Thing 12 It's all about Google

Google, the search engine that became a power house in the industry and a verb.  This was probably the easiest of the things for me, mainly because I love Google.  There are so many things that you can do, both personally and professionally, it is amazing.  I currently use most of the Google services with my position in the Student Veterans Organization.  I keep calendars current, put documents that the group needs in the document area and use iGoogle regularly, well at least until it goes away in November.  I have made the transition to Google + and will continue to use the Google products until they become obsolete. 

In order to keep on top of the SVO calendar, I update it regularly and have set up alerts for my computer, email and phone.  Nothing is worse than missing a key appointment or event.  The phone connection is kind of a new thing for me, but since I always have my phone with me, it made sense to connect the two.  I tend to shy away from the instant online translators just because I don't have a lot of faith in them.  I wrote a document using one of them, and then had a native speaker read the letter.  Needless to say, I would have embarrassed myself had I sent it.  If there is a word I need to translate, that's find but nothing else.

Google is like the Swiss Army knife of websites, what it does, it does very well, but it wasn't there, you probably didn't need it. 

Thing 11 Searchinig for good feeds.

Searching for good feeds can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.  Sometimes you get lucky, and other times you wander aimlessly around the vast internet searching.  There are many feed search engines, but some are confusing and difficult to navigate with.  I found that Google Blog search and Technorati to be easy to use and a tool that will return reasonable feeds.  I like the way that Technorati is set up, and was able to find all the like groups.  This is vastly different from Google Blog search, where it is simply a search box.  Topix.net was the most confusing and hardest to use.  I did not care for it at all. While using Technorati I found many different Special Education blogs that could be useful for me in the future. As far as weird sites, there are too many to list. There are every kinds of crazy, whacked out conspiracy theories and other weird things too.  If I didn't use Technorati, I just searched with Google or Yahoo.

Thing 10 - The infamous RSS feeds

The magical RSS feeds.  I always wondered exactly what they were, but I never had the need to actively find out anything about it, that is until now. My first impression of this feed system was not a positive one, I just figured lots of junk would be sent to my Google reader.  Since the class required active participation, I persisted and found out that there is a lot of pretty cool feeds.  I changed the way I look at the RSS feeds.  Instead of being just another pain in the neck school project to do, I now look at it like a gill net that catches a wide variety of information. I found that the more specific I tried to get the feeds, the better quality that I would get.  I picked a variety of feeds to follow, selecting both personal hobbies and future profession feeds.  Signing up to follow them was a breeze, now I just need to make sure to check them daily.

Using this new tool in both my personal and professional life is going to make data collection much easier.  New teachers will be able to gather mass quantities of subject specific information with the current tips, tricks and trends that are being used around the world.  Using these feeds is like having a direct line to the different teachers, and classrooms to share and collaborate with one another.

This is a piece of information technology that I plan to start using more in the future.

Thing 9 Funny Stuff

The comic strip generator that I used was Txt2pic. There were so many funny cartoons that can be modified, it was a hard choice.  These funny tongue in cheek kind of humorous things really makes me smile.  I love seeing things like this come across my facebook feed.  I think the reason I like these so much is the situation depicted in the cartoon along with the kernel of truth that is in the words. These type of cartoons can be used either in newsletters or on a web page for the class.  You can also use these website with the students and have them create their own funny cartoon.  Below is one of my newest favorites.  It's funny because the military student or veteran is usually one of the older students and most of us feel like we're in school with a bunch of little kids.

Thing 8 third party tools

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

After browsing the enormous amount of mashup and third party tools, I chose to use Map Maker.  This tool allows you to mark every country that you have ever visited, and the program highlights that country on a map.  The colors are completely adjustable as is the map.  You can change the map from a world view down to a specific region. While the map itself is a neat little tool, it serves more as a conversation piece than anything else.

 Flickr and some of the other tools can be used to create bellringers or make displays for the different areas of the classroom. There are so many different tools that you can use, you really have to know what you're looking for.  In personal life, I have used Flickr to share photos with distant friends and relatives.  I have no issues with sharing photos online, however, I am very particular about which ones get put on the web. Any picture that could be viewed as questionable or having some kind of "issue", I will not post.  In the classroom, websites like Flickr can be used to show parents what their children are doing.  Care must be taken when posting pictures of children, so make sure you are 100% right and legal before doing anything.

 

Thing 7 - Become a Flickr fan

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darrenbarnes/4781929894/

This phenomenal photo was taken by Dwood Photography.  I spent a few weeks in Alaska this past summer and really wanted to see if people on Flickr had photo's similar to mine.   The reason I chose this particular picture was simple it is stunning.  While in Alaska the bald eagle, a symbol of our great country and freedom, were every where.  The tour guide told us that 90% of America's bald eagle population live in Alaska.  I found them so captivating that I would take pictures every chance I could.  This picture fondly reminds me of my trip, and all the fun that I had.

