Thing 12: The Many Roles of Google

The Google craze has given rise to a new a monster of internet technology and communication. Google has become more than a search engine. It is a a cyberspace powerhouse expanding its services into online profiles, photo albums, translators, and personal calenders.

I explored the Picasa Web Album service and was surprised. All the images that I upload into my blogger and other joint accounts were automatically added to my album including my kitten crossing sign. Now all I need to do is add some more images and I will be good.

The second service I explored was IGoogle a free custom webpage service. Oblivious to me was the fact that I had one already in existence from a few years ago saving me valuable time and money...if I had any. Sadly I prefer not to provide a link since privacy is a rare commodity in this day and age thanks to the double-edged sword we call the internet.

The educational application of this two sources is very limited if not present. Picasa could be used for students to create a collage of images that best describe their personality and interests. IGoogle is simply a personal webpage and not a public sharing tool.

My overall experience with both was a struggle as my Google account began to sign me out randomly making me frustrated. I can not comment on the experiences of others, but mine sure was a struggle.

Thing 11: Finding RSS Feeds

Life is made so much easier with RSS feed finders. Technorati is a very effective RSS feed locator. By searching by either by blogs or even posts, you can find feeds of your interests without all the random Google searching. Google Blog Search was unreliable as it provides a majority of irrelevant results as common for Google. The feeds I chose where for  teaching and technology.

The education k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/blog provides useful information for k-12 educators in the form of teacher resources and even job listings for beginning teachers. A great blog for even greater person, me. The technology blog mashable.com had a post over the development of a cat based font. Quite unusual enough you think?

I really enjoyed using Technorati. The easy to use blog search really made my life easier. No more Google searching for me.

Thing 10: RSS Feeds

With the vast amount of information posted on the web, it is time consuming and nearly impossible to read ever site and find exactly what you want when you want it. Thanks to RSS feeds you can receive updates from your favorite blogs and sites right onto your own blog account.  I am not a person fond of reading every word of a blog or webpage especially on news sites. With a RSS feed I am given little sections of web articles without all the advertisement and irrelevant comments other make on them. As a training teacher it is not an option to waste time sifting through webpages for a update on an instructional strategy or learning activity. By establishing a RSS feed to a site I am able to quickly view website updates with no wasted time of logging onto that page just to see nothing has changed since my last visit. Teachers can also use a RSS to establish no fuss contact with students through other pages such as FaceBook and Twitter to assess and provide answers to last minute questions over homework and class lessons. RSS feeds are interesting and are a fine example of simplicity at its finest. 

Thing 9: Image generating

http://www.images-graphics-pics.com/signs/warning/signs.asp

Possibly one of the simplest things I have done in my, the use of image generators is pretty stress free. Ranging from smiley faces and even Confucius Says generators these fun manipulators can provide hours of entertainment to anyone. I had my run-ins with dead links and technical difficulties in finding an interesting image generator for myself. I found one in a custom sign generator. It took only a few minutes till I found the sign I wanted and made it mine by providing my own unique text. Though my sign may not be in the best tastes of some, it is still a harmless source of amusement for those with a sense of humor. I would like to take more time to personally play with the other image generators, but until something is done with the countless dead links that may be a blink future.

Thing 8: Mashup or Misups

"Give into the Night" is a line from the song The Night by Disturbed, my favorite metal band. The song is about revolution breaking away from social norms and restraints and pursuing one's own desires. This simple image took longer than you might have thought. Called Spell with Flickr, this application allows one to spell out phrases with word images, but to find the pictures you wish to use requires you to click up to thirty times on a letter at a time until you find the right one. I choose the darker contrasting colors that better alluded to the mood of the song and the over theme of my blog. I like this app in particular because it allowed me to be creative without being forcing me to struggle with sketchy third party developers trying to harass me with constant pop-ups and dead-end links. I can actually see myself using this application to help students understand how images and colors can affect mood and theme. Darker colors can represent negative tones and brighter colors positive feelings. The best thing about this application is that it allows me to use preassembled images over my own. I am not all too ready to share any personal photos of mine on the web because of privacy. I just do not feel as though strangers should be familiar of my interests or my face. Remember there are weirdoes out there. For that reason alone I enjoyed this little application.

Thing 7: Part 2

Degu (Rodent of mystery), a photo by cgoda123 on Flickr.

This was a NIGHTMARE!!! After nearly a hour of unrelenting frustration I finally managed to upload one image of three I intended to post. Being that this is may first use of a photo hosting service I can say that I am reluctant of using one in the future let alone for classroom use. I posted this image because it does not reveal too much about me personally and privacy is a virtue to me. The little creature depicted is a degu. A rodent native of....I am not really sure. I was given two by my nephew who worked at a pet shop for a while. Apparently the two where male and female thus I got baby degus out of them which I greatly enjoyed playing with. Though they are all died now, this image reminds me of the wonderful experiences I had with them. Like they say, "Gotta love the little things."

Thing 7: A Little Moon Light

The intriguing moon By Kartik Jayaraman

Being that I am tired 80% of the time, the moon holds a very emotional connection with me. The image of the moon invokes feelings of serenity and calms the nerves. Finding an interesting picture of the moon was not all too difficult as many photographers take pride in taking that perfect moon shot. This image in particular depicts the moon lightened by the fading rays of the sun as a cloudy night blankets the sky. I enjoy for this image quite alot and hope you all will too.

Thing #6: Music to my Tastes

Nothing reflects one's personality than the music he listens to. The very recently developed internet radio site Pandora provides its visitors with the ability to build their own unique music stations built around their own personal preferences. Pandora allows one to manually and by default automatically add artists their stations that relate to the given theme or genre of their music stations. You can even skip a song entirely if it is not to your liking and Pandora will remember not to play that song again in the future if you give it thumbs down. A course if you choose to pay a subscription you can skip an unlimited number of songs and not be bothered by pesky advertising. As far as its relation to a school or library setting it is not clear. It could used to help students develop the ability to identify the relative characteristics of different genres of music as one may do with literature in an English class based on their theme and content portrayed in each genre. In short the site's features were interesting, yet the site's relevance to an academic setting is highly debatable. It is still fun though.