Thing #15

Before reading this, the only wiki I knew about was Wikipedia.  The first time I used Wikipedia I thought it was God's gift to students.  Wikipedia knows EVERYTHING!  Until my teachers told me that it was an unreliable source.  I never understood why until my friend edited something on Chris Brown's Wikipedia page.  Anyone can add, delete, or change something on a wiki.  Because of this, the information is not always accurate.  The perfect example is from after last year's Grammys.  When Justin Beiber did not win the Grammy for best new artists, his fans edited Esperanza Spalding's Wikipedia page.  Most of what they were saying was completely inaccurate and highly inappropriate.  Therefore, Wikipedia is a blessing and a curse for me.

The best way I could see this working in a classroom is as a book summary type of thing.  Students would post summaries of the books they read.  I think its neat because they will be writing it.  I'd rather read a book that my peer described than a book than my teacher described.  Even though both descriptions would be accurate, my peer's would probably be more interesting.

Thing #14

Flow charts make like easier! They remind me of PowerPoint presentations.  Using these helps your audience follow you as you present data.  It's easier to show a class a flowchart of the order of operations than it is to say step 1, step 2,.....
I never even heard of a mind map.  I found it very difficult to understand how to create the mind map (maybe it was just the site I was using.)  Gliffy was very easy to navigate through.  It had different templates to use like flowcharts, venn diagrams, and even floor plans.  I will probably use an organization chart to make a simply family tree.  That should be fun.   

Thing #13

I enjoyed playing around on Zoho and Google Docs. Both of the sites were amazing.  I wish I had this in high school when I had to do group projects.  Once you email documents to another party you leave whether or not they will be able to view it up to chance.  Well I have a PC what if they have a Mac, or they use something other than Microsoft Office, or they have a older version." I thought the solution was .pdf but turns out that there could be some mishaps there also.

Zoho and Google Docs allows you to create and share documents without the worry of whether or not the other parties will be able to read it.  I found both to be useful but I like Zoho better.  Honestly I only like it better because of the name.

Thing #12

I had a blast playing with the with the Google Translator.  I went and grab any and every thing that had another language on it to see what it translate into.  It was so fun to see how things translate into English.  Most of the time the translation formed the most awkward sentences.  

After reading someone else's blog I decided to do a Google Alert on my name to see what comes up.  Nothing out of the ordinary popped up.  It would be great because employers do searches on potential employees.  Having an alert on my name allows me to see what they see.

As a teacher, I could do Google Alerts on different concepts on my curriculum area.  This would be useful  to see how other teachers approach the subject matter.

Thing #11

I tried a few methods but neither of them helped me find anything interesting.  I just did a general Google search and found some sights that would be useful for me now.  I just look for the icon on the page.  It was usually at the very top or the very bottom.

Topix.net would be the most useful in my career.  I can search topics instead of blogs.  This is extremely useful.  I may follow a math blog but I only want to read about algebra concepts that would be useful to my students.

I am currently following The Leaf Chronicle which I love.  Clarksville, as far as I know, does not have its own news station.  Following this feed  keeps me up to date on Clarksville news.

Post #10

The best thing about the RSS and newsreaders is that you have all of the blogs and sites that you've subscribed to in one place.  You don't have to go from site to site to catch up on your reading.  As a student I too busy to watch the news or anything for that matter.  Using the newsreader feed I can catch up on news and entertainment in the little time that I do have.  Teachers can use this in order to keep up with the new teaching trends.

  

Thing #9

 

I wanted to use the smiley face generator but it would not load (even though I tried three different web browsers).   Making this banner was just as fun.  I used to see these banners on MySpace decades ago.  I chose this phrase because it was on a desk in the movie Bad Teacher.  It was so corny and cute.

Banners and sign generators would be useful to have friendly reminders on those shared school computers.  A smiley face holding a sign reading "Remember to log off" would be more than helpful in the APSU library.  I always forget to log off.

Thing #8

This activity was quite frustrating for me.  Every mashup site that I tried to do required a membership.  I don't like to have a lot of memberships for sites I will never use again.  Nevertheless, I think these activities will be useful in a classroom.  Students could use these tools to add creativity to their projects.

Thing #7

I chose to browse the Flickr site for "math" images.  So I told myself, if I don't find a interesting picture within the first three pages I would upload my own. Lo and behold I came across this neat picture that gave me a good giggle.

The characters in the picture dance moves' resemble those graphs of which they correspond.  I love this picture.  I believe students would love this picture and find it as interesting as I did.    


Photo Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dylanng/6267107228/
Belongs to: Dylan Ng
                         user name- Dylan231
Pic's Bday: October 21, 2011