As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have always been an advocate for Google and use Gmail as my primary email service. I utilize the Calendar tool daily. It is extremely convenient and allows you to share appointments, dates, and invites with other people within your circles. Google Calendar also enables me to sink my agendas to my mobile phone calendar, which greatly simplifies my life. The feature I like the most about Google Calendar is that I can share my appointments and class schedules with people in my household and vice-versa. As you share schedules of more than one person on one calendar, you can customize tasks by color coding agendas with different people. Our lives are so busy and fast paced that it helps to keep the other up-to-date with everything as simple as needing extra time a certain night because of a big assignment due, to doctor's appointments, or children's recitals. It honestly has become an efficient form of communication and has limited the amount of misinterpreted or misunderstood information within my household!
Since I already use the Calendar tool, I chose to explore the Google Alerts and iGoogle. Both were fairly easy to set up. Google Alerts is very interesting as it allows you to pick a topic that you want to be notified by Google about. This is a great tool to become more knowledgeable about a current event or even a popular celebrity! The best thing about it is that the information is "googled" for you and sent directly to your email, for your convenience and reading enjoyment. I chose to make an alert about Clarksville Montgomery County School System. Although I am not yet a teacher, I find it beneficial to be aware of what employment environment I will be going into, as well as important current events that are happening in my educational community. The nice thing about Google Alerts is that I can also decide HOW MUCH and HOW OFTEN I want to receive my selected information, which is a very nice mail filtering feature.
My iGoogle has been fun to organize. It allows you to set up your "home search page" on your computer with a background and different "gadgets". As you create your homepage, you have easy tutorials that you can click on to help you navigate through simple features of the program. I found it interesting that I could incorporate the Google Translate feature as one of my gadgets on my page. I also chose to have the weather, date and calendar, travel destinations, to-do list, and other helpful tools loaded on my homepage for easy viewing purposes. All of these Google web tools can be incredibly beneficial to any educator, by promoting easily accessible information. Teachers can also use Google Calendar to stay organized and even have one specifically for the itinerary of homework and class activities that parents and students can access.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Thing # 11 Searching Good Feeds
For thing # 11, the best search tool that I utilized was the Edublogawards. This site was a wonderful search tool for educational blogs, as it narrowed down my interests for possible educational feeds in different web tool categories. For instance, Edublogs recommends the "best" :
The search tool that I found most confusing was the Topix.net. Although it had many blogs by specific topics, I felt that I had to search much harder to find more "accredited" individuals who actually were worth my time to read and follow. I do not want to be bombarded with too much information as I subscribe to many different feeds. So, I want to be very selective in my choices. I also found some other great blogs and sites to subscribe to, one being the Eric Sailers - Speech Language Pathologist blog. This blog really interested me, as it is written by an experienced Speech Language Pathologist who is implementing many new technologies into his work. His blogs are very thorough and even contain interviews and YouTube videos containing tutorials on these new technologies and the progress he is making in his field.
Some other ways that I was able to find fun feeds to follow was through Google blog search. This search engine was nice to experiment with, as I could search exactly the topic that I wanted. However, I did find some unusual blogs that were not really relevant to teaching. They were "listed" as educational blogs, but they had rap videos and party pics posted on their sites... This was a huge indicator to me that I needed to be more selective in the search tool that I use! Therefore, I feel like it would be more beneficial to first start with "most recommended" sites under Edublogs and then branch from there.
The search tool that I found most confusing was the Topix.net. Although it had many blogs by specific topics, I felt that I had to search much harder to find more "accredited" individuals who actually were worth my time to read and follow. I do not want to be bombarded with too much information as I subscribe to many different feeds. So, I want to be very selective in my choices. I also found some other great blogs and sites to subscribe to, one being the Eric Sailers - Speech Language Pathologist blog. This blog really interested me, as it is written by an experienced Speech Language Pathologist who is implementing many new technologies into his work. His blogs are very thorough and even contain interviews and YouTube videos containing tutorials on these new technologies and the progress he is making in his field.
