Thing #12 - I Heart Google

Bienvenue sur mon blog! (Welcome to my blog!)

Google is SO much more than a search engine.

Google can help you in so many ways with productivity tools such as:
Help you organize your day, month, and year - Google Calendar
Offers a customizable personal homepage - iGoogle
Seeking information on a certain topic? Google will search it for you. - Google Alerts
Personal image storage with edit features - Picasa
Need to translate? - Google Translate

Here is a snapshot of my iGoogle page. Every aspect of the page is customizable to reflect your interests.

Other productivity tools that Google offers:
Google News
Google Docs - a free data storage service offered by Google.
Google Books
Google Wallet

Thing #11 Feeds

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?

I have to say that I really like Google Reader and RSS the most. They are both user-friendly and accessible to myself since I use Gmail. Both have tools that recommend additional blogs to follow.

Which Search tool was the easiest for you?

Google Reader was the easiest for me. Some of the others were confusing which leads to the next question...

Which was more confusing?

I looked at Topix.net and Technorati. I had no idea what to do on Topix.net and it looked like a chatboard. I then looked at Technorati and watched the tutorial. This was an "okay" search site but not very appealing. Both of these sites also seemed very dated.

What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

I think Google is the way to go, for myself at least. It's easy for anyone to use and it stays up-to-date.

Thing #10 I Have FINALLY Learned About RSS!

I have been an avid blog reader for some time and when stumbling upon a new one to follow, I would always notice that one way to subscribe was to use an RSS feed. I never knew what that was (until now!)and for some reason I have never looked into it. It's so easy!

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?

What I love about RSS is that instead of subscribing to blogs with my email address (like I used to do), I can subscribe through RSS and have all of the blogs I follow under my Google Reader account. This way, new blog posts are not taking up room in my email and all of the new posts are in one place for me to read at my convenience.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?

For my personal and professional life, I will be able to use RSS to subscribe to blogs that will help and enhance my classroom and personal life. RSS conveniently keeps all of my subscriptions in one place and is easily accessible.

How can teachers use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

Teachers can subscribe to readers or blogs that give useful information for their classroom conveniently through RSS. Teachers may also set up a classroom blog and offer RSS as a subscription service.

Thing #9 Fun Image Generators

There are quite a number of free image generators out there. Image generators are fun to make signs for your classroom or to put on your classroom blog. For the above image, I used an arcade games generator. I love classic video games and my favorite one is Galaga. There are numerous options for making an image generator such as cartoons, famous people, smileys, or even upload your own image.

Thing #8 - Travel with Flickr!

I've never really thought of mashups before reading this article about it by Wikipedia. I learned that a mashup is a remix of digital data. Flickr does this by incorporating Google Maps with the location of the images on the site. I thought this would be a great way to explore different areas of the world with my class. If we are studying say, Ireland, we could search "Ireland" on Flickr to bring up images from that area as well as learn exactly where in Ireland the image is from. This would give the students a more realistic look into life in that area than just looking at a map.

I do not mind sharing photos online as long as they are appropriate and not too personal. I read a lot of "teacher" blogs and I have noticed that they do not show the faces of their students for privacy reasons.

Thing #7 Flickr

Clouds, a photo by StephanieWphotos on Flickr.

I explored Flickr numerous times for this post and finally chose a picture of a Northern Pygmy Owl (I have a new, weird fascination with them for some reason). I know what you're thinking..this isn't a picture of a pygmy owl. This is because I tried and TRIED to upload the picture using the photo link on Blogger and it just would not work for me. Then I thought it would be cooler to have my own Flickr account anyway, so I did just that. I love taking pictures with my iPhone. I took this picture of clouds with my phone and I really like it so I thought I would share it!

Thing #6 Discovering Web 2.0 Tools - Flickr

While there were many sites that I'm familiar with and used on Web 2.0, I've never taken the opportunity to explore Flickr. Flickr is a photo sharing website where you can upload and share photos as well as videos. You can also explore photos uploaded by other people all around the world. Photos may be shared from Flickr to Facebook, Twitter, blogs, emails, and more.

What did you like or dislike about the tool?

The features I love: photo sharing, the option to have your photos private, the great photography from others. As for now, since I'm so new to the site, there is not a feature that I dislike.

What were the site’s useful features?

The site's useful features are the photo sharing features. Flickr makes it easy to post photos to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites as well as emails.

Could you see any applications for its use in a school or library setting?

Flickr is a great tool for teachers to store photos for presentations as well as visual representations of different elements of content.