Mash Ups

I wish I had more time to play and explore with Mash-Ups in Big Huge Labs.  I had fun playing with Photobooth, Mosaic Maker, and Badge Maker.  I figured out that I can make Spanish name tags that say, "Me llamo..."using Id Badge maker.  The fifth graders would love that for learning how to do introductions.

I still don't have access to my own photo library to show you products of my goofing around, but when I do, I will post them.

Flickr

I think I could stay on this Flickr site all day looking at photographs other people have taken.  I appreciate how the images are edited and the quality is better than what you might find on Google images.

I thought I would spend some time just looking at places I would like to go and virtually take a trip.  Here are some images from Barcelona, Spain.

Netvibes

Netvibes is pretty cool.  I had never heard of it before, so I appreciate learning something new and useful.  It is nice to have choices on which sites from which to draw my information for news.  It's getting pretty obvious that some news media sources are more slanted or biased than others, so  I chose to have n.p.r. and  Time magazine feed my homepage.  Of course around here in Michigan, the weather update is a must.

Students could find newsfeeds useful when doing research on a certain subject.  If they were concentrating on a certain subject area, they could have the experts on that subject right at their fingertips each time they open their computer to the internet.  It would be such a time saver, plus it woulds serve as a constant reminder of their mission.

Flickr uses in Wlang

After creating an account on Flickr I browsed around various groups and searched for subjects incorporated in units that I teach for Spansih.  I found some very beautiful, culturally diverse images.  When I did a search for "Madrid", I found some great images that I could use in a lesson.  I did a search for "corazon" (heart in Spainish) and some pretty creative images came up, like a bite out of an apple in the shape of a heart.  When I searched for some images to share with my photography class, I found some awe inspiring images too.  It's great to be able to tap into talent from around the world - Yay!

The most frustrating part of this photo sharing site is the amount of time it takes for the page to load when trying to view a full size image - boo...thumbs down!  Anyone who knows me knows that I move fast and don't have time to sit around wait for pages to load.

Since my home computer's hard drive just died, I could not upload any picutres to back up to flickr, ironic, no?  I will get the technical problem resolved and back up some of my images to flickr.  I just hope it doesn't take forever.  I'm thinking that since there are at least four ways to upload, one of those ways is faster than the rest.  If anyone out there knows which faster, please let me know.

Nings

Wow!  This is overwhelming!  I am spending so much time exploring these sites.  I found this AWESOME gold mine of a link for world language educators:

http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=5119

I found a Ning with Spanish video blogs that I joined and will show to my class of this guy in Spain chronicling his days in Madrid.  My students will be able to understand him which will be encouraging for them.

I joined a photography Ning, but I have to wait for approval.  I am not sure why one would blog in a Ning and not use Blogger?  I suppose if I could create a Ning for my students some other classes could discover us and talk to us in Spanish.  I joined a Super Spanish Teacher (technoLanguages Ning)  in case I have some points to discuss later.

Got a comment

When  received my first comment I was pleasantly surprised.  Honestly, I forgot all about my post and didn't really expect anyone to really read what I wrote.  Yay me, someone is reading!

So, I got a comment, which was a question.  Problem, I don't even know how to respond to this question - sad, no?  I never really figured it out, but I did something...?  I'm sure, I'll figure it out eventually.  Please forgive me, Mathlete, I don't exactly know how to reply.

LinkedIn

Surprise!  I found some connections (friends) that are "Linked In".  There was a photographer friend of mine that had a slide show link, so I watched that for entertainment.  Funny thing is, I talk to her fairly often and LinkedIn never came up.  I found both personal and professional friends and was glad to see someone I know out there in cyber-space.


This site could be valuable if more people were members.  I know so many unemployed people, that I am going to start recommending this to.  Praying is good, but this is really pro-active.

I have a facebook page to keep in touch with my family, but surely, it's better to keep the silly pictures of me dancing at a wedding private.  These two sites have completely different purposes, and are better kept separate.