Thing #12: Commenting

The main purpose of this blog is to create posts that will attract comments to my blog and to add meaningful comments to other people’s blogs. “10 Techniques to Get More Comments on your Blog” explains that one should include questions, opinions, and open ended thoughts to encourage visitors to leave comments. The other important point I discovered is to write comments that will add meaningful views and information to a posting. I see postings and comments as a way to converse with people who have ideas different/similar to mine. Sometimes my biggest issue is to find a way to phrase my thought in writing. A posting can captivate me and provoke lots of suggestions, responses, feelings, ideas, and more, but organizing all my thoughts into a meaningful comment/post is not always easy.
I found the following blogs to be full of tips and information I can use in my daily home life.
Keeping the Castle and Baking delights contain recipes, tips for stuff around the house, and personal anecdotes. Mom Houston Blog is part of the Houston Chronicle’s website and contains stuff for moms, such as promotion tips, events, child rearing, school tips, and other things that any mom can use anytime. School Zone Blog gives informal updates about what is happening in Houston area school districts.

Thing #11: Library Thing

The Library Thing has opened one more door of possibilities! After creating my account, I added my beloved Harry Potter series and some other books I have been enjoying lately. I was immediately able to find many, many other members who also enjoy these books. There were conversations, in which I already had something in common with these users. However the talks were not necessarily about the books. Users were talking and giving opinions about so many different topics.
I can see how I can use the Library Thing to create book talks and book clubs online. Students and teachers who enjoy the same type of books can discuss these books, review them, and recommend new titles to other members.
All these features can also be used to enhance library patrons' experiences. The Library Thing for Librarians offers interaction, reviewing, and recommending for school personnel.

Thing #10: Image Generators

Image generators are great! They are an opportunity for users to show their creativity. The license plates and hearts above are from the Image Chef. I like this tool to create signs of vocabulary words, formulas, and important names to post around the classroom. The black frame of words is from Wordle, and I thought of this tool for creating poems and riddles. Mine was made from a list of words that have a reading theme in common. Students can create their own and have classmates guess what the common theme is. Finally the sketch is from Dumpr. This could become a coloring page, and using other tools, I could add text to take it a step further.
Although I don’t show a picture, I also like Big Huge Labs to create a variety of images such as the magazine covers, trading cards, motivator posters, mosaics, badge makers, and calendars. I also found Custom Sign Generator which allows the user to upload a picture and add special effects to it.
I really enjoyed these tools and can easily foresee using them to increase vocabulary in language, add pizzazz to math problems and handouts, and to illustrate concepts in all content areas. These tools and strategies will also allow for students to feel more confident and gain more ownership of their work.

Thing #9: Circle of the Wise

Creating my circle of the wise is not as easy without having some experience in the literature world. I hope to get more acquainted with names of important figures and institutions. Meanwhile I should get accustomed to the search tools to find informative sites and blogs. The easiest tool to use was Edublogs’ award winners. Blogs were clearly organized by topics. Under each topic, there were several blogs to choose from. Technorati and Google Blog Search were both easy to use but provided too many results. It becomes overwhelming to search through all the results. A very useful search took is School Library Blogs on Suprglu. Blogs I found here were directly related to librarianship. From this source, I was able to link to Blogs such as ALSC, Informancy, McBookWords, and School Library Media Activities Monthly.