Thing #9 Technology

I had to rack my brain to come up with something related to technology that I liked or thought was helpful. The parlant call-home system is so useful for parents and teachers (K-12 Planet). I'm always reminded of upcoming events, when my daughters do well on a test, or if they've been up to no good by ditching. If I ever hear the word son or daughter and unexcused in the same sentence on my answering machine there's going to be some trouble!

I'm not exactly sure how the system works, but I do see Gary and some of the other teachers accessing the system and leaving messages that will be sent home. We've come a long way with the attendance process and grading systems. Although there are enough kinks in the current SMS system to make 50 teachers in one building pull their hair out...

Library Work

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Originally uploaded by johnnifer

Students hard at work in my school library. They aren't as on task as they look!

Thing #8 Library Thing

Book lovers rejoice. A place to store every single book ever read. What's not to love about this site. I can see it being useful for library book talks, referencing books on your library homepage, and classroom reference use for books on a certain subject. I'm trying to think back to the books I read last year and my brain won't even go there! This would've been a great tool to keep me organized and updated with summaries right along with the titles. The deeper I get into Web 2.0 the more I like. The tough part would have to be all of the passwords needed for every single place you go. How about a site that organizes my passwords so I only have to remember one and then look up the rest. I'll definitely try my best to use Library Thing to keep me on track with all of my faves.

Thing #7 Social Networking

This site can become a very valuable tool. The amount of information that I can store on this site is pretty amazing. I also love the way you can organize and have many different pages under one title. I started taking tags from Myra's page and it's an endless job. At this rate I should finish up by the end of the school year. For me this is a useful place to go in and find some pretty cool stuff I can use for reference. I can tag all of the Flickr tools and hints, student tools, teacher tools, etc... It's a great goto place to keep track of all my STUFF! It'll keep me from trying to remember that last cool place I found on the internet that my students might love.

http://del.icio.us/jennu

Thing # 6 Image Generators

Now this is fun! I decided Nick needed a change, he was looking tired and rundown. I used the Generator Blog site to have some fun with hairdos and photos. http://www.hairmixer.com/ I probably should've kept Nick as a male but what the hay.

All kidding aside, sites as this one would have the students enthralled for hours. They could be used with powerpoint projects, art projects, etc... Students just love to be creative and put their own stamp on work. Adding titles to certain objects, charts with pictures... There are so many different tools to use I can hardly believe it, I had no idea. I just finished checking Myra's image generator blog and I'm jealous. I'm off to find another!

Thing #5 Flickr

Who doesn't love looking at photos!! I think this is a great site and a wonderful tool for students to use instead of google images. I did manage to upload three photos into my account and add titles for them. I'm still trying to figure out the blogging tool to add images to my post??? Myra mentioned that there's a tool in Blogger also. The only thing I found was clicking on the photo icon when I'm typing a post and it says to upload image.
I was talking with someone about Flickr and she asked where the pictures go. I just shrugged my shoulders because I haven't a clue. They're floating in no man's land, right alongside my brain. Anyway, here's the shot I'm sharing with all. I'm just posting the link and hopefully it's all good! http://www.flickr.com/photos/23323616@N07/2231819388/#preview
I'm sure someone will tell me if I've choked on this task and they can't open the link.

Thing #4 Technorati

I'm finally getting to it. I trailed just a little bit behind everybody here. I really don't have much to say about Technorati. It's a TON of blogged information on EVERYTHING. One thing I noticed was that really anything can be posted, language and all. I'm clueless on how tagging works with this site. I'm questioning whether or not the small amount of information that's published is worthwhile for our students. But then again when you compare it to the World Book Online Database, you only get little "blips" of information and it doesn't come in huge quantities. Myra will still need to work with me on this one.