Thing 8

Mosiac Maker is wonderful!  I really am going to open a Flicker account and make mosaic pictures with my personal photographs.  For this assignment, I chose the option to fill my mosaic with Flicker pictures with a 'crayons' tag.  The mosaic maker I would probably use more for personal use.  I just wish that when you tried to edit the mosaic, you could change the location of the pictures, or get rid of one that you don't like.  I guess the way to do that would be to choose pictures individually, another option in Mosaic Maker.  I like the idea of sharing pictures online, but only if you can be very selective about who gets to view them  I would not want a picture of my children available for just anyone to use, like many pictures on Flickr.  I would definitely get permission from the parents in my classroom to take and display pictures of the students.

Thing 7

By: simplesunflower

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7174/6402105723_be8f32ebb9.jpg 

 

What a wonderful way to find pictures to use in class.  I searched for 'preschool art' and found a large supply of pictures available and have collected some excellent ideas for art in my preschool class.  I think that Flicker has just become my go to for image searches.  I can see myself using Flicker to find pictures to use as examples of any number of things: vocabulary words, science topics, places, historical figures, etc.  I enjoyed learning about the murals, collages, and mash-ups that can be made with pictures from Flicker.  One thing I did find interesting was that some tags are not very specific and the pictures with the same tag are far out of context.

Thing 6

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but, I rarely write anything on a calendar.  I know, you're probably thinking that I use a calendar app on my iphone - I don't have an iphone.  However, I do play with my daughter's or son's iphones occasionally.  Back to the calendar.  I put appointment reminder cards on the refrigerator and that's about it.  So, I went out on limb and decided to investigate Google Calendar.  It's wonderful!  In addition to being free - which is always a plus - it is incredibly easy to use.  Google Calendar allows you to create calendars of just about any date range and you can customize the design in numerous ways.  You can also share your calendar with others and import information from any other Google calendar - maybe from other programs or applications, I'm not certain yet - and other users can import your information.

There are many items you can add to your calendars.  Little person icons can be added to any appointments or events scheduled that include quests and alarm clock icons can be added to any date that has a reminder attached to it.  I haven't yet seen everything that you can add.

Google Calendar would make an excellent classroom resource.  Teachers could have a calendar with scheduled events - homework, topics being studied, etc. - from which the students could import items into their own calendars.  This would be a great lesson.  Students could learn how to create and manage their calendars - never an excuse that "I didn't know it was due."  Parents could also benefit from this Web 2.0 tool.  As long as they have an internet connection, parents would always know what was happening in their child's class. 

I've started my calendar and am proud to say that I actually have 4 events entered.  I'm even toying with the idea of making a calendar for my preschool class and inviting the parents to create one of their own - or at least keep track of mine.

Here's the link.  I highly recommend it.

https://accounts.google.com/NewServiceAccount?service=cl&continue=https://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli%3D1%26auth%3DDQAAAIUAAACSaoLxAfxDomDgzmfsClLNHgc3jPfwxmJcLx2dyM5d-KktZgMRFd3smqQJ20ZD5Y7WcXOV3pEbov8aZc1Lad2-lCs9zEtNa7a1c8QBUu7UL5HjvU5nt5PRuncC_yvstuQd5wpQOnF5TR1yIniKzRxZk_unW9ocP-ERBeM77iMmj-gsqmeJCnJ81GyRkLLJDTY&followup=https://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli%3D1%26auth%3DDQAAAIUAAACSaoLxAfxDomDgzmfsClLNHgc3jPfwxmJcLx2dyM5d-KktZgMRFd3smqQJ20ZD5Y7WcXOV3pEbov8aZc1Lad2-lCs9zEtNa7a1c8QBUu7UL5HjvU5nt5PRuncC_yvstuQd5wpQOnF5TR1yIniKzRxZk_unW9ocP-ERBeM77iMmj-gsqmeJCnJ81GyRkLLJDTY