Thing 12

I think this is a great resource. However, I will be honest and say that I prefer a pen and a calender that I can write on. In the spirit of learning about new resources, I am trying to figure out how I could incorporate google calender in my classroom. I can see how it could be a good idea for parents to log into a teacher blog or shutterfly (or whatever on-line site they use to communicate) to see a calender of events. Perhaps it could be a calender with slots on it for parents to sign up for parent teacher conference. If there is testing that week that is changing the normal class schedule around, google calender could be used to post the new temporary schedule. This would save time and paper sending home a schedule. After reading a classmates blog (Alexis Wylie), I learned that you can connect google calender to your phone for updates. This is great for me because I almost always have my phone on me. I could put dates and times of in services, meeting with the principal, early release dates, etc. This would help me (or any busy teacher) remember important dates and I see the usefulness of that. I wanted to share a link to my calender but I couldn't figure it out. When I went to a classmates link, I clicked on it and it took me to my calender. She probably does not realize this yet. I will ask more questions and see what I can find out. Google translate was great. It was very simple to use. I can absolutely see myself using this in my class. This could be a fun project for the students to have to do. The can write letters (have pen pals) with kids from other countries. This is also useful for students who are ELL's and are trying to communicate but can't find the write words. They could easily go to the computer and find the translation. I thought it was great how it could also detect a language. For example, I typed in "do sprachenzi deutch" which is spelled wrong and it came back and told me it was German and it gave me the correct spelling. I thought that was GREAT! It makes google translator more user-friendly and very kid-friendly. I really liked this and I can see the potential in using this in my class. The URL to my google translator is http://translate.google.com/#auto/es/do%20sprechanzi%20deutch