Thing Thirteen

At first, I was a little leery with delicious... what was the purpose? Once I started exploring and creating my own delicious account I started to see multiple uses! Number one - it will certainly save me time transferring favorite websites from home to school. (school computers are way to slow to consider surfing the web) Usually, I would email them to my school email, open and save in favorites. Now I don't have to. Number two - I am visualizing a delicious page for my classroom to list the sites that I would like the students to go to. They always seem to find the sites where people are shooting each other!!

Thing Twelve

I assumed (shame on me) that individuals would know how to write appropriate comments on blogs. I did not know that there were so many blogs blogging about the ways to do it. Interesting. I guess I would have to consider how meaningful it is for me to comment. I definitely comment on friends blogs, but have never bothered on others. For Library2Play purposes I have been viewing and attempting comments- always positive. I would never consider leaving a critical comment. I liked the idea of hyperlinking my blog to the comment... I never thought of that before. Good idea! I will have to say that an author commented on one of my classroom postings and it was very powerful for my students to see the impact of their writing.

Five Blogs I have commented on: http://secondtimer2.blogspot.com/
http://mrsphillipsatmarktwain.blogspot.com/ http://www.babyseberger.blogspot.com/
http://camillem23things.blogspot.com/ http://michelerawson.blogspot.com/

New blogs that I recently discovered: http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/
http://katenarita.blogspot.com/2010/06/place-for-frogs.html (Reviews and lesson plans for classroom books) http://www.kerismith.com/blog (author and illustrator)

Thing Eleven

While I love to keep lists of what books I have read (seems to be a family tradition) I do not care to much for Library Thing. I am not one to read the reviews of others before choosing books. It seems like this is something for when you have absolutely nothing else to do! I usually do not have that problem. I have to admit I am a paper and pen kinda of girl and I still enjoy the old fashioned way of cataloging the books I have read. However, I am open to giving it a go. I did sign up and choose a few favorites both classroom and personal.

Thing Ten

Love Love Love the image generators!! Found some amazing stuff on several sites... Jellymuffin was great for creating signs, but I am having difficulty transferring to the header. I tried to delete current header, but I couldn't make it happen. My new favorite is GLOGSTER!! This site is amazing. You can put videos and hotlink connections and make the collage come to life. I will definitely be using this in the classroom. My students will be making Glogsters about themselves and then presenting to the class. So excited about this new find!

Thing Nine

I would have to say that I did not care for the search tools. I found myself glancing very quickly and if the information is not there-I move on. The easiest was the google blog search because the page setup is familiar and linear and easy on the eyes. I opened Syndic8 and quickly decided this is not the page for me!! I did find some useful sites that I posted to my google reader. The most unusual find was a teacher blog who found a baby hummingbird in her backyard this summer. While the blog was interesting I was more fascinated with the videos and updates on Birdy and wanted to know if he would make it. I had to read all entries to discover that in the end not only did Birdy survive, but he was reunited with his mother!

Thing Eight

I have been wondering what a RSS feed was... Lucky me I just found out. Don't know if I need another way to surf through the web for information. I will be compelled to read every entry on my subscriptions!! Is that a good thing? I am not sure. However, I did discover a great blog for teachers through one of the blogs on my subscriptions so maybe that's what it is all about. It is a great way to keep track of what is happening in other classrooms. You can quickly scan the posts to see if a topic intersts you. I am thinking of getting a subscription to the scholastic book club page that always has articles of interest for my students. Personally, I would use it to keep up with friends blogs. (Easier than looking at my blogger account to see who updated!)It would work in the classroom by creating a reader page for a specific topic for kids to view.

Thing Seven

What I liked most about Google!
1. igoogle page - I liked Glenn's idea of using it as part of our morning routine at school. I love the Art of the Day and could use it for a writing activity. I want to tie in somehow someway to writing. Make a list of colors used. Make a list of adjectives to describe the picture etc...
2. Google Earth - I don't think I can say enough about GoogleEarth in this short post!! It is a never ending tool that can be used in so many ways. For my architecture planner we can go to visit the buildings... look at 3D representations so much better than a picture in a book. We can visit the tallest building in the world and look at the curvature of the Earth from the top. How amazing is that? That is just one idea... I have six planners and Google Earth will be used for all of them!
3. Google Docs is my new favorite!! What a great way for teachers to share and edit information. Instead of pasting and copying etc... just share the document. Love it. I will also use this with my writing group. We can share our work and the other writers can offer comments, edits and suggestions. I will be googling for some time.