Thing #12 - Google Eyes

I have a Google Calendar, and I stopped using it this school year (I used the Outlook calendar instead), but I've used it a lot this summer. Search "Summer Marshall" to find it; it's public. I searched for other public calendars, and WOW! The presidential candidates' campaign calendars are on there!

I set up an iGoogle page; I've needed a good home page for a long time. I love that you can simply drag the items to wherever you want them to go! I played around with themes - and eventually chose the 10 Pãezinhos theme. And the gadgets!!! Wow! Lots of them are ugly and suffer from what I call the "MySpace syndrome," being too flashy and redundant, but I ended up adding the YouTube gadget, Word of the Day, Einstein Quote of the Day, and Hot Guy of the Day. (Just kidding on that last one; it doesn't exist. I checked!!!) (There are, though, DOZENS of Hot Chick of the Day "gadgets.")

But Google Sites is a major interest in terms of school use. I wish Google wasn't behind the firewall, though, because entering my password EVERY TIME I want to Google something or use a Google app is REALLY annoying. (Can you tell how I really feel?) I made a site that I may use for a class "home page" -- One Hundred Percent Marshall! I'm still playing around with it... I can't figure out how to change the layout yet, but I haven't done much instruction-reading!

And I'm really curious about Google Notebook. That'll take me a while to digest; I'm not sure if it's redundant with the programs I'm already using.

Thing #11 - Feed Me!

My RSS feed is going to be a strange blend of geekery, education, celebrity gossip, news, and random stuff.

*Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?
I enjoyed using the blogrolls of blogs I read. If I really like someone's writing, chances are, I'll like what they read, too!

*Which Search tool was the easiest for you?
I really like the no-nonsense interface of the Google Blog Search. Just like Google, you're entering a search term and coming up with some decent returns. Also, it lets you set up an email alert if you want to be notified of topical blogs that come up later. Woo hoo! It's like a reader for your search!

*Which was more confusing?
Topix confused me - I was expecting a list of blogs to subscribe to, when it's actually a news aggregate of its own. You can edit what you see, and comment on it, but I've seen similar aggregators out there (Google News links directly to the "real" article where you can comment with the readers of the original source). Even with Technorati, you have to click through to a Blog Directory. Where's the Page of Blogs I Want? The top 100 helped, but...

*What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels?
I've been around the web, and I kind of already have my favorites... So I compared a lot of the feeds to ones I already have, and they came up lacking.

*Or what kind of unusual ones did you find?
I think my favorite is one called Overheard in New York, which posts brief snippets of strange overheard conversations.

*What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?
A simple Google search on obscure topics that interest me came up with some cool blogs that - whaddaya know - interested me, too!

Thing #10 - Living in Syndication

I've been "load all in tabs" with my bookmarks for YEARS now, so it's about time I save myself some time! I need to hook myself up with a reader. I love it: "It's like Netflix compared to the video store." I love that the infomation comes to you instead of making you waste the "trip" by loading a site if there's nothing new. Now, I can just go when I know there's something good!

I went with Google Reader. I like that it meshes with my iPhone and Google accounts (mail, calendar, etc.), and that it's intuitive after using the we-based Google apps. And, for data freaks like me, there's tons of infoporn (and no, I don't mean that stuff - I just mean images/data that are exciting to people who are curious about web use - I SWEAR that's safe for work)!

Using newsreaders will save me TONS of time -- not to mention bandwidth -- for stuff I do every. Single. Day.

I'll most likely use this technology in my professional life, not in my classroom (yet). I'll use it to keep tabs on what's going on in educational news and policy, plus keep track of what's going on in terms of best teaching practices.

I don't want to make my reader public, though; I sometimes read stuff that's not entirely family-friendly (read: things that others might find objectionable for whatever reason), so sorry, blogosphere! Here's something that I'll close the "interactivity loop" on!

Thing #9 - More Imagical Stuff

Ah, image generators! Whee!

I this is one of the reasons I love the Internet - anyone can make relevant and/or funny imagery, thanks to programmers. The generation software, web-based, is pretty self-explanatory; usually you just enter the text you want into the field, and viola! A picture!

