Thing 7

I feel that I am pretty well connected online. I have a facebook account that I check on my phone. I email and text more than I actually call people and I even have a twitter account. I am not very active on twitter, but find it interesting all the places and people that are on twitter. I follow a friend of mine who is a bike racer and I can see how she is doing in races. These communication tools have it it so much easier to connect with people. I enjoy the ease of communcation, but my husband complains that it makes everone too connected.

Thing 6

I love Big Huge Labs and Image Chef. I can see myself using these often I have already made a banner for my web page and I am planning on having my students make trading cards as a get to know you activity at the beginning of the year. I could also see using the trading cards for books and authors. It would be great to have students make a trading card for each book that they read. They could do a brief description (summary) and a recommendations. It would make finding a book much easier for all students. I also liked the badge maker. I thought I could make name tags for the kids with that. Image Chef was also fun to play around with. I would use this to change up images on my website!

Thing 5

More Flickr Fun: Wow, I love all the fun tools that you can use either with flickr or your own photos. I liked spelling with flickr. I put an example at the bottom of my page. I also love the Big Huge Labs projects. I made a movie poster, a magazine cover, a collage of pictures and also a puzzle with pictures that I had. The only unfortunate thing about that is that you have to buy them. I wish you could do that and just print them out. I am amazed at all the fun options that there are for photo sharing. I can see myself using these tools to create classroom posters and also I like the idea of book trading cards. How great would it be to have studnts collect trading cards for the books they have read so far that year. Or students could share books that they have read by making a magazine cover or a movie poster for that book.

Thing 4

I have tried using flickr in the past and thought it was cool how you could tag your photos and put them on maps and share the photos. I also liked the sharing options, but unfortunately did not think it was the best photo sharing site for the classroom. Many times inappropriate images would come up, parents had a hard time uploading images and it was harder for the kids to get pictures off the site for certain projects. I switched over to Picasa and love it. I have both a personal site and a classroom Picasa site. Parents can easily upload pictures that they take on field trips to share with the class and students can access the pictures for projects or just to look at. I can easily upload pictures and they can be on my website in minutes rather than having to upload the pictures and send them to the media specialist to upload through dream weaver. Personally I love Picasa because I can easily share pictures with my friends. I get updates when a favorite of mine has uploaded pictures so I can stay up to date on what is going on in their lives. I also like Picasa because it shows up when I am on my iGoogle page or in my GMail. It is really easy to get to. Picasa has now added the map feature as well so I can tag where certain pictures were taken. I know that there are so many more uses of Picasa that I am still trying to figure out!

Thing 3

RSS feeds make it so much easier to stay up to date on topics that I am interested in. I enjoy getting all my blog posts in one area. That way I just have to go to one place to read all my posts. I use it for both professional development reading and also for personal interested. I get updates from technology blogs and I also get them from reading blogs. I get National geographic posts, a recipe of the day and also updates from blogs of friends who are traveling or enjoying writing about their lives. I use Google Reader and find that it is very easy to use and add feeds to. I like Google reader because it is attached to my iGoogle page and it is very easy to get to. I have not used reader in the classroom. but find it a valuable tool for professional reading and staying up to date.

Thing 2

I am taking this class to learn about 23 things on a stick because I feel that it is important to keep up to date on all web 2.o tools. Not only do these tools make my life easier by allowing me to communicate and stay in touch with others, but they are also changing education. It is important to stay up to date with these changes and allow my students to be prepared to deal with the technology they will be required to know how to use in their futures. I am excited to take the time play with these tools so that I can use them with ease and comfort in the classroom. I am also anxious to find new applications of these tools for the classroom. I will let you know what I find out!

Thing 1: Set Up Your Blog

I have started the 23 things on the stick. I set up my blog and created a fun summer avatar. I am looking forward to having time to review and learn more about these great web 2.0 tools.