Thing #12 - Google

I have been using Google for a long time now and have been aware of all the options it offers.  I'm not one who likes online or digital calendars, I prefer them to be tangible.  I like to be able to write on them and carry them with me.  Since I don't have a smart phone and I don't carry my iPad around with me, paper will have to do!  But, for many people digital calendars are a good thing, so I decided to play around with it.  I created a calendar with some upcoming assignment due dates.  I also set a 'test' alarm for 10 minutes later, with a pop-up reminder for 5 minutes before the 'start time'...and sure enough, an alert popped up, even while surfing another page.  Definitely good for someone who is often on their computer, or has alerts sent to their phone, and who takes the time to enter in appointments and other important reminders.  I may be able to make a group calendar for my students; however, when I clicked on the 'share' link, this is what popped up:

I don't know how to share it with anyone that's not on Google, besides having to enter their email addresses.  Another student put the URL to his calendar in his blog, and when I clicked on it, his didn't come up for me, so I'll give it a go, maybe it will work for you:

https://www.google.com/calendar/render?tab=mc


I also played around with translator, which could assist students who speak multiple languages.  I have a translator app on my laptop, so I compared the one I have to Google...here are the results of the following sentences:    Welcome to the United States; my name is Adrienne and I will be your tour guide for the next three weeks.  I'm really looking forward to our trip together!

Google translate:  Bienvenidos a los Estados Unidos, mi nombre es Adrienne y yo seré su guía para las próximas tres semanas. Tengo muchas ganas de nuestro viaje juntos!

Mac app translator:  Recepción a los Estados Unidos; mi nombre es Adrienne y seré su guía turístico para las tres semanas próximas.  ¡Estoy mirando realmente adelante a nuestro viaje junto!

A little bit of a difference!  :)

Again, I didn't see anything to share this, so here's the URL...

http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=cT#en/es/Welcome%20to%20the%20United%20States%3B%20my%20name%20is%20Adrienne%20and%20I%20will%20be%20your%20tour%20guide%20for%20the%20next%20three%20weeks.%20%20I'm%20really%20looking%20forward%20to%20our%20trip%20together!

Thing #11 - using RSS

The three sites were all pretty easy to navigate; my least favorite was Topix - I didn't find their search engine (Blekko) very impressive and didn't find anything interesting to me.  Google was definitely easiest, and I'm sure some of that comes from using Google frequently over the last several years.  Technorati has some cool features, but not much under the search "education"...when I searched for "teaching" I found some good sites that I added to my RSS feed:

http://www.teachthought.com

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2013/01/insiders_not_sanguine_on_feder.html

On the Google blog search, I found the following:

A technology blog by Jennie Magiera, a digital learning coordinator for a group of 25 public schools in Chicago.  Her site is easy to navigate and it has useful and appropriate links to other education websites:

http://teachinglikeits2999.blogspot.com

A lot of the special education blogs I found were people sharing stories, I guess in some way to blow off steam.  Nothing inappropriate really, just talking about the difficulties of special ed, some of the behaviors of students and what NCLB means for sped.

Here is an example of a blog I probably would NOT follow... I can't find a name or any other qualifications for this teacher... and it's more of just stories of things that happen day to day.

http://tennesseesped.blogspot.com

This special education law blog seems to have some useful information, although it is geared towards parents, it may be a good thing for teachers to be aware of:

http://blog.jeffmarcuslaw.com

Most of the sites I came across did not have the RSS feed symbol (or one did, but when I clicked on the symbol, it wouldn't connect); they did have a share button for Google +, but I did not utilize it.  I was able to add two blogs to my feed.

I liked how Technorati had different categories for blogs; that makes it easy to focus in on your subject of interest.  I didn't really find anything unusual or confusing; except maybe the Topix website; that just seemed like another Yahoo or something similar.

Thing #10 - RSS

The RSS feed is a simple way to have a bunch of information easily at my fingertips.  I always just made a bookmark for the sites I like and then I have a list of them right there - which is still a good thing.  However, the RSS allows me to peruse all my favorite sites at once.

I subscribed to several sites, including my classmates' blogs, NPR, The Onion, and a couple Teacher blog sites.  Having all the sites together like that is great for a teacher; this way I won't forget to read updates on sites and won't potentially miss out on some good information!

I won't create a public page right now, but I see the value in doing so in the future.

