Images

This is my first time ever using Picasa. I love the cropping option as well as the redeye removal. I REALLY like the TEXT option. I like how you are able to type a caption on your photo page. I also like the color options...soft focus, tint, sepia, sharpen, etc. I especially like the polaroid option because I always liked using a polaroid camera, so this option gives me a warm. fuzzy nostalgic feeling:).

PicMonkey has many options...party invitations, calendars, flyers, etc.

Flickr claims to be the best online photo management in the world.

I do not have experience using any of these photo editing apps, however, I do think if I took the time, I could create some really interesting fancies (embellishments, maybe?) to my pictures. Overall, I am sure that these photo editors allow you to be VERY organized with your pictures. I think these sites could prove very useful in a classroom setting. I like the idea of putting all my classroom pictures in an photo editor to create collages, calendars, or even books. I currently use Shutterfly but I may need to look into Picasa as my new go to "photo shop"...especially if I want to have an online library of all my pics.

Game-Based Learning

I looked at Sim Sweatshop. I accepted the challenge to enter the world of sweatshop and become a factory worker. I hope to be able to survive while making sport shoes for less than a dollar an hour. My wage is $6.05 for a full days work. A standard working day is 12 hours. My assignment is to make 3 sport shoes by the end of the day. Here I go...Oh my word! I worked as fast as I possibly could and did NOT meet my shoe target. I only made 1 sports shoe today. My pay was docked and I only made $2.01 for my daily wage. UGH!!! I will continue... because my energy has dropped by 49%, I must remember to replenish my energy with food and drink. I will skip the food because it is too costly ($1.49) and only purchase a drink, which cost $.0.29...I will continue... OH MY WORD!! My neighbor asked me to join a union, I said "yes", however, my management finds out about this and coincidently everyone involved gets mugged by a group pf men...as a result of the beatings I loose 40% of my total energy....this game is horrible!!! I buy another drink for $0.29...ok, back to work...finally, the factory has been asked to double it's production for the summer season, my line manager asked me to add another 4 hours to my working day and I will not be paid, I must say "yes" because I fear the consequences if I say "no" this added 5 sport shoes to my daily work. I had to finally stop playing this game because it was so depressing...I was getting nowhere FAST! Wow, what a learning experience for sweat shops...depressing! Hopefully my next game will be FUN!:) Educationally, this game is a great toll to teach about other social, economic situations in other countries. This game would be a great "hook" for a social studies lesson or a cross-culture unit.

The next game I looked at is Chore Wars. I am interested in recruiting a party of adventurers from my household to help me with "chores".  Chore Wars lets you claim experience points for household chores. I like the idea of point rewards to individual tasks. As a teacher, this game could be used for classroom jobs. The students would love to create a character and I am sure they would be eager to help if points were involved:). This is a great game to make sure that everyone in the household or classroom is pulling their own weight. Quests are adventures that delete themselves automatically when they've been claimed. For example, if you say the bookshelf REALLY needs dusting, you could create a "dusting the bookcase urgently" chore that was a quest, the next person to dust the bookshelf would claim the quest. This game stimulates competition but for a good cause... everyone can be happy...the teacher or parent AND the student or child...the students/children will enjoy the competition (adults maybe too:)) and the teacher/parent will be able to have a clean house or organized classroom. Neat concept!!

iPadApps

I can find myself becoming addicted to apps:)! I looked at the Art apps, I especially like the icoloringbook app, it is so fun just to color the many different animals. This app could be used to help illustrate a book or help support a lesson on a particular animal (classification). I also looked at Picasa and Picasa Cascade...I think these apps would be great to put my photographs on to create neat slideshows and interesting photo albums. Picasa and Picasa Cascade could be great tools to document or highlight the special events in your classroom throughout the school year. These apps allow you to upload pictures and as a teacher you could create a album for each child and give it as a gift at Christmas or the end of the school year. Or you could use Picasa Cascade for a slideshow presentation of your class during a class party to highlight all the fun things you did throughout the year (field trips, projects, recess time, read aloud time, parties, etc.) Pictures and videos are great ways to share experiences and events with others. I also looked at LangArts-Eng apps. I looked at the JumboWord Search app. This app could be a Spelling supplement because it helps students become more familiar with words and their spellings. I really liked the Read Me app. This app offers students various books in a series. I think this would be a great app for students who like to read or for those students who may finish their work early and need a "filler" while other students are finishing up the assignment. This app offers reading with great illustrations. This app will allow students to practice reading and comprehension. I also looked at the Mathematics apps. I really like the beat the Computer Multiplication app. This app would be a great practice app for students who need to practice their multiplication facts. I also like the Math Drills Lite app because this app allows you to choose addition, subtraction, multiplication or division drills. It also has a number line displayed for the more visual learner, this added manipulative may prove helpful when practicing the math facts. And lastly, I looked at the Find Sums app and this app uses ten frames to and pictures that represent counters to represent various numbers. I think it is always an added bonus to have a a picture and a word to represent a number. I liked exploring the various apps, I think it is fun and educational:).

Finders Keepers

Delicious is a "social bookmarking" service. Delicious offers a banner which lets you know about many of the features and you can click "learn more" to find more information about the service. I listened to the tutorial and learned that Delicious offers Fresh Bookmarks, which is the most recent bookmarked entries in the delicious community and twitter conversations. Hotlist, which displays the most popular bookmarks. And Explore Tags, which allows you to see the most popular tags that people have applied to their bookmarks.

