JD _Cool Tools 2017-2018

Thing 9: Search Tools Ninja I admit that sometimes it is easier to have students use Google to search (especially older grades) and I found it helpful to look at some of the articles about using that search tool. I found an article titled Six easy ways to tell if that viral story is a hoax. I especially liked a suggestion about reverse image searching. I happened to have a friend email me a NY Times interactive about the Woman's March. I didn't realize it at first because I just assumed the pictures were from this year but I was a little skeptical because they were so overwhelming. It turned out that they were in fact from 2017 (not this year) If I had looked further in to the information she provided I would have realized that. I decided to try the reverse image search and this confirmed my suspicion. I am now planning to use this with my students. Back to other Web Search Tools. I tried Choosito , Thinga , DuckDuckGo and I had already checked out  Kid Rex searc

Now that I got past the design issues, I reflected on blogging itself. I find that the most challenging part of blogging is keeping up with it. I have set up several in the past and the students are all gung ho at first but then they move on to different things and the responses trickle down. I guess in the elementary school world this is more realistic than say an ongoing commercial blog. I have noticed though that often it happens there also. People get busy and don't always have time to keep updating the posts. Short term - such as this class, they can be very useful .

Hi. I must admit, the hardest part of cool tools for me is setting up the blog. I always get hung up with design issues with this kind of program instead of just keeping it vanilla. I have used word press and it wasn't too bad but I saw some cool looking ones in blogger so I thought I would give it a try. I tried to change themes and pictures and had a heck of time so I thought I would  just get on to posting and see how it goes.