Think 5 - the 2.0 movement

So I am reading all of the 2.0 links, and I find myself reading the same basic story being told by different people and websites.  The 2.0 movement/phenomenon/whatever at its most basic definition is utilizing computers and social media to connect people and ideas around the world.  The social media websites are growing at an amazing rate, and some of the larger ones seem to spin off others.  Just look at the rate of growth for Facebook.  Myspace was the king of social media and it just seemed one day people lost interest in it and moved to the next great thing.  This is something we as teachers need to grasp a hold of, we are moving into a more technology based teaching style.  I'm sure the teachers of years back had heartburn when classes moved from chalkboards to whiteboards, and this is just something some of us old students have to become comfortable with. School 2.0 is going to be an ever evolving process of improving technology in the classroom and in the individual lessons.  I personally have a hard time with some of the technology, but I am learning and coming into the 21st century. 

Think 6 - Carbonite the wave of the future

I chose the web site carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com/en/) from the list of award winners.  This website is very personal to me, since I've been a subscriber for about three years.  This website will give you a free month trial for online back up to see how you like it.  If you don't want it, no pressure just uninstall the program and go on about your merry way.  If you do like it, you can pay a modest fee of $59 a year for unlimited back up of your computer.  For a little more you can get a few more features, but for the $149 package, it will back up everything on your computer and external hard drive and even make a mirror image of your drives in case you need to restore everything.  I originally got carbonite because I didn't want to lose all of my family pictures and documents from over the years.  So I downloaded the program, installed it, and except for the lock in your toolbar, you wouldn't know it was even doing anything.  The program uploads the files and programs the user selects, to a secure server all while running quietly in the background.  The initial upload takes a little while, but you wont see any significant processing lags because of it.  Now for the question that I know everyone is wondering - have I had to restore files back to my computer?  Quite simply, yes.  About six months into using this program, my daughters thought it would be funny to play with my laptop.  So as they opened and shut the laptop, the game got more fun until it got shut with a little bit too much effort.  As a side piece of information, while your computer is running, the very fragile hard drive disk is spinning.  Slamming the lid shut while powered on will literally shatter the hard drive internal components. I never really knew this until one of my daughters told me the laptop wasn't working.  A trip to the computer repair shop and a new hard drive later, I reinstalled the carbonite software and retrieved all of the stored data. Everyone was happy, except for my daughters who paid $120 each for their part in wrecking the hard drive.  I would recommend this product to anyone with children or anyone concerned about losing valuable pictures or data.  I don't really see an application for this program for the library computers, simply because the majority of the data is saved to a thumb drive. The rest of the program data is all the same.  Their commercials catch phrase is "it's not a matter of if you'll lose your data, but when". This is a great program and I am actually surprised they didn't win more awards earlier.    

To Comment or not to comment Thing 4

In this great big online world that we are all part of, commenting is seen as a communication tool.  It opens the door to a back and forth interaction between several individuals.  Like everything else in life, there seems to be some unwritten rule for commenting. To not comment on something a friend posts is considered rude, and SO IS RESPONDING IN ALL CAPS.  Commenting is, at its simplest terms, providing feed back to the original poster.  Just think of how boring Facebook would be if nobody commented.  Pretty grim.  I comments on my required 5 students pages, and maybe it is because of my slightly advanced age, or maybe it's my good nature, but i found myself commenting positive and uplifting responses to individuals.  I think life does a good job of kicking the crap out of all of us, so kind words and positive affirmation goes a long way.

I found so many different blogs that I am really interested in, but I managed to pick only three to follow.Two are for professional development and knowledge in my given field of Special education, and one is a fun one about Legos.  The first SPED one is Special Education Strategies and more (http://michellespecialeducation.blogspot.com/).  This is a great blog from a 16 year SPED teacher in Florida.  She gives great advice on different classroom management techniques, games to play and activities to do in the class.  This is a blog that I can learn enormous amounts of information from.  The second professional one is Accessible Technology Tips (http://attips.posterous.com/).  The person that runs the blog is a accessible technology guru. She has numerous websites for teachers, professional type people and parents.  this is another great resource to learn from. My fun blog is a Lego one (http://legoisfun.blogspot.com) is my guilty pleasure.  I learn new things from the blog and then go home and build them with my young son.  The blogs I commented on, I thanked them for sharing the information and projects that could help me to be a better teacher.

Now that I have my eyes opened about the shear number of blogs that are available, I will take any opportunity I have to seek out blogs that can help me in my profession, and who knows maybe in a few years I'll have my own blog helping new SPED teachers.  Crazier things have happened.