Saturday, February 16, 2008

thing 8

I like how RSS and newsreaders will provide me with information that I care about, but have no time to sit an search for during the day.

Adding newreaders will keep me informed about technology in the classroom. I love that other people are creative enough to come up with the idea and then humble enough to share with those of us who are willing, but just can't come up with an original idea. I will just have to not be overwhelmed in reading all of them.

I think libraries can use RSS to show students how valuable staying connected to other can be, as well as using for researching across the world.

thing 7

I was so excited to go to the TCEA conference in Austin the same week I was working on the things for this week. One of the sessions I was able to attend was about using google in the classroom! (I'm so far behind in technology. ) The instructor walked us through the advantages of using advance searches( limiting the number of hits to make it useful for students and also searching for powerpoints with advance searching!), how to make an igoogle page, and google maps. I have also tried this week the google notebook and have set up a google alert. I am wondering if I can use the google notebook to lead students on more narrowed searches by giving them the pages I would like them to read, I guess it would be like a webquest.

Here' the igoogle page I created and a powerpoint I found using advance search in only powerpoint format.
http://www.google.com/ig


TEXAS HISTORY
File Format: Microsoft Powerpoint - View as HTML
www.floresville.isd.tenet.edu/elementary/teachers/kburks/powerpoints/4thppts/texashistory.ppt

Saturday, February 9, 2008

thing # 6




Mashups are something I had never heard of before, but in looking at Mappr, how you can make pictures into a jigsaw and Mosaic Maker, I can see the possibilities are endless. I'm just glad there are creative people out there who are willing to take a risk and "mash" things together for us to use. I can't wait to use these both in class and home. We make trading cards for our Texas Hero project each year and I can see how the name badge maker and trading card would be fun.

thing # 5

The assignment for this thing was to explore Flickr and I must say that I enjoyed seeing all of the intresting pictures from different photographers.

The idea of tags makes it easy to find photos by a certain topic and can be useful when researching particular subjects.

Groups make it easy for people who have common interest to share their work and then discuss the things they have found.

I liked the 365 day library project idea. It had librarians commit to taking and posting 365 pictures of their library. That would then give them a historical record of the libraries during this time. I can see how this can be integrated into making a classroom time capsle. It also makes me wonder if I could use the idea of taking post office pictures from places I have been and comparing them to the town.(every town has a post office!)

Thing # 4

I have now registered my blog and it is very exciting to see the name posted on the sidebar with everyone else. I like the idea of blogging, but am still not sure I am comfortable with the idea of everyone in the world being able to read my posts.