Thing #12

I have to say the ones I liked the most were Google Translate, although I noticed that not all the translations were 100% correct. It was still fun to play around and see what the translator came up with. As a teacher I can see how it would be easy for a both students and the teacher to use. Like I said the only drawback is the translations are not fully accurate so it might not be the way you want to do you homework. My second favorite was the Picasa Web Albums, which seemed relatively easy to use.  The upload speeds were really fast and the pictures came up instantly. I would prefer this tool over Flickr, it is so much simpler. I had fun looking and playing with both of these tools.

Thing #11

The easiest tool to use for me was the Google search one, just type in a few key words and hundreds pop up for you to look through. I'm not sure if I would classify the others as harder to use or more complicated, just not something that I would prefer to use. For this exercise I didn't look for anything in specific I just looked for things in general so I was not able to find anything that I could classify as "useful." These tools are really great for searching for blogs to help you with recipes or mommy ideas. It is just about finding the right blog for you and what you are interested in looking at.

Thing #10

The ability to subscribe to blogs is a pretty neat little tool. Its nice to pick a blog you want to read and to subscribe to it and have the reader just tell you when your favorite blog has a new post. It can also be a good way to get ideas for an assignment or a craft for the students to do. I'm not sure how this technology can be used in an elementary school but I know for high school it might be easier to use for teachers. I'm sure as I continue down the in my education I will find a way to incorporate these tools into a fourth grade class. And I am open to those options, in time maybe tools like this and Flickr will be a staple in schools and teachers will be trained in their use. The possibilities with all these new technologies that continue to come out out are endless and will continue to be so as long as technology continues to be integrated into schools.

Thing #9

So I found this activity to be incredibly fun and relaxing after beating my head against a wall with Flickr. It was so fun to look at the different generators and play around with them. This sign came from a little generator that give you four pictures and allows you to make you own street sign... This site didn't have many pictures to pick from that I saw but it was fun to play with making the names.

This one was fun to make too...The site gives you a few choices to pick from on what type of warning sign you want to make...You can add in your words and have a little fun!

This one was super fun to make.This site allows you to make logos and play with the text you want to include in them. The site is called FlamingText. There are many to chose from and play around with. 

Another site I found that I got the first two sites from was an article called 13 Fantastic and Fun Image Generators. I only chose a few to play around with but they all looked like they would be fun to play around with and explore! It would be easy to create a sign that says Mrs. Winn's 4th Grade Class...Or Welcome to Mrs. Winn's Class...It would be creative and fun to have the students make their own name plates for their desks with these generators too.

Thing #8

I decided to go with the simple make a puzzle tool because trying to figure out all the other ones gave me a migraine. I can see how a teacher would use a mashup of their students for back to school night or as a way to remember a class of students after they have moved on, but as good with a computer as I am I was having trouble navigating some of the sites and trying to make some of the mashups. Sharing photos online does not bother me when the method of sharing and putting them on their is not overly complicated. I have a Facebook and share photos on there all the time. I'm not sure that once I'm teaching I will have enough time to sit down and try to figure out how to get flickr or these other mashup sites to work the way I want them to.

Thing #7

I chose this photo of my panther gecko,Tripp (yes with two P's), taken the day I got him in August of 2011. He was so tiny, barely measuring 2.5 inches long. Now at a little over a year old my Tripp measures close to 6 inches in length. This is as big as he is going to get, as that the panther geckos are one of the smallest ground geckos in the world.

I tried for a few hours to try to upload the photo from Flickr. But it just kept telling me that the photo wasn't public even though I had made sure to check and triple check to make sure that it did indeed say public. I'm sure for those who know how to use the site and enjoy uploading their photos to the world, that this site would be the best for them. I however did not have a good experience with this site, and most of the photos I do upload go onto Facebook where I know that they will go up without problems. This site was even more complicated to use than Photobucket, which is the only other site I have used, and even then it wasn't for long. I lose interest in uploading photos to sites like these fairly quickly, and I don't know if I would use them in my teaching career.

Thing #6

I picked a tool called GrammarBase . This is a wonderful site that gives free spell check and grammar check for papers. It instantly checks your papers and within a few moments it generates a detailed  report of the mistakes found in your paper and allows you to correct them on sight. This would be a wonderful tool to use in a classroom or library, it would allow the student to check their papers and fix them right there before printing or turning them in. Best part is that the service is free, it finds the errors and allows you to correct them. A great tool for students of all ages.

Thing #5

As technology continues to advance and spread further the more it is seen in schools, and homes. The more people that use technology help to continue its spread. And today more schools are turning to these emerging  technologies for their staff and students. Students are beginning to use I-pads in the classroom and even laptops for learning. And while I can see the ease of having books on an I-pad or even learning Apps, but at the same time students are not at school to play video games. School 2.0 to me means more kids using technology and less focus is being put on the actual teaching methods. For me I think that too much technology can actually hinder the teaching process. Whats to say your students are actually paying attention to the lesson that you are teaching. Its hard enough with video games to get students to do their homework and now we are giving them a reason to not pay attention in school. If we aren't careful with the amount of technology being put in schools one day all students will have to do is bring up a video of  the lesson on a screen and hit play. Teachers could one day become obsolete in place of a master computer.

Thing #4

Reading some of the information that was given about commenting was time consuming. For me, yes sometimes feedback is amazing but sometimes I just want to post something without having my every word analyzed and criticized. But I can see how getting that feedback can create a sense of community, a sense of feeling that someone is actually reading your posts and taking something out of them. It can form a sense of pride as you look and see the count of page views going up. The two points that I picked out that I find to be the most important when commenting is to be humble and gracious not only when leaving comments but when commenting on other blogs. Rude comments I'm sure are neither wanted nor well received.