Thing #12

I love to Google. Who can get by now-a-days without google? I saw a picture on pinterest the other day.. It was a picture of a graduate giving her speech, and someone decided to add the caption ".. And thanks to google and wikipedia for helping me get here today." I thought it was hilarious because it is so accurate. Google has become this amazing tool that a lot of people take advantage of and most don't even realize what all Google has to offer. I was aware of some of these things before starting thing #12 but not all of them. I already used Google Alerts and iGoogle. I discovered those during thing #10 about the RSS feeds. I have it set up so iGoogle is my homepage once I open my GoogleChrome window for internet. Haha I just realized, it's all Google.. Anywho, I am able to read headings of the recent posts of blogs that I subscribed to through google reader. It's great! It's like having my own personal newspaper right at my finger tips. I can get news, sports, weather, entertainment, etc.. All on one page. And I was able to customize the page to my liking. Place links where I want them, pick the picture that goes behind the google search bar, pick a color scheme.. Google is a great tool for anyone, and will be even more awesome once I start teaching. It makes so many resources easy to find and it will only keep improving with time.

Thing #11

I found Google Blog Search the most helpful. Oh good ol' Google is always helpful. Who knew it would also be great for searching for blogs too. It was very easy to search, the rest of the websites had other links to things, the search bar was small, and there was just too much going on. Google was plain and simple, just as Google always is. All you had to do was search a keyword and it brings up an endless list of results. Unlike technorati.com, which was really confusing to use. I searched a keyword and it brought up things that weren't necessarily what I was looking for. And then there were links all over the page which was sort of distracting. Even in all the confusion in some websites, I was successful in finding a couple of websites that were focused on teaching. One of them will help to keep me updated on current issues in the political world of education and the other is full of great lesson plans and fun craft ideas. I also found some great blogs about being an army wife. I didn't have much time to play around a whole lot to search for other blog searches but I will definitely be looking around and having more fun searching for blogs.

Thing #10

RSS & Newsreaders are a great tool for keeping updated on things that are important to you. It helps to keep everything organized and readily available to you to read. As far as using it in teaching and in personal life... I already use it now for my personal life, I was able to find blogs that I wanted to keep updated on and I get to read those without having to go to each individual website. It is very convenient. Using it in teaching will be very helpful as well. I can keep updated on the ever-changing rules and guidelines of teaching, as well as using it to keep updated on the political and news aspects of teaching. Things which are very critical in my teaching career.

Thing #9

 
I had fun creating these images. They will be helpful in the classroom at any grade level. You can use them to create fun looking numbers and have them help children learn to count, add, divide, multiply.. Etc.. You can also use them as a fun way to read, or to make clip art for any assignment. Also to help decorate your classroom.
When creating the first image, there were oh so many options.. What to spell, what font to use, what color combination.. I chose the maroon and white because of the school colors back home. I grew up in the home of Texas A&M University and am a proud Aggie. I would have attended school there but God had other plans for me.
And of course for the ribbon, that was a fairly easy choice.. It shows my full support for our troops, we may not agree with the war over there but our troops still need our support. And this also reflects the life that God had in store for me.

Thing #8

I enjoyed using the spell with Flickr website and spelled many different words while playing with it. I liked that I was able to change the picture for each letter so it could better reflect who I am. This will be a great tool to use in classrooms to add some pizzazz to anything I need. It could also be used to help children identify the different styles of letters and how they are still the same letter. So it could be used as flashcards to help them learn letters. I also think it'd be fun to use for any personal use that you want to add just a little bit of creativity and personality to. 

Thing #7

Oh Flickr.. It was actually fairly easy to set up. They walk you through it step-by-step and don't overwhelm you with questions to answer about yourself. And uploading a picture was just as easy. I wasn't able to figure out how to send it to the apsu23things blog like the instructions said to so I'm going to post it on here.
I think Flickr will be very beneficial for a classroom. If you find an illustration you want to show to the class, all you have to do is upload it on Flickr. It definitely beats going back and fourth to different sites to find the pictures or having a gazillion sites bookmarked on your computer just for a picture.
I have a little bit of experience in Photobucket for picture sharing/saving, but that was years ago and I barely remember how that site works.
Flickr does kinda make me nervous about having images available for the whole world to see, I just have to remember to be careful about what I post and the things I say. It's only dangerous if you're not smart about it.
So here's the picture I chose to show!
I wasn't able to find the 'correct' URL that the apsu23things blog mentioned. I followed the directions listed exactly and this is what I got.

Thing #6

I have been talking about having a difficult time containing the resources I find useful. I always feel overwhelmed at all of the tools out there that are available to teachers and I fear that I'll find things I want to remember and use in the future but never make it back to the site to actually utilize it. After looking over the list of websites winners, I chose to look further into Diigo. I know it is one we use for our class where we can share websites but I didn't really consider it being a website I can use to organize my own websites I want to remember. I find it very helpful that I can organize my 'library' by lists so I know exactly what I am looking at. I can organize a list especially for teaching, and if it gets down to it, grade level. I can also have lists I want to remember for personal use and keep those sites separated from the ones I want to save for teaching. I can add tags to each site I add so I can search for a specific topic. And I can high-lite certain sections or paragraphs so I don't have to re-read every single site just for the one piece of information. I am going to start using this site now for my classes I am currently enrolled in. I plan to save the sites I need for research papers so if I need to go back, I can look at the site I got the source from and also high-lite the section I picked to use. I don't feel so overwhelmed and freaked out now by all the resources I find, I just have to be sure I actually utilize this site and don't let it be forgotten.