Thing 5

Through Flickr, I found this great shot of Fenway Park, taken by Werner Kunz. I chose it because it brings out all the wonderful feelings a true Sox fan gets from an evening game at this beautiful stadium. My husband and I catch quite a few games here a year. This view is very familiar. I love the amazing clouds overhead in this picture and the way the stadium lights pop out of the sky. What a cool shot. Makes me really excited for my next visit...coming up soon!

Thing 4

Playing around with the customized homepages was a lot of fun. You can certainly get lost in Widget Land. I decided to use Pageflakes because I like the look and setup of it. And also, after reading the feature by feature comparison, I was steered towards Pageflakes due to its potential.
On my homepage, I added links to my gmail and facebook. I added a news link, a technology link and a recipe link for my personal pleasure. I love the calendar and to-do list. The to-do list is great because once you add the due date in, it automatically gives you the countdown of how long you have to finish it. This is helpful.

I could certainly see the technology links, the to-do list, and the calendar widget being very useful in my own computer instruction for obvious reasons.

Thing 3

A blog would most certainly support the work I do. As a computer teacher, I feel it is exactly this sort of thing that I need to be requiring my students to do to keep up with today's technology. I can have all level students create a blog in my class, with the younger students having a more simple version and the older-much more content. They can write daily, a few times a week, or weekly depending on their class schedule with me. In their blogs I would ask them to write about their feelings, frustrations, successes and ideas about the new technology they are working with in class. For some this will be just learning to use Windows 7. For others, it could be their first time creating graphs with Excel, Publisher or new video software like Adobe Premiere. Perhaps it is for sharing their creativity and understanding of digital photography. I can't think of a better way for me to communicate with my students (and they with each other and their parents) about their class experiences!