Thing #17

I have to be honest and say: I've listened to one podcast my whole life, and it was for an assignment. I remember as if it was yesterday... My teacher, from Spain, told us we had to listen to a 45 minute podcast and were going to be tested on it. I remember sitting there falling asleep, (I couldn't understand the type of Spanish they were speaking) bored out of my mind. Surprisingly, I made a 90 :)

Anyways, I told myself that I would never listen to another podcast! 

I have to say THANK YOU to this course for engaging me back into the world of podcasting! I logged into Itunes and clicked on podcasts. Then, I began choosing the type of podcasts I wanted to listen to. First, I picked Kids and Family and right away was drawn to "The Mighty Mommy's Quick and Dirty Tips for Practical Parenting." (http://quickanddirtytips.com/) Of course, being the mother to 2 babies, I am always up for learning tips on better parenting. I wasn't able to listen to all the podcasts, but I did listen to How to Enjoy Summer Vacation Without Losing Your Mind. I thought this podcast was interesting because it talks about having expectations for your children. (Who would of ever thought about this! Their future teachers I am sure will appreciate it! )

Another podcast I enjoyed was "How Stuff Works" http://www.howstuffworks.com/ This is such an interesting and fun podcast! They have stuff such as How Lightning Works, Is the Dead Sea dead? I only listened to the first 20 minutes of How Lightning Works Because it was 40 minutes long, but I am definitely hooked! I know my husband is going to follow my podcast addiction as well because he is always trying to figure out these type of questions :)

The last podcast I listened to was http://storynory.com/  Storynory is an education website where you can listen to different stories read. I think I am going to use this podcast in my listen center, and of course continue to research more educational websites to use in my classroom. 

Thing #16

I found Library Thing to be very fascinating. It reminded me of Goodreads which is a site I had to sign up for while taking New Jersey Writing this summer. I haven't really been able to play around with Goodreads but from the time I did spend exploring it, I have to say that Library Thing reminded me of it. I really liked how you can type an author's name (I typed Mem fox and Eric Carle) and find reviews and summaries of their books. I think this website is useful because many times I have come across books that are not age appropriate, and with this site, you can see the reviews and summaries before introducing it to your class. I could see how this website could be addicting after a while! I clicked on Zeitgeist and found top authors, books, most reviewed books etc. Then, I clicked on Groups and found an interesting discussion group on religion. I am not one to argue religion, but I have friends who would love to get into the conversations. Also, I liked the 75 book challenge. I would LOVE to have the time to read 75 books this year! But with two babies, getting my master's degree and getting ready for next year, I will be lucky to read 5. This is definitely a website I would recommend to librarians and  book lovers!

Thing #15

I absolutely LOVED delicious. I was a bit lost at first (I am not good with technology at ALL!) But then I started playing around with it and ran into "create a stack." It took me just a little longer to realize that I could add my a list of my favorite websites and a link to them. I decided to create a page with my favorite recipes and the link to them. I added some of the best recipes I have found online that either my family or I have tried. This is such an amazing website! My plan is to send this link to my sister so that she can see all the new recipes I find or the ones I have used that she loved.
For my professional practice, I think I could make a list of all the wonderful websites I have found this summer and share with teachers in my campus and off campus. This would be a great way to share resources! If I was in the upper grades, I would share my link with my students and do some kind of "Our class favorite sites."
This is the link to my page :)
http://delicious.com/claudyfer

Thing 7A

The most interesting information I found by far in my reader was a recipe titled: One-banana banana bread. :) I absolutely love cooking! I love to look up recipes, adjust recipes to my family's liking, and simply experiment on my own. Banana bread is an all time favorite for me and my husband. Before having our babies, we used to bake or I should say attempt to bake banana bread all the time. When I saw the title "One-banana banana bread" I knew that would the article to read.
Here is the link:
http://80breakfasts.blogspot.com/2012/07/one-banana-banana-bread.html

Thing #14

The two tools I played with were:
http://30boxes.com/
http://www.mixbook.com/
http://www.wordle.net/

  I didn't really take too much time playing with these tools but the time I did spend was great. I was drawn to mixbook because I love to make pictures slideshows and collages of my family. It turns out you can create picture books and pay to have them printed, which I thought was pretty cool. I didn't see a way to share your album with others, but this tool also allows you to create yearbooks for your class, which some teachers like to do.   I thought Wordle.net was an interesting website. From what I saw, you can simply create "word clouds" with different fonts, colors and color schemes. What I really liked is that you can print them out or share them with other people by saving it to the wordle gallery. For example, if I wanted to make a poster ( which I did) with different reading words such as: characters, main idea, setting etc. I could make it, print it and share it with other teacher friends. The last tool I played around with is 30 boxes. This tool is simply a way to keep organized. The tool allows you to enter birthdays, email addresses, to do list, remainders etc. I didn't think much of this tool but I plan to spend more time learning more about these three tools and the ones I didn't get to explore.
As far as social features, I think Wordle. net, as I mentioned before, is a great way to create posters and share with other teachers. I still have to go back and see what other features this tools offers, but I really liked the "word clouds." I was also thinking that if I had an upper class, I would share my calendar from 30 boxes with them. I think this would be a great way to keep up with classroom assignments and even classmates birthdays.

Thing #13

For this picture, I used Image Chef http://www.imagechef.com/ I had lots of fun playing with this program! They have many templates that I could see myself using in the future :) This picture was created using: http://metaatem.net/words/ or spell with flickr I really wanted to try this site to make my kids names and last name, and it looked great!

My last picture was done with: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php If you look at my computer pictures, you see my kids EVERYWHERE! So I wanted to create something with my husband and I. I enjoyed making it because I really wanted to show my husband the end result. I was trying to think of a million ways I could use these image generators. I was thinking maybe for social studies or science. Towards the beginning of the year, my kindergarten class is not able to do much with technology, but towards January, I could possibly try using one of these picture generators with science pictures or "Our family" unit in Social Studies.

Thing #12

Kizoa slideshow: Take me to the snow - Slideshow

I made this slideshow because I am trying to convince my husband to take me to Colorado next summer. I really want to be in cold weather for a week while Texas is in the 100's weather. I think it would be unique and wonderful!