Thing 11

The method I found easiest to use was the Google Reader. It is easy, and makes it less frustrating to find what I need. Sometimes the internet can seem so overwhelming because there are so many links, it gets confusing. This made it so much better for me. I also like Google Blog Searcher. I am a fan of Google, as you can see, so it really makes sense that I would love these two seachers. I really didn't find any to be confusing, although I may have found some I like more than others. Topix was kind of cool, since it actually uses my hometown events using a locator, but I did not like the way the page was set up. It is kind of generic. There are SO many feeds that I found useful! From activities with my little girl, to cooking, to teaching my English class! They will all be useful in both my personal life and of course at work. Finding resources like these online really makes me 110% more excited to get into my classroom. I found that anyone can just go to Google(ok, maybe I have an obsession), and just type in RSS and many many many of the sites that offer this pop up. The list goes on for quite some time. This way does seem silly though, considering there is a wonderful way right around the corner at Google Reader. YAY GOOGLE!!!

Thing 10

What I really love about the RSS and newsreaders is that it is really easy to search for things that interest me and will be useful to me. I despise it when there are websites that are terribly made and not user friendly. It is frustrating! This site actually makes it super easy to find what I need. I also love that it is incorporated with my Google account. So many things now link to my Google account, and simply signing onto it can open up many places for me to go. It is nice to be able to keep up with the one password versuses 104 different ones. I think I can use this in my classroom on a daily basis. Keeping current on news, weather, and even the newest trends in what is fun will be helpful to have in my classroom. I chose NOAA Weather, Clarksville Online, The Pioneer Woman(because she is so much fun), Easy Toddler Fun, and ABC News. While I cannot use the toddler one in my classroom, I can use the others every now and then, or even daily at the beginning of class for fun. As for my personal life, I can use RSS everyday as well. I need to know the weather, activities to do with my toddler, new recipies, and what is going on in my community and around the world. What a great discovery!

Thing 9

Here is an image I made from and I thought it was alot of fun. Using this is a classroom setting would be easy and fun. For example: maybe using it to display good news, good behavior, or even creating one for a specific child daily to point out something positive would be fun.

This next one I thought was perfect for February! I had alot of fun searching through these generators and finding neat ideas to use in the classroom.

Thing 8

As I was looking through the different Flickr mashups, I changed my mind some on the whole Flickr usage. In thing 7, I talked about how I didn't like Flickr at all. I changed my mind when I found some things on there that I actually found really fun. Spell with Flickr was great. I attached my photo from what I made above. I would use this in my classroom for sure. I would be able to use it to make my bulletin boards, assign some assignments to my class to make them more fun and creative, and I could even use it through Ipad or Smartboard for class activities. I think it would make class a little more interesting.

Thing 7

http://www.flickr.com/x/t/0090009/photos/chevywally/4589556958/

The above link is to the picture I found on Flickr. To be honest, I do not like Flickr at all and more than likely would not make my students use it to do classwork unless they really liked it.  I found it kind of annoying because none of the links I tried to put on here to upload a photo would work.  This is why I went ahead and just copied the link and put it above for everyone to click on and go to the link.
I chose this picture of the beach because when I see pictures, I like to imagine myself there. When I think of a place like this, I think of my favorite place to be, with my favorite people. 

Here is where I had to send the image to my hotmail account, and then save it to my computer, and upload it to my blog.  Isn't this place serene? I could sit right in that sandy spot all day and watch the clouds float by.  This image was taken by "The Family Dog"  This person takes many great pictures of the beach, and they are all pretty amazing.  I love any kind of photo that makes me feel this happy!  Searching tags and such was ok, and I did learn how to do so, but it was not something I would probably use much.  Maybe on an assignment in class I could have the children email me pictures of their favorite places to read and write, or even do homework.  I just did not personally like the site.

Thing 12

http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=&ie=UTF-8&text=I+have+really+enjoyed+this+class%2C+and+so+far+have+learned+so+much%21+I+hope+after+taking+my+Spanish+classes%2C+I+can+incorporate+it+into+my+English+class+for+highschool+students.+&sl=en&tl=es#

The above link is to the page I used in Google Translate to translate a couple of sentences about this class.  I really like Google Translate because it helps me to better understand another culture, Spanish inparticularly. In America today, Spanish is used almost as often as English.  I find it important to learn and understand.  I am taking a Spanish class right now, and although it is very difficult for me to grasp, I am trying because I want to know it so badly. 


http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en

The link I posted above is my IGoogle. I love this because I can make it how I want it, and it has so many things to choose from to have on my page.  I like to know the weather, it is on there. I like humor, they give me jokes. It is just really fun.  I would definetely encourage my students to use this because it would help them to stay interested with lessons because they could put things on their page that they like, we would get good technology time in, and it is fun! Even though I will be teaching highschool English, I think even older children would like something like this. I know I do!

