Shopping for deals

I will admit that I was one of those crazy people who actually went out and braved Black Friday shopping. I always have, and I think I always will, but I went at 10--I'm not getting trampled by the extra craziness (I mean a Walmart employee on the East Coast go killed by people, when he tried to open the door to let customer sin). Anyway, I know you can shop online, and yes, I have done this before, but I don't like paying all the shipping charges. My sister has already done quite a bit of her Christmas shopping online, and she encouraged me to look, because there are good deals. Lots of places were offering extra 40-50% off for buying items online. Plus, many places are offering free shipping this year, even if you're not spedning lots of bucks. So, I'm off to check out some deals.

Thing 5

I remember as a child loving to go to the library, in fact I liked to read and would go through books so quickly that my parents did not want to buy them. In elementary school, I loved library time. I always had my books finished by the time it was to bring them back. In middle school, I liked reading, but stuck to the more popular series like Babysitter's Club or Sweet Valley Twins--so my parents did a lot of buying, since the latest was not at the library fast enough. Our middle school librarian did remind me of the old lady in the movies-- there were 4 chairs at all the tables, but her biggest rule was only 2 people per table. It was like the 11th commandment or something.
Between being busier in high school with things and not having the weekly trip to the library, I usually did not visit too much ih high school, except for research projects. I did continue to read for pleasure, but I was not a frequent visitor to the library. In college and graduate school, the library was again more a place for research. This summer though I decided to get myself a library card in my area- Maple Grove. I have liked that they let you check out a lot of books at once and you can renew online-- in case you can't make it back in 2 weeks.I haven't really used it for much other than pleasure reading.
As for my students, I really am not too aware of their use of the public library. As a history teacher, I do take my students to our media center and teach them about the resources there, however, being that I don't live in Carver County, I am not that familiar with the libraries or student usage. I know that Larry Bachman and I are going to encourage public library use by offering some extra credit for history day and we are having public librarians come in and teach our students about the resources. Other than this, I haven't had a lot of time to think about better usage for students.

Mili This Past Week

I enjoyed looking at the data bases in class this week. I looked directly at Historical Newspapers, which I found to be a fairly interesting place. It was impressive to see how you could get articles and cartoons on historical topics easily, and they were from when it happened. I will need to explore this site more to be ablt to say exactly how I would use it.

Thing 4

Today I started to look at Thing 4, and worked at a customized homepage. I chose igoogle, basically because we have used many google things in MILI. Many times I choose to use yahoo as a search engine though, so we'll see how it goes. I will probably try this one and see how it goes, I can always change if I find something I like better.

I like the added information you can just check and add to your page. I am going to try this out as my page and see how it goes. I like the news, entertainment, and time features. I have always enjoyed logging into yahoo, because of the quick nes stories they have, so I think it will be useful to have these on a page I can make into a homepage, if I choose.

Lookin at the online calendar, I am not sure about using this. I already use the calendar in my email, and I have found this very useful to have right in my email. Someone emails me about setting up an appointment, and I can just check my calendar right there. So, I'm not sure I would change this.

As for the to do lists, they made me feel overwhelmed. It just felt like a lot of work to do in 1 lesson, so I think I am going to have to revisit this with a fresh mind. I am interested in taking a closer look at the project calculator, but today.... I feel overwhelmed with all I have already examined, so I think another day I will look at this more closely for how I could use this tool.

Wiki for History Day

I have decided to create a wiki page for History Day this year. This page will include a spot for both my students and Larry Bachman's, as we are working through this together. He's done History Day before, and hey-- I'm willing to be the one who jumps in to try and set up this wiki for our students. I have learned how to set up accounts without email addresses, and so I have done that step. Now, it's just a matter of teaching students how to use and figure out how best to manage this. Any suggestions???? I'll let everyone know how things are going once the ball is rolling--- should be early December when we start to use this.