Thing #9 - Online Image Generators

I feel like I'm becoming Debbie Downer in my posts.  In the last few exercises I didn't find much educational value nor could I come up with an appropriate way to use the sites with my students; unfortunately, the same has happened for Thing #9.  All these tools are fun to use and play with, but I'm having difficulty connecting them to my classroom.  If there comes a time where my students might need something like this, I will know where to go!

Thing #8 - Mashups

1. old trees an fresh grass in bay of islands, 2. La Mussara Arbre, 3. Untitled, 4. Sowa uszata



 So... I struggled with this 'thing'.  I was disappointed that Mappr seemed to be a for-hire service.  I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to take a bunch of my pics and place them on a map...but I'm not paying for it.  I tried to make mosaics of my pics, but I could only bring up the ones on Flickr, and I wanted to do something a little different from my previous post.  Then I opted to just gather random Flickr photos with the tag 'nature'...the mosaics that came back to me, were missing pictures because these users had opted out of using Big Huge Labs.  I changed the tag to trees and viola!  Below my mosaic is the html language I was instructed to include so that my photos are properly credited.  I thought it would look different once I copied it over, but it is just a bunch of gobbleygook.

I think these mashups are fun to play with if you have the time, but I don't really see the educational value in it.  Maybe I'm being short-sighted, perhaps it would be really useful for an art project or to enhance other subjects.  I'm interested in reading others' posts about this 'thing' to see their take on it.

My feelings about sharing photos on the web are best described as guarded and hesitant.  I fully plan to remove all content I've uploaded for this class at the end of the semester.  I only have a few photos uploaded on my Facebook page and I'm very private about who has access to them.  I've also hidden  my other blogs from public view and only invite people to view them.  I was recently disturbed to find a picture of me from the school I used to work at - I absolutely HATE the picture, it's very unflattering and I didn't give permission for it to be on the world wide web.  I don't allow people to tag me in photos and I don't tag other people.  Maybe my feelings are more vehement :)

Thing #7 - Flickr

I haven't used Flickr before, but I've used other photo sharing sites like Photobucket.

I opted for the more "fun" option #2.  I opened an account - my username is adrienneapsu.  I uploaded six photos with the following tags:  apsu23things, motorcycles, and nationalparks.

For several years I was a tour guide, taking small groups of travelers on camping trips across our great nation.  I had the privilege of visiting at least a dozen national parks and touring many of our awesome cities.  The work was hard and sometimes like herding cats, but very rewarding (not financially, mind you!)  I wanted to share some of those pics along with another passion of mine - motorcycle riding.

These two pictures are of Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona.  You cannot enter this slot canyon without a Navajo guide.  My guide has all the cool tricks; he changed some of the settings on my camera to capture these images below:

Antelope Canyon, Page, AZ

Antelope Canyon, Page, AZ

Arches National Park, Moab, UT

The picture to the right was taken at Arches National Park just outside of Moab, UT.  It is the Double Arch.  Arches is one of my all-time favorite parks.  But doesn't hold a candle, in my opinion, to Bryce National Park (see picture below).

Bryce is home of the one of the oldest organisms known to man:  the Bristlecone Pine Tree.  It's also the top of the 'grand staircase' that connects Bryce, Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks on the Colorado Plateau.

The first time I visited Bryce I was alone; I hiked the trails in early May and there was still snow on the ground.  There weren't many other hikers around, in fact, I only ran into 2 other people on the trails.  It was so peaceful and I really came to some conclusions about the life path I was on...one could say I had an epiphany...

Bryce Canyon National Park, UT

Yellowstone National Park, WY

Yellowstone National Park is actually the first national park I ever went to.  I was in my early 30's and I took my brother; at the time he was only 15 years old.  We saw buffalo, bear and tons of elk.  We actually got the last camping site in the entire park for that night.

Motorcycle Training Course, Clarksville, TN

The photo above was taken a few years ago; I had just bought my first motorcycle after riding my boyfriend's 1977 Suzuki GS400 for a year.  We went out on the training course at Harley and I practiced my cools moves on my then-new Buell Blast.  I've moved up to a Buell XB9 since then with a BMW F650 in between.  Today looks like a nice day to ride...need to finish my 12 things so I can get out there!!!!!  LOL

I had trouble grabbing the link from Flickr...couldn't get that .jpg to appear at the end, and when I used the import tool on Flickr to Blogger, it just created a new post for me...I didn't like that, so I just uploaded the pics from my desktop.

