Tech Tuesday Survey

Spezify

Spezify is a visual search engine.  You can type in a word or phrase that you want to search, similar to what you would do in Google, and it will come up with results in picture or "news clipping" looking format.  I know students would really like to do this, and it also would be a useful tool for those beginning readers to search for pictures of words.  This site, just like Google, doesn't necessarily have a "student friendly" filter, but I've found that if you search for something a little more specific, like "fractions math" and not just "fractions," you will come up with a more educationally focused result. 

Here's a screen shot from my search for "Trumpeter Swans."  You can see the "play" buttons on some of the images because they are actual videos from YouTube.

Wordle

Today's Tech Tuesday was about a fun online tool called Wordle.  This tool is easy for anyone, including students, to use and has SO MANY possibilities.

To use Wordle, head to their website and click on "Create."

You can enter in whatever text you'd like.  The more times you enter a word, the larger it will appear in your Wordle.

For example, here is a Wordle I created just putting in colors.  I put in pink 5 times, blue 3 times, red 2 times, and green, yellow, orange and purple each once.   I just typed in the word with a space in between.




If you'd like your Wordle to contain phrases, like this Wordle my class did on the word SAFE, put a ~ sign between each word in the phrase (not a space) and it will keep that phrase together.



After you've input your text into the create box, click"Go."  Then, it will pop up in a random font/color scheme.  If you don't like that scheme, click "Randomize" and it will give you a different scheme.  You can randomize until you find one you like.

We had a great discussion about the many uses for Wordle in the classroom at our Tech Tuesday gathering.  Here is a sildeshow that tells 38 Interesting Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom.  I'm sure you can think of many more ways to use it!

Also, just a side note when using Wordle, the public gallery on the website is not "student friendly."  You may find some inappropriate material if you look for it, so I have the link on my blog that students use go directly to the create page by using www.wordle.net/create 

Bundle of Blogs/Feeds!

My mother-in-law (a former educator) sent me a link today.  It's a starter list of education feeds.  It seems to have a lot packed into it, but you can subscribe to it to get your Google Reader really loaded with good info!

RSS Feeds/Using Google Reader

Our Tech Tuesday topic for October 6 was RSS Feeds/Google Reader.  Using this technology, you can get website and blog updates coming to you instead of going out to check all the websites you visit.  It's really similar to getting website updates in your inbox, but it's a separate program.  I use this as a professional learning tool and as a way to get news information, since I don't have much time to watch the news.

1. To get started, I would recommend using the Firefox web browser.  I'm not familiar with using Internet Explorer for this.  You can download Firefox here if you don't have it.

2. After you've done that, go to Google Reader and log in with your google user name and password.  Just stay logged in so your browser recognizes you're a Google user.

 3. Now, you can go to any website you'd like.  I've listed some blogs I recommend in my last post.  Once you're on the site, look to see if it has this symbol in the address bar:

 

 

 

If it does, click on it. It should give you some subscription options (RSS or Atom?)  Either one you pick is fine.

4. Then it should give you an option to subscribe with Google.  Do this, and then choose Google Reader.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.  It should redirect you to Google Reader after you've subscribed.  Your sidebar will then have a list of the bogs/websites you're subscribed to as you add them.  

As you can see, I added Tech Tuesdays, so it's now there on my list (You can repeat this process for as many blogs/websites as you'd like.).

5.  To read through your website updates, you can choose all items, and scroll through them, or skip from one to the next using the "N" key.  You can also (if you have pop-ups enabled) click the "V" key to view the entry in a separate tab or window (depending on your browser settings).

 

 

If you'd like to just read the updates from a specific website, you can just click on that website's subscription and scroll through.  

6. If you're not sure what you'd like to subscribe to, here is a video from AndyWibbels.com on how to search for subscriptions in Google Reader.

If you have any further questions or need some help, please let me know!

 

 

Education Blogs

Here are some blogs I would suggest to get you started on your journey with Google Reader.  Feel free to comment and suggest more if you read something that I don't have on this list:

Angela Maiers Education Services
Earlham FYI by Rachel Burrow, our librarian
Free Technology for Teachers
Education Technology (news)
Meta Musings by Matt Townsley (my brother) - hs math educator
TAG Mirror by Russ Goerend (my husband) - 6th grade reading/language arts and former TAG teacher
The Changing Face of Education in Iowa by Evan Abbey - Heartland AEA
Wright Notes by Michael Wright, our Superintendent 
U.S. Department of Education 
Teach Science and Math
A Wiki of Many Blogs!