Thing # 14

Technorati

I had a little bit of difficulty navigating around their site when I first visited Technorati, but the mor etime I spent there the easier it got. I liked the fact that you can search blogs and like MHS Broadcasting said in his post I did a search for CS4 information since I recently loaded this software set on my laptop and found some cool blogs about hints, tips, and personally created shortcuts to performing operations in Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash. I wil definitely be spending more time here as I venture out in learning all of the CS4 applications that came in my bundle.

I am still not sold on the whole tags thing. They are growing on me, but I still have difficulty with the randomness of people's tags. Some individuals do a really good job of tagging and others simply use it as a blanket category for anything having to do with a particular topic. This is frustrating at times.

I have not claimed my blogs yet on Technorati and I am still thinking about it. If anyone would like to share their thoughts on this and if they have done it yet I would greatly appreciate it!

Thing # 13

Tags

I have mixed feelings about tags and social bookmarking. I can see the benefits of it. It is a great way to move form computer to computer and across different platforms and still be able to access your bookmarks. I know I have spent many hours reinventing the wheel when I have changed computers or had to reimage a machine. The ease of the tags is another benefit that can help focus research and channel sites for student use.

Some of the concerns I have is that if you do not tag a site correctly it can waste time while searching. Say you are researching a specific topic - you are going to look for tags about that topic, but if someone has incorrectly tagged a site it can become frustrating if you keep pulling up sites that do not solidly connect with your topic. Also sites that you may find, tag, and add to your list at home that you know your students would benefit from may be blocked when you go back to campus. Some people may argue that you could use the VPN to check them since the same filters are active through that login, but that can be more of a hassle to log in to the VPN and search.

I can see the benefits of using tags - it would help the younger students focus when doing research. If I had created some tags on weathering then the students in the lab or in their classroom would be able to use my delicious tags to research the topic without having to filter through all the muck on the internet.

Thing # 12

The two most useful things that I found by reading the articles were how to embed a hyperlink from Cool Cat's blog and the question posed on the Blue Skunk blog about "Are You Contributing to the General Discussion?"

I often post to blogs I follow so it is useful to know about embedding a hyperlink. I have often seen it done I just did not know how to do it. It provides a much cleaner look by the hyperlink displaying text rather than a URL. I will have to start using this from now on when I reference something in a post. I have included a picture of what I am talking about below.


The other thing that really stood out for me is the point about contributing to the general discussion. I know that I am guilty of this, but it is annoying as a blog writer when someone comments on my blogs with one word like "yes" or "I agree". I would like to know more like why do you agree with me or what are your thoughts. It would just add to the whole discussion if we have more discussion.

I comment and post on several blogs. The three that I would like to discuss are my own blog about my weight loss called "Transformations" where I write about my successes and struggles as I continue my journey into getting healthy and shedding weight. Another is my brother's blog on recovery and life after a stroke. It is a great blog and I am a regular contributor to it. The last one is "Capturing Beauty". This is a blog that my brother started where each month we have a theme and we capture beauty (to us) based on that theme through pictures. Being a shutterbug that I am I am naturally drawn to this blog and enjoy posting to it (even though it is not as routine as I would like).

Thing # 11

I spent some time checking out Library Thing and at this time I do not see a need for it in my current occupation. I only have a few books that I will use next year in my science lab so it is easy to view them on the shelf. I have no need to catalog or search through my titles for various books.

I did spend some time looking at the groups and I found a few that I would look into on a personal level, but not for anything having to do with my job.

If I find another way to use this site and the resources there I will definitely use it in the future. I will revisit this at a later time.

Thing # 10

Cool stuff!

OK - I had some fun with this one. I checked out all the different image generators and I really liked Dumpr, Comic Strip Generator, Happy Face Generator, Big Huge Labs, and Wordle. I have already discussed Wordle in a previous post so I will focus on the other three. I have included some samples of things I created in this post.

Dumpr
http://www.dumpr.net/

I created a rubiks cube on the water cycle and it's really awesome. Even though it is a virtual cube I can see the kids really getting into this. If I paid for the upgraded subscription I could print out high resolution graphics and buy blank rubik's cubes and stick my graphics on for a cool activity in the science lab.


Big Huge Labs
http://bighugelabs.com/

I have used this application before and loved it. I have created a magazine cover on Texas caves and am interested in using Motivator to create posters for the hallways in our school using pictures that are relevant to the students, jigsaw to create interactive games for primary students with science and math concepts, and mosaic maker to introduce teachers to each other. I would have included my magazine cover, but it is saved on another computer. I will have to upload it later.

Comic Strip Generator
http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/

It was just a fun way to leave notes for kids or to remind them about science lab safety. I completed a fun one just because. I will definitely post some of these around my science lab next year.



Happy Face Generator
http://www.happyfacegenerator.com/

Making signs for the lab and notes for students with a smile are neat ways to use this application.

Thing # 9

Which Search tool was the easiest for you?

The search tool that I found to be the easiest was not actually a search tool, but rather the blogroll off of the Cool Cat Teacher blog. I really like the resources that are available there for educators and I added several of them to my RSS feeds in google reader. After that I liked Technorati. The ease of the search tool was nice.

