My Search on The Hershey Company

I am very interested in how food is produced and made, especially candy. I love to watch the show Modern Marvels on the History Channel whenever they have one about candy and snacks, especially holiday food. I was trying to think of a specific type of candy I could do my search on, and then I saw my Hershey's pillow on my couch that I got from the Hershey's store in Chicago last Summer, and I decided that The Hershey Company would be a fun topic to search. Here is some information that I found:

Some facts about the history of the Hershey Company:

• The Hershey Company was created in in 1894 by Milton Hershey, a candy-manufacturer who desired his caramels to be coated with a sweet chocolate
  
• The first products of The Hershey Company were milk chocolate in the form of bars and wafers
• The Hershey's Kiss was created in 1907. The started out as being individually wrapped squares in silver foil, but when machine wrapping came to be in 1921 they took on their current form with the signature "plume" to represent it as a genuine product.
• The introduction of new products in the 1920's (Mr. Goodbar, Krackel Bar, Hershey's syrup, and chocolate chips) helped the company through the Great Depression helping them avoid lay offs.
  
• The Hershey's Company supplied chocolate to "Harry" Reese's Company to coat over his peanut butter. In 1956 seven years after Harry's death, the H.B. Reese Company was sold to The Hershey Corporation.
• Today, the Hershey Company holds the spot of the top North American manufacturer of chocolate and non-chocolate products.
  

Products that I didn't know were produced by the Hershey Company:

• Cadbury's Creme Egg
• Kit Kat Bars (ususally made by Nestle except in the United States)
• Mr. Goodbar
• Rolo
• Whoppers
• Whatchamacallit
• Koolerz and Ice Breakers gum
• Good & Plenty
• Jolly Rancher

How the Hershey Company makes a difference in the world:

• The Milton Hershey school, founded in 1909, provides an education from students coming from families of financial or social need.
• Each year, the company donates to hundreds of community organizations.
  
• Employees have volunteered and raised millions of dollars for the children's Miracle Network.
• Have made a five year $500,000 commitment to the United Negro College Fund.
• in 2005, the company turned York Peppermint Patti packaging pink in support of Young Survival Coalition, a group of breast cancer patients and survivors.
• Recycle 90% of their waste through their own recycling company
• Uses energy-saving technology
  
• Sponsors Hershey's Track and Field Games which encourages youth fitness

Sweet Facts about Hershey's Kisses:

• The lamps in Hershey, PA are shaped like Hershey's kisses
  
• It takes about 95 Hershey's Kisses to equal one pound of chocolate
• The world's largest Hershey Kiss stood six feet nine inches tall and weighed 6,759 pounds

What I learned about Internet Search:
Before I officially learned how to operate a search engine properly, I would just type in a lot of words and use the first websites that came up. Learning about the different types of search operators has made my searches so much more specific and has brought up more reliable websites for me to obtain my information off of. I think my favorite search operator and the one I most frequently use is the ~operator to put in front of a word to gets its synonyms. I also like the + operator because it gives me no variations of the word and allows me to search for the exact word or phrase that I am looking for. I feel like searching is now much more efficient and reliable for me, and I am excited to use these operators and the tools that I learned in class in searches for school and for my personal searches like the one I did above.

Discovering RSS Readers

The web can be a pretty overwhelming place to search for information that you want. Websites and blogs are being updated all the time, and we aren't always aware of when this is happening, causing the possibility of missing out on new interesting information. RSS reader creates a solution to this problem. Through RSS reader, you can subscribe to different websites and blogs, and you are informed when new information has been added or a new post has been put up. It serves as a simple browsing tool that you can organize all of your most viewed and favorite sites and blogs in. This way, you can simply scroll to the site or blog you wish to see and click, and there it is for your viewing pleasure.
RSS reader is especially beneficial in the classroom. In the case of Blogging as we did in CEP416, you can make a folder of your class blogs and have easy access to them whenever you want to read them. This way, you don't have to waste time looking up the blog site, type it in, and then see if it has been updated. With RSS reader, the site is already stored and just a click away. Instead, you simply have to dedicate about five minutes to add all of your classmate's blogs into your reader. In the classroom, RSS reader can also help save and organize sites for different projects and reports a student might be doing. A student can group a list of sites together in a folder for a particular report and be able to refer back to them whenever they need to.
The only disadvantage to RSS reader has to do with Blogging, and it is the fact that not all of the posts are going to be of interest to you. You might be interested in the general idea of the Blog, but not every post is going to be something you want to read. Still there is a upside to this. Even though not all new posts will be what you are looking for in the Blog, an updated post could strike up a new source of interest and convince you to search for other Blogs that might relate more in detail to that topic.
RSS readers will ultimately make the web less overwhelming and because it will seem so much easier and less stressful, you may even find yourself doing more online reading than you did before.

The Advantages & Disadvantages of BLOG

Along with websites, Blog is another way that teachers are using technology to enrich their classroom communities. There are many positives and negatives to using Blog with students, but in my opinion more of the former. First off, teachers can use Blog as a personal journal to help them record the classroom progress, and it even allows them a fast way to go back in the archives to past lessons and entries that they might want to use as resources. They are easily organized and more efficient than filing records on paper. Teachers can also use Blog to communicate with parents about what's going on in the classroom, or even simply the progress of the classroom as a whole. This way, if the students don't say much about their day and what is going on at school, parents can still be aware of what is going on when their child is at school. Teachers can also post homework up in case a student forgets what their assignment is, and maybe even some helpful hints to certain homework problems to encourage students to use Blog.
Blog is also a great way to build a strong classroom community between students and student to teacher. Teachers can respond to homework questions on Blog, questions which a lot of students might have. This way, they are not spending hours emailing the same response to all of their students. Students' Blogs are a great way for those quiet and shy children to state their opinions and thoughts. Also, it makes it so everyone can have a voice. Teachers may not be able to get around to every raised hand since time is very limited. By using Blog, those students who might not have gotten a chance to talk in class can write as much as they want about the subject.
Like I said before, there are some negatives to Blog. Blog may discourage students to actively participate in class because they know they can simply write in their Blog when they get home. Also, students should be aware that what they post can be viewed by the world. Teachers should discuss with students the boundaries of putting up personal information, and mediate what the students post. This could take extra time out of the teacher's schedule, but it must be done.
If these issues are presented and discussed, I believe that classroom Blogging would be a definite advantage to getting students used to technology and creating a stronger classroom community.

Welcome to my Blog!

This is my first attempt at creating a blog. I know the title of my page is called "Teaching and Learning with Technology," but I must admit that I am not great with technology at all. In fact, I try to avoid it at all costs. As a future teacher, I am aware that technology is going to become a huge part of the learning experience in the classroom, and that all I can do is embrace technology and begin learning what I can about it. I am hoping that as this class progresses, I will become more familiar with technology that will be useful in my classroom, and I will have a better handle on using the computer for things other than emailing, typing papers, and browsing the internet (yes, sadly that is about all I can do at this point).

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite websites you can check out!
What I'm Listening To