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.

Thing #3

Writing this blog has shown me that I can write down my thoughts and feelings as I am going through as I finish up my time in the Education program. It can allow me to look back and see what I did and how I felt about a certain assignment. I can also put ideas on a blog to look back at later and maybe put them to use in my own teaching methods.
Blogs can be used to keep your students parents up to date on what their children did in class that day. You can make sure to inform the parents of the homework that the children have. Inform them of upcoming tests so they can help the children study.That is if you are up to doing a blog post once a day. If not once a day it can be done once a week to keep the parents up to date on what happened, or tell them what their children will be doing the following week. Depending on the grade level of the child you can have them start their own blog. The blog can be updated as a group, with videos or class messages.

Thing #2

I've done a few blog posts before, mainly on Myspace, I used them for writing my poetry and getting my feelings out before they consumed me. Don't read many other blogs, I am more into writing my own. It wasn't hard picking my name I just decided to use my name, it makes it easier for everyone as well as myself. Its not easy coming up with a catchy name to go by.  It was pretty fun creating the blog and decorating it, it wasn't hard for me since I spend so much time on the computer. My avatar doesn't  look like me, well not too much , it was kinda hard to make it exactly like me because the clothes it gives you really aren't things I would wear in life. But I put the avatar in a trench coat in honor of my favorite wizard PI Harry Dresden. Of course Harry wears a leather duster not a trench coat but its close enough. So you could say that my avatar shows my personality by my love for reading