Thing 4

From what I read, commenting is important because everyone wants to know  that their stuff is being read, because if they didn't they wouldn't be posting it on the internet. It also creates a sense of community.   Some of the rules to leaving comments include: write a meaningful comment, if you have a blog share some about yourself, and remember the power of words, just to name a few.

I commented on L. Oliphant's 23 Things, The Brennan Breeze, AshMiller's 23 Things, JRichardson Explores 23 Things, and 23 Things with Ms. Davis,

I liked L. Oliphant's 23 Things: Thing 8 because I really liked her idea of using word images as spelling words. I think that would be a great way for children to remember spelling words.

I loved the picture The Brennan Breeze made with her Image generator and the fact the she used an inspirational quote to make it. It is definitely one to hang up in the classroom!

I chose to comment on AshMiller's 23 Things because I loved the picture she found and we also agreed about Flickr.

I commented on JRichardson Explores 23 Things, because I loved her idea of using a classroom blog for the parents to read!

I commented on 23 Things with Ms. Davis because I loved her point about connecting a class blog with another class from another country! That would be awesome!

Thing 7

 I chose to just explore Flickr and not actually make an account. There are some amazing photos that I viewed on this website. It would be a great way to have students find a photo that interested them and then describe the picture using as many adjectives as they can.  It could also be used in art class for students to draw the picture that best interests them.  It could also be used for students to use their imagination and write a story describing the picture or write a story from the characters perspective. There is a ton of things that pictures could be used for. I found this photo by typing in animals into the search bar and i saw this one and thought it had great colors and was an overall great picture so I decided to use it.  

Thing 12

http://translate.google.com/#en/es/I%20love%20Laila%20Marie%20to%20the%20moon%20and%20back. Google translate is awesome especially if you have a student or a student's parents who cannot speak English. I chose to write about my child and get it translated into Spanish but there is also other languages to choose from. It would also be very helpful if you were in a foreign country and needed to translate a sign or something like that. 

https://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli=1
The second Google tool I chose was the Google calendar. It was very easy to set up and went step by step and even gave you helpful tips.  As a teacher this would be very useful to be sure and keep up with all the events you have on your schedule.  It also keeps me organized which is very important to me.  It is very easy to add events and gives you hourly times to be sure and make the event at the right time and even warns you ahead of time. Overall, this calendar is something I find very useful. 

Thing 11

Looking for blogs through the cites that were suggested were pretty easy.  The google blog search was very easy.  All you had to do was type in a key word to the normal looking google page and it would pull up the different types of blogs with the key words you used.  However, the topix.net did not work well from my computer at home because a firewall came up so therefore I could not access it. Then the last suggested way to search for blogs was Technorati Tutorial which also very easy to use.  All you had to do was type in a key word as well and it would bring up different blogs you could follow that contained that key word. So both the suggested cites that I got to work were easy. 

Thing 10

The RSS was super easy to make. It was also very easy to subscribe to the different things I wanted to keep up with.  I subscribed to some of the ones that were suggested to us but the other ones I just typed in key words that I wanted to follow and found very interesting things. One of the ones I followed is a women's basketball one. I love basketball and I am a basketball coach at Dickson Middle School, so I thought I would follow something to do with basketball and found a good one.  I watched a video that was posted about Pat Summitt who was one of the best basketball coaches ever and a huge inspiration of mine.  I really enjoyed subscribing to things that interested me and is definitely something I may keep up with. It is also a good way to get helpful tips about becoming a teacher which is another one I decided to subscribe to. 

Thing 9

  
http://www.images-graphics-pics.com/signs/smilies/smiley-faces.asp?page=1                          
http://www.images-graphics-pics.com/signs/fancy-fonts/?text=AMELIA+&size=medium&alphabet=happy-face-smilies

The generators are a good way to make labels for things or student's names or signs.  There is many different ways I can use generators in the classroom. It is also a very easy process. All I had to do was type in what I wanted the message to say and choose the face I wanted to have then push the button and it made the sign for me pretty fast. It is also something fun for the students to do if they needed a sign or a campaign add for homecoming queen or something like that. I enjoyed using the generator. I had never used one before, so it was a fun and easy process.

Thing 8

I used spell with Flickr which was created by Erik Kastner.  All I had to do was type what I wanted it to spell then it would pop up in different pictures.  I could also change the letters to find ones that I liked better.  This would be a good way to incorporate rules and things into the classroom. I could also use it as signs within the classroom.  It was very easy to figure out how to use this site and would be beneficial and creative all at the same time.  I like the idea of sharing photos online. I have a pinterest account and I absolutely love it. Flickr is something new to me, but I still think it is a good way to show off talents and discover ideas. 

Thing 6

I chose to look at youtube http://www.youtube.com/ which is a site I am somewhat familiar with.  I use youtube all the time to watch music videos and I have also had to use it for one of my classes. I think it is a great way for people to find videos to use. For instance, I am going to be an English teacher and I am going to have to teach parts of speech, so I looked up a video that was a rap song about parts of speech which would be a good way to hook the kids and get them interested in what they are going to learn. I also thought it was a great way to incorporate teaching into my online class that I was taking. I had to record myself teaching a lesson then upload it to youtube and my teacher then watched and graded it.  Youtube is just a great way to show case things and an easy way to find useful videos as well. 

Thing 5

School 2.0 is something that is becoming more and more popular.  For instance writing this blog is one aspect of School 2.0. As advanced as technology is becoming I definitely think it should be incorporated into the school system. One of the articles said school systems would be at risk if they do not incorporate all this new technology.  However, I think it is going to be essential for teachers to become as familiar as possible with all this new technology and stay up to date because all the kids will leave the teachers in the dust if they don't.  Schools are trying to incorporate more and more technology into the system now, but in the future I think it will be even more so incorporated.  We will add new technologies that will help students and make it easier for them and the teachers.  I think we are really only beginning to see technology in schools.