I changed the theme of my blog. I found that the Eagle one gave me a lot more options, including changing my header. I added a counter and subscribed to some RSS Feeds. I also put a calendar up. This was an easy Thing to accomplish, and I am happy with the result. My blog now seems a little more custom and not quite so generic. The one thing I wasn’t quite sure about was adding an image to a widget. I uploaded some photos to Picasa. Then I copied and pasted the link location in a text box. However, the image didn’t show up on my blog, only the text of the link location. I did add a free rice badge to the bottom of my blog, just to try adding a badge. That worked well. Only 10 Things to go…
The sunsets are free by kevindooley
I have recently been turned on to Flickr by my carpool companion. Her husband has recently taken up photography and takes incredible photos. He posts on Flickr every day, and his work is AMAZING! I am subscribed to his Flickr account, Obsessive Compulsive Photography, on Bloglines. However, I was glad to explore beyond his page today. All of his stuff is All Rights Reserved anyway. So I had a good time and searched many different pictures and photographers. One photographer that I really liked was kevindooley. He had a lot of beautiful Lake Michigan sunset pictures. I posted one of his pictures here. I feel so blessed to live where I do.
I did get a little frustrated while searching. After a while, it seemed to take a little longer for each page to load. I also am not quite sure how to properly cite the photo. Hopefully, I’ll learn more about that when we get to the Creative Commons Thing.
I have heard so much about Picnik. It got one of our teachers who doesn’t really embrace technology pretty excited when she learned about it in her technology class. After hearing Janice talk about all of the cool features, I was glad to get my own Picnik account with this Thing. I found it to be a very user friendly program. There are many features for premium members that I enjoyed playing with. However, I couldn’t apply those changes. I also uploaded many pictures right away. Then I realized that I could only view the last 5. At least I think that’s the case. So, I should have uploaded and edited 5 pictures at a time. After they were saved, I could have done another 5. If someone found a way to work it differently, please let me know. Here are the 3 pictures that I edited:
This is a picture of Nadia and her friend Brittney at the Fourth of July parade this past summer. I edited it to look like a 60's photo and added text.
This photo is of my younger daughter. I tried a different text on this one. I also added a border, turned the photo black and white, and did something to make the apple red. Isn't she cute?
I thought I'd try some of the goofy options too. I put this picture in a polaroid, changed it to B&W, blurred the photo, added a couple of mustaches, and gave Wayne a little color in his face. He walked in while I was doing this and was about as amused as he looks in the photo above.
I also saved a photo to Facebook. I didn’t like that I didn’t have the option to choose who I wanted to let see the picture. When I upload pictures directly to FB, I can select who I want to have access to view the pictures. I missed having that option in Picnik.
I definitely think this is a great resource for editing personal photos. I also think it could be used at school to blur backgrounds when posting pictures of kids at various places and to make blog photos a little fancier. At my school, teachers must submit a page for the back of our school newsletter. Picnik could be used for that too. Our computer teacher has had kids do an end of the year cd using Photo Story (I think). She could incorporate Picnik into those lessons.
I’ve been playing with Bloglines for the past few days. I am very excited about having everything in one place. However, I was mostly using the RSS feed button. Unfortunately, my school website didn’t have a button like that on its page. It did, however, provide a link to subscribe to its announcement and Twitter feeds. So I practiced that method today, which worked great. I had some trouble with the bookmarklet method. For some reason, I was unable to drag the button to my bookmark toolbar in Firefox. I tried again in Explorer and was able to successfully add it to my favorites. When I tried to use it to add a feed, I got a message that there were no feeds on that page, even though the page had an RSS feed button. I’ll have to play around more with that one. I am now subscribed to many of our 23 things blogs as well as some work related blogs and a couple of friend’s personal blogs. I wonder whether I should keep those private. I think I will do that in the future. Right now though, I’m making them public so they count toward the 10 I need for this Thing. I also subscribed to a news blog, but it quickly overwhelmed me. At this point, I think I’ll stick with a few that I really want to read.
By the way, my account can be found at http://www.bloglines.com/public/kfuller
Wow! In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned how I love to look at everyone’s blog to see what is new. I also wrote about how difficult it is to follow all of the blogs and that I fear missing out on some good discussion because I’m not notified of follow up comments on blogs that I post on. Bloglines seems like the perfect solution. I am excited to get started.
