Google; noun, verb.

Google is much more than just a search engine now. Google helps me organize my life through Google Calendar as well as translating documents, sentences, or words through Google Translate.

Google Calendar can be set to notify you ahead of time for any of the events on your calendar. Being the app junky that I am, I also downloaded the app to my phone. I quickly realized that my calendar, reader, and any other Google tool I use, were quickly applied to the app on my phone. This means that I have access to all of my information wherever I go. How fantastic is that?! This also means that when I am teaching, I can have all of my appointments, projects due, meetings, etc. in one place. I also know from experience that you can share your Google Calendar with other Google members and they can apply events of their own to your calendar. I have done this for classes, placing when I will do my presentation on a specific day and time or making an appointment with a professor. Doing this lets me view when a professor is available or not. That concept could easily be applied to teaching and communication with the parents.

Google Translate helped me survive my college foreign language experience. Don't tell anyone. I Google Translated (nice use of the verb there, right?) everything. However, I didn't realize that you could translate a whole document. That tool would come in handy if you had an ELL in your class that relied on turning in documents in their first language. Allowing students to do this would most likely help their grades... the assignment would be easier for them to complete. Although they shouldn't be allowed to write in their first language at all times, English should be a gradual transition and I think Google Translate would be an incredible tool to allow that.

The things they're coming up with these days.......
xoxo, k

Searching for love...

That's what I feel like I'm doing. I love blogs! I love reading people's opinions and reviews on things as well as hearing their stories and learning about them from a creepy distance. This assignment was about searching for blogs through different blog searching tools... Thus, I'm searching for love. For this, I tried Google Blog search, Technorati, and Topix.net. 

The latter just confused the heck out of me. I'm the person that, if I go to a site and it does not look well organized or professionally made, forget it. I don't even waste my time there. Topix.net felt like a cheap, amateur website. I did not have any interest in using it. Google Blog search was just as easy to use as Google. I found a blog to subscribe to from searching through Google Blogs. I also found another blog worth subscribing to through Technorati. I subscribed to these blogs because I wanted to follow more blogs that were education based; something I could use in the future... not just for my pleasure reading.

What I liked about Technorati was the fact that you could search for posts or blogs. I found myself searching for whole blogs because I wanted to expand my blog library... but I could also imagine that searching for posts would be helpful if you were looking for quick information on a subject.

Did you find any blogs that are noteworthy and worth sharing? I'd love to know about them!

xoxo, k

Really Simple, huh?

I created an RSS. Really Simple Syndication. And yes, it was really simple; really simple to set up and it makes following pages and feeds really simple, too! I already had a Google account (obviously, because I have this blog), so all I had to do was go to Google Reader and it automatically synced my blogs from my Blogger page to my Google Reader. However, I DID go to the ones that have a domain outside of Blogger and physically "subscribe" to them, the others are just simply on my reading list.

Teachers could use RSS to keep up with each others blogs as well as informational feeds and blogs. These blogs could spread ideas and information throughout the digital universe very easily through RSS. This will make it simple to read important posts in one spot, without wasting time to find whether there are new posts or not. I think there are plenty of informational education blogs that I will follow as a future educator and having my RSS will make it very easy for me.

Does anyone know how to subscribe to blogs that are in the Blogger domain? We don't have the orange RSS symbol, so how does it work?

I'm confused about that, but I still have an excuse to follow more blogs... :)
xoxo, k

I have a powerful generator...

NOT in my garage... on my computer! For this post I used two different image generators, one called Comic Strip Generator and the other called Image Chef. With these, you can create any sign or picture that you want. This, I thought, would be useful in the classroom for encouraging signs on the walls or name tags again. They also could be applied to papers given out in class, helping to attract the children to the paper.

These are the images I created:

I've never been a fan of The Simpsons, but with Comic Strip Generator was only letting me view these templates, so I went with it.

I'm still pretty undecided on how I feel about these generators. I'm sure I could find uses for them in the classroom, but they sure wouldn't be my first choice... What were your thoughts on them?
xoxo, k

Flickr Mashups...

Flickr this, Flickr that. Is this what my life is coming to? I supposed I did say that I was smitten over Flickr. Not anymore  This is just too much. I think we have a stage 5 clinger on our hands.

Anyway... this time I worked with what we like to call a "mashable". A "mashable" is a combination of Flickr pictures and any other website. The one that I used is called Family Art Studio. It's very similar to Spell with Flickr. I made this cute little thing, spelling my name:

It was pretty simple, but actually seemed like the website was not very well developed. I had a decent time making it, but thought it could have been more advanced. I would, however, use something like this in my classroom to create cute, colorful name tags for lockers, desks, etc. or to make attractive signs for the walls of my classroom. That though, unfortunately, is the only thing I really could find this website useful for.

Sharing photos in general, though, could be very helpful as a teacher. You could easily create a group that was made for teachers that allowed them to all share pictures that they've used in lessons, units, etc. and gave them the ability to use each other for ideas!

Is there more Flickr coming in these assignments? If I meet it one more time, it might call for a break up.

xoxo, k

Flickr!

