Thing#12

I've actually been a big fan of Google tools for a while now. Since my husband deployed to Afghanistan I tried to nip the new-searching compulsion in the bud by setting up Google News Alerts for his base and the province in Afghanistan where he is located so I don't drive myself crazy by searching for news stories every day. It has been a fantastic experience so far and has really been one of the most helpful internet tools I've ever used. If there's news, I get an email; if there's no news, no email. Simple as that. I don't obsess over cnn.com or Drudgereport because I know that trusty old Google will let me know if anything is going on. I think that I will definitely continue to use this tool as I begin teaching. As a social studies teacher I can set alerts for items containing keywords that relate to what my students and I are covering. This would be a great tool for my students to use as well since I fully intend to give pop current events quizzes :)

I have had a post-it note next to my laptop (or rather, where my laptop sits on my coffee table) for weeks now to set up my Google calendar and this was the perfect excuse to finally do it! I have a dry erase calendar in my kitchen that I religiously update but it doesn't really lend itself to quick editing, updating, or including any real detail. I have a lot to keep track of and I have been needing this Google calendar tremendously. I set it up and added my class meeting dates, important due dates, puppy vet appointments, days when I need to pay bills, days when I need to mail my husband's care packages, and weekends when I'm expecting visitors. I also added the weekends when my Bunco group meets, impotant milestones for my 1/2 marathon training, and all sorts of other random things like each married monthaversary for my husband and I and how many months into our deployment we are. So cool! I already feel calmer and more in control just by having set up my calendar. I think that's really the mark of a great web tool. When something has a discernable effect on your life it's really worthwhile. I absolutely will keep up with my calendar througout grad school and certainly into my teaching career. I remember when I was in high school they gave us notebook planners that we were supposed to write all of our homework assignments and such in but I usually used mine for doodling and counting down the days until winter/spring/summer break. I think my future high school students would be all about keeping track of the important school and non-school events in their life with an online calendar that is easily accessible no matter where they are.

Thing #11

Well it appears that I may have jumped the gun a bit on Thing #10 because I went ahead and subscribed to some feeds. I didn't really use the search features though because I knew what I was looking for already. I can be kind of change resistant so this "Thing" is great for me because I discovered some new blogs! I subscribed to politicalinaction.com, and finally subscribed to The Huffington Post. I found both of those though the Google blog search which I liked a lot. I love everything Google does and I thought that their search process was very straightfoward and got me the results I was looking for.

I also really enjoyed the Topix site, especially the hometown news feature. It was great to be able to glace at one page for headlines pertaining to a specific locality. I thought the site was really easy to use and I liked the bar at the top with basic categories like "Top Stories" and "Off Beat." I tend to be drawn to sites like this that start broad and let the user winnow down to a very specific topic to read about.

I did not like Synic8 at all, partially because I'm kind of appearance-driven when it comes to websites and I thought the layout was pretty ugly and boring. I didn't like all of the random headlines and random feeds displayed. If I'm coming to a site to find a blog I have something in mind. I don't like to be distracted with randomness.

Technorati on the other hand was really simple and pretty to look at too :) I found the categories along the top were exactly the categories I was looking for and I even found an awesome blog that I've never heard of (although apparently I'm the last to know about it) called BoingBoing. It has lots of really cool entries on pop culture and tech goodies and I can't wait to look through back entries until I wear out the clicker on my mouse.

Another way I've always used to find blogs that are related to my interests is to check out the Blogroll on blogs I already read. This is a list of links to other blogs witin the same subject area that a blogger is a fan of or gets material from. I've found a lot of great cooking, fashion, celebrity news, and teaching blogs this way. I feel like I've said the word 'blog' far too many times in this post.

Thing #10

First of all....I cannot BELIEVE that I hadn't set one of these up yet! I read about a billion blogs a day and probably waste half of my life clicking on them to see if they're updated. I've heard the term "RSS Feed" many time but just never really investigated it. I decided to set mine up through MyYahoo because I check my Yahoo mail constantly and so it was the most convenient choice for me. I couldn't believe how easy it was to set up. I subscribed to a good smattering of my favorite blogs, educational and otherwise. I added coolcatteacher which is simply awesome, dangerously irrelevant, dlisted.com (my favorite guilty pleasure), bestweekever.tv, pioneer woman (thanks for getting me hooked Dr. Wall. Not. Now I'm obsessed with cooking all kinds of delicious cowboy food), and an awesome baking blog called cookiemadness.net. I am not exaggerating when I say that this whole RSS feed thing is going to change my life. Now when I log in to check my email I can just click on MyYahoo and see what's updated and what's not! I can't even get over how happy I am that there are smarter people out there in the internetz thinking of these things. I'm sure I'm probably the last one to the party where RSS feeds are concerned but I'm excited anyway!

