Week 5, Item 11

Web 2.0 Application Awards and Ning

I enjoyed reviewing some of the 174 web sites listed on this page and appreciated the organizational categories. The choices of tools to use are amazing. Sometimes choice can be overwhelming, however. My favorite tool is by far delicious. I appreciate linking to other delicious sites of trusted sources so that I can use tried and true sites similar to the service the Web 2.0 application awards provides users. I created a delicious site and it cana be accessed at http://delicious.com/TechFacilitator.

Ning is another amazing tool. I explored several networks and noted that many were not current. It appeared as though several of the networks I viewed started as a great idea but fizzled. Like twitter, it seems to me that you need to enter a group that you know is going to be productive but finding that group can be daunting.

Travelpod (http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq) --this site is wonderful. All geography teachers should have this as a fun game for the students to play.

Week 5, Item 10

There are thousands of image generators available to use however I’ve learned that not all produce code to embed into a web page. For this exercise, my first exploration was Make Beliefs Comix. Several teachers at my school use http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ as a quick summarizing tool. Make Beliefs Comix is a tool that was originally developed for autistic children. I shared this tool with a social worker at one of our elementary schools, and she enjoyed success using the site with a child who was experiencing family difficulties. This tool allowed him to show expression he would not allow himself to display. I learned, however, that created comics can only be viewed or printed not embedded. My comic strip can be viewed
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/comix.php?comix_id=29662908. The instructions mentioned that makebeliefs does not store comics so I’m not sure how long the strip will be available.

My second stab and an image generator was www.kerpoof.com. They’ve changed this site since I first learned about it into a game. Like Make Beliefs, users can view or print the creation. I liked kerpoof as a fun tool for elementary students to summarize landforms. There are many different scenes to choose from to explain what they’ve learned.

My last exploration was jellymuffin. This site is definitely tailored for the myspace user to embellish personal pages. There are many advertisements on the site and I do not think I would use this in a class situation; however, it did give me code to embed for glitter text. There are many different image generators available at this site. (http://www.jellymuffin.com/generators/flash_glitter_text/) When I tried to paste the code into my blog, the code was not accepted. I then went to http://www.familylobby.com and created the "welcome" sign displayed above. Too much work for the result I was looking for but I did learn from the process.

Week 4, Item 8 & 9 (RSS Feeds)

Our assignment this week explained how to use an RSS feed reader suggesting either Bloglines or Google Reader. I've been using Google Reader via iGoggle for the past year and am hooked. I like the fact that I can quickly look at the bylines to mark for further reading. I do find that if I do not check in on a daily basis, the feeds pile up to an overwhelming number. I subscribe to the PA Discovery Educator Network blog, Digital Passports, PDE Webinars , TipLine, and Tech LEARNing. In addition, I use the RSS feed feature through Outlook 2007 as well. I like the Google Reader better because I can access my feeds at any Internet accessible computer. Our Moodle site also has an RSS feed feature that teachers can add RSS feeds to their courses. This has proved helpful and is used heavily by the elementary students that access my Tech Tower page. I have a running feed from Storynory which lists five short stories students may listen too. On our Moodle tech site for teachers, I have CNN Education and Book Bites for Kids for teachers to use.

I did not try Bloglines simply because I'm familar with Google Reader and have successfully been using it. If I am able to get a class of teachers together to introduce RSS feeds, I will visit Bloglines to compare. I offered a class on RSS feeds this spring, but had no students register to share. Working through the 23 Things list has given me inspiration to work on an online guidesheet for teachers. I think RSS feeds (teacher identified or as an assignment for students to find valuable feeds to share with the class) would be invaluable to use in the classroom to supplement lessons and text.

One warning to using RSS feeds, however, I lose track of time when checking my blogs because there is always something interesting to learn from them. Therefore, I need to give myself a set time limit to check blogs especially if I'm at work.

On a separate note, I've expanded my use of picture sharing web tools to Picassa. Because I highly doubt many people are following my "tourin web 2.0" blog and because I'm so pleased I was able to successfully use the Picassa picture-sharing tool, I've included a link below to view pictures of our time in Florida. I created a private album at https://exch1.easdpa.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://picasaweb.google.com/tootsaflut/2008Florida?authkey=hcW0leFzR7o. I liked the ease of using Picassa because the site automatically resized the pictures. I can envision many ways teachers could use this tool in the classroom. At the very least, creating a private album would be a wonderful way to share pictures from a recent field trip or class activity with parents.