Thing 12

As I have said before, I love Google. I have already had my iGoogle page set up for some time now. I discovered it on my about a year ago or so. It is personalized to my own specific preferences and general appearance. So far I have enjoyed putting on my own gadgets. I am always interested in the weather so that I can plan what I will wear for the day or what activities I will be able to do with my daughter outside. So, I have included the weather gadget for my area. I also have a calendar with the date and time. And if the page is opened all the way it gives me a calendar displaying the entire month. You tube is also a part of my iGoogle webpage. It allows me to search for different topics in my current education that I am struggling with. For example, I am in a linguistics class and we have had to make tree diagrams for sentences. At first this was difficult for me so I jumped onto my homepage, iGoogle, typed tree diagram into YouTube and got lessons on how to do tree diagrams. In addition, I have added a little pick me up by putting on a comedy central jokes.com gadget. It gives me three jokes of the day that cheer me up for a quick second. Also, I am informed on the world news, but I would like to be so I added CNN.com, NYTimes.com, and NPR: News, Music, Daily Quiz. They bring me the latest headlines in news and I do not have to go looking for it. Also, I have a gadget that allows me to quickly see what movies are playing at my local theatre and a gadget that displays the editor’s hot list for television shows that will come on that day. And last but not least I have included a gadget that gives me a little dose of celebrity news. There is always room for more gadgets. This is one of the reasons I love Google. It has so much coming directly to me so it is quick and easy.

iGoogle

In the near future I could add the ToDo gadget to my iGoogle page. I could post my to do lists about my upcoming events, activities, meetings, assignments, deadlines, etc. that I may have for my classroom and job as a teacher. This gadget allows me to highlight tasks in different colors, change their order on the list, and strikethrough or delete tasks. I find that this would be very useful in helping my organize my daily tasks in a place where I can go easily each day and see them every time I log on because it is my homepage.

ToDo Gadget

I have already mentioned Google translate in a previous posting, but I wanted to mention it again because I wanted to go into it further. First of all, I think that Google translate is useful but you should be cautious of your results. After all, it is still a machine and cannot take the place of a professional or native speaker of a language. On the other hand, I believe that it can be useful to comparing your understanding of your translation or to get you start on translating. When you use Google translate you have to use simple sentences.

Google Translate

Thing 11

I hate to sound monotonous with everyone else’s choice of search engine, but Google Search has been and always will be my main search engine. Google is the easiest search tool for me to use. In addition, once I tried Google blogs it has deepened my appreciation for Google. I typed in classroom management and got an overwhelming amount of feeds with effective classroom management techniques. It is simple and always leads me in the right direction.
I was pleasantly surprised by Topix.net. Once I clicked on the site it automatically picked up my location. Instantly I had news in front of me about the area I live in. It even had a poll going about the presidential election. It showed who people voted for how many people in my area had voted and compared it to the national poll. I thought the current news was useful. I am not up to date on current news and it was nice to learn about a site that gave that to me.
I also used Technorhati to find blogs. I like it because I could search be tags or subject area. I found that it be easy and resourceful in the results.
Honestly, Syndic8.com was unusual and confusing. Once I started clicking around and searching I could not even find my way back to its homepage. I tried to explore and learn how to use it, but got frustrated. I thought it would be a great way for me to find a website with RSS because I could not find many with the icon. I am still confused. If anyone has any suggestions, just leave me a comment. :)

Thing 10

Google Reader allows me to manage a high volume of blog websites. It saves time because I do not have to click on each blog I want to read; instead it all comes to me. I have also learned that I can set up folders in my Google Reader to help manage the different sites. I have loved Google for a long time now so I use it as my homepage. I can connect Google Reader to my Google homepage which is set up to have unread items waiting for me. The blogs are organized based on my preferences.
From what I have heard about teaching, time is a teacher’s biggest adversary. I have begun to learn that there are a lot of educational resources available online and I will not have the time to surf through all of them. So, Google Reader is a great way for me to be able to cut down on wasted time looking from site to site for new information. As a teacher I can use Google Reader to organize current news information, educational sites, and blogs. For example, I noticed that Twitter has a RSS feed, which Google Reader can connect to. I can keep up with the educators that I learn the most from on a daily basis without having to visit the Twitter account every day.

Thing 9

So far I have not really liked these sites. Many are either asking for money to use them or to donate. Plus, all of the websites are cluttered with so many advertisements that I can barely focus in on one thing. I have spent a lot of time trying to make some creations, but have had difficulty with each site. Many times I would upload a picture, click upload, and the picture would never appear. I am actually frustrated and I thought that this would be fun. I did create a cute picture but I have no use for it in my classroom. Maybe I could use it in my future blog that my students and their parents will visit.

I can post something funny or welcoming to make students and parents more comfortable with me. It also shows them more of my personality so they do not just see my teacher side.

Ok, here is a site I found that I could use in my classroom. I could make these certificates to hand out to my students when they complete a task or improve on a subject that they may have been having difficulty with. I think it would be a great motivator.

thing 8

The first mashup I used was Big Huge Labs. Specifically, I went to Motivator. I instantly thought it would be useful in my classroom to create my own inspirational posters. I like the fact that I would be able to use my own pictures. I thought it would be great motivation if I could use my student's pictures for the posters when they did well on an assignment or project. I could hang the posters in my classroom. Hopefully, the students will be more confident once they see themselves on the psoters. In addition, all of the students will want to be a part of it and will work harder. The site is not for only creating motivation posters. It gives you full editing capability. You get to decide what the posters say and what picture you want to use. Here is the posters I created.

Sharing my personal photos online makes me a little nervous. So far I haven't posted many pictures online of my personal life. However, I do have a facebook account and I have posted a few pictures there. I do not know how secure these photos are and that worries me. I have heard certain things on the news that online photos can be seen even if they are on a privacy setting. Also, I have heard that if you take a picture with a smartphone and post it online, then that picture can be hacked into and your location where the photo was taken can be located. That scares me. Therefore, my personal opionion on sharing personal photos online is that we should not do it. Having a couple of pictures up is fine, but why the need to post your entire life?