So I am a huge Google fan already. It's my homepage and I have two separate Gmail accounts for personal and professional use. I use the Image search on a regular basis for personal and school related searches.
Google Scholar has been a particular favorite of mine because it links up with APSU's library function. The search is more streamlined and easier to manage than using APSU library function directly. Especially with so many connectivity issues when not on campus.
Google Maps is my preferred location for driving directions. Printable maps are useful when one gets lost as easily as I do.
Google Earth is fun just to be able to spy on your neighboring countries or see your house from its last satellite view. It has a lot of educational purposes as well.
I use Google Drive regularly due to my Gmail accounts and school. It's user friendly and does not require me to use my over-stimulated brain to remember a floppy disc, USB drive, or any other third party devices that will be forgotten in the black hole that is my purse.
I know it links advertising, business, fashion, and all sorts of other functions for easier searches and continues to be a HUGE success all the way around.
Google Plus Photos is linked to my Facebook and therefore there is not much for me to do with it. The only outside benefit is that my brother can access my photos since he is not on Facebook.
I've used Google Calander and Translate a few times but usually for school purposes. I can barely keep up with a hand written calendar, let alone one online. Translate was for legal text pertaining to a paper that I was writing a couple of semesters ago. It was in Japanese.
As far as Google is concerned, I am fairly competent. I am certainly not an expert, but I use it on a regular basis for a variety of reasons.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Thing #11 Finding Good Feeds
So. As previously mentioned in Thing #10 - Feedly is pretty much my favorite RSS feed finder. Obviously, with my lack of experience, my horizons may broaden and my scope will expand...but not with the links from this section. I felt that I was searching with Google pretty much with all of them. Not as interesting as the sectioned out, categorized, and identifiable Feedly account with which I am rabidly becoming addicted. I will say that I ventured into Technorati and then ventured back out. I am at a loss as to the visual chaos that awaits there. I guess I may have sensitive eyes but I just don't do well in a space with too much on a little screen.
Obviously, I have much adventuring to do as I continue on my RSS feeds journey. I will say that when I was in the other feed sites, there were more unknown sites to me than known. So. I will say that I will further explore and hope to come to enlightenment.
Obviously, I have much adventuring to do as I continue on my RSS feeds journey. I will say that when I was in the other feed sites, there were more unknown sites to me than known. So. I will say that I will further explore and hope to come to enlightenment.
Thing #10 RSS Feeds
Oh my. The things I'm missing in technology.
Will I use this in the future? Yes.
Will I use it as a teacher? Yes.
Am I glad that we discovered this? Yes.
I think this might be bad for my focus. In the first 10 minutes I've already found 7 links to subscribe to. Mostly parenting blogs. Some food because I love food. Fox News because I like to have headlines in one place.
This is wonderful. You can have everything at your fingertips in one place. Why I never discovered this before is beyond me. Feedly is user-friendly and clean. I like websites that are clean. Overall, I find that I might become addicted to this just as I have to Pinterest. Having one place to go instead of multiple will be a godsend. When I get to be in my own classroom, I can definitely see myself utilizing relevant information in my everyday scope of practice.
Will I use this in the future? Yes.
Will I use it as a teacher? Yes.
Am I glad that we discovered this? Yes.
I think this might be bad for my focus. In the first 10 minutes I've already found 7 links to subscribe to. Mostly parenting blogs. Some food because I love food. Fox News because I like to have headlines in one place.
This is wonderful. You can have everything at your fingertips in one place. Why I never discovered this before is beyond me. Feedly is user-friendly and clean. I like websites that are clean. Overall, I find that I might become addicted to this just as I have to Pinterest. Having one place to go instead of multiple will be a godsend. When I get to be in my own classroom, I can definitely see myself utilizing relevant information in my everyday scope of practice.
Thing #9 Fun with Online Image Generator
You can make all kinds of fun images for the classroom. For home. I bet if I leave these images around for my girls, they'd get a kick out of it.
I didn't like the smiley face one or the custom sign generator - a lot of the links were broken and it kept erroring everytime I tried to make something.
I did find a website called flamingtext.com - no downloads and user friendly. I created this:
Pretty neat. It mainly does banners and logos.
Thing #8 Flickr and Mashups
Created a jigsaw. Probably the worst jigsaw ever but created it nonetheless. Courtesy of Big Huge Labs.
Thing #7 Flickr
Nothing drives me more insane than a website that screams "chaos" to my eyeballs. As popular as this website is, I can't help that it makes me want to wear sunglasses. It is loud and lacks continuity. I can see where this would be fun but I do not like Flickr.
