Google Reader: I love it! It has definitely streamlined my viewing of the blogs. I have not used it for any other feeds yet, but I’m sure I will. It’s probably the only thing keeping me relatively sane right now! Being alerted on one page about all new posts for all blogs is quite a time-saver. I also like that I can search for something specific and all blogs will show up that include that. Thank you, Eric, for recommending we set this up!
Twitter: I set up my twitter account and have been following some of Eric’s suggested accounts as well as some of the students in this class. I made a few tweets, but have mostly just been observing. I am notoriously bad at keeping up with e-mails at school, so I doubt I will be good at keeping up with tweets, but I will keep an open mind!
Delicious: This is one tool I will definitely keep using. A friend of mine at school has had a Delicious account for some time and so I was already familiar with it, but had never set one up myself. Now I’m glad I did. I was always e-mailing websites back and forth to myself from my home computer to my school computer and visa versa. This will be another time-saver and great resource base.
PBWorks: I set up my first wiki, but didn’t get very far with it yet. I had used PBWorks before as an editor on another teacher’s wiki for our biology classes, but had not ever been the original author before. I like using wikis in the classroom, so I am sure this is one tool I will start using on a more regular basis.
Google Docs: Our school is big on using this web tool. I have set up a few surveys through Google Docs for my students in the past, but not recently. I like it for that purpose. I need to research it some more to understand all the ways it can be used.
Glogster: I opened a Glogster account and lurked around the site a bit, but that’s as far as I got. Someone asked to be my friend and I got a bit weary. I thought I was in the educator’s Glogster…I guess I better look at that again. Anyway, I can see how it might be a good tool to add to student projects. We have them make online posters in Word, but Glogster has many more interesting ways to embellish them.
Overall this has been an enlightening week. I am definitely a rookie when it comes to many aspects of Web 2.0. Our school uses Moodle, so I do have some familiarity with that type of tool. The nice thing about Moodle for the students is that they can get to all their classes from one spot. I like d2l for that reason as well and find it easier to get around on that site than having to have so many tabs open on my browser at once! Maybe I’ll learn a more efficient browsing system in the coming weeks!
Great discussion of the different tools you've been using. After reading your post, I want to check out a few more things. I want to check out GoogleReader (because of your good review) as well as Delicious (several people have mentioned this). Just to add a little bit to your Twitter discussion. I'm pleasantly impressed with Twitter so far. I was very skeptical of all of the twitter, tweet, and retweet stuff. I like the possibilities for the classroom. I think it would be a great way to keep students updated on class events. For example, it could be used to send out a quick reminder about a test or an assignment. I also like using Twitter as a personal learning network. I've read more teaching articles in the past week thanks to Twitter than I did in the two previous months.
ReplyDeletedabbling is great! I suggest that in future weeks you set time limits and then divide that time -- some for continued dabbling and more for getting in to depth on a small number of tools that really interest you.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this course throws a lot at you, the goal isn't mastery of dozens of tools, the goal is to add a few things to your toolbox & get you thinking about access is changing education.