Here's my attempt to make an on-line image. I tried to "change the title" but it didn't seem to take. As you can see by my cartoon, I am worn out waiting for Spring Break. This is the longest amount of time I've had between January and Spring Break since I've been a teacher
. It is really hard to stay motivated when you are pratically worn out.
First I went to "Blogline" but had trouble accessing the site because they are transferring management, or something like that. So then I tried the Edublogs and looked at some of the award winners which were interesting but not applicable for what I teach. Next, I googled: AP chemistry blog because that is what I teach and I got several hits. The first one I looked at http://www.surviveapchemistry.com/category/blog/
masqueraded as a blog but was actually trying to sell a $49 kit to guarantee success on the AP chemistry exam. It does have a diagnostic test though that I'm going to try on my students.
I plan to search for some other educational blogs. I'm sure there are some that will give me some ideas for things to try in the classroom.
I honestly had no idea that RSS feeds even existed. I take pride in the fact that I live in an insulated bubble and am virtually unaware of anything that goes on in the world at large. My exposure to news is generally what I see on my Yahoo home page and I'm happy that way. I don't have a need for rapidly updated information, however, in the spirit of the 23 Things, I did check out the websites and made a Reader page in Google. I have a gmail account so all this is really easy to do. I found all the blogs I'm following were already there on my Reader page. I added the recommended library book review page because I do love to read and am always interested in finding good books. I like that I can easily check the blogs I'm following as I check my gmail. Maybe in the future, I'll find a RSS site that interests me and add it to my Reader page.
Maybe this is too simplistic, but my very very favorite technological thing is . . . SPELL CHECK! I have always been spelling challenged and to have a tool that automatically tells me if I spelled the words correctly is so liberating. I remember before the miracle of spell check I would have to use the dictionary and try to find the word which was almost impossible considering I didn't know how to spell it anyway! Try finding conscientious if you have no idea how to spell it after the c-o-n! Now, with a simple click of a button, I can find out if my words are spelled correctly. And they even make portable spellers which can be used when away from the computer. These make great gifts for any of your spelling challenged friends.
P.S. I had misspelled conscientious in my original text but spell check fixed it for me!
From what I can tell, a Flickr Mashup is just using a photo from Flickr in some other application. I've done this before but I have not used photos from Flickr. Every Christmas I give a photo calendar that I create on a website called VistaPrint. I've also used the trading cards as a classroom project where students make elemental trading cards and turn them into a giant periodic table. Ooo! Maybe I'll take a picture of this, upload it to Flickr, and then post it into this blog! I'll bring my camera next week and try.
I also explored the Flikr Color Pickr website and found it very cool too. There are many fun "toys" on this site which incorporate Flikr images.
All these visual things are so stimulating for my right brain. I need to do some calculations to rebalance.
I wanted to put a picture of India and the Taj Mahal is one of the most easily identifiable images of India. I found this in Flickr by searching for Taj Mahal. Then I clicked under "share this" to get the HTML code. When I put my avatar on this page I learned how to use the HTML code to get images onto the blog.
One thing I thought was interesting about the photo is in the bottom right hand corner there is a copywrite. Can anyone copywrite their photos? And why would you want to? If you are putting them on Flickr for everyone to see and download, what does a copywrite really do?
. It is really hard to stay motivated when you are pratically worn out.