As far as teaching applications, I think that it is imperative for teachers to find as many ways to save time as possible. By being able to scan blog headlines and only clicking on the entries I want to read, I'll be able to save countless minutes. When it comes to education blogs, current events/news blogs, etc. I think it will be amazing to just be able to log in in the morning before heading to work and just scan what's going on in the world so that the information and discussion questions I bring to my students will be totally up-to-date without having to spend precious morning minutes scouring the internet. Since I really want to create a blog for my class once I begin teaching this will be a perfect way for students to make sure they're aware if I update the blog with new instructions or information. They can subscribe to the blog and always know what's going on. My mind is totally blown by something so simple and awesome. This is probably how people felt when they discovered someone had started slicing the bread before putting it in the bag at the store.

Thing #9

I LOVED these tools! There were so many to choose from that I had to stop myself so I could actually get some work done! I could see tons of applications for these generators personally (I will undoubtedly be making some hilarious items to email my husband in Afghanistan) as well as professionally. For a high school Government class I could have students use these generators to create campaign materials like buttons, shirts, book covers, etc. I'm actually thinking about going back and adding some of these sites to my WebQuest assignment because their assignment is all about crafting a political campaign. I made a post-it note and a "For Dummies" book cover because I thought they looked hilarious and authentic. My husband and I are notorious for leaving each other post-its about everything and so I decided to make a little reminder to myself about my puppy since she was jumping up on my shoulder like a parrot as I was trying to explore the generator sites :)

Thing #8

I had a lot of fun playing with these apps and it is definitely absorbing! I liked the Color Pickr and I also loved the Retrievr app where you make a sketch (it can look like a completely shapeless amoeba) and then images from Flickr that resemble that shape pop up. It was really neat to see how many completely unrelated images could be linked by shape. With one sketch I got back pictures of babies, snail shells, and castle doors. Pretty cool! Being the linguistic learner that I am, the Spell with Flickr mashup was my favorite. I had a blast plugging in song lyrics, names, and then finally settling on "We the People" to post in this entry. I loved how the mismatching letters seemed to embody the meaning of the phrase. I will definitely be using this tool to create personal projects like headings for scrapbook pages, but I could also see how this application or the Mappr mashup could be used for class assignments. Students could create maps with images and then write a response to how the mosaic of pictures reflects the social and geographical makeup of the area. Very cool!

Thing#7

I LOVE photography and often browse through the photos on Flickr looking for anything interesting or beautiful. I just discovered picnik.com which is a really cool photo editing site that I used to add text and some effects to my wedding photos. It is absolutely addictive and it has made me love taking new pictures even more because there are so many fun things I can do with them once they're updated. I have hundreds of pictures on my Facebook and enjoy posting new photos and commenting on friends pictures as well. Oddly enough I didn't sign up for my own Flickr account until now. I was really excited to see how easy it was since I already have a Yahoo ID. I really hate the long registration forms that some websites make you fill out these days. Once I became a member I uploaded some pictures of my 11 week old Boston Terrier puppy, Maude, that I've taken over the past week. Too adorable! Once I uploaded them I tagged some "apsu23things" and then found the apsu23things group, added myself, and added my photos to the group. I loved looking through the other student's pictures and seeing lots of gorgeous doggies, babies, landscapes, and just things around the house. It's so wonderful that photography is accessible to everyone now. This activity is making me want a new camera...bad! My birthday is coming up so maybe I should buy myself a new camera as a present. I'll just tell my deployed husband that that's what he's getting me. haha.

...Anyhoo...

Back to the questions at hand... I think I will absolutely continue to use Flickr for personal photos. It is very user friendly and actually links to picnik.com (the editing site I was talking about above). I have very little trepidation about posting pictures in a public place, although of course I always use a very strong dose of common sense when deciding which pictures to share. I wouldn't post anything that identified anyone who didn't want to be identified in a public photo forum; I wouldn't post a picture that clearly identified where I lived or what car I drive or any personal details that a wackadoo could use to track me down. I would definitely use Flickr for the classroom much in the way Dr. Wall is using it for this course. I would create a group on Flickr for students to upload their photos to. I might create an assignment where students went on a history scavenger hunt and had to take pictures of the items or landmarks they found. I could have my students search the internet for photos to describe a concept or a famous quotation and then post their findings. I was surprised at how many ideas like that I was able to generate in a short time with Flickr because it's not a site that has overt education applications. This was the most fun of the 23 things for me so far. I think that my high school students would be really excited to use Flickr for a class project

