Thing 9:

I was able to find very interesting blogs using several of the search tools. Google search was easy enough, but edublog's award winners was very nice. Being a science teacher, I found a blog called Using Blogs in Science Education that shouted for me to subscribe. It was nice that each blog was nominated for an award so my confidence in finding interesting, pertinent posts was very high. I did find several there to add to my Reader and also tried School Library Blogs on Suprglu. I found the "pipes" idea was a bit confusing, but I added yet another blog from this site about Young Adult Library Information. My favorite way to find blogs is through a trusted blogger's blogroll. I figured that Cool Cat Teacher's Blog is used to teach this Thing and I loved the idea of a circle of the wise, so borrowing blogs from Cool Cat's blogroll was honoring her wisdom.

Thing 8:

Rss feeds are very useful. I can now get the updated news from all my favorite sites. It really saves time by getting the update and not having to open each site individually. As a teacher and librarian I would have feeds from several sites about books, best practices, and new ideas about lessons. There is only so much time to research and this brings it to you.

EDIT: Two blogs that I am following are The Weather Channel and Science News.

Thing 7

Google aps have certainly changed my mind forever about Google. I have always enjoyed the simplicity and accessibility of the search engine, but I had no idea of the many applications that were available. Two of my favorites are Google Calendar and Google Scholar. I have 3 very involved teens, a husband, and now my own schedule includes work and grad school. My calendar was challenging to say the least. I just started adding events and asked my 10th grade son to send me his Google Calendar to merge with mine. I have grandiose plans of having all 5 family members' commitments in one place. The best part is having it available on the web to the family. I plan on adding my wall calendar events to this new Google Calendar and having each family member create a calendar to share with mine. Right now I have made this public in order to share it for this post. After the grades are in, I will go back and make it private. This picture shows a sample of the great beginnings. The educational uses of this application might be to have a class calendar that is available to students and parents. I would also encourage students to set up a calendar among classmates to coordinate time available to work on projects or have a study group. My Destination Imagination team could certainly have benefited from a merged Google calendar to set up practice times.
Google Scholar has already helped me out with research for reliable articles for some of our discussions in this class. This would be a preference in research over students using just plain Google which responds too broadly for most students who need help in narrowing their focus.
Just an aside, I have started using Google Chrome as my web browser. I am amazed at its speed compared to Internet Explorer. I am learning more benefits of this browser every week or so, but it is not allowed by the Katy ISD web application for lesson plans.

Thing 6:

I created a trading card. As a librarian and a teacher, students can use the trading card for many lessons. They can research poets and use the trading card to enter info about the poet's life, poems, and awards. We used this idea on our midterm lesson where students posted the trading card among other information on a class wiki. In science, they can research a scientist or a particular type of animal and make a trading card. History can use this method for people, battles or places of import.

One of the aps that caught my attention on Big Huge Labs is the Mapmaker. I made a map of all the states I have visited.

States I have visited

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Thing 5:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=tortosa+sunset&l=4&z=m

Sunset pictures have always been my favorites. Flickr is a plethora of pictures, videos and ideas for librarians and teachers to use and share. How would you use them? Some of the many examples I saw and would be interested in were the 'design a book bag for the library contest', photo contests, and the "hi-fi sci-fi library" video. These were great ways to advocate for libraries by using a hook to involve a diverse group of people. The photo contests could be the student's own photos which are posted to flickr and given an authentic audience for review and comments. There could be an assignment tied to a piece of literature or a science topic, where the student mines for images that relate to the period or topic. I think the ideas and images are overwhelming and very exciting. I know that I spent way too much time exploring and enjoying Thing 5.

Thing 4

Thing 4:
I am an official player now. I got my email. Shake 'em up, let 'em roll.

Thing 3:

Thing 3:
Whew! Setting up my blog was confusing at first, but I caught on. Once I started setting up my avatar, I had a blast. It was so much fun playing with all the features - clothes, hair, background, etc. But on the serious side, I can see the value of doing these exercises. I am already starting to feel a little more relaxed and, yes, a glimmer of confidence. Just getting in there and trying things out (no pun intended) is really the path to learning how 2.0 tools work.