Thing #12

GOOGLE!! I love the Google...I utilize this for so many different things in my daily life. From recipies, to house hunting it is all there. So many positivies exist with Google, especially with the new features that are being offered with gmail, the calendars, translate, and photos. The two tools I chose to explore future were the Google translate, and Google Calendar. The Google translate is awesome! So innnovative and useful for anyone! I, along with my office staff had a great time typing in different phrases and hearing them in other languages. I think this will be a great resrouce to use in the classroom if there is an English Language Learner in a classroom, a teacher can use Google translate to speak with, and even help give instructions for assignments. I actually have a classmate here at APSU that has used this for that reason in his classroom, which I find to be extremly helpful! The Google calendar is something I utilize for my Husbands musical endeavors, and for our family day to day. We actually set up a gmail account that we both have access to. This is where we do all of our communication with upcoming events; shows, meetings, radio interivews, etc. We also utilize this for family appointments, game days for my children, picture day, etc. We have found this to be extremly helpful to stay organized. As a busy family of 5, with two full time jobs, and myself attending school full time, it gets crazy! Either of these can be used edcuationally. As mentioned above a classmate of mine uses the Google translate to speak with students, and assist with assignments. It is also edcuational because you can virtually learn a different language. The Google calendar can be useful as a teacher to organize lesson plans, send out inviations to events and those be added to your calendar, all around great organizational tool! Google is wondeful, and I hope they keep putting out more and more resources!

Thing #11

The method that I found to be of most ease to use is, the otion to find the little RSS symbol on my frequent websites. Many options exist for this including; music artists, pinterest blogs, etsy, public figures, shopping websites, the possibilities are limitless. I really enjoyed searching for that little button, once I learned what it was it becomes more interesting to seek out when browsing different sites. Once these are located, and now that I have a feedly account, I can easily access blogs or sites all from one place. The medthod I found to be confusing was the blogsearchengine.org. I say this because you search by key word, and there were so many options I was overwhelmed! Useful feeds for me range from the teacher education, craft, home decorating sites/blogs, etsy, musicians...all of these things are of great interest to me, and I utilize and seek out these types of sites, and blogs almost daily. Again having feedly to house these all in one place is great because I won't have to search for something over and over. I didn't find any that were unusual in particular. I feel like most of the searchable items were beneficial to someone, and I could become interested and educated on a topic quite quickly if I begin to follow. Like I stated I have seen this little RSS feed icon on many websites in the past, and continue to see it more and more. I have already mentioned starting something for my place of employment, so that we have resources to offer in some sort of blog form for our employees. In the future I could perhaps link with our other branches and we could all share ideas. This really is a wonderfully resourceful addition to the Internet world!

Thing #10

What I like about the RSS is that all of the blogs and websites that I have interest in can be found in one place. I love that you can choose to see just one blog at one time, or you can see all blogs together separated by what is the latest, and greatest. I enjoy being able to see these listed in this fashion so that I can pick and choose from each, all in one place. The search tools are very easy to use, and it is easy to add a new blog to my feedly.

Using this in my school or personal life will be simple. The resources are limitless. Access to others ideas can easily be purchased, or duplicated with the permission of the original author. Many of these sites have ways to create organization in a classroom, which is something I am very interested in. Using the crafts from these sites is also wonderful for my children at home, and for themed activities within the classroom.

Teachers can use the new technology of RSS by sharing ideas with one another through requesting access to personal or classroom blogs. When a teacher gets stuck, or needs a fresh idea on a certain topic, or element of the classroom it is easily accesible from a neightboring teacher, or even someone across the globe! It is very simple. 

I love this and will continue to use this in the future. I have such a hard time trying to find things that I use once, and then somehow loose; feedly allows these blogs and sites to be housed all in one place without getting an email every time there is a new post from a blog you follow.

Thing #9

                                                                 www.redkid.net

www.acme.com

This was an awesome activity! I had no idea there were so many FREE sites available for this type of designing. This is a great way to create fun personalized representations for each student. Living in military towns all my life one of the first things military asks one another is, "where are you from?' The license plate tool would be so fun to have each child create their own from his or her home state. Or even making a collage of all the states that each student has been. This could be integrated when discussing where students went for vacation over the summer...little things like that. I personalize just about everything I own, especially things my kids take to school, so that is another reason this activity was so enjoyable to me!! I listed the sites where I created these two particular photos underneath each. It was simple, step by step, even allowing to save straight to my computer. I think this will be a great tool, I have only tipped the ice burg at the possibilities to utilize this in the classroom, and even at home!

Thing #8

Thing 8, a photo by smichelle0945 on Flickr.

Flickr Mashup was a very fun tool to work with! I enjoyed using all of the options that are available. For my particular mashup, I chose to do a Texas theme. The photos here are photos which I have "favorited", from these I created my mashup on Mosaic Maker. I found it to be user friendly with multiple options to choose from. I could use this in the future for numerous things within the classroom. I think it is a great tool to do what I just did, gather photos from multiple sources, mash them up, and it gives a story to tell....one stop shop! For personal life I can use flickr mashups to create mosaics for birthday invitations, or family photos to share. The options are limitless with this tool.

Photo credits from top left...
1.) cat.loree
2.) Seth Patterson
3.) Christiane
4.) siedo

Thing #7

Thing 7, a photo by smichelle0945 on Flickr.

Flickr is a fun site to look around. I found beautiful, and unique images. I will probably not use this particular site in the future, simply because I use another photo sharing site. I utilize Instagram, which is basically the same principle of Flickr. You have a screen name, and can tag photos; the only thing it is lacking is the groups that you can belong to. I did like that about Flickr, it was neat to look through and see what others who have been in this class posted. As far as using this site for the classroom I am not sure how I would use it. I suppose having parents sign waivers to put their children on the site, setting up a private group, and sharing that way is a possibility. I have an Instagram account as stated above, which I share photos of my children and family. I don't particularly mind having photos online, mostly because they are set to private, or for "friends only".