Thing #11

Ok, this is WONDERFUL (say this with a sing song voice)!!!!! My life is going to be so much easier. I am a book-a-holic, but have dificulty remembering all of the books that I have read. I used to keep a book diary in the drawer of my nightstand, but somehow I lost it. As soon as I finish this blog I'm going to send a link to all of my friends who love books as much as I do so they can be organized and share book ideas with me.

I loved the 50 book challenge group. However, with work I definitely don't have enough time to read 50 books in a year (I usually read around 25), but luckily you just set a goal for yourself and blog about the books you have read. I think I am going to sign up for that one!

I also like the group on YA literature. Even though I teach math, I like to be aware of what my students are reading. I feel that it is just one way to make that personal connection with a student. I absolutely love when they can make a recommendation to me of what to read and then I have a book talk with them after class. So much fun!

Thing #10

I made the above picture at imagechef.com using the word mosiac feature. I like how you can show vocabulary words in an interesting way. I would like to add my own shapes instead of using the stock ones that were provided on the site. I could have also gone to wordle.net and done something similar. I played around with both, but liked this picture best.

For fun I went to dumpr.com and created this pencil sketch from an old picture of mine. I'm having a little too much fun here!!! :-)

Finally, I went to comicstripgenerator.com to create this cartoon. I use pictures like this in my classroom to give to students for doing a good job. Unfortunately I have been doing this the hard way for years now. This was an absolute breeze to create!!!!

I could very easily become addicted to creating pictures and cartoons from these sites. Thank you for sharing them!!!

Thing #9

I absolutely love Atomic Learning. I just discovered this at the end of the last school year. I found so many useful techology integrated lessons on that site that I couldn't wait to share them everyone. Unfortunately I have forgotten the password...BOO! I was hoping to play around some and find some beginning of the year activities to share with my math teachers. Can anyone help me with the log in and password? I just know that I am going to seriously be using this a lot during the upcoming school year.

I did not care for the edublogs awards winners site. This site didn't have a search area (maybe I missed it). I want to be able to type in exactly what I want to read about, example: teaching mathematics, and see what pops up. I had to do a lot of hunting for exactly what I wanted. Frankly, I don't have time for that.

Thing #8

I honestly didn't have a clue about RSS and readers. I didn't even notice the little orange symbol before. I had friends personal blogs bookmarked and would check them frequently. I like that I don't have to waste time pulling up their sites. Google Reader is fantastic! I'm just going to save so much time...FANTASTIC!!!!!

Professionally I think that I will be able to branch out of my little coccoon of my own school and district and be able to spread my wings to catch up with the latest news from other schools and districts.

Thing #7

I have heard people talk about Google Docs, but never knew what was so special about this. I already have plans for the use of this next year. I get so tired of sending the same document back and forth between several different people for opinions and editing purposes. I had no idea that there was actually a site that would "house" the document and we could then have access to. I see this helpful for teachers that plan together. I can't tell you how many times emails have flown back and forth with changes, and then I would accidentally print an earlier version of the document. I also think this would be fantastic for students to use for class projects. Students will no longer have to actually meet with each other to work on the project.

I also think that I am going to use Google Calendar. I have struggled with a way to let everyone, co-workers and family, know my schedule. I like that I can sinc this with Outlook and have everything in one spot. I am going to begin using this when school starts. Hopefully this will help me stay better organized!

Thing #6

This is so cool! I spent a lot of time playing with the mosaic feature and the trading card feature at bighugelabs.com I see huge possibilities for using this not only for my personal life (Christmas presents here I come), but also to display pictures around the classroom and school. This is a truly fun tool that I will be using often in the future!

Thing #5

I love Flickr. I have used this in the past for my own personal photos, but I honestly didn't know all of the wonderful photos that I had at my fingertips for my classroom. I found one picture that I absolutely loved, but it was unfortunately in the general collection section. BOO!!! I spent quite a bit of time looking for that picture in the other groups and didn't find it anywhere. So, I'm going to just quote the picture..."Math is like love, A simple idea but it can get complicated. " I just love that!!! I'm going to post that in my room!!!

I found a lot of photos with examples of math errors in them. I think pictures like this one would be fun to share with the students.

Thing #3

Setting up the blog page was incredibly easy!!!! I think the hardest part was picking what page style that I wanted to use.

I have created avatars before for yahoo messenger, so I just had fun with backgrounds, clothes and accessories. This totally reminds me of the paper dolls and fashion plates that I had as a little girl. I did have trouble having the darn thing showing up on my page. I saved it as a jpeg and was able to get my avatar to show!!!

I have yet to explore other's blogs, but I'm looking forward to it.

Later!

Thing #2

This is the first time that I have ever tried blogging, so this is going to be interesting. I could never keep up with a diary/journal, so I don't know what makes me think that I'm actually going to be able to keep up with this, but I want to learn all of these new technologies so I'm going to have to focus!!! This actually leads me in to the discussion on the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Effective Lifelong Learners.

While learning about the 7 1/2 habits I realized that some are easier for me to attain than others. The easiest habit is the first one: Begin with the end in mind. I am able to focus more clearly when I know exactly what I want for the end result. The one that is the hardest for me is #4: Have confidence in yourself. This is truly not an easy task for me. I'm incredibly hard on myself, and I am constantly have to remind myself to be positive.

Well, this wasn't too painful!!! Until next time.