Thing 6

http://www.dropbox.com/

I chose dropbox for this "thing" because it is an awesome tool for any classroom.  I cannot count how many times I was in school and had simply left my homework at home on the computer with no way of turning it in.  Of course there were jump drives then, but to my knowledge, nothing like Dropbox.  This site is great because it allows anyone to upload files up to 2G for free and have the ability to log on from anywhere and grab what you need from it.  How great is it to have something like this for free? 
I will definetely use this in my classroom because I want my students to turn in papers on time, and I want them to succeed.  Having this available for free will be a great tool.  I really like that students can log in from my classroom and edit their papers, print them out, or do their work in class and save it for later.  I understand that some people do not have computers.  There are many low income families that cannot afford computers.  This is why I hope to allow my students enough time in class to use computers and get their work completed.
Drop box is awesome, and I hope you guys will check it out.  It is so helpful!

Thing 5

While reading the articles and watching the videos included in Web 2.0 A Guide for Educators and Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education I thought wow, this all sounds pretty great. Not only has the web brought us the ability to communicate with each other, send documents, write blogs, research, and discuss things without leaving our homes, but it opens up so much for education.  The reason I chose these is because to me, they explained what I needed to know about Web 2.0 and what I wanted to know about School 2.0. 

School 2.0 means opportunity. It means being able to connect with students through online media, and be creative with teaching.  Not only just using technology, but also the thought that there is not just one path for learning, but so many.  With students all having different needs I think it is so very important to be able to give different paths of learning to all students. 

For schools of the furture I think it means there will be more options in teaching.  Not only will teachers have tools to teach with, they will have many more resources, and will have options to teach in new ways.  I think as school 2.0 progresses, it will definetely open up many opportunities for schools of the future by being more flexible and interesting. 

Thing 4

As with social networks, blogs, or any kind of media online, commenting connects us all.  It makes us feel like people care about what I have written and they like it.  We never comment on things we don't like just for the heck of it.  It makes socializing and working online so much more fun.  It creates a wonderful sense of community and interaction because it is people getting together online that do not necessarily know each other very well, and they begin to get to know each other by commenting and discussing.  In some ways, it's kind of like moving to a new neighborhood, and everyone starts introducing themselves and interacting.  So in other words, commenting on blogs, facebook, etc. is like bringing over a pie to your new neighbor? Ok, maybe not exactly, but that is the general idea I am trying to give here.

Write to your audience- they love you.  I liked this so much from the Cool Cat Teacher Blog on how to comment. The truth is simply that people read your blog because they love how you write, so write for them! You wrote before to capture an audience, and you captured them because you now have an audience, so why not write the same way you always have, because that hooked them, but write geared towards what they want to hear now that you have a greatly formed audience. 

Write more meaningful comments, instead of just "yeah" or "right on" ask more advanced questions.  This was kind of half and half for me.  I guess for certain things, like facebook or twitter, just saying "yeah" seems just fine. For blogs, you expect people to read it that care and have more to say about it besides just "yeah".  I would actually kind of be offended if someone just wrote that.  I would think, well, why did you even comment? So, for the most part I think sticking to good meaningful comments is important. 

I chose the following for my 5 student blogs to comment on:
Abbey Thompson's Thing 3, Chelsea Ninness's Blog Thing 9, Rachel Jones 23 Things Blogs Thing 6, Ashlee Boyds 23 Things Thing 4, and  David's Mom Anita Taylor Thing 7. I chose these particular ones because they were interesting to me and I related to what they all said. I feel that if I am going to comment on something, it is going to be soemthing that I liked reading. 

I chose two blogs that were not related to the class that I love! One is about cooking in a small kitchen, and this was the one I picked because my kitchen is in fact small! I am always looking for easy recipes and making my busy life a little easier. I chose the second one about engaging toddler activities because I have a two year old little girl and it has a ton of ideas on things to do that are not only cheap, but so much fun for little ones.

I used what I read from the Cool Cat Teacher blog to answer the last part of this post.  Why did I write the comments I did? Every comment that I wrote was honest, and meaningful.  I did not just write comments just to put something out there.  I wrote them because I truly felt the way I wrote about.  That is how I always write. Meaningful, and hopefully useful!

Thing #1

The habits of being a life long learner were pretty helpful to me.  As teachers we always need to be thinking of new ways to laern new things.   In order to make that happen, we need these habits to be picked up so we can take everything in, yet it it habit so it comes easier.
The habit that I think would be easiest for me is using technology to your advantage.  I feel this way because technology is everywhere, there is so much of it, and these days it is so easy to have access to technology and how to use it all.  Even 20 years ago when teachers were learning, they had forms of technology that helped them.  Granted, it may not have been as easy to come by or use, but it was still available.
The habit I found to be potentially hard to aquire is to teach or mentor others.  Of course I understand this will be my job, but I also realize that it will not be easy.  When considering the other habits, this one stood out to me as harder.  Teaching is something that is going to take time to learn how to do well, even though I know it is what I will love doing.  I do believe that having a great love for what you are doing helps tremendously, but that does not mean it will come easy.  I believe that teaching requires hard work, love, and time, to name only a small few. 

Thing 3

Since I never used a blog while in school, and I plan to teach high school English I think that blogging will be a great tool for my classroom.  Instead of doing a writing journal on paper, the class could easily use a blog to write journal entries, creative writing homework, or anything that I assign in the classroom. 
Any way that I can use technology in teaching, I will.  It will better prepare my students for the "real world".  I feel that even though I completed high school with a great GPA, I still lacked in knowledge on technology.  I think it is a shame we never used a blog, or were even introduced to them.
This little experience with thing 3 was good for me, because I actually understand it and like it.