Thing #7

Here is the wordle I created:

I copy and pasted the URL to my blog and this is what came up! I thought this was neat because it used all the words on my blog to show me what my blog is about. Just by looking I can tell that my blog has pictures, news, and technology information about it. I even played around and copy and pasted one of my first postings on my blog and noticed that the word blogging was used many times and was the main focus of my post. Some questions I asked myself were:

How can this tool be used with your students? Students will have a fun time creating wordle and seeing what it can do with text. I can use this tool as a way for students to type in their short stories and see if they can find out what the main idea is. They can also find stories or biographies of authors to find out the important things about them. I can also foster creativity and ask kids to come up with as many words on a topic we are about to learn to assess prior knowledge and students can all share a discuss what they came up with. Allowing users to change the layouts, font, and colors make this tool even more fun.

I also created my very on Voki named Kathy.

How can this tool be used for students? It can allow students to create more than one Voki to use for classroom activities. It can be a personal one or one that represents a character in a story.  Teachers can assess how well students comprehend stories and the characters in them by having them type in lines and act out plays. It can also help with learning about different topics like oral hygiene. Students can create a Voki to teach us about the importance of oral hygiene. Voki is another neat way for students to communicate and make learning interesting to them.

Thing #6

After clicking on Dr. Wilson's blog to learn how to subscribe to news feeds I did not have any luck viewing the tutorials or resources, but I did subscribe to quite a few news feeds. I tried to post my blogline account here to share it with everyone, but I am not sure if it works. 
bloglines
Here are my subscriptions:
1. USA today
2.urbanspoon
3.my recipies
4. cooking light
5. a poem a day
6. web 2.0 blogs
7. science blogs select
8. investopedia
9. Wall Street Journal
10. google news
11. not invented here
12. unshelved
13. merchant circled

With MyRecipes.com I can read about healthy ways to prepare meals and learn how to make the healthiest low calories meals. I also discovered this website A Poem A day where I subscribed to it because it updates you on writing contests for kids to enter in and gives you great ideas on how to teach poetry. You can even look at student work. I was very impressed with the writing and I think I can really use this for class since I don't know too much about teaching poetry. I gives you great ideas! I learned a lot about RSS feeds and how I can use them more to help me learn about things that interest me.

 Here are some questions that I answered:
What do you like about RSS and newsreaders? It is a great way for you to stay updates with current news and websites that interest you. It is fast and efficient.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life? I can use it to help my daily life in ways like cooking, saving money, and improving work.

How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
RSS feeds and email alerts can help you find out about new literature in your field to help you find articles for research, books in your field, and update you on current news. Using technology can make it easier for you to find literature that is of interest to you. I feel the most beneficial aspect is that it can allow you to research current topics and keep our libraries updated that way libraries will still be in use for years to come.

Thing #5

As I explored the mashups on flickr I cam upon the first one called mappr that was on Dr. Wilson's blog. I read about this mashup and thought how neat it would be to be able to post all the photos you have ever taken on a map to see all the places you have been to! I love to travel and I am lucky enough to get the chance to travel with my parents when I can. My family loves taking pictures and we joke sometimes saying that my parents have seen the whole world because they take so many pictures. I would love to use this mashup to post all our family pictures that we've taken on trips. I found out that as of 2007, Mappr no longer processes images from flickr, so I looked around more and found a mashup called GeoPanda  that does pretty much the same thing. I could go on there and click on different parts of the map to see photos that are being taken by other people from around the world in real time. Looking at some of the pictures I found one that I liked from Japan. It was a picture of breakfast food and it got me thinking about posting pictures of food because I love taking pictures of food wherever I travel! 

Thing #4

toastbox's photostream on Flickr.

This is a picture of me when I went to Singapore last summer with Frank and his family. His older brother took us shrimp fishing and it was lots of fun!  People dump fresh shrimp into a big pool of water and they give you bait and a fishing pole for you to fish for the shrimp. Whatever you fish you can keep and cook it there to eat and enjoy. It took me a while but I finally caught my first shrimp and learned how to handle live shrimp for the first time and cook them. It was all worth it though, because the shrimps were so delicious! 

Thing #3

This is a picture of Starry Night that my friend painted. I love it! She taught me how to paint this!

Thing #2

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
When I began the blogger tour and saw all the things you can do with a blog, I got excited that I was going to actually create one! It seemed like a lot of work though. I knew I needed to be consistent with blogging and keeping up with my thoughts along with making sure my words are clearly understood by others. I think blogging will benefit me because it will allow me to have more of a voice and get more involved with news and the community. My blog now is very simple, but I can't wait to play around with it more and make it my own!

Thing #1

After learning about the 7 1/2 habits of life long learners, here are the easiest and hardest habits for me as a learner.
Easiest habit: The best way for me to learn something is by having me teach or explain it to others. For example, when I was studying for our final exam in Dr. Hughes class it helped me to learn my vocabulary or processes by explaining what they were in my own words to others. When it comes to learning how to use technology it helps me learn how to use it when I have to explain it to others. I learn through teaching others, because that is how I can learn and catch my own mistakes.

Hardest habit: The hardest habit I would have to say is taking responsibility for my own learning. When I have lots of reading and assignments to do for a class or for work, I do not do a good enough job of keeping up with my progress and take care of all the necessary steps in order to reach my goal and be successful . A lot of times I may leave things to the last minute, or feel overwhelmed and be tempted to take a break. I need to discipline myself and motivate myself to take responsibility so I will be proud and be successful!

learning contract