All rights reserved by wolfkann
That being said, I LOVE this photo. I am from a military family. My dad is obsessed with American History, and as, such I grew to have a deep and abiding love of America. I saw this a just *sighed* with pleasure.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfkann/12791001193/ <-The link.
All rights reserved by wolfkann That being said, I LOVE this photo. I am from a military family. My dad is obsessed with American History, and as, such I grew to have a deep and abiding love of America. I saw this a just *sighed* with pleasure.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfkann/12791001193/ <-The link.
Thing #6 Web 2.0 Awards List
First problem - the first two links I clicked didn't work. :(
Second problem - how to choose just one from the huge list that this provides :(
Ok - I went to page 73 and worked backwards. However, I ended up staying on 72. StumbleUpon caught my eye so I clicked into it. I signed in using my Facebook account. I then picked about 9 different options for my interests and then...WOAH. Just WOAH!
SO many places to go. Certainly not enough time to explore. My kids already think I'm crazy but this is pretty cool. It makes searching the internet for articles and websites relating to your interests almost easy. It takes those interests and moves above and beyond the call of duty. I could see linking this to your teacher account and creating a plethora of website reference material for students.
This is pretty cool and would take forever to explore everything.
Second problem - how to choose just one from the huge list that this provides :(
Ok - I went to page 73 and worked backwards. However, I ended up staying on 72. StumbleUpon caught my eye so I clicked into it. I signed in using my Facebook account. I then picked about 9 different options for my interests and then...WOAH. Just WOAH!
SO many places to go. Certainly not enough time to explore. My kids already think I'm crazy but this is pretty cool. It makes searching the internet for articles and websites relating to your interests almost easy. It takes those interests and moves above and beyond the call of duty. I could see linking this to your teacher account and creating a plethora of website reference material for students.
This is pretty cool and would take forever to explore everything.
Thing #5 The Future of Education
Ok. So first point I'd like to make is that these are not new concepts. Education evolves to the priorities of the world around it. So when we transfer the idea of industrial education to a technological one, it's already happened. Education is a whole new beast with the advancement of the internet. In fact, I would venture to guess that most students have a better grasp on technology than we do. Like education, technology changes. However, it typically changes faster. As teachers, our role is to ensure that students are able to use technology in a positive and useful manner. We are guides in an ever changing world. We want to make sure our students are prepared for the work force of today, not 20 years ago. The internet is dangerous. It can seduce (no licentious thoughts) our students to being complacent about information. Our job is to make sure that they don't take one website as complete fact. Information should be double checked and verified. Our students should be able to know how to research effectively.
Another point I would like to make is that we have to be careful that our students don't become too enamored with technology. We still have to interact with the world around us. I find it annoying when people speak to me using texting shorthand. I also find it annoying that we've completely let our guard down about manners. Too many people use their cell phones all the time and forget to interact with the people around them. I work in a retail pharmacy and I can tell you now that medicine is important. Anything you put in your body should be carefully considered. However, people don't care anymore. They are too busy continuing their meaningless conversation that could have waited five minutes. Little things in the world can become big things. We have to be able to communicate with each other outside of technology. Most jobs require live interviews. We still have to see our doctors. We should still have legible handwriting and write without a computer.
This section is interesting and the links are engaging. However, my opinion is that I have too much to say on this topic and only a section to do it in.
Another point I would like to make is that we have to be careful that our students don't become too enamored with technology. We still have to interact with the world around us. I find it annoying when people speak to me using texting shorthand. I also find it annoying that we've completely let our guard down about manners. Too many people use their cell phones all the time and forget to interact with the people around them. I work in a retail pharmacy and I can tell you now that medicine is important. Anything you put in your body should be carefully considered. However, people don't care anymore. They are too busy continuing their meaningless conversation that could have waited five minutes. Little things in the world can become big things. We have to be able to communicate with each other outside of technology. Most jobs require live interviews. We still have to see our doctors. We should still have legible handwriting and write without a computer.
This section is interesting and the links are engaging. However, my opinion is that I have too much to say on this topic and only a section to do it in.
Thing #4 Why Commenting Is Important
Leaving feedback is essential for us to know how the world around us is responding to the work that we create - whether we have an assignment for class or create something for mass consumption. It is like critiquing students on their work - they cannot know what they have done right or wrong if we leave them no feedback. We would have no idea how our words, our ideas, our insights (so on and so forth) affect the world around us if no one told us how they felt or their own ideas.
In the Cool Cat Teacher Blog - I found that leaving meaningful comments is something I agree with and would hope that I do now and will continue to do. Nothing is more frustrating than if someone leaves a comment like "Oh, that's cool" or "Wow." That really doesn't tell us anything about what was written or the feelings of the reader. I also never thought about drawing attention to yourself and your blog. It makes sense, however, because you're building a community within that conversation. Hence why it needs to be meaningful.