I used the Famous People application for this one:
Made with free image tools @ TXT2PIC.com

How about this, from the Barcode section of Custom Sign Generator for emphasizing how important bubbling in their answers is?


Ooh! A Magic Eye generator!


All of these will be great to put on homework, class signage, or notes I send home to add visual (and content) interest.

There's a fun church sign generator out there, too!

Thing #7 - Flickr?!? I hardly knowr!

Polar(ized) Ice III, originally uploaded by Iridesce.

Here's a photo I took in a place I consider my "extended classroom," the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It's a view of water crystals viewed through a polarized lens. Rainbows! Yay!

I have used Flickr for years for its wonderful social networking abilities and ease of use. I keep some school photos on there; if they feature students, they're listed as private -- if you see any students, please let me know! -- mainly for my own media storage. I'm not sure if I'll use it for public classroom photos (if I did, I'd have to create a new user, since I don't want my kids/their families seeing my personal stuff).

Right now, I have my wedding pictures catalogued and hope to make a big book (though Flickr's service) soon. Overall, I love having photos "out there" - photography has been a great hobby. I hope to keep it going in the future.

I've tried Picasa, a long time ago, because it meshed with Blogger first. My early blog days had a few Picasa-loaded photos, but Flickr arrived and was superior then. Honestly, I haven't looked at other sharing sites in a long time. I hate it when they make you sign up as a user before you can look at others' photos; Flickr is open and free.

And, they have the Explore function! You can find out what the most popular tags are (displayed in a cool wordswarm), or find photos deemed "interesting" by their online traffic.

Maybe I'll use Flickr in the classroom as a vocabulary-building exercise; kids can enter vocab words and see what kinds of tags show up!

Thing #6 - The Toolbox

I'm gonna play around with Pandora. I just got the update for my iPhone (haha, it's iPhone 2.0!), and Pandora is an available application. I want to play with it so I can have access to music that I'll probably like, based on extrapolations of a computer.

Anything touted as a "genome project" appeals to me! From the creators:

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony.

Awesome!

First, I added many of my favorite bands to "Summer Radio," the "station" I created. I like that it has a "smart add" button (though it took a while to use because the navigation relied on some pop-ups and menus I didn't really understand). Then, I clicked play! Simple as that! The first song they threw at me was by the White Stripes, a band I didn't put on my list... and a song I didn't particularly like. But, never fear, they let you "thumbs up" a song or "thumbs down" it; it'll drop songs like it from the playlist evermore! I have it playing in the background now. Here 'tis!

I don't like that when you share the station(s), the emails take so long to arrive! I'm waiting for a "share" email so I can link to my stations! Search for "Summer Radio"

I'm really excited that I'll be able to use this with my phone. I'm not taking advantage of the iPod feature of my iPhone at all yet, so having this (free!) resource to entertain me (and plug into my car!!!) will be great.

It's useful because I'm always seeking out new music, and Pandora (based on the selections for Summer Radio) has quite a few obscure selections.

For school, wow... That's an interesting problem challenge!

It might help me relate to my students if I create a "Class Radio" station by inputting their favorite songs/bands... We could play it as a reward. Or if we have a certain unit theme, we could list songs and see what Pandora comes up with...

I created "Science Radio" by entering bands I know are into the whole science songs thing and certain science songs I know. But it didn't really come up with sciencey songs, because it's looking at musical connections, not lyrical/content connections. Check out its not-so-greatness. Oh well.

Thing #0 - An Introduction

Welcome to Things to the Twenty-Third Power! I know, I know... "Things²³" is not equivalent to "23 Things," but the way I see this course -- and technology in general -- is that things tend to grow, exponentially, as they're grouped together. We won't just have blogs and podcasts -- we'll connect them so we have podcasts ON a blog! Using these things in conjunction with each other? It's like their usefulness is multiplied!!!

I'm Summer Marshall, self-declared science geek, math teacher, and fifth-grade teacher at Floyd Elementary. I just finished my first year teaching. And, as a matter of fact, my certification from SBEC is in the mail TODAY! Woo hoo!

I heart my job ('specially now that school's out)!