Thing #16

I liked PageFlakes, but decided to stay with iGoogle. The only reason I chose iGoogle is because I am familiar with it and already set up a page from an earlier discovery exercise. I plan on keeping iGoogle as my homepage. Before I moved over to Google I was a Yahoo girl, but I was getting tired of the pointless news feeds and this class introduced me to iGoogle. I have my page set up to get the information and stories that I want.

30 Boxes can be added to Google and facebook, which could be helpful for me. I have a calander that I carry everywhere with me to try to stay organized, but to be honest I never open it. With being able to share 30 boxes to Google and facebook I would see my calander everytime I logged on to my computer. 30 Boxes also has a feature to have buddies who you can share your calander with. This could be helpful for the classroom setting. Rather then having to keep up with events on a weekly basis to remind parents of you could publish the calander for them to follow monthly or quarterly.

For the to do list I liked Ta da list. You can email your list or add it to a RSS feed. It can be a helpful tool, but with the calander I do not see why you would want the to do list. Google homepage has a to do list that you can add to your homepage.

30 Boxes could be helpful in the school setting, because you can set up a buddy list of who can see the calander and you can share with other teachers, parents, and administration of the shcool. It is highly effective to have a good calander to help you stay organized.

Thing # 20

YouTube is a very resourceful tool. Mainly when I have went to the site it was to find lyrics or see the video to a song. However, YouTube is so much more. Recently we have viewed videos in YouTube for the backsplash we did in our kitchen and on how to fix our door knob on our door. A word of caution though, as helpful that it may be, it has its down sides. Unfortunately there are videos on there that I do not find appropriate for me to be watching let alone children. Another down side is you can get sucked in and watch clip after clip for hours. I added this video to my blog to serve as a reminder of the impact a teacher can make on a students life. I look forward to touching a childs life, I pray that it is always for the best. As educators we need to remember that our actions establish the positive learning enviroment of the classroom.

Thing #18

I find that it is important for educators to know how social networking works so they can connect with fellow educators, stay in touch with peers that they completed school with for assistance in the classroom. Having sites such as twitter and facebook that allows us the opportunity to communicate with our entire friend list rather then sending an email after we go through our contacts or search for each persons email makes things much quicker and efficient. Not only do you have your friends for a resource, but your friends friends comments on your friends walls are visible to you, by this you even get more insights and views. As I have found in my personal life social network sites also keep you up todate with the slang language of the youth. Being an educator it is beneficial to know what the students are saying and talking about.
Of the two sites twitter and facebook, I like facebook the most. I find facebook to feel more personable. I do not like the limited characters for twitter. I am not fond of the quick what I would consider blurts of what is on your mind. I enjoy sharing pictures on facebook, this would be one of my favorite features. I also like that if I want I can have a private chat with a friend or send a quick private message.
I could see using facebook to set up a time I would be available to answer questions about homework or other questions students might have. The students could post statuses with questions or concerns they might have about what we covered, homework, or what we will be going over the following day. This gives the opportunity for the whole class to answer fellow classmates questions and gain a better understanding through others post.

Thing #6

Since I know and use a lot of the tools on the webware top 100 list I am guessing I am more technologically savvy then I thought. When I started the project I never realized all the web 2.0 tools I use. Never gave the tools I use a second thought. We have become custom to the fact that we have the internet with all its tools of convenience and do not think twice about how far we have come.

My favorite on the list is Pandora. A girlfriend of mine turned me onto Pandora about two months ago on my iphone. It is an amazing music tool. I do not know if I could ever get through my workouts without it. One of my favorite things about the website is your choice of music. The channel I listen to the most is Vanilla Ice Radio, oh the memories. The only complaint I have with Pandora is the ads, but you take the good with the bad. The good by far out ways the bad. Another on the webware top 100 list that I have used is Skype. Anyone with a loved one in the military is most likely very familiar with this tool. You have no idea how Skype has brought me to tears, because I was able to finally see an image of my husband in real time that I had not seen in months. Many people use Skype for video conferencing. I have even seen Skype used on Good Morning America. The only down falls I have every encountered with Skype is slow feed and disconnects. I always assumed that the slow feed and disconnects was primarily due to where he is at and the internet he is using.

I think it would be neat to use Skype in the classroom. When I was in third or fourth grade we created pen pals across the world. Mine was in England. I thought it was so cool to correspond with someone in England. Today in our classrooms we could do a type of pen pal via Skype. Due to the time changes I am not sure how well across the world would work, but it could definitely be done across our country.

Thing #5

From my understanding School 2.0 means students learning online. Many of my friends home school and have been doing so for at least three years now. When I asked one of them about it her comment was “ She gets on the computer and does her lessons” I was not sure what she meant, but after reading the up about Web 2.0 I do. One of the radio stations here in town has ran an ad for schooling online. In the ad it says something about people learn in different ways. I completely agree people learn in different ways, but I do not think educating students primarily through the computer is the answer. I am all for technology in the classroom. Teachers and students should be using the latest technology in the classroom. However, in my opinion there should be a classroom where a teacher is there teaching. Most likely computers/internet are going to play a prevalent role in education, students possibly will be required to have a computer or some type of hand held device to bring to class. It will definitely be interesting to see where this goes in the coming years.

Thing #12

These tools were fun to play with. I wish I had more time to play with and personalize iGoogle. Maybe it will be something I can revisit this weekend. I like the Google Calendar, I need all the organization I can get. It never fails when I need to look at my calendar I do not have it with me. My iphone has a calendar on it, but it is so small and more of a hassle to enter the information. Maybe just maybe I can keep up with what I need to do and where I need to be. Another thing about Google Calendar is my husband and I can share the calendar. He can add stuff and check to see what we have going on. There will be no more excuses of you did not tell me, or you have to give me more notice than the day of. Oh Google Calendar please organize this family.

Google Translate is fun to play with too. I was listening to how words and phrases are said in a number of different languages. When I had to take my second year of Spanish I used Google Translate a lot. This tool will be very efficient in the classroom with so many ELL students in the schools. Google Translate could become a computer station for ELL’s to work on their English. It is amazing how all the tools of the web can be used in the classroom.

https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/seebert04%40gmail.com/private-fa6641528cac6c4c526ee7c873401e1c/basic.ics

Thing #11

The search tool that I liked the best was Edublogs’ award winners. The reasons I prefer this website first Edublogs is designed for the educator, second they allow the users to nominate their favorite blogs twitters, or other resource websites to later vote on. By doing this they simplify having to look through blogs, twitter to determine how valuable the material is. For the most part all the search tools were easy to use. My only complaint was that some were appeared to be bogged down with ads. Edublogs and Topix both were filled with useful content. Edublogs for the professional information and Topix for personal use. Topix determines your location and displays feeds for your area. I see now how searching for RSS feeds can become addictive, there is so much information out there I more then likely would have never found on my own. I added what seems like a ton of sites to my news feed. My husband has turned me into a news junky, I added Fox News and CNN news feed. I also added Cool Cat Teacher, Free Technology For Teachers, and a bunch more but right off the top of my head these I listed are the ones I like the most.