Week 9, Thing #23, Thoughts

I can honestly say that by taking this course I now know a lot more about resources on the internet than I ever thought possible. The only problem of course will be remembering how to access and use all of them. There were some truly amazing things on the internet, and I do not know that I can choose one as my favorite; however, the ones I liked most and am likely to use the most is Zoho and the audio books. These were the two I found easiest because they are easily accessed and did not require lots of information to set up or use. Both will not only help me but will help several of my students as well. I really enjoyed taking this course and hope to implement much of what I have learned in my classroom.

Week 9, Thing #22, eBooks

Wow! Who knew this type of site was out there?! Being a teacher of the deaf there are numerous times throughout the year when I wish that I had access to audio tapes. Having them online is even better than having to find a hard copy, because the child can access it both at home and at school. Students could even have the opportunity to preview material that they will be covering in class. Just being able to follow along and move through a book at a steady pace is a great advantage. Having the ability to listen to a book on their provides students with the opportunity to go at their own pace and review material when they want. It also allows them to hear words pronounced correctly and this is of the utmost importance for hearing impaired children.

Week 9, Thing #21, Podcasts

Finally, something I have had some experience with. I was beginning to think that I was totally out of touch with today's technology. Before today I had explored iTunes at great length - What else do college student's do? I enjoyed exploring some of the other podcasts that are out there. Seeing that the only time I really listen to the news is the car (which you can't really call news b/c on most FM radio stations it's mainly updates on celebrities) I decided to look mainly at the news podcasts. When looking at some classmates blogs I found a link to the NPR podcast website, and I found that to be a great place to learn about current events. I must say though that I did spend a lot of time looking through junk on the sites before coming across more reliable information.

I found a link to the New York Times on which they summarize the front page daily. The actual NY Times site itself has tons of podcasts & RSS feeds on it, unfortunately I am having trouble locating the RSS feed for the summary page, so for now here is a link to it.
http://podcastalley.com/podcast_details.php?pod_id=19341#

Week 9, Thing #20, YouTube

What an interesting website, being a recent college graduate it is shocking that this was my first YouTube experience. There definitely is "a lot of stuff not worth watching" but I did find some comical things, and am sure I could find useful clips for in the classroom as well. Below is the link to an old coca-cola commercial. I chose the clip becuase at first I had no idea what to go looking for and I had just recently recieved an e-mail from coke. So, coke commercials is what I ended up looking at first. Some were quite entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ0FRW1W3yA

Week 8, Thing #19, LibraryThing

This website is way more fun than typing all my books into Excel like I usually do, and it actually organizes everything for me! It couldn't be any easier. I only added a few of the books in my classroom library for now to save on time; however, I fully intend to add of the books to the site. I think it is a great way to keep track of all the books I have in the classroom.

Since the books I added are all children's books, and very popular ones at that, they were all very popular out of the ones I added Little Women was by far the most popular. I anticipate that the other books I add will be popular as well, because it seems as though there are many educators on the site. I like that there are postings/ratings about the books, because it is a neat way for students to read about a book before selecting it. It also a great way for them to share thoughts about a book.

Here is the link to my LibraryThing catalog http://www.librarything.com/catalog/canyouhearmenow

Week 8, Thing #18, Zoho

That was my favorite activity thus far! My previous post is what I wrote on Zoho, and sending it to my blog only took one minute...I love that they have a place a the top of the page where you can just click and export to your blog. It couldn't be any easier!

Week 8, Thing # 18, Zoho

Just from reading through the introduction I am very excited about this program! Being a new teacher I don't have my own classroom let alone my own my computer at work. I am constantly going from computer to computer and hoping that all of my files come up ok. I can't wait to try this out and not have to worry about formatting from one place to another. What a wonderful idea this is!

Being that my computer is now a few years older I was amazed at all the option this program has to offer in terms of formatting. My computer doesn't have half that stuff. I love the ease of generating charts, lists, and graphs right on the page. There is even an easy way to add exponents! This program is going to be a great asset to me because I am constantly spending hours writing math sheets and now it can be done with ease all within one program.

The organization at the the top of the page is wonderful - it is so easy to find everything that you might need when writing a document. I really like that there are buttons for things like the thesaurus, comments, end notes, and footnotes, because when teaching writing these are things that are often hard to locate especially for first time users. I could see this program being a great resource for student projects, because it would be an easy way for them to do work both at school and at home without worrying about a disk or thumb drive.