Some other ways that I was able to find fun feeds to follow was through Google blog search. This search engine was nice to experiment with, as I could search exactly the topic that I wanted. However, I did find some unusual blogs that were not really relevant to teaching. They were "listed" as educational blogs, but they had rap videos and party pics posted on their sites... This was a huge indicator to me that I needed to be more selective in the search tool that I use! Therefore, I feel like it would be more beneficial to first start with "most recommended" sites under Edublogs and then branch from there.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Thing # 10 - RSS Feeds
Thing #10 has been an interesting experience for me. The whole process has been fairly simple to set up and I can already see how wonderful RSS feeds really are. I personally use GMAIL for all of my email needs and I am a huge advocate for most all of the features that Google has to offer. However, I have never taken the time to actually set up a Reader account. Now that I have one, I really appreciate the simplicity of it. As the apsu23things blogspot instructed, I searched different accounts and subjects that I found most interesting to me and that I thought I would take the time out of my busy schedule to actually read. The different ones that I subscribed to were Digital Photography School, Healthy Living, StepMother Matters, Cool Cat Teacher, xkcd comics. One of the main things that I like about RSS feeds is that the Google Reader account allows you to organize all of your interests in one spot. Conveniently, all of my RSS subscriptions and even the blogs that I have chosen to follow in the previous APSU thing requirement are listed together for my reading enjoyment. They are all categorized and show current listings and the total of past posts in each separate feed. This is very helpful, as the amount of blogs and sites that I want to follow is growing. The RSS feeds allow me to simplify my reading preferences by linking them to my Google Reader Account, which is very cool.
I definitely see how RSS feeds and Reader accounts can be extremely useful for teachers. With the massive amount of information at our fingertips and the amount of responsibility that teachers have to be positive, prompt, and professional, having helpful "time saving" features such as feeds and reader accounts make life so much easier. With more information and educational tools that are made more easily accessible, teachers are able to become more efficient educators. As far as creating a public page, I chose not to. It is nice to know that I can do that in the future though.
I definitely see how RSS feeds and Reader accounts can be extremely useful for teachers. With the massive amount of information at our fingertips and the amount of responsibility that teachers have to be positive, prompt, and professional, having helpful "time saving" features such as feeds and reader accounts make life so much easier. With more information and educational tools that are made more easily accessible, teachers are able to become more efficient educators. As far as creating a public page, I chose not to. It is nice to know that I can do that in the future though.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Thing # 9 - Image Generators
I must say, that I enjoyed creating different images on the photo generators. The one that I chose to use was http://www.imagechef.com/. This site was very clear cut and easy to navigate. The site is free and allows you to quickly and easily set up an account to create your own images. Once you register, you then must verify your account via a link that is sent to your email. After you are verified, you are allowed to create and even save your newly created images into your profile, which is really nice for later use. There are many pre-made templates that have options for you to load your own picture into them, along with a text box that allows you to create your own witty or inspirational saying.
The first image that I created included a picture of my younger nephew Noah. I thought the election pin was cute like him, so decided to have him run for a cute baby award! I am a little bias, I know, but he is still cute! The picture below the election pin includes a picture of my oldest nephew Kaleb. He is such a handsome little boy and I thought that the yearbook page was neat. It has different little saying about other people like "Class Clown" or "Perfect Attendance", so I thought it fitting to write "Heart Breaker" to his. Too cute. The last image that I created includes a picture of my keys...on a "MISSING, Have you seen me?" milk carton. I thought this idea was fitting and witty, as I find that I am constantly misplacing my keys! I was able to take the picture of my keys with the camera on my phone, which I then sent to my email. Afer receiving it in my email, I saved the picture to my computer and uploaded them into my blog. All of the image generators that I used have links at the bottom of this blog that you can assess for your own uses.
