Thing #15 - Delicious

This site is very beneficial for teachers for the simple fact that we are always "floating" around even if we have our own classroom! We are always moving around the school whether we are in the library, teachers lounge or another classroom. I LOVE the fact that you can get to your favorites from any computer! The is truly genius! I also like the "search" feature. I use GOOGLE for everything, but now I have another resource and actually can narrow searches down by using the tag feature.

http://delicious.com/jstidham9

Thing #7a - Google Reader update

As the NBA gets into the heat of the play-offs the TNT commentators are feeling a bit competitive themselves! Chris Webber challenges Charles Barkley to a Bread Challenge! Chris challenges Chuck to eat a slice of bread in 30 seconds! The loser promises to donate money to the others charity. Well poor Chucky - he lost!! It was pretty funny to watch :-)

Thing #14 - Web 2.0 Tools

All of these tools are amazing! I had no idea all of these existed and are FREE!! WOW! I decided to use LetterPop where I created a personal photo collage. This was just a fun one...

As far as professtional use, one goal of mine is to send out newsletters to the parents of my students. This specific tool would allow me to easily do that - there are templates on this site ready to use. I would just have to type in the wording! I could even add pictures of my students from class. How cool is that? LetterPop has a few "social" features including commenting and you can also publicize your "creation" so that the whole world can see it! You can e-mail out your creation as well which would also be useful to send to parents!

Thing # 12 - Slideshow!

My slide show is full of various pictures demonstrating waves and their properties! I had a little bit of trouble with RockYou so I tried "Slide" and it worked! Thank goodness! I am not sure what was going on...I have used RockYou before so who knows what was happening this time! Anyhow, I think these programs are relatively easy to use and do not think students would have any trouble using them! I often teach using PowerPoints and I would love to incorporate one of these slide shows into my presentation. Maybe I could even add a little music! :-)

Photo Credits

1. Reflection by mikebaird
2. Refraction by mikeyexists
3. Sound waves by madbuster75
4. Transverse wave by jurvetson

Thing # 13 - online image generators

The online image generators are too cool! :-) One of my favorites was the Graffiti Generator. I have always wanted my name on a brick wall!!

I also enjoyed the Trading Card Maker. These would be fun to create and put in teachers boxes for a little "thinking of you" type thing. Especially when you use fun pictures like this one!

My students would go to town with these generators! They could make flash cards and study them - wouldn't you want to study if your cards looked like this?! They could send thank you cards to their teachers :-) And they could definitely use these generators with their projects, especially PowerPoints.

Thing # 11 - Flickr

Wow - I really could spend HOURS on Flickr! I love looking at pictures! I chose to search the topic "waves" - it just happens to be the last topic I taught in class before we started preparing for TAKS. I found a clear, obvious picture of refraction.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63101308@N00/429808626/ User: mikeyexists

And a really surreal picture of reflection...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/2985066755/ User: mikebaird

Flickr could be very useful for teachers! Just recently I was struggling with explaining the term refraction and as I looked for pictures to use in my PowerPoint I found the same old ones - Flickr would have been very helpful! A picture speaks a thousand words, and sometimes there is no better way to explain a vocabulary word than showing a great picture!

Our students could use pictures posted on Flickr for projects in order to make them more detailed.

Thing # 10 - Creative Commons

I don't think I have ever noticed the CC logo on any website, but then again I was never really looking! I think the program is a great tool and I am happy to know something like this is out there. There are many teachers/professors who have some awesome lessons to share and I am thankful that I have access to those with the help of this company. I am constantly using pictures off the web for my PowerPoints, good to know I have the right to use them when I see this symbol! I have not shared any of my content on the web - I don't think I am that "fancy" yet but if I get there one day I am glad to know a company like this exists.