and newfeeds out there. I will definitely be using these search tools again to find anything I need in the future.

Thing 9

I made this at HappyFaceGenerator.com and for anyone who really knows me, well, this sign totally makes sense and is completely me. I talk a lot. My husband tells me to shut up a lot or he just tunes me out cause I "Babble" a lot.
This was easy to make and I picked something Madison would like. I used the comic strip generator to make this. The hardest part is picking the right frame or template. It is fun to get creative though. 

These Logo signs were easy to make at SpiffyText.com. There were so many fonts, styles, tricks and backgrounds to choose from. I played around for a long time before I found the perfect layout for me.
The first one is my husband's nickname (still don't understand that one), but he likes gold and wild stuff so I made one with gold lettering and a wild background. The second one is my name and I really like colorful stuff so the style of my name was easy to decide on but it was hard to find a background that worked with it without masking it.

These websites and image generators would be really useful for the classroom. I can make signs and posters for the walls. I can also make fun games with them if I get creative enough. These generators are funny and handy.

Thing 10

  • After messing around with RSS and newsreaders, I have learned a lot. I really like how I can keep up with several different blogs on one page. This makes it easier to keep up with all the blogs I like and want to subscribe to without having to search for them and then read them. I can even read them on my if I download the application. \
  • This will be useful in school in that I can set up blogs to subscribe to that give good advice and information about school things. They can keep me updated better than the news I am sure. I never watch the news but I am always on my computer.
  • It is a good way to communicate with students. If you have students set up a blog and them subscribe to all their blogs they will all be right there at your fingertips and you can also have them subscribe to your blog and you can put up helpful hints or tools for homework and studying. It can also be used as an updated planner online. You can post reminders and parents should be a part of it all as well. Teachers can also share information for classes and post ideas for teachers all over to use and apply in their classrooms.
  • I feel that blogs are a faster way to communicate than through email.

Thing 8 Mashups

I found this image using flickr color pickr. I really like this shade of blueish green so I picked it and I love bubbles so when I seen this picture I was so excited. This was a great way to find things in a specific color. This would definitely be useful for projects that deal with colors, especially for a kindergarten or first grade class. This would make learning colors fun and it will also teach what things your child's favorite color.

I think sharing photos online is ok if used the right way. When people start putting pictures up that should be kept to themselves, they just degrade themselves to less than what people saw them as. Photo sharing online is a good way to share photos with family members that live far away.