Thing #23 - Summarize Your Thoughts About This Program

1. Online image generator was my favorite “thing” (I thought of so many different ways I can use this resource with my students), but I have to say I spent the most time on blogging. My family and I spent three weeks in Florida this summer and I posted to my personal blog at least once every day. Some days I was blogging more than anything else. Every time I took a picture with my Blackberry my son would say, “we have to wait for mama to blog this before we go!” Great fun.
2. It has made me re-evaluate what I am doing as an educator for my students and how I can make adjustments to my program. I want to continue searching for free online resources that will help me assist my students in their use of technology. I am one of the ones that has had to learn technology as an adult, my students live in a world where they have been totally surrounded by technology their entire life. They HAVE to know how to use these resources or they will be completely left behind not only in the learning, but in the life.
3. Yes, I have found so many different ways I can improve the way I work with students and teachers. I feel like I have learned so much my brain will explode, but now I can take these “things” back to my school and help my teachers become more productive. The time saving aspect of the resources makes this so much more beneficial than I ever dreamed. Thank you!
4. I think this is a great way to learn. I could work on this wherever I am with my computer as long as I had an Internet connection. You never even knew that I was sitting next to my pool getting a great tan! J
5. Most definitely. I appreciate being offered your expertise even though I am not involved in your school district.

6. Enlightening

Thing #14 - Technorati and How Tags Work

1. Yes, the results are different. When I did the keyword search, I found information in the blogs on "School Library Learning 2.0", but when I did the tag search, I had fewer results. There were only two blogs. When a blogger is very specific in using tags, the search results are so much more defined. Tagging makes it easier to find what you looking for, but the blogger has to be the one to define their posts with their tags.



2. I had never heard of Boing Boing (most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com) yet it held the #1 spot on the list of "Top 100 Blogs" and was #5 on the list of "Top 100 Blogs by authority. It was interesting to see how the same blogs seemed to be on the two lists...TechCrunch and Engadget were two others that were in the top 5 of each of the lists. I guess if bloggers use the appropriate authority tags where people can find their information it makes for a much better reader base, makes sense.



3. Technorati seems too difficult for me to completely grasp. Maybe I am not spending enough time exploring the different areas. I guess this would be a great resource for researching a topic in order to find others writing or researching in the same field. I wanted to claim my personal blog on Technorati, but then changed my mind. My blog is not a secret, but I don't know if I would want the world to know everything my friends and family know, even though anyone can access my blog. I guess that is a double standard, but it is how I feel.

Thing #3 - My Blog

Well, I have created my work space to record my play time activities. Actually, I created another blog just for myself too. I have wanted to do this for some time, and just never took the time to do it. This was the perfect opportunity to do it. I think I am making more work for myself, but this way, I can record play time here and life there and the two shall not be mixed (yeah right!).

The best part about setting up my personal blog (I actually discovered it while "playing" with that one, not this one) is that I can post from my Blackberry! How cool is that? I can even take pictures and upload them to my blog. This is getting better and better all the time. Maybe I am just easily amused.