Thing #13

 I created the free zoho account. I made a test document of a formal greeting letter to the parents of my future students. It can be viewed by following the link below.

 https://writer.zoho.com/index.do?docId=2998854000000014001&pc=true&wsilent=true

The next task was to explore Google Docs. I have used this site several times before. This is a link to my first Google doc upload for my 2100 class.
https://sn2prd0102.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=AiUfsrDxRUy6bWHBw5BaxPnbxBY5-M8IBn9lU1ZTvSgtyk6Ol_cgitIdLZClRmLbCClB1FH7Cbk.&URL=https%3a%2f%2fdocs.google.com%2fdocument%2fd%2f1nOw6OvtUwFZMOCoCGMtn1osUip_2-dXG7ZrzhU81tRg%2fedit%3fusp%3dsharing

I have to say that I prefer Google Docs over zoho because I am more familiar with it and I do feel there are more options for editing and sharing. Google Docs is also free where zoho requires you to pay for premium services. The benefits to students using Google Docs is limitless. I can create assignments that the students can collaborate on as well as a endless number of interactive assignments.

Thing # 12

I am very familiar with Google. I use the Google Translate to help with my Spanish homework and I also use Google Docs often. I found Google Alerts to be very useful. Google is full of great resources and being able to separate by topic helps refine searches and stay up to date. This will come in handy in my class room to quickly pull up a topic and then search only within those parameters. I can see making an assignment where I ask students to only search within a specific alert area.

Here is an example of one I set up for 2nd Grade Science;
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&q=2nd+grade+science&lr=lang_en

Thing # 11

I just could not believe the number of blogs out there. Blogging is still very new to me. I found that using search tools was very helpful i sifting through the thousands of pages to find useful and fun blogs. http://technorati.com/ was the easiest for me to navigate. It has multiple ways to refine your search and the homepage is not too busy looking. I explored several other search tool sites and I personally found them very hard to navigate.


 I found a blog on emergency planning for schools to be very interesting. In today's society one must always be prepared for the worst. I want to know that if the time comes, I will be ready to protect my students.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/28/taking-action-creating-model-emergency-management-plans-schools-institutions-higher-

One of the oddest blogs I came across while searching for this assignment was a blog about a guy who made a machine to separate oreo cookies. This is just one of many uses for technology and that some people have too much time on their hands!
http://www.inquisitr.com/547184/oreo-separator-physicist-builds-machine-to-scrape-creme-off-his-cookies-video/

Thing # 10

RSS feeds are completely new to me. I had to use every link on 23 Things to understand what was going on. Once I set up my Google Reader account, I began searching for fun and relevant feeds. I am an avid recycler and so I immediately see how this cuts down on newspapers! In fact, these feeds are kind of like setting up exactly what columns you want in a personalized newspaper. This technology will be beneficial as a teacher to stay current and up to date on issues in the education community.