Thing 12 :) Google is more than just searching?!

Wow, I had no idea that Google was an official verb in the dictionary! Well I can see why now. Google has so much to offer on top of being the number one search engine. I was amazed at all the unique tools that it offered to it's users. I used the Google alerts as my first choice. It is a tool that sends you alerts about whatever you type into a search bar for it to find information on. For example I did Vanderbilt basketball, because I am a huge Vandy fan! With this alert system set up, once a week they will email me all of the top news stories that talk about Vanderbilt's basketball team. The second option I chose was to use iGoogle. I loved the fact that I could make my homepage so adorable and have it set to bring up things that interest me. These two options are something that everyone should try, and could be useful in the classroom. The alerts I could use as an educator to keep me up to date on things going on in our community, or even on new legislation that is being passed for education. As for using iGoogle, I could use it to have my homepage set on the classroom computers, so that I know what the students will see every time they open up the web. All of the tools that Google offers are useful, and I look forward to exploring them further.

Thing 11!

RSS feeds are so easy to use, sometimes it is just hard finding ones that I really want to keep getting updates from. Well, thing 11 really helped with that problem. I used google reader's subscribe search to find feeds that I wanted to follow, but I also used the award winners list to find some that I thought were interesting. I thought that both techniques were user friendly and both were beneficial. I like Technoarti the best. I feel like it was straight forward and offered a good variety of feeds to follow. I do not think that either method was confusing. Pretty much everything on here has been user friendly, so it has all been smooth sailing. I really like the Cool Cat Teachers Blog. I love her posts about new technology and their uses in the classroom. I really did not find any unusual ones to follow, but I am sure I will run into some at on point. As far as finding other ways to locate feeds, I am not sure I found any other way. I probably will just use the ways that I learned through this activity.

Thing 10 :)

Rss and newsreaders are super helpful when it comes to following websites and other blogs. Instead of having to look at each individual website you can subscribe to each and connect it all through Google reader. By doing this all their updates are shown on one page and you can look at only things that you specificaly want. This is so awesome becuase I do not have to individually lookup things myself. It takes less time. This new techonlogy will be useful in the classroom because if I set up a blog I can link other helpful resources for parents to it as well.

Thing # 9!

http://www.imagechef.com/

This was a really fun blog activity to do! I never knew that all these generators were out here, and how helpful and creative they could be. I choose to create one for Valentines day because it is this week. I did the picture of the beach because summer is the best time to go, and I wish I could be there now! These generators are so user friendly, and can add creativity and personality to anything. This tools would be great to add fun things to any school website and even a classroom blog. I would like to start using them personally in emails to friends and family to just add some spunk and thought into it, and to let them know I was thinking about them.

Crowded Much! Thing #8

Crowded Much!, a photo by Shelby Rose :) on Flickr.

Thing 8!
Wow if I was not already frustrated, I think this did me in. I am having a hard time stting up all of these accounts for everything and trying to connect them all to share information and pictures with eachother. Once I figured it out the rest of the process was not too hard. This picture is from a conference I went to in early January of this year. There were over 40,000 people there! It was such an amazing experience. I choose to use the puzzle app because I thought it had great symbolism for what the picture means to me. This conference helped me piece together different things in my life, so I thought this was fitting. Haha I think I just made a puzzle joke! I would definately think that there are many opportunities to use these applications in the classroom. You could make puzzels for projects or different learning activites, but this is also a great way to make personal things for friends and family. I think that sharing pictures is great as long as you do so with responsibility.

Flickr Thing # 7 :)

I love taking pictures and viewing other people's pictures as well. So, I pretty much loved this assignment! I am so amazed at what new sites come out, and all that you can do with them. I have heard about flickr before, but I never have seen it or really understood what it did. I posted a photo of the Library here at Austin Peay because I pretty much feel like I live here. I took this photo while actually working on this assignment. It was not too hard figuring out how to upload the picture, I simply just had to read the instructions many times and follow them closely. I think that Flickr is actually a very user friendly website, because it has many links and tips to help users get started. I have never used any other photo sharing sites, so I do not really have anything to compare to. I feel safe having my pictures in public, becuase if it is something I do not want others seeing I simply just will not put it on there. I feel like it's as simple as that. Also, I can always put my sharing settings on private to avoid the issue of something happening.

As of now I will use Flickr as more of a personal place to upload photos and share them, but I could try and think of some ways to incorporate it into the classroom. Like maybe having the students find a picture that they feel describes themselves and post it and tell everyone why they choose this photo to describe themselves. Something along those lines, so that it could be educational .

LIbrary Time!

photo.JPG, a photo by Shelby Rose :) on Flickr.

Grooveshark Thing 6 :)

Honestly music is my life, so finding new technology that helps me have music more during the day is awesome! I have always heard about Pandora and other online music sources where you can create a station around a particular artist or song, but I have never seen one like GrooveShark. It is amazing! You can pick any song you want, meaning that unlike Pandora, you can create the exact play list you want with no interruptions of songs you don't like and no commercials. I loved the idea of being able to save them for later so you can just pick up where you left off last. I could definately see a use for this in the classroom. It is a proven fact that classical or lyrical music stimulates thinking in the brain and creates a good learning and thinking atmosphere. I think that with Grooveshark you could have it playing ligthly in the background to help create such an environment while the students are reading or working on homework or even taking a test. You can create a specific playlist just for the classroom and not have to worry about commercials or inappropriate songs coming on. You are controling what they specifically hear. I advise you all to check it out at http://grooveshark.com !!! Your ears will be amazed and so will your mind.