Thing 17

Delicious was a very neat website that can help you organize websites that you want to bookmark for later. I really enjoyed this website. It is very easy to use and to store websites that you want to save for later. I was actually thinking the other day that I needed to condense down my bookmarks menu on my computer. With delicious I can do that. I went though and quickly and easily moved all of my teaching websites that were saved on my bookmarks menu to delicious. I selected a few tags for the websites to make it easy to find them in the future. I think I will definitely use this website as a teacher. I plan on using this website more as I work on my degree and hopefully by the time I begin teaching I will have a lengthy list of websites to use for my classroom. I hope that as I use Delicious, more teachers will begin to use it and we can share our sites together.

Thing 16

I chose to look at iGoogle, 30 Boxes, Ta Da List, and Engrade.

I really enjoyed using iGoogle as my start screen for a little while. It was easy to see all of my apps on one screen. I could see my mailbox, calendar, quotes, the date and time, and even the weather on one screen. I thought it was very easy to use because you could add or delete apps as you wanted. Even school age kids would be able to navigate iGoogle and be able to customize the start screen for their needs.

Next I chose to try out 30 Boxes. I also thought this website was very easy to navigate. It was easy to add events to the calendar and you could even set up a to-do list on there if you needed to. I liked that you could share the calendar with people. I think this would be good to use in my classroom to share what we are going to be doing in class with the parents.

I was not a fan of Ta-Da Lists. The website was easy to use and easy to sign up for but it just seemed to simple. I don't think I will ever get on this website to make a to-do list when it does the same thing I can do with a pencil and paper and without the internet. It was not a bad site, I guess it just did not have anything different to offer for me.

The last site I explored was engrade. I chose this website because when I was in high school, the teachers started to use it right before I graduated so I wanted to see what it was all about. I really enjoyed the site actually. Teachers, students, and parents can all interact on this website. Engrade makes it easy for a students and parents to keep up with their grades and messages from the teachers. I think I will use this website in my own classroom to make things easier not only for me but also the students and parents.

Thing 15

I found the wiki to be pretty awesome actually. When I started this assignment I was skeptical about wikis but once I found out  how easily it was to edit, I was shocked. I really like the whole idea of the wiki. It would very useful in a classroom for assignments for the students, where the students can ask questions and help each other find answers. It could also be helpful for parents with questions or a get back to school list for the parents. I could see myself using a wiki in my classroom since it was so easy and user friendly.

Thing 14

I chose to explore Bubbl.us and Flowchart.com at first. I wasn't able to figure out Flowchart.com or at least I didn't see the significance in it, so I looked at Gliffy. I was more happy looking at this website. I enjoyed how many different things you could choose to make. There were so many different choices from Venn diagrams to even floor plans for a house. I definitely think I could see myself using this is my classroom. Making Venn diagrams are helpful in math so this would be a good alternative to just drawing one. This website would have been beneficial several weeks ago when I had to make a Venn diagram for a class.

I also made a flowchart on Bubbl.us. I just made something simple to see how it worked and I was kinda surprised how easy it was. All you had to do was hot command+enter to create a new line or tab to add another point to that line. You could also change the colors of the different points to prevent confusion.

I really enjoyed both of these sites. They were both easy to use and I think my students would be able to use these in my class. I look forward to using these again whether it be in college or my
own classroom.

Thing #13

I explored the Zoho writer and Google Docs. As I explored Zoho I found it very similar to Microsoft Word. I did not find it hard to use but I am use to using Word so I think I would use word instead of Zoho. However, I enjoyed using Google Docs. I made this picture above with the Google Docs drawing tool. I made this picture to go along with all the lessons I have written. I think that not only the drawing tool in Google Docs would be useful but the presentations and spreadsheets would also be useful. I think I  would use Google Docs in my own classroom. I think the students would enjoy using the drawing tools to create study guides for tests and I think I would use Google Docs to create documents and post them online so if a student is absent they can look online and find their homework.

Thing #4

Commenting on other people's blog is a great way to share you own thoughts on the subject the writer is talking about. I think that when you are able to comment you are able to express your own feelings, which I think is the best part of blogging. Commenting on other's blogs also lets the blogger know that they are writing about something that is important. It is important for people to get feedback in everything they do. As a future teacher and maybe coach, I think it is really important to get feedback with evaluations, parents, tests scores, or even with a game score. In this profession it is important to know and want to learn and grow to better yourself as a teacher. When somebody comments on my blog it helps to give me another prospective of things and not just my own. I have chosen several classmates blogs to follow. 

The first blog I decided to follow was Ashlee Boyd's blog. I was really interested in reading what she had to say and we had the same thoughts on several different points. http://ashleeboyd23things.blogspot.com. 

I also chose to follow Cherie Manske's blog. http://23thingsjanell.blogspot.com. I think she had very good insight on the Things we have done so far and I think her work will be useful to me in the future. 

Anita Taylor's blog was another blog I decided to follow and comment on. I think she very insightful and will make a great teacher so it will be beneficial for me to follow her blog. http://ataylor29.blogspot.com. 

I chose to follow Derek Carroll's blog as well. The easy thing to say is that he commented on my blog and that we have had a class together so I decided to do the same, but as I started to look at his blog I noticed that he had so many great ideas. He will make a great teacher. I look forward to seeing more of the ideas he has as this project goes on. http://jcapsu44.blogspot.com

Last but not least, I chose to follow Shelby Burkhart's blog. I had a class with Shelby and I realized how enthusiastic about teaching she was. She has many great ideas and I look forward to seeing more ideas as she blogs more. http://burkharts23awesomethings.blogspot.com

I chose two blogs to follow that we outside of our class project that I think will benefit me as a future math teacher. I commented on these blogs because they both had so many great ideas for teaching math lessons and I wanted them to know that people appreciate them posting it. the two blogs I followed were "Math Teacher life" (http://www.educatorlife.com/mathteacherlife/) and "Love2learn2day"(http://love2learn2day.blogspot.com). Both of these sites will help me as a teacher and I look forward to getting to use some of their ideas in my classroom one day. 

Thing #12

Google is probably one of my most used sites. I use google to search for things all the time. However, I did not realize how many other things Google has to offer. I explored almost all the extra things that Google did and I was amazed. I think that Google had designed all of these tools perfectly. Although I liked all of these tools and think they will all be useful, my favorite two tools were the Google Calendar and Google Translate. I think both of these website will be the most useful in my classroom. With Google Calendar, I want to make a calendar online with the classwork and homework we did that day so students and parents can look at the calendar instead of emailing me. It will more convenient for everyone. With the translator I think it would be useful to talk to parents. Depending on where I teach, I could possibly have parents of students that only speak another language, this is where the translator would be useful. I think that it is very easy to use and would be a great way for me to communicate. I think it is important to make sure that a language barrier is not a problem no matter where or who you teach. Education is important for everyone and its important to give all students the same education.