'Google' Thing 12

The more I use Google the more I love it. I have been using Google for years as a search engine and e-mail provider and even as a web explorer. This semester, I have learned a lot of other useful things that Google can do. Blogging, RSS feeding, and so much more. I have used Google Translate before for many uses (and loved it). Kids can use Google Translate in their foreign language classes for quick and easy translations. It can even further their knowledge in the foreign language if the teacher expects them to check the translation for errors (as we all know computers make them). Google Alert was a new one but one that could prove very useful in my personal life because I have a lot of trouble keeping up with the news so maybe now I can keep up with the things that interest me and not have to sift through everything so it will be easier to keep up. Students can use it for current events. I remember having to report on a current event every week in high school and it was my least favorite assignment. With something like Google Alert students can have updates of their favorite news stories sent directly to them and always have something to talk about. How revolutionary! It's great.

Thing 11 helps me search

After hours of hard time with finding feeds (due to the fact that I had not looked at Thing 11 yet) I finally found a way to find blogs that worked for me. I liked using Google blog finder. I like the fact that RSS feeds that are offered have an icon right on the website for me to click and automatically connect it to my blogreader. A very useful feed that I found that leans more towards my current personal life than towards my life as a future teacher is a blog about college and all of the unexpected things you might find before (or after) you graduate. It was hard to find blogs and feeds before but once I got the hang of it I wanted to keep looking for them all day.

Thing 10 brings it together

So, I have been doing this blog thing for a while now and I think I am getting the hang of it. The last few things were very fun but keeping up with it all is hard. That is where RSS and newsreader comes in. I like the fact that the RSS and newsreader keeps all of my subscriptions in one place and allows me to see if there is something new in a particular subscription. I can use this in many different ways because I have a particular problem with keeping up with all of the websites that I have to keep up with at different times in my life. However, here is a place where I can put all of them and only have to sign in to one place to see things from my personal life as well as my professional life. Keeping up with technology can be extremely difficult because new technology comes out every day. It is hard enough trying to use technology that has been proven to be effective, much less try to sift through what technology might be useful and what technology has no use at all. By being able to subscribe to many different things and look at them all at once, a teacher can easily make comparisons and then manage the technology they find to be helpful.

Sign thing 9

That was fun! I could probably spend all day doing stuff like that. A lot of these generators could be used in the classrooms to make signs and hang around the classroom. The first (although I used it for humorous purposes) could be used to indicate to the students that headphones should not be used while the teacher is talking and the second (also used here for humorous purposes) to remind the children to pay attention. The last could be used to make personalized creative name plates for their desks (or basically anything that would have to have their name on it). I loved playing with these and will probably go back to play some more (after I finish my homework of course :D ).

Creating thing 8

It took me a bit of time to figure this one out but once I did I realized just how easy it was. There are many ways that this can be used (other than wasting time while procrastinating). The students can use this particular tool to create a cover page for their notebooks or even for various creative works. They can "write" a book and then use many of the flickr mashup apps to create a cover for the book so they can learn about the general concepts of print. In personal life, this app can be used to write small e-mails to family and friends. Think of how fun and easy reading e-mails would be if they were all short and looked like this. This can also be used for greeting cards and many other purposes. Sharing photos online can be as harmless or as dangerous as the person posting wants it to be (whether they know it or not). I definitely believe that posters should practice safe sharing and think about what they upload (and who might see it) before they do so. If the proper common sense and precautions are used before posting then issues will be minimal if there are any.

Thing 7 finally checks out Flickr

This photo was taken by Matthew Jording (mjording) found at this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjording/3605378715/in/photostream/
I chose this image because this girl is doing so much more than we can see. She is learning so much that if she realized just how much, she would suffer from information overload. First of all, she is using a great amount of sensory learning to explore this flower. She is obviously smelling it but she is also touching it, getting a feel for the texture of the petals and how it differs from the texture of the stem or leaves. She can see the flower, recognize the colors and parts of the flowers (even if she cannot name them). She can hear the sound of bugs that are attracted to flowers such as these (even if she cannot see them) and though she may not notice she can probably taste the air on her tongue. She is also learning quite a bit about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Science in early education is basically the art of asking a question and searching for an answer. For example, her question might be "I wonder what this flower smells like?" and by smelling the flower she is searching for an answer. Technology in early education is simply the tools we use. In this picture the little girl is using her hands as a tool to bring the flower close enough to smell. Engineering is the way we solve problems which goes back to bringing the flower close enough to smell. The flower was too far away so she solved the problem and brought it closer.
Finding a photo on Flickr was surprisingly easy. In fact, the hard part was choosing from the many numbers of pictures that I could write about. I had a difficult time getting the picture into my blog because the only way I knew to save the photo was not available but it allowed me to email the picture to myself (after signing up for an account which was very easy) where I could save it and then upload it into the blog. I love the slide show view for the pictures because I can look at them all on a full screen without having to go back and forth. I think I may have found my new favorite website.

