Thing #9

Still not a believer in the RSS. I used the technorati and the bloglines searches and still didn't find anything that really interested me. I did like the cool cat teacher blog about finding a circle of the wise. It sounds like a wonderful idea and it's true some of the people blogging will be the "great ones" of our time. However, I still don't want to spend my spare moments on the computer. I'm a believer in the outdoors. I want to spend my moments outside watching the birds and the squirrels. Or planting flowers. Or taking a walk. In the heat of the day it's great to have something else to do inside, hence taking this online class, but when it cools down I'm ready to be out again. Even when it's hot I'd rather watch from my window than sit at a screen.

Someday I may find a blog I'm really interested in -- perhaps something about someone's nature trips. When I hit that wonderful orange button it puts it in my internet explore favorites. Then I can read the blogs I want when I want instead of having all the new stuff bombard me. For me all those pages are serious sensory overload. Once again I'm sure there are scores of you out there who will disagree with me. You are welcome to try to convince me, but for now I'm headed outside.

Thing #8

I was very frustrated setting up my Google reader. I would try to subscribe, but the add button did nothing. I ended up pasting the addresses and was able to subscribe, but then reading all that came in was less than fun. As I have not been a blog reader in the past I tried searching for blogs I might find interesting. I found a few that sounded interesting but then weren't really. One wasn't at all what it said it was and I have been unable as yet to delete it from my list. I guess I've never really been a news junkie anyway. I enjoy the ability to look something up on the internet at a moments notice, but I also have the patience to wait until I can get home or get to a library. My husband would probably love the RSS because he wants to know things right the minute he wonders them. He's the type who has the cell phone with internet capability. I really don't want to sit at a computer all day and read a bunch of useless stuff to find a kernel that is intersting. I honestly don't see any reason why I would need or use an RSS. I don't see that it would be useful to me in teaching or in my daily life. I'm sure someone -- probably many -- will disagree with me and that's just fine.

Thing # 7

To be honest I wasn't all that impressed with most of the Google things. It's not that they didn't do useful things it was just that in some cases they were more complicated than I presonally need. For instance I set up a calendar and it took longer than the paper one I now have that works quite well for me. I do see the benefit of the google calendar if you wanted to share your calendar. For me the white board family calenar works much better!

However, I did find some Google tools that could be useful. I did like the notebook option for saving research. Once I got the hang of it that worked very well. I was able to save the crib information I had researched and send it to my husband. It would be useful for doing research for the classroom as well. However, I was under the impression that we were not supposed to be using Google with the students. It would be a great tool for them to learn as well, but I understand the filtering system isn't as kid friendly.

Google Earth is always a fun tool. I really like the way it "flies" to another location. It would be great for searching out locations. You could start at your school's address and fly to the new place. The way the Earth turns really gives a great visual.

I was very interested in the scholar search. This would have been a great tool when I was in graduate school! It would also be very useful to older students. I think that most of the research would be above my fourth graders level. However, a useful tool for teachers looking up certain topics.

Lastly, the Google alert tool could be very helpful if a class is tracking a particular current event topic. However, once again I'm unsure about the districts policy on using Google with the students. I guess that alerts would be set up to my personal email address as it is a gmail address and then I could share the information with students. It would be really neat if you could set up a class email account and then students could be assigned to check the alerts each day. It would really get them involved in the information gathering.

The burning question remains how much of Google can we use with students -- how much can we allow them to do?

Thing #6

There are so many interesting ideas that I would have never thought of doing. It sure makes it easier when someone else invents the wheel!

I liked the idea of the magazine cover. It might be fun to use with our famous Texans project or with any biography project. You could also incoporate it into many group projects. Last year we did a project on different types of energy resources. The magazine cover would be a great way for students to put their headlines into a fun format.

The trading cards also were fun. I made the one shown here since I'm thinking first anniversary. Maybe this will be my husband's paper anniversary gift! Trading cards could also be used for many different projects. You could do predator and prey cards and even create a game with them. Perhaps something al la Yu-Gi-Oh with battles between predator and prey.

The mashups definitely gave me some other creative ideas for project presenations.

Thing #5

I've actually used the flickr website before though never explored it. My husband posted our wedding and honeymoon pictures on the flickr last year. So if anyone wants to see a ton of pictures of someone else's wedding search debus galbraith wedding and there I'll be! It was a great way to send all those pictures to family and friends.

It was interesting how you could search through different groups. I'm teaching summer camp at the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center and next week we are studying predators. I did a search for predators and found I needed to narrow my search. I got a bunch of pictures of the airplane called the predator. When I added animals to the search I had much better results. Here are some of my favorite pictures. The kingfisher with the lizard is by far the best!

Thing #4

I'm on the players list so I think I'm officially registered. Let's play ball!

Thing #3

Setting up the blog was amazingly easy. Now it's on to the avatar thing -- we'll see how that goes. Eeek!!!

Thing #2

The 7 1/2 habits was an intersting presentation. The habits that I come by easily are play and teach/mentor others. Despite all the things we must accomplish in a school year I try to add play to our activities. It has been my experience that people, especially children, learn well while playing. I love teaching about nature. I spend my summers teaching at the Houston Arboretum. We incorporate play into most every day. Today at camp we played an adaptation of red light, green light that helped the children learn the four basic need of living things. Play I can do!

The habit that is the hardest for me is probably beginning with the end in mind. It isn't that I don't think of a goal, but rather that my goal is so lofty that it sometimes overwhelming to begin. What I have to do is make sure that I have broken down the goal so that I can indeed achieve it. It may also be that I give myself an unattainable timeline. I often pile way too much on my plate and have to step back and rethink my goals and how soon I need to get there!

Thing #1

I've read and listened to everything for things #1-3. Let's hope I've set up this blog correctly. It was rather easy to get started which sort of makes me nervous, but I'll get!