SEVENTEEN

I can see this as a tool for teachers to help students find resources. Professors at APSU link related sources in D2L for us students to use. This could be used in the same manner. It could also be used for personal use because of it's ability to be accessed from anywhere. Teachers could also use this site to share resources with fellow teachers in their grade level, subject area, or whole school. By tagging these items with different tags it gives the researcher a brief idea of what the link contains. Such a resource could even be used state wide for teachers to collaborate their resources.

SiXTEEN

I chose to do the iGoogle homepage. I thought the sample page was cute and all the different applications to use/choose form also attracted me to this. I will not make this my homepage because I would probably never get any school work done again :) The online calendars could be useful for classroom calendars. The students could look online or at a printed copy in the room of the classroom calendar to know when tests, activities, and schedule changes will occur. I do not like the to do lists. I carry a paper planner with me. I like doing one thing on my list and erasing it out of my planner and then adding another thing. Online, it seems that I want to babble on a to do list rather than write what actually needs to get done. I like the calendar tool, as mentioned before. It could be used in the classroom or even at home. For a family with children the parents could add events like "Family Dinner" so that the children know that there is to be no social plans made for that time block. Also, if family vacations are being planned, them being on a calendar for everyone to see would provide everyone with a reminder of when they need to ask off work, or be caught up (or ahead) on school work to be able to take the time off. I would recommend the iGoogle homepage because it is so custom to YOU. Everything that you like to surf on the net is available in one place. However, I think, as said before, that this wonderful application would prevent me from doing as much school work :) I am easily distracted.

FiFTEEN:)

I thought this "thing" was rather interesting. Being able to edit others' thoughts and such was fun. I felt like a little kid, changing mom's font and size on her work newsletter:) I decided to add my post for thing Fourteen because I completed thing fourteen recently and I really enjoyed it. I deleted alot of people's pictures! hehehe:) Wiki's are rather fun. I also deleted alot of random sentences in people's paragraphs so that they do not make sense :) This goes to show why our professors are always telling us that wikipedia is not a valid resource. People can be mischievious and just TRY to delete/change/misprint information! Wiki's would be a good idea for students to collaborate about everything they learned in a course. If once a week every child had to go onto the wiki and add two things they learned that week, it could improve collaboration and assess what the children are retaining and what they are not.

FOURTEEN:)

I chose to explore the Bubbl.us and the Gliffy sites. I really like the Bubbl.us because it's great for getting ideas together for any event. Things I could use this for personally are: to do list, party organizer, organizer for family events, and organizing events to talk about at work. Educationally, Bubbl could be used for children to interact with technology while creating an organizer for: an essay, a group project, and ideas for school events. I think the students would really enjoy interacting with this website instead of drawing a circle on paper and writing in it. I also liked the Gliffy site. I really liked this site because of the floor plan application! This is amazing for personal use! Also, it would be a great application for upcoming teachers to organize how they would like to have their classroom. Students could collaborate with one another to express how they would like the classroom to be set up as well. The floorplan application on Gliffy is definitely my favorite part of thing fourteen:)

THiRTEEN

I think the Zoho writer tool is amazing! It is almost an exact replica of Microsoft Office word. People pay tons of money every year on new Microsoft Software for the up and coming desktop, laptop, ipad, and tablets. Yet, here is this online (accessible from anywhere with internet), FREE, tool! I am amazed that something like this exists.
Here is the drawing I created on Google Documents: cjkm
I like the google documents drawing app. Students could use the scribble tool to draw out math problems for each other. Tutoring sessions could be online rather than in home. Also, the documents, presentations, etc could be used for group projects. The inconvience of staying after school or making another trip to school would no longer exist. Google Docs makes it easy to share and collaborate! I personally liked Google Docs better. This had more apps then the Zoho. Zoho did not have presentations, forms, or spreadsheets. They did have the writer though. The calendar and lists are not all that helpful for me because I carry a planner for myself. But, if I was already teaching in a school I guess it would be helpful to post meetings and share materials etc. Altogether, I love these online, free applications, and I am STILL amazed that they exist... being free!

Thing 12

I love the calendar option on google! How neat. I didn't put any personal stuff on it, however, I put a little bit of stuff on it. My thursdays are crazy. I think I will definitely make my own calendars from now on to keep track of my dates and appoinments. View my calendar here. I also enjoyed iGoogle. It gives you weather, and a lot of examples of your interests. For example, I chose that I am interested in cooking, so on my iGoogle page I have a "Recipe of the Day" section. I also chose that I am interested in games. Therefore, I also have a games box on my iGoogle page. You can add gadgets to your iGoogle page as well. It's like having all of the things you frequently look at, all in one place. It's pretty awesome and I plan to use it more often.

Thing 11

I thought searching for feeds through the google search was easiest, however, I like searching for the feeds by just browsing because it gives me more of a wide variety of things to subscribe too. I thought the topix.net was a little harder to navigate through. I found a variety of useful feeds during my exploration. I found educational feeds related to middle school math, which I will be teaching. I subscribed to nctm.org.  On the other hand, I also found some good parenting feeds for good ideas for daily ideas for your children to learn while playing and feeds that keep you up to date on new parenting techniques. I just googled a subject area and then news feed to find a news feed that I was interested in.