Thing #16- Books, Books, Books!

I love to read. It is one of my favorite summer activities. Because I teach math, I'm not sure there's too much I could do with my students in Library Thing, but I will definitely use it personally! I really liked the suggestion tool. I had fun typing in some of my favorite books and viewing other books I might like! I think the 50 Book Challenge is really cool, especially since there aren't strict "rules" for the group, so it's something I think I would enjoy! I also loved that people posted reviews on books they had read, so I could get an idea of other books I might like! I liked seeing the word clouds as well to see how other people tagged books I had read and searching tags I like to see other books in that category. Definitely a fun tool to use for a hobby I enjoy! :)

Thing #15- Delicious

I have never heard of Delicious, but after looking at it and practicing, I am pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to use! I love being able to press the "TAG" button and quickly enter my tags. After tagging a few sites, I noticed that suggested tags were provided for me. I used some of those, but also added my own! I really think I will use Delicious now that I know about it! I search the Internet a lot (especially during my off time in the summer!) and will often find a decorating tip or recipe I want to try, and I have to bookmark it, type something I will remember, and then the trick is remembering that I bookmarked it later on. I have tons of bookmarked sites that I forgot I even had in the first place. By using delicious, I can tag all my recipes, decorating ideas, travel sites, etc. without all the hassle- so easy!

I searched for interactive math lessons and games. Here is my delicious page. I think this could be very useful for educators because it is an easy way to share our favorite education links all in one place! For example, I could email my colleagues a link to my delicious page and they would automatically have the math links I have bookmarked at their disposal. Cool! And EASY- I like easy!

Thing #7a- Google Reader

I have said before that I really like David Warlick's blog. He takes things that seem to simple and so obvious and says them in a way that makes me think...very cool! Last week, he posted about the problem with students not knowing simple every day things that we learned in school and may take for granted, especially students who come from poverty. Two things he writes really jumped out at me (they are bold in his post, so hopefully they jump out at you too!). :) Our students can't imagine the possibilities for the future if they don't know about the present. But (here's the kicker..ha), the present can't be TAUGHT, it must be DISCOVERED. His post is definitely worth reading- it's not very long and is thought provoking!

Thing #14- Play time!

The first tool I played with was 30 Boxes. I have an obsession with calendars. I write EVERYTHING in my calendar: big events, small events, lunches- ha! I really liked it. I don't think I'm ready to give up my desk and purse calendars quite yet, but I did see lots of uses for this type of calendar in the classroom. Since it is updated online, I think it could be useful to use sort of like a wiki where a team of educators can update the calendar with meetings, lessons, etc. as they see fit. Also, I think it could be useful to inform parents of upcoming activities by inviting them as buddies so they could view the calendar or posting the calendar link on a class blog. It also has a status option to let students or parents (or just friends) any upcoming events or important information. I only added a few things so far, but here is a link to my calendar! Also, since it's online, it's pretty hard to lose- a major plus! :)

Some of my favorite things about 30 Boxes:

• I can add my to-do list to my Google Reader...sweet!! :)
• I can tag my entries to make categories (weddings, birthdays, school, fun)
• I can get an email each day with a "run-down" of things going on
• OR I can just get email reminders for specific events

I also played around with Wordle. I made a wordle using this blog. You can view it here. I really like that you can post your wordle for anyone to see. It was cool looking at the different word clouds that had been posted!


I also think PollDaddy is really cool! I added a simple and fun poll above to my blog, so you can check it out and let me know what you think! If your answer is not there, you can even add your own! I LOVE the fact that I can put a poll on a blog or website and get feedback- how cool for teachers and parents to communicate quickly!!

Thing #13- Mash Ups

I created these with Spell with flickr.







I used Image Chef for these.







I thought the Flickr Color Pickr was really cool, but every photo I clicked on for each color was copyrighted all rights reserved. Since I couldn't use any of those photos, I started playing around with some of the other generators. Image Chef was probably my favorite. I think pictures add interest for students. If I put images into my lessons that capture the interest of my students, they may remember the concepts as they connect them to pictures. I especially liked the soccer jersey generator because so many of my students LOVE soccer. Putting a soccer jersey into a lesson or using it to capture my students attention would probably be a big hit!

Thing #12- My Slideshow

My slideshow does not have captions because I want students to decide if each picture shows similarity or congruence.

Photo Credits:
Multiplication by Geometry by SputSoft
Left Hand Rotation by lefthandrotation
Similar Figures by sogni_hal
Signed multiplication by geometry by SputSoft
Blue, Red, Gray, Green by Robert Hruzek

Thing #11- Flickr

I have never really explored or used Flickr before today. I really liked the option to search within CC guidelines because it saved me lots of time and confusion! I searched for several different topics, but I saved photos for the topic of Similar Figures and Congruent Figures. My students usually have trouble with these concepts because they get them confused and mix them up. I would like to use pictures to show students the meanings of similar and congruent so that it will stick with them.

For example, I could use this photo to show similar figures:

Multiplication by Geometry by SputSoft

I searched for many other topics, and it took me a while to get the hang of the tags. There are certain tags that did not produce the results I wanted, so I had to modify the search term to be more specific. I also had better luck with searching using the tags only instead of searching all text.

I definitely think Flickr is useful to educators, especially given the ease with which we can search photos that are okay for us to use. I really think this will be helpful when teaching vocabulary, particularly new vocabulary words or words that are difficult and very abstract. I also think this tool will be extremely helpful in teaching vocabulary to English Language Learners.