Thing #6

I chose http://www.writeboard.com/ as my Web 2.0 tool to explore. I think that good writing is SO incredibly important. I can't stress enough the advantage that excellent writing can give to a student in their academic and career pursuits. I also believe that the ability to write well can enhance your ability to read good writing with greater comprehension. Because I'll be teaching high school students, they need to be preparing to write in collegiate and business settings. They also need to be able to read articles, business publications, and scholarly books and journals. In the age of word processor assisted editing--i.e. spell check and grammar check--many people think that if their writing doesn't have red or green squiggles underlining their passages then everything is a-okay. Good writing is something much more elusive and subtle than these spelling and grammar checking tools could ever assess. Peer editing can be hugely helpful in identifying how to make writing more readable, more interesting, and more unique. It also encourages student collaboration and discourages students from bombarding teachers with draft upon draft for inspection. I think that it is entirely appropriate for students to submit drafts to their teacher for some preliminary comments but I also think that students should take more responsibility for their writing process and use their fellow students to help them refine their ideas.

...On to writeboard.com...

This web tool is a place for students to engage in the process of writing. They can work on a paper, save it as they go along, and continue to refer back to each prior version. This can be so helpful when you get halfway through a paper and realize that the point you're trying to make is one you erased 4 versions ago. Word processing software does not generally allow you to go back to previous versions. Even if you do save each draft and then copy and paste the document into a new document to begin writing again, this method can be incredibly confusing. This tool also eliminates the need for students to save work to jump drives and remember to take it to each computer they'll be working on. It can also eliminate a lot of student excuses about computer crashes, disks eaten by dogs, etc. Another feature that I really liked was the way writeboard avails itself to group projects. Each document you work on in writeboard is assigned a password that members of a group can use to log in and view/edit/comment on the project. This feature could really enable students to create a group report or presentation without being required to physcially meet up. Since so many students have extracurricular activities, sports, jobs, and family obligations, the ability to log in and discuss or edit work could really increase the quality of group projects because students can work on their part of the project when they have the time to focus on it. It also makes it more difficult for one student to take charge of the project while the rest of the group plays guitar hero and eats pizza bagels.

Thing #5

I watched/read almost all of the suggested articles and videos describing and defining Web 2.0 and School 2.0 because I found myself having a hard time coming up with a concrete enough idea to encapsulate all of the facets and implications of the two phenomena. I really enjoyed the Wikipedia entry about Web 2.0 partly because Wikipedia is in itself a manifestation of Web 2.0 It was kind of a hot pocket hot pocket (for all of you Jim Gaffigan fans out there) because as I was reading the article I was simultaneously getting the concept. I also found the Horizons Report particularly illuminating because it gave real examples of various Web 2.0 application types and explained why they were a huge leap forward for interactive internet use as well as how each Web 2.0 tool impacted the education community. I appreciated how the report explained implications for students as well as faculty and discussed why it's so key for educators to keep abreast of Web 2.0 developments to not only stay in touch with their students but also to determine which developments can be used to facilitate learning.

To me, School 2.0 is the marrying of Web 2.0 tools with education. It is up to educators to view web tools like Flickr, YouTube, and the technology behind social networking sites like Facebook through a learning lense. Our students are already using these interfaces in their personal lives and are already applying them to school work as they research and create assignments. Teachers can take it one step further by actually incorporating the skillset that our students are acquiring into our instruction. If we allow students to use online learning applications that work in the same way as their favorite social sites and community intelligence databases, they'll be more likely to explore the topics we're covering in class. Creating class blogs, setting up online video tutorials, and encouraging students to publish their projects and papers online to receive peer feedback will help students become part of their class community and the world community. In localities where students do not have as much access to a diverse environment, travel, or global influence, this is even more important.

Schools of the future are going to have to embrace School 2.0 to keep teachers and students on the cutting edge. Schools should place technology at the top of their priority list in terms of budgetary allotments as well as in the training of their faculty. Students are often not only more knowledgable about emerging technologies but also more skilled in their use than their teachers. Because students today have largely grown up in a tech world they have an almost intuitive ability to flesh out a new tool. As teachers we have to make sure we are empowering ourselves to help our students by keeping up to date.

I also believe that even though Web 2.0 tools seemingly make the traditional constructs of classroom learning--one article even asserted that the internet has made books, libraries, and even paper obsolete--schools of the future must continue to remember the importance of a good teacher and in-person human interaction as part of the learning process. Technology will never replace teachers, but great teachers can become even better if they embrace the School 2.0 concepts.