Thing #4

Commenting opens up the world of blogging. It opens up conversation and intellectual conversation with one another. When people comment it lets the bloggers know that what they have to say is important, fun, or even soemthing to disagree to. In my opinion I think that there would not be very many bloggers out in the world if no one commented on them. Why write something to the world and have no response? My first blog I commented on was Darlena Gary. I commented on hers because I really agreed with her thoughts on about igoogle and her google calender. Next was Christy Wilson and I commented on her blog about pictures. I commented because her post was fun and fresh and I really wanted her to know that I thought that way. Della Proctor was next for me and I commented on her blog about picture editing. The main reason why I commented on this blog was because I know Della from high school and the people in her pictures were also from high school and I thought it was so cute how she edited her pictures. It made me have a wholesome laugh about it. Alexa Tyler had a great idea for using Spell in her classroom for the children to have name tags instead of plain jane ones and I thought that was really neat and thoughtful, so I let her know. The last person that I commented in class was to Lakisha Tramill and it was about her great post on cooking and the website she found! She found this website that allows you to watch people cook online and different recipes from all over the world and you can put your own recipe in. The two that I chose that were not in the class room were by Elena and the other was by Lauren Ulm. Both these ladies had blogs about recipes for vegans and Lauren's blog became so popular that she created a book! I am planning to go pick her book up this weekend it is called "Vegan! Yum Yum!" Both these ladies recipes looked so delicious my mouth started watering. I chose to make encouraging and agreeable comments. I think comments should be supportive and happy. When commenting I made sure that nothing but praise came out and excitement for what they had to say and thought about.

Thing #12

I love google. I have Picasa downloaded to my computer and I love all the features that Picasa can do for me. It was free and it is so easy to work and play around with your pictures. I also have a google calender. I love this feature because I have to be organized with school and know when is what. Also, I am getting married in May and I literally think it would be impossible for me to remember everything I had to do with school, work, and wedding scedules if it was not for this calender. I think these tools would be great for a classroom. I would probably introduce the igoogle webpage and the calender and have students set one up for themselves and some children would actually enjoy having something online to keep up with their schedule because everything is internet now a days for children. igoogle could allow my students to check world news and see whats going on around the world because most students have no idea what's going on outside their town.

Thing #11

When I was searching for feeds I found Google and Technorati were the easiest for me to search for what I wanted. Google to me was the easiest to find what I was looking for. I wanted a vegan recipe site and it gave me exactly what I was looking for. The most confusing to me was Topix. There was so much going on everywhere and I did not see a search bar for me to look for my feed. I only could find a place to put in your zip code. I really did not like this website. Also, Sindic8 was... very boring. To me it honestly looked like someone had made it in the nineties and forgot to update it. Everything is so aquare. I just became vegan not too long ago so I am new to everything about it so I found neat websites and blogs about things/recipes that vegans can eat and how to substitute for dairy products. Things that I found were not so nice was a blog about calling vegan's nut-jobs because a vegan got upset. Anyone can become upset. The tools that I used was just to type in what I wanted and I waited to see what came up. These feeds were a lot more helpful than using google search. I felt like it was more on a personal level reading some of theses blogs.

Thing #10

Wow! I am always amazed at the new things I keep finding. I never would of thought that there was a website that keeps up with your websites that you like and then lets you know when something new is going on. AWESOME! I like RSS for the tracking that it is doing with my websites and recipes and all sorts of things. I always like knowing whats going on in the world so it is nice to know that I am only ONE click away from knowing the news. I will definately be using this in my personal life to keep up with all my favorite websites and I think teachers of all people can benefit from this website. Teachers can put all their education websites on RSS and instead of having to open up many tabs they can just open up one website and vuala! There is all the websites that they might need.

Thing #9

Now this was neat! I took forever trying to find the right ones for each. I honestly did not know that doing these things were that easy. I would of done these types of things a long time of ago if only I knew how easy and carefree it was. For the magazine one I just clicked on the link in 23 things for customizing and then it asked me to upload a picture so I uploaded one of my engagement pictures then I could pick what I wanted to do from frames, scrapbooking, magazines, adding text, adding a scene behind the picture, the possibilities were endless! So, I chose magazines then it had lists and lists of pages so I went through about five of them and I chose the perfect one for Richard and I. Then on my second one I did the same things with a picture of my little family and I chose scrapbooking. Again it had lists and I chose the one I liked the best. I could use this in a classroom by having the kids involved and maybe make like a little scrapbook/magazine about the story we are reading and find pictures that they best thinks describes the story or the lesson.

http://graphics.imagetemplate.net/scrapbooking/?template=0-600-584-i_love_you_so_much-65_224_412_307

http://pictureimage.brinkster.net/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fimageshack%2Eus%2Ftransload%2Ephp%3Furl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efototrix%2Ecom%2Fuploaded%2F68%2D114%2D141%2D106%2DRECENT%2Ejpg

Thing #8

I enjoyed doing this name match up so much! I think I sat there for thirty minutes just trying to find the right letters that I liked. I could use this in my class by introducing a subject with these letters in any grade level or on the first day of class have all the students names printed out like this and put there names on the desk and that will be where they sit for the semester depending on the grade level. I think sharing photos online is a great and bad thing. I think it is a great thing for educational purposes and finding new things like the jellyfish I found in my last blog but I think it is a bad thing when nude pictures or unwanted things are on the internet to aid peoples addictions. That is when I think sharing pictures on the internet is a bad thing.

Thing #7

When I visited Flickr I first went to tulips because they are my favorite flowers. After I got through with tulips I wanted to look up thunderstorms because to me western thunderstorms on a plateau are just so transforming. But then I thought of something that I think are the most beautiful creatures and I wanted to see what kind of photographs they would have on here. So I looked up jellyfish and I found this picture. It is so beautiful to me! All the colors in this picture are so unique and I could look at this picture and just feel so tranquil. Thank you Miron Podgorean for putting this picture on Flickr for people like me to enjoy and stare at. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mironp/1320853031/

Thing #6

I chose Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/). I have previously used picasa in my technical writing class and we had to write and compose a manual on how to use picasa. I really enjoy picasa because you can edit a picture just about anyway you want to. Then when you are done with the picture you can keep all your pictures in a google account and it holds all the pictures you could of ever wanted to save. You can tag people and one of the features that I really enjoy about Picasa is that you can make a collage and choose different styles on how you would like it to look. Also you can download it for free on your computer and it imports all your pictures automatically. I really cannot say that there is something that I do not like about this photo editing site. My students could use this site and take all their pictures and make them into a collage and on the first week have them come up and explain who they are and show their collage to the class so the other students and I can get to know everyone on a personal and professional level.

Thing #5

Web 2.0 means to me that the world is opening up to new things, education, ideas, cultures, creativity, and so much more! When I think back to when I was in seventh grade the internet was just something to use AIM, email, and to google. The internet was nothing to brag about back then. Now that Web 2.0 is out and about, there are so many posibilities and opportunities. Now I can look at books online, watch a music video, talk to someone from another country for free through the internet. With education children can watch videos on how things can be accomplished. Say you teach a science class instead of trying to explain how to do something you can just youtube the information and you can teach your class as the video is playing on how to disect something. This way visual, auditory, and hands-on learning is all happening in the same class period. Students can create websites and create pictures, there is so many things that can be done with Web 2.0 for education. Ultimately, Web 2.0 is changing lives.