Thing Twelve

For this activity I chose to set up an email alert for “new on education”. This was extremely easy to do and now I get an email each time something happens that is news worth in the field of education. I can see where this would be useful to all teachers as we need to keep up with the current events taking place in our field on knowledge.

I also like Google translate this would be extremely usefully for ELL (English language learners). It would be a good way for teachers to learn short phrases to communicate with these students in their native language. This would be a good way to welcome them to your class, if you knew in advance that they were being added.  I have enjoyed exploring Google and its many ways to enhance our lives.

Here is a ling to Goggle Translate and Goggle alerts
http://translate.google.com/#
http://www.google.com/alerts

Thing Eleven

To find new blogs to add to my feed, I found http://www.technorati.com/ easy to use. I searched education first here and the results were enormous. This was scary at first so I tried narrowing my search to a more specific topic and the results were not unmanageable. I think with all these sites the more specific you are the better the results you will get. The search program that I was least impressed with was http://www.topix.net/ because this site wants you log in. I would prefer to use a site that does not require me to log in to search it. As a matter of fact, if I went to a site that required me to log in, I just moved on to the next.

I tried to search several sites looking for blogs that use the RSS feed button. One site was not operating; http//www.feedster.com is dead according to other websites, this site has been down for at least two weeks. There are an endless number of ways to find newsfeeds but I am still partial to Google search. It is convenient and easy to use.

Thing Ten

I really like RSS; this feature makes it possible to follow more than one blog without having to visit a bunch of different sites. I find many sites that I run across interesting but I do not have time to sit down and visit them on a regular basis with the newsreader programs that is no longer an issue. These sites are a great way for teacher to keep up with current events, and news that is relevant in their careers. All teachers should be interested in keeping up with latest technology http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ is a great place to do this.

I am going to opt out of the public page on Google reader right now. Maybe I will do it later but right now I just need to focus on my children and school.

Thing Nine

 This sign is honor of my father in-law who lost his battle with skin cancer several years ago. He is greatly missed. This is the link to image chef which is the website I used to create it.  http://www.imagechef.com/.  This site was easy to navigate.  I just pick my colors from a drop down menu and typed my text. I chose to copy the image and save it to my hard drive to make the upload easier because I knew I was going to upload more than one image.

As you can see I used several different image generators on Imagechef.com. The process was the same each time. It has easy to use drop down menu’s and lots of different types of signs to generate. This sign is just my husband's initials with love you inside them.

 

This sign was made using http://www.happyfacegenerator.com/. I clicked on the logo generator and from there it was really easy. I just wrote my text, picked the colors and style using the dropdown menu and clicked preview. Kids would really enjoy seeing their names written in the different styles but as I stated earlier the children I will be working with as a teacher will be a little young for these types of activities. I could see using these for custom sign, alphabet, and numbers for classroom decorations though.

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Thing Eight

I created the picture above using Family Art Studio. This site allows you to create and make art with letters. I can see where kids would enjoy doing such projects, but getting the picture from their site to my blog was not so easy. I tried several different methods before I accomplished the task and I do not think the children I plan on teaching (pre-k to third grade) would be able to do this without assistance. I don’t know if this could be used in my classroom. I can see using it for labels on things in my classroom though.

I really do not like the idea of sharing personal photos on the internet, unless they are for family and friends to view. I feel like it exposes too much of a person’s personal life for the world to take advantage of. It’s unfortunate that we have to worry about how what we put out there will be used against us but the reality is that we do. I am sure I will visit Flickr again in the future when I have more time to play with things like this. Right now between school and my children I don’t have time to truly play with Flickr it’s too time consuming.

Thing Seven

apsu23things, a photo by kendrad30 on Flickr.

This photo is a picture of the china my husband bought me a couple of years ago. I love it and refuse to let anyone touch it much less eat off it. I am scared that it will get broken. We came home from our family’s house one Christmas Eve and he had it all set up in a new china cabinet that I had been admiring.   

My first Flickr experience was not too bad. I did not have trouble navigating the site but had issues with getting my pictures taken. I am a procrastinator. I did not really see much use for Flickr in the classroom, although it may be a fun personal site. I suppose you could do some interesting art projects with the kids using photos of things, not themselves. I do use shutter fly which is another photo hosting service but it is not a public site or at least it was not when I joined it. I joined that site when I lost a bunch of my digital pictures because I had not backed up files. The need to back up your files is a downfall to all this new technology. I had not uploaded my photos in a while and again just last week I lost all my photos when I got a virus on my computer. I hope we learn about some bug prevention strategies while in this course.

Shutter fly is not as public as Flickr, and I am concerned about privacy. There is a risk and that is part of the reason I do not see much use for Flickr in the classroom. There would be an issue with posting pictures of children without their parent’s permission, and even though you could ask for permission there would be a lot of paper work involved.  I think that privacy on the web is always going to be an issue; there are too many hackers out there! That is why you should not post anything you will regret ever.