Thing #7: Google Tools

Wow!  This could be a serious procrastination place to play!  Since I have things tied to my email, I won't publicly publish things, but I'll see how I can share some of the things I did.  I created an igoogle page with a peacful scene of a Japanese village, and discovered that my igoogle page and blogger page OUGHT to have been set up with the same email address.  I can't be on both at the same time unless I open separate windows.  One thing I did was make a gadget for "Pizza Group Cruise"...which countsdown the time until I go on a cruise with a group of friends in January.  3 months, 18 days to go!  This could be a fun way for the kids to see countdowns for upcoming activities, or use it as a "this is how many days you have left to study for that big test", or some major project that is due (hmmmm...like 23 things needs to be done by?).  I also went to check out the tool that shows the phases of the moon.  I'll be teaching about the movement of Earth and objects in space soon, and thought that would be a fun addition for the kids to look at.  Unfortunately, it seems to have some bugs-- complaints such as it being 2 days behind, or not showing up at all, so I'll go back and check on it when we get closer to that unit of study.  I liked the idea of a todo list gadget as well.  Older students working on a group project could make use of this feature, and I am guessing that the teacher could use it to keep tabs on the group's progress.  I typed "learn english" in the search box, and LOTS of gadgets popped up!  I'll be searching through those to see if any are 2nd grade appropriate--I seem to average 2 or 3 new students from Korea each year.  :)