In Your Comments? from the Blue Skunk Blog - I found it meaningful that we should be thankful to the writer of the blog. It is an interesting comment and I find myself nodding in agreement. They did take the time to write and we took the time to read. Whether or not we find common ground, we should at least thank them for taking that time. It is just another road for polite etiquette online.
Rachel Cruise - Thing 8
I am grateful as always for my table partner for always finding new things or posting about things that she has used that are successful. I love being able to learn from her technological experiences because I do not have that in my background. She takes this assignment, puts together a great piece, and still manages to bring in some outside reference material. Wonderful, as always.
Courtney Comperry - Thing 1
I relate to her post about finding more "fun" in life. We're all busy people with full lives and its always helpful to know how others view and overcome their own problems facing education and life.
Theresa Hines - Thing 4
Theresa is engaging as a blogger. Her posts a quirky and fun and you feel as though you're actually talking to her instead of reading. She has great insights to our fellow classmates on different sets of posts.
Morgan Bryant - Thing 2
I relate to Morgan because, I too, have little experience with blogging. The difference being that I stayed away because of a lack of interest and because of a lack of time. There is just not enough hours in the day!
Joshua Jones - Thing 10
My comment here wasn't related to the actual post itself. I am more enamored of his open style of writing and his ending for each post. I like the little bite of each post.
http://parentseducationnetwork.org/Blog - This has a lot of good information and I find that it has a lot of relevant information.
The other non-classroom blog would be the Cynical Pharmacist from Facebook. As a pharmacy worker, this is a breath of fresh air. It is hilarious because it makes fun of our everyday trials and tribulations. We can air our dirty laundry and know what we're not alone. It's for venting and letting off steam.
In the Cool Cat Teacher Blog - I found that leaving meaningful comments is something I agree with and would hope that I do now and will continue to do. Nothing is more frustrating than if someone leaves a comment like "Oh, that's cool" or "Wow." That really doesn't tell us anything about what was written or the feelings of the reader. I also never thought about drawing attention to yourself and your blog. It makes sense, however, because you're building a community within that conversation. Hence why it needs to be meaningful.
In Your Comments? from the Blue Skunk Blog - I found it meaningful that we should be thankful to the writer of the blog. It is an interesting comment and I find myself nodding in agreement. They did take the time to write and we took the time to read. Whether or not we find common ground, we should at least thank them for taking that time. It is just another road for polite etiquette online.
Rachel Cruise - Thing 8
I am grateful as always for my table partner for always finding new things or posting about things that she has used that are successful. I love being able to learn from her technological experiences because I do not have that in my background. She takes this assignment, puts together a great piece, and still manages to bring in some outside reference material. Wonderful, as always.
Courtney Comperry - Thing 1
I relate to her post about finding more "fun" in life. We're all busy people with full lives and its always helpful to know how others view and overcome their own problems facing education and life.
Theresa Hines - Thing 4
Theresa is engaging as a blogger. Her posts a quirky and fun and you feel as though you're actually talking to her instead of reading. She has great insights to our fellow classmates on different sets of posts.
Morgan Bryant - Thing 2
I relate to Morgan because, I too, have little experience with blogging. The difference being that I stayed away because of a lack of interest and because of a lack of time. There is just not enough hours in the day!
Joshua Jones - Thing 10
My comment here wasn't related to the actual post itself. I am more enamored of his open style of writing and his ending for each post. I like the little bite of each post.
http://parentseducationnetwork.org/Blog - This has a lot of good information and I find that it has a lot of relevant information.
The other non-classroom blog would be the Cynical Pharmacist from Facebook. As a pharmacy worker, this is a breath of fresh air. It is hilarious because it makes fun of our everyday trials and tribulations. We can air our dirty laundry and know what we're not alone. It's for venting and letting off steam.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Thing #3 - Using Blogs in the Classroom
As a future teacher in a special education classroom, I can see using blogging for professional use. SPED is a very comprehensive field full of new research and new rules just about every week, if not everyday. Having support from fellow colleagues would be highly beneficial, especially as a new teacher. Maintaining the latest research and teaching techniques would be much easier if we had a safe blogging area to give and receive information back and forth. As far as my classes are concerned, it would depend on the severity of disabilities that are given. I plan on working in a severe/profound classroom and it would be a case by case basis if blogging would be something that would work in the classroom. However, it would be a beneficial communication tool with parents if we were to set up a safe forum. That would definitely be worth its weight in gold if we can keep an open line of communication for those parents who would like to be more involved in the classroom. The potential for blogging in the classroom is astronomical.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)