Thing #12

I decided to create a "Google Alert" and an "iGoogle".  I thought these were pretty fitting since I like to know what's going on right when it happens.  I enjoy feeling like I found out the big news first.  I enjoyed making the iGoogle as well because it literally took about ten seconds to create, and then you had everything at a click of the mouse.  You could even access facebook through the iGoogle.  I decided not make both of those public, because I figure they are mine to look through, and my sites to visit because I chose them. 

This could be very useful as a tool when you are teaching.  Not only is the google alert system very neat, it could sens you notifications if there is a new news bulliten for your schools blog/page.  The iGoogle could also be made up for just your classroom.  I could pick what i want to update myself or the students on, on a daily basis.

Here are the links to both that I created.

http://www.google.com/alerts/manage?mqm=c&q=leaf+chronicle&x=AMJHsmV2CTdoEqN3DMsr7sBGMhAymW7-jw:1317615296258

http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en#t_0

Thing #11

I personally like finding the feeds on my own.  Not only can I go to the sites I normally visit, but I can just look around for an "RSS" link on the page.  if I don't find one, I know that they do not have the page linked to be subscribed to. 

The easiest search tool that I came across was "syndic8".  It was like typing in a tag and it could send you to possible feeds that talk about those sorts of topics exactly.  I alsoo browsed through Technorati, and it was fairly easy to manuever as well.  The other to feed finders looked to complicated to even try to find where to begin.

I loved using the tag look up.  You could just type in a keyword, rather than typing in the whole site trying to find something interesting.  I am really starting to enjoy RSS feeds, and will probably use it everyday, or everytime I get on my computer.

Thing #10

I have always wondered what the little orange icon was in the top right hand corner of my computer screen.  I never wanted to press it, just in case it sent my computer into some host of one million viruses, so I left it alone.  I never knew that it was an "RSS feed" that could hold as many blogs, websites, and newsfeeds as you wanted.  I chose to subscribe to CNN world news, The Soup (from E!), Marlena from makeup geek, and News Channel 5's local news.  I thought it was a great resource if I just wanted to go to one spot to see all of the sites I enjoy visiting every day. 

This could be very useful in the classroom as well.  If I had many sites I wanted to show the leaners in a days time, I could just open up google reader, and there all the sites would be with just one log in to just one site.

Thing #9

I think that using these image creators are a great tool you can use in the classroom.  These create images that give a personal feel to whatever you plan to teach or use these to help prepare your lesson.  I made a couple of different images but my favorite one I made was the tree engraved "English".  I thought this was really cool, considering my favorite part of teaching fifth grade will be getting them engaged in reading and language arts.  I used the image creator called "Image Chef".

http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Tree+Heart