http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Election+Campaign+Button+Photo
http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Yearbook
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Thing # 8 - Flickr Mashups
After completing Thing #7, this task didn't seem as challenging to accomplish. I had fun browsing around all of the different Flickr mashups and plan to utilize many of them in the future, as I love to dabble in photography! The two applications that I chose to use were both through Big Huge Labs. The photograph on the left was created through Captioner. It allows you to upload personal photographs or pictures found from the Creative Commons of Flickr. After you add your photo, you can then create and drag fun captions onto your image. The little boy in the picture is my nephew and I always giggle when I look at it, because he was so excited! This application allowed me to eccentuate the emotion that he was exuding with a cute caption above exclaiming that, "it really IS Santa!" Too cute. The photo to the right is a personal photo that I took this past summer at Disney World of Cinderella's castle. The application that I used to play around with the image was called Jigsaw. As you can see, it allowed me to upload my photo from Flickr, create a jigsaw image of the photo, and save the new image to my desktop. I then uploaded both photos into my blog.
I definitely see how photo applications such as these could get addicting and time consuming! They are easy to create and allow for a vast range of creative fun that can be implemented into classroom decor, a classroom blog, or even educational activities inside the classroom. As far as sharing photos online, I feel fairly comfortable with it, as I would never upload anything too personal anyways. I think that as long as you safeguard your images, then you should be okay. There were many different links that were shared on the http://www.apsu23things.blogspot/ that I bookmarked for future use. I am excited to have completed this task and look forward to the next challenge!
Monday, February 6, 2012
Thing # 7 - Flickr
First, I would like to say that this task was not as easy as I had anticipated that it would be! I followed the directions that were outlined for us on the apsu23things blogspot, but to no avail. Needless to say, I was not able to "share" a photo from the Flickr site by simply going to the top "share" tab and copying the URL link that was given and pasting it into my blog spot where we were indicated to. I had to trouble shoot and google different ways to incorporate a picture from Flickr into my blog. By doing a little research, I was able to link my blog to the Flickr site and upload my selected picture that way. Unfortunately, it took quite some time to figure this out. I was very frustrated and can honestly say I am glad that it is finished. That being said, I do feel like Flickr is a great tool to incorporate free and legally accessible photos into a blog.
Now that I know how to efficiently upload pictures into a personal blog, I do plan on using this tool in the future. While browsing through Flickr, I was amazed to see the multitude of pictures that were under the Creative Commons section and appreciated Flickr's advanced search for pictures that were able to be shared without problems. I have personally never used a photo hosting service, but have heard many great things about Picasa and will probably venture to learn that site as well. I think as long as you have your photos protected or made private, then you should be safe to upload them to your account. However, if you do not take the precautions to protect your pictures when you put them on the internet through privacy settings or such, then you do leave them vulnerable to public use.
Lastly, I chose this picture because I was having such a hard time with the technology. I felt like the message that is being presented is important and no matter how frustrated I became with the project, I didn't give up. In the end, I was able to learn how to troubleshoot and find the information on my own. I feel VERY confident about using the Flickr site in the future. I want to become more technologically savvy, and the only way to do that is to practice and explore. This picture helped to keep me focused because it pretty much summed up what Web 2.0 tools are all about and why they are so important, and I wanted to be a part of it.
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| Technology Use, a photo by mrsdkrebs on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsdkrebs/6400358699/ |
Now that I know how to efficiently upload pictures into a personal blog, I do plan on using this tool in the future. While browsing through Flickr, I was amazed to see the multitude of pictures that were under the Creative Commons section and appreciated Flickr's advanced search for pictures that were able to be shared without problems. I have personally never used a photo hosting service, but have heard many great things about Picasa and will probably venture to learn that site as well. I think as long as you have your photos protected or made private, then you should be safe to upload them to your account. However, if you do not take the precautions to protect your pictures when you put them on the internet through privacy settings or such, then you do leave them vulnerable to public use.
Lastly, I chose this picture because I was having such a hard time with the technology. I felt like the message that is being presented is important and no matter how frustrated I became with the project, I didn't give up. In the end, I was able to learn how to troubleshoot and find the information on my own. I feel VERY confident about using the Flickr site in the future. I want to become more technologically savvy, and the only way to do that is to practice and explore. This picture helped to keep me focused because it pretty much summed up what Web 2.0 tools are all about and why they are so important, and I wanted to be a part of it.
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