Thing 12: Hooray for Google!

For this Thing, I decided to play with Google Calendar and iGoogle. As with everything else Google-related, once you have a Google account they're both easy to set up, and I've actually had an iGoogle page for a long time - even if I had sort of forgotten about it.

I'll get the easy discussion out of the way first. I really cannot think of an educational use for iGoogle, beyond the web-searching and suchlike that plain old Google already does. I have mine set as my homepage, so I obviously find it helpful (or at least interesting), but it's not something I see being tremendously involved in the educational process.

Alright, well, there is one thing, and that's the fact that you can incorporate other Google tools into one centralized location. My iGoogle, for example, has a Google Translate section and a YouTube section, and those are both Google applications. Other than that, though, I stand by my previous paragraph.

Google Calendar is another story. While mine looks pretty sad (which is exactly why I don't typically keep a calendar - I don't need to), its simplicity and ease of use cannot be denied. You can share the calendar you create in a number of ways, and this would a really easy way to help a classroom stay on top of deadlines, field trips, test dates, or whatever else has a timeframe attached to it.

Now, I am only going to share my busy/free information in this blog, so as not to make the ladies jealous, but here's my calendar for the forseeable future.

Thing 11: Feed me all night long.

I ended up using Google Blogs to search for more blogs to read. I tried to look at Feedster but the link wasn't working, and I checked out Technorati but it felt kind of cluttered because of the ads and general layout. So, once again, I returned to Google.

Mostly in my searching (in which I added the TN Democratic Party, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the SCCA's Classics Links and Information to my subscriptions), what I found is that for every specific thing you are trying to find, you will find thousands of things that are only tangentially related, and often diametrically opposed, to your intended target. I also found that the right wing of our political system is much, much louder and angrier than anyone with whom I might agree (but to be honest I already knew that).

Sidebar: In my travels throughout the blogosphere, I read one person's angry "retort" to some scientific claims I'm not going to get into here because of time constraints, and one thing she said really stuck out in my mind: the internet democratizes truth. She, of course, was saying this is a good thing and it empowers people to decide the truth for themselves. I, on the other hand, could not help thinking that is exactly what is wrong with the internet.

The truth cannot be "democratized." I will be the very first person to say that there are no simple truths, and that even the most basic questions can have incredibly complicated answers. But there are things that simply are not true, no matter how many people repeat them on the internet. The internet gives equal credit to scientists and soccer moms, Ph.D.s and pundits, and as a result, the pool of collective knowledge is hopelessly polluted. The truth is not simple or clear-cut, but that does not mean it can be manhandled by anyone with internet access and still remain true.

So a word of caution, dear reader: take everything you read on the internet with a grain of salt, and ALWAYS consider the source.

Except for this blog, naturally. You can trust me without question.

Thing 10: Feed me, Seymour.

When in the market for a reader, I decided to go with Google Reader because, well, I already have a Google account. That was really about it. Then I had to pick five sites to subscribe to, so I thought about the kinds of things I used to do to entertain myself when I worked for the state and had nothing better to do all day. I had five sites in no time at all, except for the time I spent getting caught up on a couple of webcomics.

So, about those questions...

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?

I guess the handy thing about a newsreader is that I can check everything from one place. I don't know how impressive that is, really, but it's kind of like going down your Favorites list without having to click each one to see if there's anything new today. Not really much of a labor-saver, if you ask me, but slightly more convenient than doing things the old way.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?

I think I just answered this, at least with regard to my personal life. In my school life, I suppose it would be handy if there were a bunch of professional sites I wanted to keep up with, or if I made my students maintain blogs or something - then I could keep track of them all in one spot.

How can teachers use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

Teachers can use a reader to stay abreast of professional developments or breakthroughs in their fields, or to keep track of other teachers who blog or maintain websites. This latter use could help strengthen the educators' community. Being totally honest, I'm not sure I believe that, but I think that's the idea.

Anyway, I'm not going to do a public page right now, but for fun I will share the sites to which I subscribed on here:

Ghettokore Studios: Website and blog of fellow Privateer Press Ganger, semi-professional miniature painter, and all-around cool lady Jen Ikuta. She may or may not know karate.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: I trust Jon Stewart at least as much as most "real" news outlets.

Homestar Runner: Words cannot adequately describe this site. Words like "hilarious" come close, but there ought to be more of them and I don't have time. Just go watch some cartoons - the Strong Bad Emails are particularly good.

Webcomic Overlook: I can't be bothered to actually read all the bajillion webcomics out there. So I'm putting my trust in a masked Mexican wrestler to sort the wheat from the chaff. In addition to webcomic reviews, there is a recurring segment called "El Santo vs. The Vampire Women," in which the author takes on the apparently quite prolific subgenre of webcomics that specifically deal with female vampires.

Nuklear Power: Home of 8-Bit Theatre, an incredibly long retelling of the first Final Fantasy game's story, using mostly 8-bit video game sprites. The author, Brian Clevinger, has also written a novel about superheroes (Nuklear Age) and an award-winning print comic (Atomic Robo).

Now, what do these sites have to do with being a teacher? NOTHING AT ALL. But I did learn how to use Google Reader, didn't I?

Thing 9: I am not to be trusted with image generators.

After a long and exhasting search through several image generators I felt were lame and/or cheesy, I finally hit upon WigFlip, and one particular part of WigFlip: RoflBot. What you see below are the results of that.

WigFlip also has other great generator tools, such as AutoMotivator, where I made this thing:

And Thank You, Mario!, where I made this one:

I had a lot of fun doing the Latin ones (all but the Zombiecat poster), and I can see using any number of these tools to help students engage with Latin on a level beyond what might be presented in the textbook. If I can make Latin fun for my students, they'll do better at it.

If anyone would like to know what the Latin in any of these says, let me know in a comment!

Thing 8: Coming Soon To An Internet Near You

The movie poster you see above was generated with one of the many Flickr toys at BigHugeLabs. I don't necessarily think that Flickr itself would be terribly useful for my students, but if wanted to let them play a little bit I might allow them to make their own movie posters, magazine covers, or whatever using tools similar to the ones I just linked to - in Latin, of course. I will definitely have to remember BigHugeLabs for my personal use, though, as playing with digital photos is already something I enjoy doing.

Thing 7: I'm in ur internet, updatin mah blog.

Okay, so call me a dork (everyone does), but I don't think lolcats will ever not be funny to me. Some of them are less funny than others, but I can't help but giggle a little bit when I see a picture of a cat doing something odd, with a caption in a bizarre pidgin English. It's not just cats, of course (the lolrus gained internet fame for a while, for example), but cats are weird anyway, so it's easier to get funny pictures of them.

Anyway, when it came time to explore Flickr, I decided to embrace the full internet experience and search on the tag "lolcat." Several pages in I found this pic, which I thought was appropriate given the nature of this class:

The lolcat version of this picture is by kbaird on Flickr, and is taken from an actual cat photo by slava. Here's a link to kbaird's pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevlar/1152595430/

I am personally a Photobucket user, and have been for years, so I wasn't interested in creating a Flickr account I'd never use, but just for fun, here's something from my Photobucket - a pic of last year's jack-o-lantern: