Thing 16

The start page I choose was Women For Women. This start page spoke to me because of the classes I am taking this semester. I feel that women need to find their voice and use it to help other women find their own voice. I have already made my new start page my home page. I love having it be the first thing I see when I start up the internet. The online calendars would be very useful to keep in an educational setting to help students know about upcoming events in your classroom. These calendars could also be useful for giving you reminders about upcoming events. I enjoyed using Ta-Da List but it was a lot of work. I will however keep my to-do list on my start page. I like having all my needs in one spot. I used lifehacker.com to help me learn how to make my computer more productive. I liked this tool a lot and added it to my google reader.

Thing 15

I had a hard time with the APSU23Things sandbox. It was more trouble than it was worth. I am sure wikis can be useful in an educational setting. I might even create one for a presentation I have coming up. This idea is awesome. I would love to see this concept come to fruition and be used in classrooms. I also think that looking at other people's wikis can be helpful even if anyone can edit the information. My only concern with wikis is that since anyone can edit the wiki, you might have someone trying to cause problems or mess up something and you end up with incorrect information. I will try my hand at creating one down the road and I just might come to like it.

Thing 14

The first tool I choose was bubbl.us. This site was so user friendly. I had a blast making my mind map. I had a hard time brain storming an idea to start this off with. I think this tool could be useful for planning for a field trip or even what activities we are gonna do next week. This tool might even be useful for brain storming on a paper. I can see myself using this tool in the future.


The second tool I choose to work with was gliffy.com. I hated this site because there was no real guide to get you through your first use of the site. I felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I wish this site could be more user friendly or have a tutorial. This site does not have any real educational value that I can see.I will not use this site in the future.

Thing 13

I was not a fan of ZOHO. I found that since I could not post my documents directly to my blog, I had to copy and paste my response into blogger. I do not see how this could be useful in the classroom. I refuse to ever use this site again. I guess it might be helpful in you had no word processing program on the computer.

Here are my thoughts on Google Docs

Overall I prefer googledocs because it allows sharing and editing among groups of people. ZOHO is more difficult to use and sharing is not easy to do. I hope that I have some chances for my students to use googledocs in the classroom.

Thing 12

I played around with the calandar feature google has as well as the translator. I did not care for the calendar because it was confusing and it was not friendly to adding school assignments so I  could put in due dates. I loved the translator because it can detect the forign language and translate to english as well as translate back with just the click of a button. Since I have a lot of friends overseas this tool is amazing and makes conversations so much easier. These tools both have educational value. the calendar can be used as the classroom calendar to keep up with show dates and other important assignments and dates. The translator might be useful if I have a student who speaks another language.

Thing 11

I found it easiest to just search for new feeds. I also found google blog search to be the easiest to navigate. I did not care for Syndic8.com. I found this site difficult and frustrating. I found sites like coupon mom and different homeschool sites. I even found a first year teacher blogging about his experience. I found lots of boring things where people were just posting the same thing. I got tired of weeding through all the junk just to find my diamonds.

Thing 10

I set up my RSS feed and I love the idea of being able to see everything at once. I never knew this was even a possibility before this class. I love to follow blogs but I get so tired of going to each blog. This reader makes life so much easier. This technology will be useful in my classroom because my students and I can keep up with other classroom blogs and news that is important to our class. Using this reader will allow us to focus on the information without wasting too much time going from site to site. Teachers can post their own blog to share things they find that work in the classroom and in other areas of education. I know that I will use this to let parents know what is going on in our class.