I'm not entirely sure what I'd use Flickr for in my classroom; if students needed to find pictures for an assignment, I suppose this would be a good way to find them.  However, whilst tooling around the site, I came across several inappropriate ads, like "Your arrest record is online!" with mug shots of alleged criminals.  Not so good for our students.

Thing #6 - Web 2.0 tools

Well, the first site I went to was http://www.go2web20.net/site/?a=Gripe; I chose it partially because it had a yin-yang symbol and I was curious to know exactly what people were griping about... students about teachers?  teachers about administrators?  well...neither...in fact, it has nothing to do with education.

This site claims to "harness your word-of-mouth power to get complaints with any business or service provider heard and resolved, likely on the spot!"

There are gripes about businesses that allegedly mistreated customers whether it be from extended hold times on the phone to being over-charged for products.  The companies people are complaining about cover a range of businesses from HP to Walgreens to local eye doctors to online companies like Expedia.com.

I'm not sure how I would use this in a special education classroom; I suppose it could be a life skill to teach any student to stand up for yourself and not let people take advantage of you...but I feel that's a stretch.  Also, the website is not very user-friendly; it took me a while to figure out how to get to the actual gripes.  

The next site I checked out was http://www.twentyfour.me/#&panel1-1; the description of the site is an "automatic to-do list."  I wasn't impressed with this one either.  Since I don't have a 'smart' phone, this would pretty useless for me.  Besides, wouldn't you have to enter everything you need to do into the program?  I'd rather just write it down on paper.  

I saw sites like Pinterest and YouTube...sure, they can be useful, IF you can get on YouTube at your school - the last school I worked at had it blocked.

Overall, I'm not impressed.  If the school doesn't have iPads (or something similar) and the students and teacher don't have smart phones, then honestly, I don't see the use of it.  Guess I'm old school

Thing #5 - School 2.0

Well, that was an abundance of information!!!  I'm not sure I like the entire idea of School 2.0... it seems this could lead us down a path where teachers aren't really needed anymore... kids stay home and work online all day.  This is not good...nor do I think it's actually going to happen.  I realize education has trends almost as frequently as fashion, but I truly believe the latest trend of collaborative work is going to stick.  Does that mean it has to be entirely online?  Or entirely face to face?  No.  I think we need to strike balances between everything we do.  It's important for students to use technology in various ways, but they also need to know how to work with people face to face and complete hands on activities.  How do we as teachers decided how much online interaction is appropriate?

I also don't understand how all this will be funded.  I wonder if the technology of the future is going to leave some of our students living in poverty-stricken areas behind.

This isn't to say some of that stuff isn't impressive and fun.  One of my classmates used the Go! Animate site for a presentation in another class; I would definitely use this site in my classroom as an instructional aid and also as an assignment...I think the students would have a lot of fun playing around with it.   I'd love to know how to work all those gadgets and use them effectively in my classroom, but I don't know that it is a reality for the majority of our students.

Thing #4 - Commenting

Commenting helps create a sense of community and interaction by generating discussion and debate on topics we find interesting.  We're not going to read blogs that don't either entertain or inform us, and some of that entertainment and information comes from the comments.  Often times I'll read articles online and read many of the comments below; sometimes my perception of something changes just by reading what someone else wrote because it opens my eyes to something I may not have considered previously.  

Commenting also lets the writer know that he/she is being read and can encourage more blogging; otherwise the blogger may believe no one is interested and just stop writing.  Comments from the blogger are important as well because the readers will feel like the blogger is also 'listening' to the readers instead of being this untouchable figure.

One of the main pointers that stuck out to me was from the Cool Cat teacher blog:  #6, teach commenting.  It is SO important that our students learn how to communicate effectively and professionally in all types of mediums, however, since the internet is where many of us do a huge chunk of our communicating, our students need to learn how to write appropriate comments that help foster discussion and not be offensive or rude.  We also must talk to our students about cyber-bullying and why it can be so harmful.

Another pointer that I enjoyed reading was from Problogger... I think asking questions is a great way to generate comments and start discussion.  I don't recall doing much asking when I was running my travel blogs, perhaps I would have generated more interest if I had...other than my mother commenting every other day!  LOL :)

My classmates' blogs I chose to follow are:

*Jamie Kelley
One of my comments to Jamie was in response to this very thing, #4:

"Jamie...what a wonderful post! I especially agree with your thoughts on malicious commenting; I think this is where bullying can really explode. As teachers, we must be clear on our policies about rude, hurtful comments and we must pay close attention to what our students are writing and reading. Thank you for bringing up this point!"

