Thing #12

I have always been a fan of Google Translate and have actually found myself up staying up late losing track of the time playing with it. It is easy to use and very fun in my opinion. Being an aspiring history teacher, I am sure I could find tons of usage for this tool in my classroom. Useing Google Translate I was able to translate from English to Spanish a greeting to my future class:

English - Good morning class. My name is Mr. Richardson. I will be your History teacher for this semester.

Spanish - Clase Buenos días. Mi nombre es Sr. Richardson. Yo seré su profesor de Historia para este semestre.

The Link for Google Translate is http://translate.google.com/.

The second tool I decided to try was Google Calender which I also found quite helpful. I can not only keep track of everything I have going on in my hectic life with it, but I can program exactly when I want my alerts sent to me. I can choose to have them sent via email, cell phone or both and I can set them both to alert me at different times. I have my email set to alert me seven days prior to a date on my calender and I have my phone set to alert me one day prior to an event. The link for Google Calender is https://www.google.com/calendar/.

Thing #11

Being a big fan of Google, I found GoogleBlog to be my favorite. Just like with the regular Google page, you simply type in what you want to look up and POOF, a list of everything related to that topic is put in front of you. Being a history buff, I searched for feeds on the American Revolutionary War and found several informative websites. A nice one in my opinion is http://www.americanrevolutionarywar.net/ which gives a straight forward account of the American Revolution. To be completely honest, I did not find any of the search tools to be overly complicated. I have always had a fairly decent understanding of computers and thus have been able to navigate rather well.

Thing #10

In regards to RSS and newsreaders, I like the fact that one no longer has to constanly check and reload a page to see if anything new has been posted. With this sort of technology, the site automatically updates and then informs the user. This would be a useful tool for educators to provide to their students to help them broaden their understanding of the subject matter outside the classroom bounderies. This is also a useful peice of technology as is can constantly provide educators and students with new bits of ideas, information, and opinions on whatever feed they are subscribed to.

Thing #9

I used the same generator to create all three of these images. The website I used was http://www.comicstripgenerator.com. When you go to the website you will have the option to type in a keyword or words. The generator will then pull up images related to the keyword(s) with blank word bubbles that can then be filled with you own custom text. I belive this would be a good tool to use to generate fun images that could be put at the begining of a powerpoint presentation to help keep the class entertained while they are learning. I find fun little images tucked here and there into a powerpoint can make the difference between a lesson learned and a nap taken.

Thing #8

I was able to make this puzzle out of a picture taken of me at a Civil War reenactment. This puzzle photo was made at http://bighugelabs.com. As far as this "mashup" goes, I dont see it being of much use in one of my history classes; however, I could definately see it being used in classes that are more elementary oriented. I am very strict when it comes to posting photos online. I do not agree with people posting things that could harm their personal lives. As long as the photos posted have a purpose other than just to make jaws drop, I do not see a problem with it. One must be careful in the classroom though, because not all sites control what goes on them as well as others do.

Thing #7

I found Flickr easy to use. I also found that Flickr images are all protected by some sort of copyright. I feel Flickr would be a good place to find images for use in powerpoints and other visual aids for my future history classes. I would use Flickr over other sources for the exact reason that its images are protected and one can always referance the author on Flickr. Since I am a History major, I decided to look up some images of General Robert E. Lee. I found this photo of his tomb and thought it was inspiring. Below is the link to the photo and the author of the photo is 93diagonalley

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13970608@N05/7770678738/

Thing #6

I found Skype to be quite useful. Skype ( http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home ) is an online program that allows users with web cameras and microphones to see and talk to each other in realtime. I used Skype to talk to my daughter a lot when I was deployed to Iraq and even at that distance it worked rather well. I could see skype being used in the classroom to help students who have to miss school due to extreme circumstances such as illness for example. If a student is at home with something contagous but has access to a computer, a teacher could log on to skype with that student and then the student could watch and listen to the class from home or in the hospital. This would allow the student (provided they are physically able) to keep from falling behind and to still be able to participate in class. The only issue I have with Skype is the same one I have will everything on the internet. Sometimes connections are good. Sometimes they are not. And depending on how well the connection the school has is, or the student's connection for that matter, the ability to support this type of web service may or may not be possible.