Google Translate: Thing Twelve

For Thing Twelve, I explored different Google tools that are offered. Apparently, Google is also used for many different searches, as well as keywords. There is Google Calendar, Google Translate, and Google Alert. I myself, tried out the Google Translate. I translated "Good morning" in English to Irish. In Irish it is "Dea-maidin". I found this as an interesting tool. The link to my creation is below.

http://translate.google.com/#en/ga/Good%20morning

I find this particular Google tool useful to incorporate in the classroom. When teaching Social Studies, when learning about other cultures, such as African heritage and Kwanzaa, students must learn about he language Swahili. This would be a fun tool to pull up in my lesson and let students name off words to translate in Swahili. It is always awesome to find another useful and fun tool to use in my future classroom!

Blog searching: Thing Eleven

For Thing Eleven, I explored different search tools for finding blogs to add to my reader. I actually found this particular exercise confusing. I honestly preferred searching for blogs on my Google reader. The easiest method otherwise is the Google Blog Search. There I did find the School Library Learning 2.0. It was very similar to the blogs we are making now. The other tools such as Topix.net I did not find as easy. It was confusing and I was not quite sure to where to start searching. One interesting website I did find is TeachersPayTeachers.com. This website lets teachers share their resources with other teachers. This website also features blogs by many teachers all around. I did not find many other ways for finding tools for blog searching. Though it was confusing, I do see how this tool can be useful when wanting to find or search specific blogs. Especially ones that are relevant to your lesson or classroom!

RSS: Thing Ten

For Thing Ten, I signed myself up with Google Reader and subscribed to five different feeds related to teaching. 

Cool Cat Teacher Blog

Free Technology for Teachers

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman

learning.now

Dangerously Irrelevant

While searching through the different options for subscriptions, I took a small peek at each one to decide whether or not I would enjoy the feed. A few of the feeds have different tips or ideas for the classroom and a few others have funny thoughts to think about while in the classroom (or just funny thoughts to get you through another school day). I believe I could use the Cool Cat Teacher Blog or learning.now for the classroom when needing new ideas for teaching my students. These blogs also offer different resources I can use to incorporate into the classroom. For example, I noticed one feed on the Cool Cat Teacher Blog about the day Neil Armstrong was named an astronaut and what his parents' feelings were about it. This is not only interesting for me to watch or read about, but for my future students as well. Every young child has aspirations of becoming a doctor, lawyer, or astronaut! This would be perfect for them to watch and learn about. Now, for my personal life, I find blogs such as the Confessions of a Pioneer Woman to be good. The lady of the blog shares funny thoughts of her personal life that may give hard working people (such as teachers) a laugh for the day or week!

This technology is a great resource for everyone, especially teachers, to take advantage of. It is really simple to log onto my email and get to read each feed that is relevant for my classroom in one place. I can even check at school real quick and pull it up in my classroom in the middle of a lesson. For example, if I am teaching a lesson on the first walk on the moon in Social Studies and I want to mention something extra about Neil Armstrong. I enjoyed learning about another useful tool to use in my future classroom. It really is that simple!

Generators: Thing Nine

For Thing Nine, we are asked to use generators.

Honestly, whenever I first started reading the discovery exercise I thought, generators? How could I possibly use or enjoy such a thing and what exactly is a generator doing in a classroom? 

Well, all it took was a little exploring and playing around with this 2.0 tool for me to believe it is awesome! Fun graphics and pictures ALWAYS catch the eyes of children. Using funny smileys with signs reading off the class or stating an assignment can grab the attention of a student for him/her to read further. I played around with the smileys myself. I would leave to teach Social Studies so I made a graphic pertaining to this subject. I also created a 1957 Tennessee license plate reading "EDUCATOR". I simply got onto the links (listed below), played with generators, saved a screen shot, and uploaded the pictures I made on my blog. Generators are a tool that can be fun not only for the teachers but kids as well!

http://cmtk3.webring.org/l/rd?ring=digitalleonardo;id=34;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.customsigngenerator.com%2F

http://www.images-graphics-pics.com/signs/smilies/sign-generators.asp?page=1

Spell with flickr: Thing Eight

Thing Eight ask us to use a mash up and create something new for our blog. I decided to use Spell with flickr. I believe this was a very fun tool to use. All I had to do was type in a word and it spelled it out for me, easily! After your word appears, you can change the image of the letter that appears by simply clicking on that letter. There are many images for letters you can choose from.

I chose the word EDUCATION for my image. I tried to choose an image that reflects learning and teaching in some way for each letter as well. This tool could be used for simply teaching spelling to students in the classroom. If I could have exploring all the different possibilities, I know elementary children will too. This could get my students excited to spell. Each week I could assign each student a word or two from the spelling list and have them use this tool to create a new image on a word they learned that week! It would definitely get my students to thinking and having fun at the same time!