Thing #21

This is my favorite "thing" I have done! My experience with Animoto was so much fun! It was easy to make and to follow along of what to do. I think this site could be useful for my classroom, by having students do projects in a fun and simple way. It's just a way of putting pictures together with music that you like and letting the emotions from the video come out to the viewers.

My Animoto Video

Thing #20

I like Youtube for the fact that you can find anything that interests you like: sports, songs, clips from a TV show and other random things. The only thing I dislike about Youtube is that it can be horrible at loading up videos. I use this site many times for looking up songs that I like with videos and lyrics for the songs. I chose this video for an example of how teachers can use Youtube in a classroom and make it beneficial for the students to learn. The features that I see that the library website can use are what kind of books they have to check out and video tape the students of how they interact with the other students and what they learning style is.

Thing #19

I'm not a member of any online communities, but some of the social networks are appealing to me like the Fuzzter, Flixster, the ones that are about food and music. I find the ones about food interesting because it would help me become a great cook and learn new and tasteful recipes, so I just might use this site later on down the road. I did though become a member on the Ning network, and it seems pretty cool. It is like Facebook but more in a respectable manner and safe. I did put pictures up that I think would be appealing to others to see. I think I will be using this site more often and see what it has to offer.

Thing #18

Well my experience with Facebook and Twitter was quite easy since I already had an account for both of them. Facebook is a site for everyone to stay connected, play games, write notes or put music up there and just have fun exploring. Twitter is a site that you can keep track of what everyone is doing, and follow famous celebrities and friends. It is important for educators to know how social networking works because it helps them keep track with what is going on around them and even stay in contact with students and other faculty members in an appropriate manner. The new insights that I gained is that I can get news about what is going on in APSU in a faster way. I like how Facebook lets you keep in contact with anyone around the world, but I dislike how Twitter only allows certain amount of characters that you can type, but I like how you can follow and talk to famous celebrities, not that it should matter. Facebook has more useful features, because it allows you to write notes, put music up, play games, chat with friends and create pages for everyone around the world to use. I can see that any classroom or school application would be used on Facebook, because they already have some for APSU. It is very useful for students and teachers, because they can communicate when they can't meet up and get help from other students.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1317016942&ref=tn_tnmn
https://twitter.com/#!/Dolphingirl219

Thing #17

My experience with the tool Delicious was pretty easy, although it was a bit overwhelming. When I first went on the site, all I saw was a bunch  of different sites with different media all at once, so it was confusing for me to understand what to do. Once I got the hang of it, it was easy, because you get to search whatever is on your mind or what you need to find to do a research on and get to your sites fairly quick. This tool gives everyone a variety of sources to look up and explore. On certain sites you have to have a login, but it's free, and some sites lets you see comments from other people. I do see potential for this tool to be used in my classroom, because it will allow the students to freely explore their interests and sources that can help them with their homework. It can also be an easy way to create bookmarks for those people who like reading a lot about what goes on around them. Teachers can take advantage of social bookmarking by searching sites that can help them improve their teaching methods or help them find new ideas for their standard to teach.

Thing #16

I chose iGoogle as my start page, because it made me have freedom of all the things I wanted to see each day and lets me have fun with customizing of what looks good to me. I did make it my permanent homepage because it is very useful for me to use daily. Online calendars and to-do lists are very helpful by keeping for me to be organized and be on task of what I need to do. They are really not too much work of using it. I use the tadalist.com as my to-do lists and it's very simple to use. It is like an agenda on a website and can mark things off when you are done. Mystickies.com is a great tool for using at home or school by keeping track of what sites you chose and why you chose them. They are like bookmarks and lets you customize it anyway you like to.

Thing #15

My experience with the wiki has been very easy to follow and to understand. I learned how many different libraries and schools around the world use the wiki in various ways like: putting up history and achievements from the classroom, having planning guides, reviews for books, different sources to train teachers, description of their community, and communication for support and help from other people. I might use a wiki by exploring what ideas other people might have for certain subjects and basically having fun with putting different thoughts together. I found interesting that the wiki provides different tools for many people to use in order to connect with people around the world in a safe respectable manner.

Thing #14

I chose Gliffy and Bubbl.us as my tools for flowcharts and mind maps. Gliffy is a neat tool that lets you choose what kind of flowcharts you want and help you be creative with your thoughts. Bubbl.us lets you brainstorm ideas for projects or essays in a colorful yet organized manner. I chose these tools because they seemed fun and easy to use and would take my mind off of being perfect. I would be able to let my thoughts just flow out in a fun way, and not be so stressed out about what needs to go where or how it should look like.

Thing #13

On Zoho Writer, I discovered lots of new and interesting things. It is a word processor that lets you have more fun with writing. I learned how to put emotions on there, to comment on sentences, looking up the thesaurus and dictionary, and how to basically be more creative with the tools that it provides. Students might work collaboratively using Google Docs by jotting down ideas for essays and viewing other peers work to come up with new ideas on their own. Google Docs is more of a professional word processor. Both Google Docs and Zoho Writer provide the same outlook on writing papers and other projects, but Zoho Writer gives you more of a feel of freedom to be creative and comfortable on working on your assignments. I prefer Zoho Writer, because I get to do more stuff with my writing and put my own style into what I write.
This is my document I made through Google Docs.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SI1MbcUNs86NPXSQNsG5GTZBlYaGIbfp8x7WGdrqPp0/edit

Thing #12

My experience with the Google alerts and the Google translate was fairly easy. I have used the Google translate before many times in my Spanish classes in high school and whenever my grandmother or her husband would talk to me in German on Facebook. I set up an alert through Google alert by typing in Frankfurt, Germany so I would be able to keep up with what's going on in my hometown. I let the alerts come through in a feed on my Google Reader. These types of tools that Google provides can really benefit for the students by allowing them to keep track with events, help with their projects or anything that can help them stay focused on school and let them prioritize their life better.
http://www.google.com/alerts

Thing #11

The easiest method for me of finding feeds was using Google. Google Blog Search was the easiest search tool. Technorati seemed confusing for me, so I just stopped looking through it. The useful feeds that I found interesting was about education technology, thoughts about school and animals. Those feeds just stood out for me since I'm in an Education major and I love animals. I just went through Google, typed in what came to mind and searched under the section about blogs. I am more comfortable with Google, because I know how to use it and it was more easier to follow.

Thing #10

RSS and newsreaders are good to have for viewers who are avid readers to read interesting information that can entertain them. I would have to say that I don't really like using this type of tool because I personally don't like reading a whole lot things. I do like the fact that you can follow the feed daily at one setting. This type of tool can be used in school by students following various feeds that relates to their lessons weekly and can do reports or some type of project with it. Teachers can take advantage of this by following feeds that can improve on their particular lessons and make the students have more of a fun time.

Thing #9

http://www.happyfacegenerator.com/

I used the happy face generator and just used the faces that described me in the moment. I tried to find ones that I can relate to and write something about that goes along with the face. It was a fun process that let me put my random emotions out on the computer. One way that this generator can be used is personally of just having some time out for yourself and just having fun with these smiley faces no matter what anyone thinks and let the true feelings come out.