Google Reader helps you find and keep track of interesting stuff on the web. You can subscribe to your favorite websites, and keep up with what's popular. Reader keeps track of what you've read, so you only see unread items when you come back...super neato!:) I like the fact that Google Reader will act as a bookmark of sorts. I like the fact that it will place a border around an item that I have read. As a teacher, I think it is important to be able to subscribe to favorite sites and blogs. These new sites and blogs can be added information when teaching a lesson or simply a way to learn more about a certain subject for personal knowledge. Google Reader also offer keyboard sho rtcuts to save you time by helping you quickly explore your reading list. Google Reader allows you to export your subscriptions from other various popular feed readers such as myYahoo, Google iGoogle, NetVibes, Bloglines, Newsgator Online, Rojo, Safari bookmarks, and Firefox live bookmarks.

Library Thing is the world's largest book club. It will catalog your books from Amazon, the Library of Congress and 690 other world libraries. Library Thing allows you to find people with simialr tastes and find new books to read. It also lets you read free early reviewer books from publishers and authors. You may enter 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10 a year or $25 for life. This would be a great tool for teachers because it will allow you to keep all your books in one place and have them at your access whenever needed. I love to read and I like the idea of being connected to people who like to read what I do, it is like having my very own book club organized for me.

Gmail, Google Calendar, iGoogle

I recently set up a Gmail account for this class. I like the Gmail search offered in Gmail, this is especially useful if you have several emails. I also like the Chat option for Gmail. Gmail also makes the Google Apps for Education Edition, this is a nice option for schools.

The Google Calendar allows you to share your schedule, get your calendar on the go by syncing to your mobile phone's built in calendar, send invitations and track RSVP's, sync with your desktop applications, customize reminders to help you stay on schedule and all this is free:).

Google calendar is a great tool. I like looking at the calendar in the month mode, however, it is nice that it offers daily, weekly, and 4 day options. I like the color coded options for contacts birthdays and Us holidays. I am a very "scheduled" person and love to plan, plan, plan...in fact, my husband teases me that I try to plan my entire life out in a day;).  Therefore, the calendar is a wonderful option.

Google Calendar offers a task feature. The task gadget helps you keep track of the things you need to do. You can create lists of items and set due dates and notes Along with my calendar usage, I am an avid list maker, so, the task feature would be a huge asset for me personally.

iGoogle is another tool. I use iGoogle at home on my PC. I like having the CNN.com news section, date & time, weather, and Gmail listed on my start page. I look at the weather section daily ad I often click around on the CNN news section to read a little of the current events in the news.I like the idea of using the iGoogle page in the classroom when studying weather or perhaps a moon project, students could track the moon for 2 weeks and view the various pictures and/or facts related to the moon patterns. iGoogle is a nice way to quickly view topics that interest each person individually, I like the idea of having a custom made page for myself:).

The Web: Basics and Browsers

I looked at Sea Monkey. It is mu understanding that it is not just a browser. It offers Mail & Newsgroups, Composer, Address Book & Chat.

Google Chrome Home page looks very different. Google Chrome has a Chrome Web store which is an online marketplace where you can discover thousands of apps, extensions and themes. Google Chrome is the first browser to incorporate machine translation in the browser itself, without requiring additional plug ins. Google Chrome's most-loved features are the Themes...beautiful! And the Address box is called Omnibox in Chrome. You can browse incognito mode when you don't want your website visits to be recorded...very interesting:). Chrome sees very user friendly.

I also looked at Camino. It has an address bar, a Camino help drop down menu, it had a news drop down menu, and a Google, Amazon bookmarks. It has forward and back arrows for back and forward function and allows for other search engines.

I looked at Sunrise...wow! It was a completely different layout than I am used to. It offers iphone, ipad, itunes, ipod on the address bar. This is a great feature if you are solely an "Apple person."

I still feel like I am learning MUCH about technology, this is a new experience for me.

Keyboarding

The first free software I looked at was www.typing.madefun.net
I took at typing speed test and it was fun. It kept record of my time, speed and accuracy. I think this could be a wonderful resource for students to practice their keyboarding skills. I know when I took typing in high school (many, many moons ago), the speed drills that we did were beneficial in helping me to increase my speed and accuracy.

The second software I looked at was touch-type.com and it also offered a speed type test. I think these websites are good ways to practice typing as well as give yourself a sense of how well you actually do type.

The third software I looked at was typingweb teaching portal and I looked at a beginner lesson entitled The Top Row Keys exercise and it shows how to position fingers and reach for the top row of the keyboard. I also looked at Homerow and Beyond lesson. This lesson shows how to position your fingers on the keyboard. This is a beginning lesson but very informative because it shows the proper way to position your fingers so that you can type with ample speed and efficiency.

Mac OS

I have been a computer user for approximately 15 years.  I have predominately been a Windows user, I have very little Mac experience. I like the open applications option of the Mac. I honestly know very little about a Mac and this class will be my first true exposure to it. I have noticed the fox around the globe icon for the internet use, I think this is a neat icon. I do know how to read, compose, and send e-mails using the Mac. I did bookmark the tony krug website so that I will be able to get to it fairly quickly when needed. I learned that the exit, enlarge and minimize controls are on the left side of the computer instead of the right side. I set up a blog tonight. I feel like I learned a lot tonight on the fast track.