LibraryThing
Ok, well first things first, I am not a librarian. So I won't even pretend like I can compete in the volume of books category. However, I do LOVE to read and have quite a collection at home. I must say, LibraryThing is awesome. I am thinking about just adding all my books that I have at home just to keep up with them. Also, I love that you can see how many other people have that book tagged and look at other peoples lists. My sister in laws and mother in law and I all share books frequently, but we all live far apart from eachother. Sharing our LibraryThing lists and creating a group would be a great way to find books we havent read and figure out exchanging them. I love seeing how many people are on LibraryThing posting messages trying to find new good reads and the groups are fun. I love Harry Potter so I checked out some Harry Potter groups and wish I had known about them when the last book came out so I would have a fun group to discuss with as I read. As far as in class I dont know how I can use this for math...but I'll keep thinking!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Thing #10
Online Image Generator
Well apparently security is pretty high around here b/c I wasn't able to access several of the image generators (at least not fully). In any case though I finally got to play with ImageChef (http://www.imagechef.com/) and had alot of fun doing it (see my sidebar). I found it very easy to use, they have tons of premade (and animated!!!) backgrounds and all I had to do was type in some text! I love putting quotes up in my room, and so I took one my classes favorite quotes (by Thom Yorke) and made it into a fortune cookie for my blog. I love it! I think this would be a great way to creatively put instructions or reminders on an assignment or notes and it may even be fun to have kids create their own (on the sites where they can use their own images) as an assignment. Very cool tool overall. One of my favorites.
Well apparently security is pretty high around here b/c I wasn't able to access several of the image generators (at least not fully). In any case though I finally got to play with ImageChef (http://www.imagechef.com/) and had alot of fun doing it (see my sidebar). I found it very easy to use, they have tons of premade (and animated!!!) backgrounds and all I had to do was type in some text! I love putting quotes up in my room, and so I took one my classes favorite quotes (by Thom Yorke) and made it into a fortune cookie for my blog. I love it! I think this would be a great way to creatively put instructions or reminders on an assignment or notes and it may even be fun to have kids create their own (on the sites where they can use their own images) as an assignment. Very cool tool overall. One of my favorites.
Thing #9
RSS Continued: Useful Blogs and News Feeds
I personally like the google blog search the easiest to use and one of the best ways to find feeds. However, I also have just gone to some of my favorite websites (i.e. CNN.com) and looked at the blogs some of their writers follow and or contribute to. The one thing I really liked about Technorati was being able to see the articles/blogs that are "rising" or being viewed and tagged frequently. I really didn't like the Syndic8 site. The layout of the search results was not very useful and you had to click through to each blog to even get an idea what it was like, no summaries or anything like that are available on the search results page. I found some really useful Math/Education feeds. I think my favorite is Nick's Mathematical Puzzles - it has great problems/brainteasers to use with my GT group. As far as unusual ones...well, there seems to be a blog about EVERYTHING. I am not kidding. There are some eccentric people out there blogging about everything from their latest bodily function to their cat's travels.....
I personally like the google blog search the easiest to use and one of the best ways to find feeds. However, I also have just gone to some of my favorite websites (i.e. CNN.com) and looked at the blogs some of their writers follow and or contribute to. The one thing I really liked about Technorati was being able to see the articles/blogs that are "rising" or being viewed and tagged frequently. I really didn't like the Syndic8 site. The layout of the search results was not very useful and you had to click through to each blog to even get an idea what it was like, no summaries or anything like that are available on the search results page. I found some really useful Math/Education feeds. I think my favorite is Nick's Mathematical Puzzles - it has great problems/brainteasers to use with my GT group. As far as unusual ones...well, there seems to be a blog about EVERYTHING. I am not kidding. There are some eccentric people out there blogging about everything from their latest bodily function to their cat's travels.....
Thing #8
RSS
I have heard about RSS feeds for a while, but have avoided creating one because I wasn't convinced it would make life any easier. However, after checking into my google reader account and adding some of my favorite news sources, blogs and some new math blogs I found I must say I think it's awesome! What a great way to compile a ton of information in one local place and easily skim for new information of interest. I think for school its great b/c as I add more and more education blogs I will be able to quickly get ideas and math problems from other educators around the world. I think as a librarian this would be a dream application because you could set up a reader based on a certain subject so that when students came to research you would already have several sources all feeding into one localized place that all the students can access and view. Incredible!
I have heard about RSS feeds for a while, but have avoided creating one because I wasn't convinced it would make life any easier. However, after checking into my google reader account and adding some of my favorite news sources, blogs and some new math blogs I found I must say I think it's awesome! What a great way to compile a ton of information in one local place and easily skim for new information of interest. I think for school its great b/c as I add more and more education blogs I will be able to quickly get ideas and math problems from other educators around the world. I think as a librarian this would be a dream application because you could set up a reader based on a certain subject so that when students came to research you would already have several sources all feeding into one localized place that all the students can access and view. Incredible!
Thing #7
Google Tools
As a teacher I think my favorite google tool is the notebook. I can find things online that relate to our curriculum and easily file them away to share with my team or come back to later. I also really like using the advanced search for .pdf files to find worksheets that are similar to ones we are using in class. While on the google tools I also used iGoogle to personalize my home page, and had lots of fun with Google earth. That tool is amazing!!!
As a teacher I think my favorite google tool is the notebook. I can find things online that relate to our curriculum and easily file them away to share with my team or come back to later. I also really like using the advanced search for .pdf files to find worksheets that are similar to ones we are using in class. While on the google tools I also used iGoogle to personalize my home page, and had lots of fun with Google earth. That tool is amazing!!!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Thing #6
Mashups!
So far I think that Thing #6 has been the one I have had the most fun with! I consider myself a "technology native" (as opposed to a "technology immigrant
") and feel like I have seen alot of what is on the web. But Mashups are new to me and I had a blast playing with all that was out there. For my classroom I thought some of the sites would be great for making motivational posters and visual aids. But I must admit that I was most amused by the Color Fields Colr Pickr site - what an amazing way to see photographs!
So far I think that Thing #6 has been the one I have had the most fun with! I consider myself a "technology native" (as opposed to a "technology immigrant
") and feel like I have seen alot of what is on the web. But Mashups are new to me and I had a blast playing with all that was out there. For my classroom I thought some of the sites would be great for making motivational posters and visual aids. But I must admit that I was most amused by the Color Fields Colr Pickr site - what an amazing way to see photographs!
Thing #5
Flickr
Being a long time Yahoo.com user, Flickr is a website I have run across before. However, since I just returned from a trip to Colorado I figured it would be a good time to try out all of the features of Flickr with my new photos. So I uploaded my pics and tagged them all. It was interesting to look at other photos that shared the same tags as some of mine. I also set up a group so that all of the other couples that went to Colorado with us can share their pictures in a central location -- I love that feature. Now I just have to hope that they will all do it! In any case, Flickr is a great way to organize/share photos - but I think my favorite thing about it is being able to search through all of the AMAZING photographs that are on it! There are some amazing undiscovered photographers out there!
Being a long time Yahoo.com user, Flickr is a website I have run across before. However, since I just returned from a trip to Colorado I figured it would be a good time to try out all of the features of Flickr with my new photos. So I uploaded my pics and tagged them all. It was interesting to look at other photos that shared the same tags as some of mine. I also set up a group so that all of the other couples that went to Colorado with us can share their pictures in a central location -- I love that feature. Now I just have to hope that they will all do it! In any case, Flickr is a great way to organize/share photos - but I think my favorite thing about it is being able to search through all of the AMAZING photographs that are on it! There are some amazing undiscovered photographers out there!
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