~Thing #12~

I chose Google Calendar first. I chose this because I have used it previously and I do find it very convenient to use. The main reason for its convenience is that it is shareable with anyone, publicly or privately. Also, anyone given permission can make changes to the calendar. Therefore, it makes communication about appointments very accessible. As far as educational use, it could be used/shared with students in order to give them a further visual representation of when their assignments are due and when they will be having tests. Also, the parents can have access to this as well and be in better communication with the teacher since paper syllables do not always make it to the parents nor last through a semester.

The next thing I chose was Google Books since I do want to be and English teacher in the future. I have also used Google Books in the past because it makes buying books cheaper as well as more accessible. It is fairly easy to find a book because the search engine is nearly identical to the standard Google search engine. Many options appear and for most of the books there is a preview to see before the user decides to buy it. This has many educational purposes. The students, through Google books, can find any book they would need for class and it's a bonus that the prices are cheaper or similar to those on Amazon, and are readily available.

~Thing #11~

I find that it is easiest to use Google Blog Search in order to find blogs for the RSS feed mainly because it operates the same as the Google default search engine. I didn't really find any of these websites confusing.

I always find music and fashion feeds very interesting and useful, mainly because throughout my life these two subjects were always very important. Some unusual feeds were on creepy stories and trivial facts that people would typically learn for trivia games.

Through Google search, I found some other websites that can help you locate newsfeeds, but none as easy to navigate as the three listed above.

~Thing #10~

RSS and newsreaders are really handy when you don't want to get wrapped up in the sea of webpages that the Internet provides. Instead, it gives you one consistent feed with the things that you do want to see.

At school, I could ask my students to create their own RSS feed and their bell ringer could be to pick an article from their RSS feed and write about/summarize it. In my personal life, an RSS feed could be a quick news feed for me so that whenever I feel like reading something leisurely, I could open it up and find an article that interests me without the hassle of muddling through several different websites.

Teachers could use RSS feeds in the same way that I explained above for students to have interactive activities to do, or for their own personal use for the classroom. It would be a quick way to find ideas that they could use in their classroom or for worksheets or projects. It basically makes life just a little more simple and internet time a little more concise.

Just in case anyone is curious, the seven feeds that I subscribed to are

TheMakeUpGirl

Refinery29

DIY Musician Blog

Gungor

Pitchfork

Cool Cat Teacher Blog

Edudemic

The first two are beauty/fashion blogs. I really love fashion and how it both impacts society and society impacts it. The next three are music pages: DIY being for self-made musicians who look to succeed in the recording industry, Gungor is a Christian band that will surprise you, and Pitchfork is a music festival that always includes up and coming artists. The last two are education/teaching blogs that pertain to things that teachers need.

~Thing #9~

Scrapbook Generator

Cool Text Logo Generator

Sign Generator

Finding generators online is one of the easiest tasks to do because of the search engine Google. However, finding a worthwhile site that creates a nice graphic for you without looking tacky or like the site was created in the 90's with minimal effort is a different story.

I was able to find a few generator sites that worked well and made the process fairly easy. I could possibly use generators in the classroom if the students wanted to make their presentation look more snazzy. I would be able to tell them about generators and they could create a graphic with minimal effort -- a student's dream! I'm kidding, but a quick and easy graphic is always a positive thing for anyone.

Personally, I don't use generators often. I like having freedom of creativity if I'm going to make a graphic, so instead I use Photoshop to create anything I might need. I think instead, I would rather have my students go to a short and easy Photoshop workshop. Having these skills are really helpful and look great on a resume. Photoshop looks intimidating because there are so many tools, but truly if you have some basic knowledge, it's pretty easy to use. For example, Oscar Wilde is my favorite author so I created this as a funny image: