Thing #11

Library Thing is pretty cool. I started off just thinking I would get me account, post my 5 books and move on, but hours later, I have been reading post from the talk and group pages, I looked at the events in the local section. I have added my favorite bookstores to my favorite venue list.
I found it interesting how many people were trying to find a book that they could not remember the title of (usually from thier childhood),and most have found them. Really cool resources. Many were asking for read aloud book advice for certain kinds of kids. very interesting.
I can easily see this being used as a place to get help finding titles of books for hard to find topics. Also a teacher was asking about early childhood songs that have been made into picture books. She must have gotten hundreds of repsonses!! What a great place to get book info!!
I am also going to continue to look through the goups and find one I could join for a while. It is nice to discuss the books I read with others sometimes.
Great Resource!!

Thing # 10

Myspace Banner Generator @ JellyMuffin.com

I had a lot of fun with Thing 10. I love text and image generators. I tried all those on the Library2play site and also found: http://www.jellymuffin.com/generators/glitter_animator/ and http://cooltext.com/ To make some other styles of letters. I loved the other image makers like the cartoon ones but I ma not thinking very clever today so I will have to go back and make one on another day.
Uses of these are many but I think most would be to add interest to projects and end products and to motivate kids ot get to that point. You could use the text generator to make really cool labels, signs, for projects. The image makers would be great for open house, mom's day gifts, student author pages, even jazzing up a biorgaphy.
I did notice though that these free geerators usually have a lot of ads on them. This could be something to look at when refering students to these sites.

Thing # 9

I tried all the different search tools listed. I found Bloglines and Google Blog search easiest to use for me. They are really just like using Google search but you only look for blogs or RSS feeds. Very easy! But as I am still new at the blog stuff, I do not know what I would want to read about on a regular basis. So for now I have added some hobby interests like birding, and curriculum interests like dinosaurs and birds to my other more news like feeds.
As I was reading another person's blog I noticed a great application for the RSS feeds. For whoever at you school who assists with the daily broadcast, having feeds from the sites you use would be great- weather, person or today in history...All the info would be right there and ready to use each day.
I also agree that we have to be careful about the source of these feeds. Are they really accurated and reliable sources? How can we double check? This would be a great stepping stone or reveiw of checking sources.
I also found some RSS feeds by just going to the sites that I use like KHOU, history channel.. and found the feeds one a variety of subjects that I might like to have on my fingertips.
As I continue to exlore the world of blogs and RSS I will find more things I am interested in.

Thing # 8

So far, I am not liking the RSS very much. It is way too much stuff and I have found it very hard to find stuff of interest to me. It is a great idea to have your favorite info just come to you and you do not have to go searching to check for new entries but as I said, I will need to do some more lookingn to find more of interest to me. I think that is kind of what I have on my AT&T homepage where I have the top stories from a few different sources (Reutgers health, Fox news)

I would use this as a way to keep up to date on things happening around the world. If I could find some feeds more directly related to school- kindergaten in particular, it would be more usefull in teaching. Again, I will be reading other's blogs to see how they think it could be used in the classroom and the library.

Thing 7

I have had a lot of fun playing with the Google tools. I first just looked around, then I made myself an iGoogle page. I added the time tool, moon phases and the weather. Then I found some fun games to play, and 2 of the " best pictures" tools. I put on a couple of news sources on too. I am not sure how this could be used for curriculum so I will be watching what others say.
I love to use Google Earth. I have been using it for a while now. I have visited amy places I would never go to like Greenland, Svalbard ( an island near the north pole), areas in China as well as familar places. When reading it is fun to see what it looks like where the book is taking place. Last year I used this a lot for my kids who were reading or studying unfamilar areas to help them get a better feel for the setting.
I am still working on the notebook tool. I am a little mixed up on a few things so Iwill go back and check out the how to more.

Thing #6

I have had a lot of fun playing with the different flickr toys... I mean tools. The different color pickers were cool. I loved going through the colors and seeing what pictures came up. I also enjoyed making trading cards and magazine covers but I haven't figured out what size picture to use and all mione are being cropped a lot. But it is fun. I made some trading cards for some different kinds of birds. I could see 2nd grade using this during their bird unit. The magazine cover was fun. I think it would be a fun way for older kids - 3+ to pull out the main points in a science or SS chapter or unit. Jigsaw was also fun to use. Thinking about what I might try to use with my kids next year, I would probably use the trading cards to make alphabet trading cards.

I also loved playing the guess the caption.

Thing 4

I forgot Thing 4. I did send my info in to be registered and today when I logged in, I saw my name on the list I guess I did it right!!

Thing 5

I found a lot of nice pictures on Flickr but I am not sure I get the idea. It seems to be like google images except that you can choose the level of rights you have with the image you download?
I stopped and went to read some other people's blogs to get some new insights on Flickr. I see that the idea is that it is easy to find pictures that are not copyrighted and so easy for us to use. My question is: Is there and blocking feature to keep 'inappropriate pictures from showing or is the site relatively safe?

I did find some really great pictures and plan to go back to the sight for more pictures when I need them. At this point I do not need to post any pictures but I will consider it if I need to in the futrue. Could you post a set of pictures for your students to choose from while working on a project thus giving them options but not free run of the internt?

Thing 3

Well, my blog is up and my Avatar is posted. The blog was really easy but I had some problems with my Avatar. Mostly not saving and so I had to restart a few times. I also had to have 2-3 windows open at the same time to see the directions from Library2play and email so I could get all the right info emailed to the right person to register. But now that that is complete, I am ready to see what is out there. I will be teaching Kinder this fall and I hope I can find some fun stuff to do with my kids. I am sure they will be quicker than me on a lot of this stuff!!
Anyone out there using this stuff with 4 and 5 year olds? may be we will need to partner with some older kids. Let me know!

Thing 2

I enjoyed watching the 7 1/2 habits. I think my hardest habit is staying positive. I often get frustrated and decide that I can't do it. I liked what she said about don.t say it or think it unless you want it to be true.
The easiest habit is taking responsibility for my own learning. I love to learn new things and am always finding ways to learn what I want to learn. I love to teach others new things too. I have found this one of my best ways to learn- knowing that I will need to teach it to someone else.

Thing 1

Ithink this Library2play is going to be a lot of fun. Thanks for the opportunity to learn at home... or whereever..