Thing #13

I went to Del.icio.us and opened an account. I searched for some sites on PreK education and came up with a good one that had Literacy & Science activities. I applied tags and saved them to my account. I also found one on Jackson Hole & saved it. I will be checking this one out to get info for an upcoming vacation!! I can see where this will be helpful if you visit lots of sites and also in an upper grade classroom as a search tool. I still haven't figured out how to share it with others.

Thing #12

As soon as I read this assignment I knew it would be difficult for me. I guess you could consider me a lurker. Since starting the 23 Things, I have read many blogs , but not commented on any. The things that I got out of all the sites were-- Sharing is a good thing, but think before you respond. Try to make meaningful comments and be kind--not a Darth Commenter. The 5 Library2Play blogs that I left a comment on were:

Flower Power
Sunshine
Melanies's Things
Linda's Summer Blog
Ladybug

Mostly I commented on how their blogs looked or asked questions about a specific item they had placed in their blog.

The public blogs were another thing: I left a comment on HoustonGardenGirl and it informed that my comment could not be posted until it had been cleared. I then went to a blog about a Yellowstone vacation (thinking about visiting later this summer) and it seemed very personal--I felt like I would be intruding if I left a comment. I am going to the next Thing and I will come back to this one again when I have better luck with the public blogs.

Thing #11

Went to LibraryThing this morning to check it out. I have been telling myself for a couple of years that I wanted to read the Alex Cross books in the order that they were written. I have read several of this series--but often a reference is made to something in a previous book that I have not read. LibraryThing let me look at all his books and when they were copyrighted--which makes it easy to read in order. I checked out some of the groups, but when I searched for Alex Cross it came up with discussion groups on books about needlework or religion! I will try to add my reading list to my blog.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mills5hou

Thing #10

I explored the image generators that were suggested and had fun playing with them. Dumpr kept freezing & telling me that I had an error on the page, but I was successful in Wordle, Comic Strip Generator and Happy Face. Hopefully I will be able to post some of my creations in my blog & link to one of the sites.

View my mickey mouse pluto disney comic (make your own HERE)!


OK, I can't seem to link or show you the Wordle that I made and it was really cute. I think I may have to get some help.




Finally figured it out!!

Thing #9

I explored some of the search tools that were recommended. I feel that Topix and Technorati are user friendly, but Syndicat8.com is confusing. I looked for the RSS symbol and added a couple of more sites to my Google Reader. The only thing I had trouble with was that I thought when I saw the RSS icon that I could just click on it and it would automatically come up in my Reader. Since I am using my home computer and it opens to a Yahoo home page instead of a Google one---could this be the problem or are you supposed to add your feeds through the Reader s add a subscription line? I'm still thinking about making my reading list public!!

Thing #8

I had never even heard of a RSS feed, so it was certainly news to me that I could use it to follow my favorite sites. I went through Google Reader and added 5 blog sites regarding my favorite sports team, world news, weather channel, nutrition, and home improvement. Personally, it will be a good tool & save time. I can see how beneficial it would also be for a school administrator to select several sites for his teachers to follow--maybe even adding a blog from the Texas Legislature to see if any actions might impact schools or funding and sites for curriculum and blogs from other teachers within a district. In fact, I like the Legislature blog, so I may just add it to my personal reader.

Thing #7

I played with the google tools and set up an alert about the company that my son works for. Any news about this company should now be sent to my email. I also downloaded Google Earth and explored this for a while. It was fun to see a close-up of my address, as well as many others. I then went to some vacation spots that I am interested in and viewed them from space!! I could spend all day doing this. My only concern is that all these sites (Flickr, Mosaic maker, Google toys) all need you to set up an account or download. I now have accounts with gmail, yahoo. blogspot, Flickr, and now Google Earth and Alert. Too many. Nothing that I created today has a link for you to view.

Thing # 6

I viewed some mashups & decided to play with them for a while. I really spent a lot of time looking through the different tools. I uploaded some vacation photos on Flickr and used the mashup Mosaic maker to create a mosaic. It was pretty cool. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to put the address in my blog so that others can view them. I also created a trading card using one of my photos and a book about insects. I will try to add it to my blog. I am still not comfortable with all the new things that have learned. Am still referring a lot to the Library2Play page. I am going to give it some more time.

Insects by Trish

Thing # 4

Just realized that I didn't post anything when I registered my blog--so I am now registered after a few glitches and on my way!

Thing #5

I have explored Flickr and selected this picture for my blog. It is a photo of Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. My family visited in 2000 and we loved it. It was wonderful to be in a place where you had to wear a sweater in July!! I am wading through the lessons, but having no experience with blogging or Flickr before, I am having to rely heavily on the instructions posted in Library2Play.

Thing # 3

As I was trying to set my blog up last night, I almost gave up. I felt overwhelmed at first but decided to tackle it again this morning when I wasn't so tired--I had jury duty yesterday. It was much easier this morning!!

Thing #2

As a lifelong learner, I feel that the hardest habit for me is to view problems as challenges (Habit #3). I can get overwhelmed when things arise that I am not expecting--but have learned through the years that I just need to tackle one problem at a time!!



The easiest habit for me is to accept responsibility for my own learning(Habit #2).