Thing 12

I chose to do a Google alert and use iGoogle to customize my homepage. For the Google alert it lets you type in anything you want and to the right it will actually show you the Google results so you can decide if that is what you want. You can customize it to alert you "once a day", "once a week", or "as it happens". You can also customize the result type to News, Blogs, Videos, Discussions, Books or Everything. It also lets you choose "only the best results" or "everything". I really like this because it sends updates straight to your email. When I clicked on the iGoogle, it gave me options for news updates that interested me right on my homepage such as sports, entertainment, news, music, and technology. It also gave me a choice of five designs for me page. After choosing the ones that I wanted my page had updates of all the things that I chose. Google alert will be helpful to me when I am a teacher because if there is an important issue going on that I need to stay updated on, Google alert does it for me. All I have to do is check my email.

Thing 11

When I am on my Blogspot home page there is a link to Google Reader. I clicked on that and it went straight to my Google Reader and had a list of all of the feeds that I had already subscribed to. There was also a search bar to subscribe to new feeds. This is the easiest way to find feeds. You simply type in whatever you are interested in and it pulls up many different feeds on that subject. All you have to do is pick one and subscribe to it. After looking at the three feeds offered on the 23 things page, I like Technorati the best. I typed in Technorati into the search bar on my Google Reader homepage and it came up. I hit subscribe and I am now subscribed to it on my Google Reader. This was the easiest way for me because the link is already in my Blogspot. The most confusing would be looking at the feeds first and then trying to subscribe to them. I really like Technorati because it had a variety of different feeds. It has everything from movie reviews to sports updates.

Thing 10

I liked this exercise because it is so easy to look up anything you want and have so many website on that topic come up that you can subscribe to. Its also easy to check the websites because you subscribe to them all you have to do when you log into your Google Reader account is look at your subscriptions and they will all be there. This will be very helpful to me in my classroom because I can look up things like, "Creative classroom ideas", "effective ways of communicating with parents", and effective teaching skills." These are just three of the things that I looked up when subscribing. I think they will be very beneficial to me in my classroom and give me good ideas for new things. I could also use this in my personal life for holiday ideas, recipes, decorating, arts and crafts and anything else that I could think of. You can look up pretty much anything. Teachers can take advantage of this by asking questions that they have and seeing what pops up. Simply typing in something like "discipline strategies" will bring up so many helpful websites that you can subscribe to and check every day for new ideas.

Thing 9

Here is the link: http://www.imagechef.com/

I chose to used ImageChef. I love this!! You can choose from so many templates and put pictures in them and insert a text saying whatever you want. It allows you to make word mosaics and insert your photo into a photo frame. You can choose from many categories of designs for these. There are also many categories for the templates from birthday to music to sports. First, I typed in "beach" in the search bar for templates. The moving picture came up and allowed you to insert a text. Next, I typed in "valentine's day card". Many images came up. I chose one that I liked and inserted a picture of myself and text. There was the option to insert a design also. I chose a heart.

I would use this personally to send things be email such a invitations and holiday cards. There are so many cute options and you can customize it any way you want. The website is very easy to navigate and takes about a minute to edit any template the way that you want. I would use this in my classroom to send emails to parents with upcoming events in the classroom and holiday cards as well. I could also used this to create interesting handouts for my students and pictures to use around my classroom.

Thing 8

Thing 8, a photo by ksatterly on Flickr.

This is so cute. I really think this can be useful in the classroom for making things more interesting and appealing to the students. This could be good in the classroom to make things more creative. There were a lot more options than the puzzle that were really cute. You could also use it in your personal life for things like flyers, advertising, scrapbooking or invitations. I like sharing pictures online because you can personalize them, edit them, and do these kinds of things to make them more interesting.

Thing 7

This photo was taken by Moyan Brenn in Italy. Here is the link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/aigle_dore/3758688702/


After looking around Flickr, I just typed in "pink" in the search bar. The pictures were all so cute! I ended up just looking at the pictures for a while. I finally came across this one after looking at seven other pages and really liked it. The photographer said that this is very rare to find a pink cloud all by itself. Of course I like it because it is pink, but also because I love the beach. I like this picture because it is very pretty and it is different. I liked using Flickr because you can find so many pictures of different things. I also like it because they are photos that people post and write about. You can also do the advanced search and specify what you want even to the exact day. You can also find videos and organize the pictures that you like. You can personalize your profile and also find friends on Flickr. It makes it really easy to add contacts to your Flickr by letting you go through your Facebook account and add your friends through that.

Thing 6

I chose Hulu. I actually use this a lot. I really like this tool because it has movies and all the popular T.V. shows. I am always staying up late studying and this makes me miss all my shows. I like Hulu because I can catch up on all my shows at my convenience. If you do not have a particluar show that you need to see each week, Hulu makes it easy to find something that will interest you if you are bored. At the top it gives you the option to choose browse, most popular or recently added. After that you can choose shows, episodes, movies or documentaries. It is very helpful because if you are not sure if you will like what you choose it allows you to watch a trailor. I do not think that I could see Hulu used in a school or library setting because it is mainly for shows that you watch in your leisure time and do not have much to do with school. However, I do think that the option to watch documentaries could be useful for reseach or writing papers. Here is the link :)  http://www.hulu.com/