I'll be gone for the next 3 weeks...

Off on a Canadian expedition... I'll pick up where I left off when I get back!

Thing #11

As a person that spends all her spare time reading, I found LibraryThing to be just what I was looking for. It is fun to catalog your own books, but to find interest groups, recommendations and reviews all in one spot is wonderful. I read for pleasure, but I also love to read about the field of reading. All kinds of wonderful ideas out there. I got the small LibraryThing Link to work on this blog, but I never could get the widget to work that would show some of my books. Maybe someone out there can help me figure out what I am not doing right.

I work with reluctant readers at school and am always looking for ways to motivate my kids. I think reviewing and posting about the books they are reading in a private group would be really fun and exciting for them. They will nearly always take a peer's recommendation over mine, so this might be a neat way for them to share.

Thing #10b

Next I tried Image Chef and did the Word Mosaic.. that was a lot of fun.

On to the Happy Face Generator.... so many fun things to do at that website. I will need to go back to check them all out. That is one reason I have tried to link all these cool sites on my blog. That will be another easy way for me to get back to the ones I like.

I used the Smiley Face Logo Maker to make this sign for our ranch:


Then I went on to the Big Huge Labs and tried out the
Motivator, here is the result of that endeavor....
I was wanting to come up with some inspirational pictures and quotes to help inspire our parents a little bit.

I did this Rubik's Cube on Dumpr, just for fun.

I think these websites will allow me to be a bit more creative in motivating my reluctant readers and parents. I would love to make inspirational posters using the pictures of my students (with parent's permission). They do love a little attention.

Thing #10a

Wow, all the free fun stuff one can do with the online image generators.. Here is my first attempt that was made with Body Switcher. I will add some more later in the day.

I like the thing I made in Wordle.. I wish I could put it on this page, but I guess a link will do. My wordle is based on the word Read.

Thing #9

Well... I checked them all out... took me a couple of hours, but I discovered all kinds of useful feeds and blogs.

I particularly enjoyed the Edublog Award Winners and intend to make another visit to this site. I added two blogs, Hey Jude and Free Technology for Teachers, to my list that I am following. These two blogs list even more technology ideas to wrap my head around, but some of the ideas I look forward to getting back to.

At Topix Net I was amazed that I could follow news that pertained even to the itty bitty town I live in in West Texas.

I think the most confusing site for me was the Atomic Learning. I am not sure I understand how to add RSS Feed from this site...

Thing #8

RSS feeds was something brand new for me. I like being able to access information all in one location on topics of my choosing. There is, as others have said, an overwhelming amount of information available on the Internet... I had difficulty not adding too many feeds. For now, I just added topics related to my field in teaching. Down the road I will add more topics that relate to me more personally.

I can see where this would help us all make better use of our time, as well as it being a good tool for students to gather information on topics of interest, current events, and research.

I am not sure how interesting this will be for others, but I did try to share my "public page" on this blog.

Thing #7

So many "cool tools" to choose from. Since I actually have time to explore I went through most of them on and off all day long yesterday. I have set up two Google Alerts. I am an elementary reading specialist and am always interested in learning what is being talked about in my field. I have already received some interesting information. I got the Google Calendar up and running and intend to share that with my family. I am doing a great deal of traveling this summer and that will be a good way for them to keep up with where I am. The Google Scholar is right up my alley. I like to be up with the current research in the field of reading, and my eyeballs hurt by the time I was done reading all the articles that came up. Also the advanced search already yielded some interesting power points which I have tried to list below:

www.ed.gov/parents/read/resources/guide/reading-parents.ppt

www.k8accesscenter.org/.../ThreeTierReadingProjectAccessPresentation4-27-06-handoutformat.ppt

And of course, Google Earth is amazing. I found the exact house we are staying in here in Macae, Brazil. The picture was from 2007, but it was still way cool. I still intend to check out igoogle.com soon, but I get overwhelmed with websites. I have one at school that I barely keep up with. I am planning to do a better job this next year.