If you keep up with my blog (which you totally should), you know that I explored Flickr for the last blog post. However, for this one, I went further into it; exploring groups, tags, etc. It was really something that I found would be useful in the future for showing accurate pictures to teach students. Many times, simply searching for a picture on Google can bring up inaccurate and sometimes inappropriate pictures. With Flickr, there is accurate pictures along with further information in each picture!

For example, I searched "Ameila Earhart" in Flickr and brought up one picture. It showed me exactly which person Earhart was in the picture and also labeled exactly who each other person was. This would be very helpful in a history lesson!

When it comes to "tags" on Flickr, it's very similar to #hashtags on Twitter, Instagram, etc. If I tag an Amelia Earhart picture with "airplane" on Flickr, it will show up for anyone who may search "airplane" in general. It's the same with #hashtags on Twitter and Instagram. If I tag a picture of the beautiful, autumn leaves with "#fall", it will show up when anyone searches the word "fall". Overall, I think it broadens the horizons of a search, not only including pictures of what the World Wide Web considers "fall" but also what you or I might consider "fall".

This site is legit... I have fallen in a completely smitten relationship with Flickr. Check it out!
xoxo, k

Exploring Web 2.0

I've been exploring Award Winning Web 2.0 sites, such as Google Chrome, Pandora, Flickr, Twitter, etc. Although there are many that I have worked with and enjoy (Pandora and Twitter are sites I use on a daily basis!), there are plenty that I have never used before, so naturally, I was excited to try some out.

I have always thought "what the heck is Flickr? It's probably just another photo sharing site..." but it's totally not! I mean, yes, it is a photo sharing site, but it's so different than other sites! Instagram, for example, is also an app I use almost every day. However, it takes much more work to view pictures that simply interest me. It's more along the lines of a newsfeed on Facebook. However, with Flickr, you can search for any type of picture you may want to feast your eyes on. For example, I search "Northern Lights" because I was yearning for something that reminded me of home... this beautiful picture popped up:
                                           
That is something I could stare at forever. And that gets me excited about the opportunities Web 2.0 has to offer. There would be so many uses for this in the classroom! Flickr gives you the ability to search for almost anything you can imagine...Am I the only one that gets excited over this?

xoxo, k

Technologically advanced world...

That's right. This post is 100% about technology. What I can do with it, how I feel about it, and how it influences me. Well, let's see... I'm typing on my laptop, I have an app pulled up on my iPad next to me helping me stay on task, and I have my iPhone on another web page. I'm always using new apps to help me stay on task, make my life easier, and inform me of future uses in my classroom.

School 2.0 is extremely important in my personal life. There are so many resources out there to help me in school and further my technological knowledge that I would be silly to not take advantage of the advances. There are so many ways to use technology in the classroom, and kids are loving it! Students are grasping technology in the classroom and using it to their full advantages. Between PowerPoint, iClickers, Elmo Projectors, SmartBoards and so many more, students have all the resources they need at the tips of their fingers. How, as a future educator, could I ignore that?

The future of education has nothing to do but grow and blossom with the use of technology. Like I said, students have all the resources they need, but so do teachers! Schools, if they embrace Web 2.0, should be so advanced that students are more interested and intrigued in the classroom. This would not only raise interest levels, but test scores and overall results. The future of our educated country could be relying on Web 2.0, you never know!

xoxo, k

I blog, you blog, we all blog together!

In the past couple weeks, I've gotten the oh-so-sweet emails notifying me of comments on my blog. This, of course, led me to think I'm a huge rockstar and totally nailing this whole blogging thing. Then I remembered the purpose of Thing #4: comment on 5 blogs from classmates and 2 from outside of class. Sweet. That made me feel a little less confident. However, I noticed that after I read through some blogs, I didn't just pick random blog posts to comment on, I commented on the ones that I thought were good blog posts or really hit home with me. Sooo, that made me feel better... like I might still be getting the hang of this.

Commenting, I believe, is very important in the blogging world! It A. Made me feel good about my blogging B. Can make you feel good about your blogging and C. Gets our names out there! After all, I did immediately go to the blogs of people that commented on mine. It's like a nice, friendly, little blogging love triangle/circle thing. There's so much blog love to go around. *awww*

Like I said, I chose to comment on blogs that interested me, blogs that hit home with me, or blogs that simply entertained me. I commented about how I agreed with comments or posts... this all helped me decide whether I would read that blog further in the future or not.

I chose to comment on Ava Jayne's blog: Ava's 23 things at 32, Kelli Shoemake's blog: kellishoemake3040, Maggie Jacksons blog: Things: 23 of Them., Misty Stehle's blog: 23 Stehle HOOTs, and Kelsi Clark's blog: 23 Clark Things...Words to live by :). 

I also commented on Cooking Classy and Regurgitated Alpha Bits. I commented on these blogs because they were things that interested me and made me smile.

Over the duration of this assignment, I've really opened myself up to commenting on blogs. My comments might not always be important to the writer and they may just overlook them as "just another comment", but I now am able to view the importance of them as more than "just another comment". Wow, that was deep.

xoxo, k