About

This site is done to record what I do in class and to provide some reference materials and links that may be useful in the teaching of reading.  It's nice to display my students' work; they are proud of it and the parents like to see what is going on.  I can refer my students and parents to the various pages of vocabulary words and printable handouts without having to print it all out.  I  can also get to the information anywhere I can get an internet connection.  I don't have to rely on a thumb drive or any particular computer to access information, I just go to my site.

I'm using  the Picture Window template, which is a  standard, google blogger,  fairly plain, blog format.  I've added a slideshow, background, header, changed post format and colors, and adjusted widths.  I've done some tweaking of CSS and HTML, but not much was needed, which is a good thing, since I'm not all that skilled at that sort of thing. It's really just pictures followed by text and it's easy to update and add a page or a new tab for something that is going on that week.

I'm still enjoying and learning the process of website/blog building.

I just got a camera about 3 years ago, so my photo skills are not all that hot. I've used the programs listed below to edit the pictures I take, they are both free.  FastStone is a quick to load, preview pictures, and easy to use photo editing program, you can crop, lighten, darken, etc.  Paint.Net is a more fully featured graphics program, similar to PhotoShop, but not as complex or as many options.

FastSone

Paint.Net

Shrink Pic  is  program that shrinks any photo you upload to a more web friendly file size.  It is also free.  You upload the program and it sits in/on the taskbar and does it's thing when you upload a picture.  It really speeds things up for myself and makes the pages load quicker for any body viewing the site. It's easy to turn off and on if you want to send a larger picture size for someone to print.

Sometimes things don't work in blogger so:

Know Issues For Blogger

Like today, 11.13.2012, my header pictures are gone from all my blogger sites. 

Google also has a forum/wiki where you can query a large database of blogger problems and solutions to things you're trying to do.

Blogger Help

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You can hover and click the links at the site below for more information about my sites and myself.

One site to rule them all-one site to bind them

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The sites below are used