Thing 12; Google ROCKS!

What did we do before Google? Other then actually doing my laundry, cooking dinner and running my daily errands Google can do EVERYTHING in between and it can help you to do things in a more efficient matter.  Each of these tools could easily help in the classroom but for the purpose of this blog I am going to talk about iGoogle and Google calendar.

I must admit I have used Google for the standard search but I have never really explored everything Google has to offer.  IGoogle is a great way to have a lot of personalized information all on one convent page. It was simple and quick to set up. I did the 30 second set up, picked a background, and added my interests.  I love that I could link it to my Facebook, keep up with the top news stories, weather, view new recipes and I can have cute little turtles swim around my homepage.   It’s a great way for a teacher to have a lot of information right at their fingertips anything that helps you be more efficient.

That brings me to Google calendar, which I could add to my IGoogle. Google calendar is an easy online organizer that one could share. In the classroom a teacher could keep all important school dates, test, homework dates, field trips, birthdays and any other dates you choose on their calendar for easy access for the students and their parents. Or  Google Calendar could be used on a more personal level to organize our agendas and help with planning meetings with administrators, parents, and fellow teachers.

With google the possibilities seem endless, what can I say Google Rocks!

Thing #11; Define a good feed.....

If you need an expert on finding a bad feed, I think you can safely say that I am your girl. I tried all the suggested search tools and used the suggested key words “school library learning 2.0”  out of Google Blog search, Tioix.net, Syndirc8.com, and Technorati I found Google Blog search to be the easiest to use. However I found that just like doing a search in the popular search engine you will be giving a lot of feeds that aren’t really relevant to what you were looking for.  I found a blog I found interesting through Google I thought I had subscribed to it successfully but then when I went to my reader I realized I must have “missed” a step. Hunting down the same blogs again was painless and took no time at all.  I found a few blogs that I found appealing so I guess it wasn’t all a waste but I think this exercise my require more “play time” because I don’t feel like I have mastered the task of finding good feeds.

Thing # 10 The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

The truth is I find myself to busy to spend a lot of time on the web besides working on homework, and I'll admit it check my Facebook I don't have enough time in the day to do a lot of browsing. Google Reader is PERFECT for me, the busy mom, the military wife, the student, the future teacher, the chief, I am all of these things and with Google reader I can go and have all of this wonderful information for a the "different" hats I wear. I am still checking out all of my subscriptions but the one I wanted to share is TeacherTube. Teacher Tube is an online for sharing instructional teacher videos.  Google Reader has numerous subscriptions for teacher from things like lesson plans or just blogs about classrooms. It a GREAT resource to help a teacher find new ways to teacher subjects or could be great for a the student to have so much information tailored to their liking (maybe even about subjects studied in school ;) ) conveniently on one location. 

Thing 9; Lets Generate

 

The above image was created by using immagechef  It was very easy to use and fun to do. You could pick any set of words and symbols to create a mosaic. I picked the words; dream, grow, learn, play, and smile and various symbols.  I had the words created into a heart using various colors.  I think as people you need to dream BIG learn as much as you can, play hard and smile during the tough times.  You could use this website to create multiple things to use in the classroom or for personal reasons.  Either the student or a teacher could use this to create something to put in their blog, like we did, or as a post on facebook or twitter.



















The above image was also created at imagechef. I thought it was a fun way to put a qoute on my blogs.
http://www.imagechef.com/

Thing #8; Let's Mashup

I chose to use Spell with Flickr (example above) and Big huge Labs (example below) . They were both  easy, fun and  I could see getting addicted to these "tools".  

Spell with Flickr

There were various styles of letters and I think it can be useful for both school and personal projects. As for using it in the classroom you could have your students use it to make one word to describe themselves or maybe just to personalize their desk with their name, which can help you to learn your student’s names.

Big Huge Labs

Like I stated about it found this application to be easy to use. However I did have a hard time uploading my creation onto my blog. There are a lot of creative, cool things you can do with your digital pictures. In the classroom you could use this along with pictures of your students and at the end of the year create something to look back on all the different activities that were done during the year.

  

Photo Sharing

Photo sharing online can be such a blessing. I am miles away from my family so its great to be able to upload pictures for them to view or order. I do try to watch what I post publicly of my children since you never know who is on the other end viewing the pictures.

Thing # 7; Handprints

The picture above is my oldest daughter Hallie working on a welcome home project for her Daddy.  I started this blog browsing photos on Flickr. I used the key word handprints.  Maybe it’s the mother in my but there is something so simply and beautiful about a child’s handprints. As an educator you will leave your mark on so many children and sometime more of a mark then you know. BUT the children also leave a mark on you, the teacher. For me that is what the handprint symbolizes.

I found some GREAT picture on Flickr. I enjoyed browsing. However I had some issues with the copyrights. I found it a little confusing. I emailed one user about a picture and never got a response. Then I found another image but it would take 3-7 days to see if the user would allow me to use the picture for my blog so I decided to upload my own pictures.

Compared to photobucket I would have to say I would rather use photobucket. I like that on that site I can also edit my images, unless I am missing something I couldn’t do that on Flickr.

Flickr or another image hosting site can be a great tool for a teacher for finding images for PowerPoint or activities. It could be a great tool to let the student use maybe with a webquest or their personally assignments.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/32311656@N06/5024613900/

Thing 6; Information Overload!!!

Note to self, you should listen to the direction. If the directions say start with ONE, just pick one.  After I was done overwhelming myself I took a step back. I had heard of some of the sites mentioned on the web 2.0 list, some I use quit frequently but when I saw Skype on there I laughed to myself. I just started to use Skype this year but other than talking to my husband I really don’t know anything about it and the only reason I can do that is because he can use Skype to call me on my phone, technology is neat!

So after spending sometime checking Skype out and doing some research I learned the Skype can be very helpful for the classroom. I read about using Skype to having guest speakers in your classroom, you could have anyone from the author of a book your reading to someone from a different culture you’re learning about. Or how about sharing a performance whether it be parents whether it be to watch a demonstrating of a science experience or another class watching a class project Skype can do all of that and more. I even read about a fourth grade student who has leukemia and couldn’t make it to class so she joined her class everyday via Skype.  How cool is that?!?


http://www.skype.com/