Thing 6 visits Google Documents

https://drive.google.com/?pli=1#my-drive
Google Docs is a very useful tool for many different reasons. I love to write so Google Docs is a great place for me to put my works so that I can work on them on any computer as well as have a backup should something happen to my home computer. Google Docs can be used for almost anything though. When you log on to Google Docs, you find the home page which has a list of all the documents you have made. Listed with the document will be its title, owner, and last date modified as well as a check-box that is used much the same way as the check-box in most email profiles and a star that you can use to star certain documents. When you click on the title, the document opens and you can edit it (with permission from the owner). The toolbar above the document allows you to print, change the font, align the text, change the color or background, or make a bulleted/numbered list. Many of the tools are the same that are used in Microsoft Word which makes for easy working and it saves automatically every few minutes. When you finish typing your document, you can save it as a draft or you can choose to share it in many different ways. You can use your G-mail account to email it to your contacts with one click or you can share it on Google +, Facebook, or Twitter. You can set the privacy settings for each document so if there is a document that you want to be public and edited but another that you do not want anyone to see you can do that. In the classroom, Google Docs (partnered with G-mail) can be used to turn in assignments as well as to save presentations (because you can also make PowerPoint presentations and Excel Documents on Google Docs) online for easy access once the student is back in the classroom and ready to use it. I particularly like using Google Docs (over the other websites that do the same things) because of the simple design and easy use.  I do not think there is anything I do not like about this tool. I love it.

Thing 5 on 2.0

Among the many things that "School 2.0" will bring to the classrooms (whether in the form of challenges or advantages) enhancement to the curriculum is probably the most important, seeing as how that is the whole point of being teachers-- to teach. Anything that does not enhance the curriculum (no matter how easy it is) is not worth having in the classroom. As difficult as some technology may appear to be, the simple truth is that when used correctly it greatly enhances the curriculum that we are teaching to our students. Another simple truth, is that with the right training and guidance, it really isn't that difficult. There are so many technologies out there that actually make teaching easier. "School 2.0" is one of them. Technology becomes more involved in our classrooms every day and in we cannot even imagine the things we will be able to do with technology in 5 years, much less 10-20 years down the road. I, personally, am excited to jump on the technology train and watch out the window to see where it leads me. As long as I have the railroad tracks to guide me through the process I know I will be just fine.

Why is thing 4 important?

Comments are a way to continue the conversation and even spark new conversations and thoughts. As more people comment on the post and as they begin to comment on other people's comments the conversations can grow into great things. From what I gather, commenting makes the author feel as if they are heard and I think when someone feels as if they are being heard then they can become more confident in what they are saying. Not only that, comments can also bring along other points of view the author may not have seen before. No one person can see every point of view and I, as a writer, have a lot to learn. The easiest way to learn is through feedback and that is a bit of what commenting is all about. I think when you gather good feelings, conversations, and learning, a community of thoughts and interactions cannot help but exist. That brings up a few good points from the articles that I read about commenting. The first, which I believe to be of great importance, is that comments should be made welcome because without feedback, improvement is impossible. The other that I found quite important was the bit about criticism because so many people, myself included, have tried to give a bit of healthy criticism and had it blow up in their face because the words came out wrong. It takes a long time to learn how to give healthy criticism and I have always been confused by the difference in good criticism and bad. I have even come to a point where I stop giving it because I am too afraid that my words will come out wrong. That is why I was so happy to see that the author posted some great tips in giving good, healthy criticism, including keeping an explanation as brief as possible. This makes sense, now that I think about it, because no one wants to have to dwell on something that was not liked by another person and the more they have to read about it, the longer they are having to do just that. From our group I decided to read from Sarah Clark, Brionna Rand, Cody Douchane, Daniel Lugo, and Lindsey Oliphant and commented on each of their blogs because I had something in common with each of them and their posts spoke to me in the similarities. I commented early so most of the posts I commented on were about thing 1. In my comment I told whether the same was true for me or not and elaborated briefly. Then I attempted to leave a compliment on each. There were two that I commented on thing 3 instead and I agreed with both about the uses of blogging inside the classroom. On these I said that I agreed and complimented their thinking and then left a suggestion that further expanded on the use they wrote about. Outside of our group I decided to read from The Thinking Stick's post about teaching social media because I completely agree that someone should be teaching social media to adolescents. On this post I also tried to elaborate on my belief as to why adolescents are not already being taught about the proper use of social media. I also read Free Technology for Teachers's post about IBrainstorm because it helped me to find an amazing app to help me keep up with my thoughts. I left loads of compliments for this one because it was very helpful. I also wrote the reason that it was helpful to me and the reason it might also be helpful to some of my future students who do not learn the same way that I do.