Thing Seventeen!

Before completing the discovery exercise for thing seventeen, I had never heard of social bookmarking sites. As I experimented with Delicious and the other resources I learned quite a bit about them. However, I am not completely comfortable using this type of tool just yet. I can see some potential in social bookmarking. I got to see how the online tagging system works. You can find many links to different things. For example, a link may go to lesson plans, videos, and specific grade and subject areas. I can definitely see this being useful for teachers if they came together to share their resources and how they are successful teachers. They can easily track it using Delicious. They can share and collaborate on things that work and do not work in the classroom. Social bookmarking could also help with classroom management and make lesson planning  less stressful.
 

Thing Sixteen!

I chose the iGoogle start page. This one appealed to me because it was really simple to set up, especially since we use gmail as our email. Google always appeals to me more than other pages. The easier it is for me, the better! I also liked that I could choose my own theme. I chose the theme with the frogs because I thought it was cute. There is a very good possibility that I will make it my permanent homepage because everthing is located all on one page.

I also experimented with online calendars. The online calendar I chose was 30 boxes. These online calendars can be very useful to me. I can access them from anywhere at anytime. I can stay organized using these calendars. I can remember birthdays, when assignments are due, imporant dates, and I could even use this in my future classroom for lesson planninng. I think everyone would agree that an online calendar is a very useful tool.

I chose to the to-do list "Remember the Milk". While experimenting with this to- do list I found it very useful. You can manage your daily tasks and set goals from anywhere you want, including your phone. Iphones and androids have an app for this, too. You can even add tasks with Siri. You can manage these offline as well. You will never think you are forgetting something because you can have everything right there with you. You can also get reminders sent to your email and in a text message. I think "Remember the Milk" is a very helpful tool.


I thought that both of these tools had uses for school and home. I can use the online calendar and the to do list in the classroom and in my personal life. I would definitely recommend the online calendar ,30 boxes, and the to-do list, Remember the Milk ,to anyone that needs or wants to stay organized. Ithought both of these were very helpful!

Thing Fifteen!

I chose to post my "Thing Nine" to APSU 23 Things Sandbox Wiki. I changed the font, size, and colors of this post while experimenting with it. Making a Wiki post was not too difficult. I had never heard of anyone making a wiki until this class. Therefore, this is all new to me. I believe I will be able to use wikis in my future classroom in many ways. I can allow the children to post their own thoughts and ideas to the page. Then, I can put the right or corrected version on there for them all to see. The thing I thought was most interesting about wikis was that you can make your own for others to see. I did not know you could actually do that. I had no idea that wikipedia was just one big wiki!

Thing Fourteen!

I chose to work with Gliffy for flowcharts and Bubbl.us for the mind map. I thought both of these web-based tools were neat and helpful in many ways. I chose to to work with these two tools because they seemed to stick out to me. I actually liked using Bubbl.us more than Gliffy. It was more fun working with the tools on there. It was also easier to work with, and the instructions were very clear. Some of the differences I noticed between a mind map and a flow chart is that a flow chart continues from one point to another like it is actually flowing. A mind map does not flow like that. It is more of a brainstorming process where you can lay out what you are actually thinking.

Thing Thirteen!

 To the left is what my Zoho document looks like. Here is a link to the whole document below.
https://writer.zoho.com/index.do?docId=2393092000000013004






Students could work collaboratively using Google Docs by sharing folders, files, and each others Google Docs. Google Docs would be useful in any kind of group project. They could comment on each others work and provide each other feedback. Both Google Docs and Zoho are very good sites. They are also both free, which helps out low income families that can not afford software like Microsoft Word. You can create documents, share them, and even allow people to comment on them. Out of these two productivity sites I prefer the Google Docs because I can usually work Google better than other sites. However, Zoho is a great tool too.

Thing Twelve!

23 cosas, cosa Doce!
http://translate.google.com/#auto/es/23%20Things%2C%20Thing%20Twelve!
 This is my link to my Google Translation. It means 23 Things, Thing Twelve! 


I also made a Google Alert. 
http://www.google.com/alerts/manage
This is my link to my Google Alerts that I chose.


My experience with these two tools were fairly easy. I really enjoyed learning about them and the positive things they bring about. I made a Google translation and some Google alerts. I think these tools can definitely be used in education in several different ways. The Google translator can be used to teach students Spanish words. You could do a word of the day and show them how that word means the same thing in different languages and how it looks written in different languages. You could even show them so they can do it on their own. The Google Alerts would also be a helpful tool in the classroom, too. You could keep track of anything to do with education. I could  keep up with things taking place in the world.

Thing Eleven!

The method of finding feeds that was easiest to use for me was the Google Blog Search. I found that it was the easiest and most helpful. I prefer using Google in other things too. I did not like the other blog searchers much at all. I think the topix.net was the hardest for me to use. I also thought it was the most confusing. I found a few useful feeds in my searches. Some of them being about The 23 Things and Learning 2.0 blogs and conferences. One of the unusual feeds that I found from my search was One Breath Away « Adult Books 4 Teens - School Library Journal. Other tools or ways I found to locate newsfeeds was on http://technorati.com.