Thing 12

My Calendar :) The calendar was very simple to make- just select the day and times you are making a task for and then type in your agenda for that time. The only thing I really did not like was the fact that it was only in 30 minute intervals. So for a time when I had a class from 11:10 to 12:35 I was unable to put exactly what my time slot was. No a huge deal, but still a problem. This would be great for a teacher to have pulled up on his or her computer at all times.. you can easily see what you have a slot open for, like a parent teacher conference or IEP meeting. It highlights the time you have used already so it makes it very easy to tell what time you have available. I also REALLY like the fact you can make this public so your family, friends, students, parents, etc.. can see exactly what is going on and when things are due, going to happen, or coming up! Really think I will be using the calendar in the future.

my alerts! alerts! alerts!
I also set up an google alert that will send me an email everyday for one of blogs (day in Washington) this way any new laws or news about Special Education, I can be sure to receive. This is a great tool for those teachers (like myself) that forget to check their blogs and miss out on important information. I am more likely to check my emails as opposed to several different blog sites.

Thing 11

So of course using the Google Blog Search seemed the easiest to me. You simply type in what your looking for and in just one click... it is there. What I did find interesting was the Topix.net. First of all it took me by surprise when it instantly pops up where I live and shows the little map. I had no idea you could so quickly find blogs that have anything to do with the zip code in which you live or type in and lets just say some of those are personal blogs and do not have very nice titles. Oh my! Technorati- well I will be honest- it looked...umm..busy... so I back out of it and then noticed that there was tutorial on how to navigate through the site and I figured that was too much work when I already had other sites that should essentially, do the same thing. I also found that just going to google search (not blog search) brought up the same search results with just some non-blog search results included. So to give one answer to two questions... Topix gave the most useful (bc it was information from my own town and schools) but also the most unusual because like I said above, it showed personal blogs and lets just say it stated a person's name and called them the town... well I will just leave it at that.      

Thing 10

My 5 different feeds:
The pioneer woman
Compassion International
The Cool Cat Teacher

Day in Washington

Journeys with Autism

WOW! That video on RSS/readers was very helpful... I really should have watched that before I set up my google reader. I am so much more likely to now see the blogs I am subscribed to and see new information like the blog Day in Washington which gives new information or laws going on in Washington in the world of special education. As a future special education teacher this is a great way to ensure I see all new post. This would be good for the classroom to teach the students how to see their updated blogs as well. I was also really exicted to now know what the orange symbol that I posted below means. Its like this secret little world that I am slowing discovering. This makes it so easy to now quickly view new information all in one place and making sure I do not miss anything.

Thing 9

The generators were very simple to create. For the ImageChef.com I literally just selected the photo I like (the bowl of soup) and then I just typed in the text what I wanted it to display. This would be something fun to change everyday as a welcome greeting to a blog or even on the smartboard to welcome the students in each morning. 

For my second generator I simply uploaded a picture of myself then I chose the template I wanted to have my picture appear in. This would be a great tool for a student of the week or even on a classroom blog page to display art work. Many of the templates could have the students work look like it was displayed on the statue of liberty or Times Square! The students would love to see that!

Thing 8

This is my mashup using Flickr and Mosaic Maker together.These are pictures of my family and the warrior dash which was one of my latest self accomplishments. This started out very fun to make, but I quickly got frustrated when every time I needed to edit something it began the program all over. I did like the fact I could use my pictures from flickr to "sync" with the Mosaic Maker to quickly generate this collage.  Otherwise this is a very neat creation. I would use this to upload my students creations (i.e. art projects) or pictures and then I could create this mosaic to display for all to see. You could even make a bingo board out of it using the letter creator version. Its a quick and easy way to have several pictures together at one time.

Thing 7

Pale Blue Dot aka EARTH 
Upload to Flickr by Andrew Paul Kirchofer


This my friends is us (Earth). As I was searching through Flickr and thinking of keywords of picture I would like to see... Daisy's, Shih Tzu's, the ocean, and then I remembered something we just talked about in church Sunday... The pale blue dot. This picture was taken millions of miles away from Earth and in the orange-ish looking ray on the right hand side is a speck... yea that's us! If you click on the link above (Pale Blue Dot aka Earth)you can see the speck better on the Flickr page and then I encourage you to read what an astronomer said of this picture, but I know you probably won't so at least read this paragraph from him...

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Flickr is a great website for finding any picture you can think of. It would be great for creating worksheets, power points, and even posters. This makes searching the web for pictures a lot easier and now you can save them and keep all photos in one spot without having a million saved photos on your computer and taking up your memory space. I will defiantly be using Flickr more often,

Thing #6

www.goodguide.com This website is an interactive guide to almost any product you can think of! It has a search tool so you can simply type in the product name (example: butterfinger) and it will then generate a list of this product. Pick the one you want and it will then generate a list and grade of this product based on how healthy, "green", and economical it is. So for a Butterfinger candy bar- the information pulled up as followed: It received an overall 4.5 out of 10. A 1.7 in health because it has high levels of saturated fat which can lead to heart disease, for environment it received an 6.3 this is based on how much information this company releases about their product, waste material, etc.. and for society it received an 5.5 based on how this company management system operates and following of policies and procedures.  Then once you scroll down a little lower it gives you nutrition facts such as a butterfinger has 270 calories, 43 g of carbs, and 4 grams of protein. This goodguide works for baby products, household chemicals, really anything you can think of. There is also an app you can download which allows you to scan any product with a bar code and it will automatically display all of the above mentioned information for your product. This is a good tool to help you decide what to buy and what to feed your children/students. You can also customize the product to show you what you want to know, for example what products are gluten free or not- this is a great tool for people with allergies as well.

I could use for this is school settings in a special education teachers class so she can generate a list of approved foods, chemicals, etc.. for say children with autism (that generally need a gluten free diet) but really this would work for any teacher trying to provide a snack for children that may have several allergies. It also helps our school to become more "green" by avoiding or purposely seeking certain products.

Thing #5

Web 2.0 is our current internet... a read and write internet. This combined with school/education gives us School 2.0 and it is making for awesome resource tool for teachers, parents, and students alike. A teacher can now create a blog for her students and parents to access at home- they can ask questions, see upcoming events, and see their progress! This communication and information could have taken days before when you factor in setting up a meeting time, waiting for contacts to me made, and then actually sitting down together. This website or blog etc... not only allows the students or parents to just READ the information (web 1.0) but they can respond, comment, or ask questions (web 2.0).