I commented on Jamie's blog because I enjoy his writing style and because we agreed on the malicious content people hiding behind a screen name can generate.  

*Scott Davis

"Scott,  I wish my easiest habit were beginning with the end in mind... I mean, I can set goals and figure out how to get to those goals, but when looking at it from say an assessment point of view, I have trouble figuring that out. The Backwards Design model suggests we start at assessment and design our lesson plans to meet that assessment...seems logical to me, but not exactly easy. Maybe I'll get some pointers from ya!"

I commented on Scott's blog because our habits were opposite - his strongest is my weakest and vice versa.  Scott and I are also both GAs and see one another frequently.  

*Kasey Howe

Kasey,

"While I didn't exactly get caught up on the Google profile, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to pick the best background and fonts and style of my blog. I also got a little frustrated because Blogger was different a few years ago (of course, everything evolves when it comes to technology) and I feel the previous version was easier. But I also stuck with it and just worked through!"

I commented on Kasey's blog because I felt her frustration, even though it was with different issues!  We also have other classes together and I enjoy hearing her perspective.

*Tobey Lee

"Tobey,

I like what you said about blogs becoming rants and that is why you sometimes read them. I am hugely guilty of reading the senseless, grammatically offensive articles on Yahoo! news. Mostly, it's to read the comments, because they can be so outlandish sometimes!"

I enjoy Tobey's writing style and liked that he admitted reading some blogs because of their rants :)


*Bing Thepsiri

"Bing,  I have enjoyed reading your posts, but chose this one to comment on. I have not done this "thing" yet, but have a good idea what it's all about. I am also concerned about my lack of knowledge of technology. But even more, I'm concerned about those areas in poverty that won't have the money to keep up with it - and not just the inner city schools, but our rural schools in poor states such as Mississippi. I just don't see how it's financially viable.  Maybe we should all be taking grant-writing courses!"

I think Bing has a wonderful style of writing and enjoy reading her posts; this post however struck a chord with me because of the high cost of technology.  I really fear a lot of our poorer areas are going to be left behind, as they are already.


Blogs I follow outside the classroom are:

http://www.kumuainafarm.com

I follow this blog because my brother is currently living and working on this farm; the people who began the farm have a cool story as to how they got there; and I'm learning about organic farming, which is something that may come in handy one day!

http://cecblog.typepad.com/cec/

I chose this blog to follow because it's all about Special Education (I'm going for SPED licensure) and the bloggers vary...it's not the same person post after post.  I think this helps keep it fresh and meaningful.

Thing #3 - Why use blogs?

Our society basically lives on the internet; social media has exploded and students of all ages are going online and accessing various sites.  If we make an interesting blog, or even just use a blog as a way to communicate with our students and give assignments, I think they will respond positively.

Blogs can be used to communicate with parents as well, and to display resources for parents, students, and other teachers.  Blogs can also be used to open discussions on various topics.  We can also have our students create their own blogs as part of assignments.

We also have to have clear guidelines about posting and commenting to avoid potential issues.  Cyber-bullying has become a clear and present danger, and if we're requiring our students to blog or comment on blogs, we have to monitor this process closely.

Thing #2 - Creating the Blog and Avatar

I have 3 older blogs here on Blogger.com (attached to a different email account), so creating this new blog was a breeze; although, Blogger has changed some things on the setup and I got a little caught up in trying to make certain backgrounds and fonts, etc.  It was fun, though - and very easy.  And this time around, I'm keeping the blog post archive in order from oldest to newest... I think it's because of my OCD and how I want my posts to be in order, #1 - #23... instead of backwards...we'll see if that works...I can always change it if it doesn't flow!

My students call me "Ms V" so it was a no-brainer in deciding what to name my blog.  I went ahead with my first name and last initial for posting to keep some anonymity, but enough that at least my professor and classmates would know who I am.

My avatar reflects me ever so slightly.  I don't have straight hair, but I had trouble finding wavy hair that didn't look too crazy!  I try to have a smile on my face as much as possible, hence the cheesy grin.    I wanted to use my Avatar from Yahoo! but couldn't get it to copy over...it's much more "me".....maybe someone can help me with that?  :)