Which was more confusing?

I did not like the search tool Syndic8.com. The layout was ust kind of there and I did not like the way that the search engine located blog feeds. The appearance was not appealing to me.

What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find?

I added some more blogs on educational technology to my feeds. There were some great ones that focused on practical applications in the 21st century classroom that I liked. I also found some techie ones which will come in handy when dealing with broken equipment on campus.

Some of the unusual ones were just random posts by individuals that did not seem to have any rhyme or reason to them. It just appeared that there were a bunch of random posts that were thrown together that didn't seem to have a flow to them. Some of the reading ones that were on the blogroll were weird and unusual. Even though they had a unified theme to them some of the posts and stories there were odd and I felt like a few were not appropriate for children even though they were teacher blogs.

Thing # 8

I used the RSS subscription with Google Reader to subscribe to 4 educational technology feeds and four elementary science feeds. I like the fact that I do not have to go and find all of the blogs and bookmark them to check the updates, but rather I can just use google reader to look at all of my subscriptions in one location. This really simplifies things and saves a lot of time searching or pulling up various pages when it is the content that really matters.

This was really cool! Because of this I have learned some cool tips and tricks that I can share with the teachers back on my campus. I have enjoyed reading about the current trends in educational technology and what is happening in other schools to improve educational technology.

In the area of science education I can keep up with all the latest and greatest and I even found a cool link that updates free science downloads (software, tools, and gadgets) in the area of elementary science.

I believe that readers allow for simplification in subscribing to RSS feeds. Like I mentioned before if all the feeds are in one location you could publish the list for teachers, staff, etc. to be able to view the feeds on a regular basis and it simplifies the process for them. This might encourage them to utilize the technology more and ease them into trying new things.

Thing # 7

The two Google Applications I have used are Google Docs and Google Earth.

Google Docs was introduced to me about a year and a half ago by my graduate school companions. We were looking for a way to share our projects among each other and we would email them back and forth with revisions and changes and it was getting annoying because it was hard to keep up with the most current version. One member of my group suggested Google Docs - amazing. We started to do all of our collaboration on this and it was awesome. We would start the document and then everyone could log in and edit our group projects. It was a lot easier and the collaboration increased tremendously. I could see teams of teachers using this as a way to share lesson plans or ideas with each other and sharing documents across walls and even buildings.

Google Earth is a cool and exciting way for students to view places that they will never have the experience of traveling to. I have used it to take kids to various ecosystems, habitats, and landforms around the world. The kids can zoom in on the ice caps and the Sahara desert as well as exploring our galaxy above.

Thing # 6

My mashup is Wordle. It can be found at the following link: http://www.wordle.net/

I like this because I can take a science concept that I am going to teach to students and put all of the vocabulary for that topic and put them in a Wordle. Then I can display them and gather prior knowledge or use it as a post assessment or review piece to see what the kids can tell me.

It is also a cool way to introduce staff to a new concept as an introduction. Plus they are a lot of fun to create and display - (Thing 7 1/2) - PLAY!

Thing # 5

The following two pictures were taken from the Creative Commons on Flickr. Both pictures deal with science and since I am a science specialist at PSE these types of pictures will come in handy during the school year. I can see this area of Flickr beign helpful because I can find examples of science concepts that my students might not have the opportunity to experience in person. This may aid in solidifying learning for my students.


Clouds and sky by kapacha
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kepacha/3633120785/





Earth Formations by Roxanne
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johiscar/3633124639/

Thing #3

Well my blog has been set up and we are up and running with the 23 things. This was not a new experience for me since I already publish and contribute to several other blogs so the process was quick in setting it up. As you can see on the right of my screen I have created an avatar that best represents me. This was a fun process that allows for one's creativity to shine through. I'm a pretty "plain jane" kind of guy so therefor I am in a t-shirt and blue jeans. The only thing I would change would be to place myself in a pair of shorts - now that it is in triple digits during the summer heat!

Thing # 2

7 1/2 Habits of Effective Learning

Habit 1: Begin with the end in mind
Habit 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning
Habit 3: View problems as challenges
Habit 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
Habit 5: Create your own learning toolbox
Habit 6: Use technology to your advantage
Habit 7: Teach / mentor others
Habit 7 1/2: Play

The most significant thing that I got from watching the video entitled: 7 1/2 Habits is that all of these habits are extremely important and beneficial to all. If I had to select one that stands out to me it would be Habit 6. In my day to day operations on my campus and in my life I am constantly faced with challenges and problems that have to be solved. By using technology to my advantage I not only can complete a lot of these problems more efficiently, but also more effectively. I try to instill in others the drive to utilize the technology to their advantage even though it falls on deaf ears sometimes. Often I have found myself looking up things online that I do not have an answer for and have quickly found the answers to my questions and often more than I was looking for.

The second one that I feel is important is PLAY! I know that we don't take the time to enjoy and have fun with our students or as ourselves as much as we should. We get too wrapped up in being adults and with paperwork and need to take a page out of the recess book and just get out there, have fun and play!