You can find my bloglines account here. Figuring out that address was the only difficult part of this assignment. When I initially went to copy and paste my address into my post, I noticed it was a generic http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs I knew that couldn’t be right, but I couldn’t figure out what my blog address was. Looking back on the 3 provided as examples, I thought I saw a pattern and tried www.bloglines.com/public/kibentz with no luck. Finally, I went into my account, changed my blog setting to public and typed in a user name. That did the trick. I’m sure that there were directions on how to do that in the videos. However, I watched them in two parts. At least I figured it out.
This was fun and easy. The video clips showed exactly what I needed to do. I did import my bookmarks though (the video clip did not do this), and it probably would have been quicker to open a new tab and go to only the sites that were mine. Instead, I ended up importing a bunch of bookmarked sites that go with my husband’s gaming habit. I then had to delete them. I am so excited to add more bookmarks. I need to install the tag button on my browser at work.
I’ve heard of social bookmarking, and I’ve been tagged on Facebook. Everything that follows is a little bit foreign though. My first thought was that I primarily only use my home and school computers. So it’s really not a big deal to put my favorites in the browser. It’s what I know, and it works very well. As I kept reading my thoughts shifted. I typically only bookmark sites that I tend to visit often. Otherwise my folders get cluttered, and it’s hard to find what I need. A social bookmarking site with tagged links would cut through the clutter. It would be like being in a library filled with books. You only need to look in the card catalog under the subject of interest. You’re immediately pointed to the exact books that fit the search criteria. Well, it works very well in the library. Suddenly, my thought is, “A search engine for my bookmarks. Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?”
It sounds like there are a few bugs still to be worked out with tagging. I tried looking up free songs on Diane’s Delicious site. Then I realized I should be searching for free music. I’m glad she didn’t put it under free_music or freemusic. It’s very possible I never would have found it.
I hope my understanding of social bookmarking is somewhat on target now that I’m so excited to get started.
I have been very curious on here about what others are doing. Usually the first thing I do before I get started with my Thing is to check out everyone else to see what’s new. I really love to lurk, but I have been very purposeful in leaving comments for others. I really want to learn as much as I can from this experience, and I feel comments are the dialogue of blogging. I like that I get an e-mail message when a comment comes in that I need to moderate. I wish that I got a similar type of message when someone added a comment to a blog that I have already commented on. I’m not likely to continually check back on something I’ve already read even though I am interested in how those threads continue.
I have been very flattered that people have taken the time to respond to my thoughts. It’s great validation. Students likely feel the same way. If I were to have them write in a blog, it would be important that others are reading and responding to it.
As far as learning communities go, I am part of this class. Also, my district has an online community, including a blog and a Twitter account. I am currently on Facebook, although that is for personal use.
My principal sent an email over the summer to let our tech guy know if we wanted a Google Docs account. I figured it would be something that we would be expected to do to replace face-to-face collaboration time that we currently have with grade level meetings and committees. At this point, however, we have not been asked to use it nor have I tried it until tonight. I thought it was very easy to navigate. I currently use wikispaces with the co-leaders of my daughters Girl Scout troop. I think that Google Docs might have been a better forum for what we are doing because of the privacy allowed. It also could be a substitute for saving everything on a flash drive, leaving multiple copies of things everywhere. I’m not sure how I might use it with my students or if it would be appropriate, but Google Docs has a lot of potential for me.
I absolutely loved the Google Maps, especially the Street View! It can have a lot of application with my kids: when learning about various cultures, when studying national symbols (including the White House), when learning about landforms. I did notice the maps were not completely accurate. Near my house in Fruitport, Clock Funeral Home was marked in the wrong spot (about a block away). I felt a little like a stalker on Street View. I was glad to see that I couldn’t get a Street View of the White House. That wouldn’t be a good thing in certain hands.
I’m interested in how to create a map embedded with videos and such. I had no idea how to even get started with that one.
I did have a tough time with imagegenerator.org. I was trying to put my face on another body. However, no matter which picture I chose, it kept putting me into a Star Trek scene. Strange. I liked Big Huge Labs best.
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