Thing 8

At this time I cannot say I am a fan of RSS. It is one more thing to keep up with and remember. I will probably change my attitude when I have made it a habit like my favorite cartoon strip I read online. I have put a blog on my reader from a former student who is now a friend and some librarian blogs to keep up with. I can keep up with Laura once she leaves Austin and if my daughter blogs I can add her. When I take the time to read and other blogs I will be able to see what is going on in my professional world. I want to collaborate with teachers and see what units they are working on, especially intermediate level and see if there are blogs that would give them or their students ideas and information on the topic being studied.

Thing 7 Google

My computer is acting differently now that I have downloaded Google Earth - all of my icons disappear top to bottom with the window open also disappearing. And it happens when I have other non internet windows open also. Weird. I checked out Google Earth and was happy with the resolution in 2 of the 3 places I went. The one that I could not get a good look at was the base my son is at right now. I want to use this with my granddaughter to show her where we are and where her dad is - I like the way you fly from place to place. Not that I expect her to get it, she is only 22 months old right now, but she will love the show. (My son is a Marine) I also want to do different Cinderella stories around the world with my classes and this will be a great way to show them the different areas of the world.
I started a Google alert about the Houston Astros. I was raised there and watched them build the Astrodome and started watching the Astros their first season. I decided a few years ago since I was following a professional football team I should also follow a professional baseball team since it is my favorite sport. There is another teacher in my school who is a major Cubs fan and she is always on top of their status - so I thought this would be a great way to keep up with the Astros. I am also trying one for copyright information - I need to make a couple of teachers believers next year. Luckily I have support from the administration.

Thing 6, Mashups

Wow, spent way more time with this than I thought I would. Still not sure how to edit pictures in Flickr - when I previewed ones to import they were right side up, in set on Flickr they are sideways now. I'll go back and play more to fix these later. I tried to do a mosaic for my children about my granddaughter but it kept saying the pictures were unavailable. Another argh. So I tried the trading card. Yea! success! I have a tiny library with no space to display posters etc. I want to change my birthday book program to include pictures of the people who participate and the trading card will be perfect to use. I can put the name of the child, their birthday and the title of the book they selected. I can put these on the sides of bookcases. I can also see using the trading cards to publicize books and get students who read the book to write a review. Then I can put them in an album.

Thing 5, Flickr

Lightning Over Winter Springs
Originally uploaded by Kyle May

I work with my upper grade teachers finding sources that the students can practice their MLA skills with. I am going to show this site to my teachers and students and encourage them to use them for future projects. My fourth grade teachers have a project about Texas cities that this site could help with. The fifth and sixth grade students have a variety of social studies and science projects that they can utilize these pictures with.

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Where is one for baseball fans?

Beginning

I enjoyed the video about the 7 1/2 habits. Play is way easy - especially now I have a 22 month old granddaughter living with me. Following through, well... some days are easier to do that than others.