Thing #12

I chose to follow the google alerts. This was very easy to use. All I had to do was type in a keyword that I wanted to follow and it pretty much did the rest. I chose to have them sent to my e-mail because I check my e-mail every day. I now have alerts on NFL football teams the 49ers and the Cowboys and a couple of my favorite singers Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift. I did not create a link to my account because if I did, anyone who follows the link can change my information. I did get a lot of good information about my alert subjects. I believe this could be used in the classroom as an easy tool to use when teaching history or keeping up with certain news topics. I also chose to do the google calender. I believe it could be useful for friends to plan around each other easier or for teachers to plan around each other for meetings and such. I believe it is safer to just share your calender with friends and family not to the general public. They do have it where you people who view it can only see if you are busy or free which is what I have chosen to do. Here is the link to get to my calender.

Thing #11

I found the google blog search to be the easiest for me to use. It gave me good results for what I was looking for. I found that topix.net was good for searching news items, but that was not useful for what I was looking for. A lot of the results I got was not what I was looking for. I was looking for home renovation blogs and websites. I did find one great site through google blog search that I will probably use in the future. Technoroti was probably the least useful. It did not give me the results I was looking for. Most of the blogs confused me.

Thing #10

I have been putting off doing thing #10 because it looked and sounded really complicated, but once I started it, the process was really simple. I did not think that I would use it, but I already do. I like that all of my favorite blogs are right there. I have ones from recipes to the local news. I believe I could use this to save time and be able to remember sites that I really like. I believe it could be used in schools for teachers to use to keep track of their students' homework submissions or their favorite teacher websites. Here is a link to my bloglines. Click here.

Thing #4

I believe commenting is a good way for folks to give their opinions on others' blogs. It is important so that those who are blogging know that people are reading their blogs. One thing that I read was "10 ways to increase comment numbers on your blog". A point that I liked was to comment back if someone comments on your blog. I know I do not like to be left hanging, so I would appreciate it if someone commented me back if I commented on their blog. I also liked a point made when I read "comment like a king (or queen)". It said to write a meaningful comment. Instead of putting just "Yeah", explain why you liked it. I decided to comment on: People in my class:
Jamie Hamm's Thing #2 because I really liked her avatar. I let her know that I liked it and she was wondering if it looked like her and I assured her that it did.
Stephanie Mitchell's Thing #3 because I liked her url for her blog. I wanted to let her know that I thought it was very creative.
Wendy Matheney's Thing #4 because she is a friend and I thought she did a very good job on her post.
Alicia Presley's Thing #6 because I wanted to comment about what she said about facebook. I wanted to let her know the reasons I like facebook.
Keri Hill's Thing # 10 because she is a friend. I let her know that it looked difficult to do the RSS feed, but she did a good job.
People not in my class:
Rachel Morris's Thing #7 because I really liked the pictures she got from flickr. I commented that I love flowers, but I do not like the weeding part of having a flower garden.
JamGrant's Thing #9 because I saw that she is getting married and wanted to tell her congratulations. She made a sign that said how many days is left until the wedding.

Thing #9

I chose this image because it is almost halloween. Here is the link on how to create your own jack-o-lantern.

This was really simple to do and so cute. I have never actually carved my name into a tree, so I liked this. Here is a link so you can carve your name in a tree to.

This sign was also easy to make and fun. Here is the link to the sign maker.

I found it easy to use most of the image generators, but I could not post some that I really liked because it would not let me. Some were fustrating because the image I wanted to download to work with was too large. I really liked this activity, though. I believe these could be used to spice up a teacher's page or classroom page.

Thing #8

I really enjoyed making this post card. It was very creative and easy to do. I think these flickr mashups are wonderful. They are a good way for kids to be creative, but not too complicated. This particular flickr activity would be a good way for a teacher to introduce herself to the classroom. It is fun and colorful. The teacher could put a picture of herself and information about her that she would want the students and their parents to know. She could then print it off. I do not like putting pictures out there on the internet for anyone to see because you never know who will look at it. It is sad to say, but there are some people out there that would do crazy things.