Thing 17 bookmarks the web

Delicious reminds me a lot of Diigo.com, which we have been using in class since our class started. I love Diigo and Delicious and the things that they can potentially bring to the classroom. Much like the way that we are using Diigo in class, students from elementary schools to high schools can use Delicious to link popular sites regarding anything from productivity to fun and games to research sites. As future teachers, we are already taking advantage of these sites, by using Diigo to bookmark useful sites for teachers. When we become teachers, we can continue to use these tools to further our educational experience and develop their philosophy.

Thing 16 helps you to organize

For my start page, I chose iGoogle because it was quick and easy to set up. I am not sure if I will make it permanent yet, however, because I am still trying it out. It appears to be a good tool to use to stay organized, and I especially like that it is online so I can access it on any computer I happen to be sitting at in a moment in time. Online calendars are very useful and I have used them for years (although I'm not really consistent enough for them to do any good for me). The to-do lists are much like the calendars except that they require a little less input from me. I like to-do lists and still use them. I personally love sticky notes, so I love apps that use them in effective ways.

Wiki Thing 15

 Once I (finally) figured out how to edit the wiki (simple mistake on my part--oops), it was a pretty awesome experience. On the sandbox, I put in one of my flowcharts from thing 14 and wrote about it. Now that it's there, I can go back to the wiki and look at it, and it blows my mind that it's still there. Overall, I am very happy with the idea of a wiki. In the classroom, I could use a wiki to give my students a place to show creative (or not so creative, if they choose) works that they are proud of to their peers and teachers. It would be an interesting place for me to go and look at how my students' creative minds are developing. 

Flowchart thing 14

I have to say that I had a lot of fun with this tool. After using both tools to make the same flowchart (How to fix your TV), I definitely prefer the mind map because of how creator friendly it is. It took me twice as long to make the flowchart than the mind map but they both looked the same. That being said, should I ever need to make a flow chart of some sorts, I would use the mind map tool on bubbl.us. Here is the flowchart that I created, one from each of the sites that I used.

Mind chart made on bubbl.us

Flow Chart made on Gliffy.com

Looking at the both of them side by side makes me like the Mind Chart as well because it definitely looks prettier. Either would be a good tool to use though.

Thing 13 visits the past to enhance the future

In a high school English class, I was required to use Google Documents for two reasons. The first was to turn in assignments and the second was to have the ability to save documents at school and finish them at home (or vice versa). What started out as a useful tool in the classroom has become an important aspect of many other areas of my life as well. As a leader in after school activities, I was able to distribute information to my subordinates. As a personal writer, I was able to access my stories wherever I was (even after my computer crashed several times). So, I have been sold on online word processing for a very long time. I have no doubt that students could use this tool to collaborate with their peers (because I've done it). Any document that is made in Google Docs can be shared with anyone in a variety of different, easy, ways. They could use this tool to make presentations and send them to other people in the group to be edited (or not because they have the option to make any document they share "read only"), or to have a peer proofread their essays. After using Google Docs and Zoho, I find it hard to find an actual preference based on any of the differences they have (besides the fact that Google Docs has all of my documents already on it). I didn't find many differences that were significant enough to choose one or the other. One thing I do like, however, is that with both online tools, you can do just about anything that can be done with Microsoft Word (I won't say everything because there are many features from Microsoft that I simply do not use and probably many more that I have no clue even exist). To prove this, I used Google Docs to complete a drawing similar to an assignment we recently had to complete in class. In the assignment we had to use Microsoft Word to draw out our ideal classroom. On Google Docs, I drew the layout of a house that I used to live in, and I was quite pleased with the results.

Layout Created in Google Docs

Overall, I am very pleased with this online tool. I will probably stick to using Google Docs, simply because I have already developed it to match my needs but I am so happy to know that it is not the only one out there.

'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.