Thing #17

I am a big fan of social bookmarking.  In fact, I am addicted to it I guess you could say.  I did join Delicious and browse around for a while.  I did find some useful sites that I had not found before, such as http://www.teachertube.com/.  While I love the idea of "looking into someone else's filing cabinet", I find it much more fun and visually appealing on Pinterest.  This site seems to be very much like pinterest, in that you can bookmark sites and store them in seperate folders.  You are also able to share them  with others.  This is what I love so much about Pinterest.  You can search for anything and come up with many resources and sometimes really fun ideas.  Social Bookmarking is an incredible tool for teachers to share and collaborate with ideas for making learning FUN!

Thing # 16

     For the new homepage I chose to use iGoogle.  I thought it was more user friendly to set up, and I liked the looks of this start page better.  I like the layout, and will probably change my home page to this new format.
     Online calenders can be extremely helpful for a person who is on the computer often.  The online calender is much more helpful to me than a wall or pocket calender.  I love that events can be set as reoccurring and reminders are given. This calender is much more useful to me than the traditional calenders that are offered.   I really liked the Remember the Milk to do list site, because not only is it available online, but also on the iPad and iPhone.  I have both, and like the fact that the list(s) that I create are available on both.  This is a tool I will definitely use, because I tend to forget things and get off track easily.  This will be a helpful reminder of the tasks that need to be completed and things I need to pick up.
  I loved PDFconverter, and it will be very helpful for use as an educator.  It allows documents to be changed into a PDF document and makes them accessable on any computer device.

Thing #15

This is one of my least favorite of the "things".  I am not a huge fan of wiki because of the lack of control.  Anyone can write anything on wiki.  For instance when looking up a definition, medical condition, or something of importance, many times the wikipedia comes up.  Many people do not understand that anyone can post information to it.  Often times people with the best of intentions still have wrong information, and other times, people purposely post incorrect information.  Wiki would be a good idea for a class activity for something like a test review, or collectively writing a story, etc.  Something that each student could add to and change.

Thing #14

For the flowchart I chose to use Gliffy.com.  It seemed very user friendly and easy to navigate.  I liked the fact that it could be shared in a blog or website very easily.  Here is a copy of the flowchart I played around with.

My standard was 5th grade science for this class, so I decided to make a fairly simple flowchart on the Scientific Method.  Flowcharts can be very handy for students to have in science to explain steps and processes.  Also when doing an experiment, the flowchart would be great for the cases of "if.... then ....". 

For the mind mapping activity, I chose to use bubbl.us to create a map.  I played around making a map of George Washington's life and accomplishments for a class lesson.  I was unable to figure out how to get the map onto the blog though.  I definitely preferred the Gliffy.com site more than the bubbl.us site.  It was easier for me to navigate.  Both sites will be great to use for future lesson plans.

Thing #13

I was unfamiliar with Zoho until this assignment.  I love that documents written in Zoho are so easy to share with others, without the need for emailing them to many different email addresses.  Zoho could be a great tool for student's to complete assignments in. The site is free, so the need to purchase Microsoft Office is eliminated, and the student's work can easily be shared.  You can also create your blog post in Zoho Writer, and it will post to your blog from there.

I had not used Google Docs before either, and honestly liked Zoho Writer a little better than Google Docs.  Zoho seemed to be more user friendly, the site was easier to navigate, and it was more visually appealing.

  Here is the document that I created in Google Docs:


Dear Parents,
   
     We will be going on a field trip on Monday May 7, 2012.  We will be travelling to the Nashville Zoo, leaving the school at 8:15 a.m.  Please make sure your child arrives to school on time that day.  We will be returning  school at 2:30 p.m.  The cost for the field trip is $5.00.  Please send  sack lunch with your child on this day, because we will stop at the park for lunch.

Thanks for your support,
Mrs. Gardner


Students could work together in Google Docs to create a story that each person builds on for Literature, they could work on group projects together collaboratively on Google Docs, and they could work on drawings together.  There are many ideas that could be implemented into the classroom with both Zoho Writer and Google Docs.

Thing #12

I honestly did not realize that Google had so much to offer. I had never really played around with most of the tools.  I am very partial to Picasa though.  I love photography, and have used Picasa to edit all of my pictures and albums.  I really like the fact that you can upload web albums for friends and family to see also.  We recently took a family trip to Disney, and it was great to be able to create web albums to share with the entire family, without having to send each one tons of pictures individually.  I will definitely use Picasa as a teacher, because I want the parents to be able to enjoy the memories of their child's school year.  I know that as a parent I really enjoy getting to see pictures of my children doing activities at school, and I want to afford that opportunity to other parents.  I will have a web album for the class that only parents of the children will have permission to see.  This will allow parents to feel more involved in their child's education.
      Google Translate is also a very cool site that will be very beneficial for a teacher.  I was thinking of all the uses this site has, and while playing around on the site I thought what if I received this note one morning as a teacher:

Por favor, espere José para viajar en el autobús a casa hoy.

Well...I don't speak Spanish, and lets say I couldn't get someone to translate for me quickly.  I could go to Google Translate and type in the message and get it translated.  I would then know that the note said:

Please allow Jose to ride the bus home today.

This would have been a very important note that could not just sit on my desk unread until I found someone to translate, and Google Translate can help in those instances. 

Thing #11

I really liked the Technorati blog search tool the most.  This site allowed you to see the most visited blogs, videos, and latest articles.  I found things of interest on this site, that I would not have normally searched for or been looking for.  I couldn't always think of the correct wording to get the results I needed from Google blogs, and found technorati much more efficient for my needs.  I think my favorite way of finding blogs will still be the beloved Pinterest!  I love...did I mention LOVE Pinterest.  I find so many neat ideas and cool blogs that I would have never found otherwise on Pinterest.  I did really like the blog directory from technorati though.  I found many websites that will be useful in my personal life that would not have been found on pinterest.