Week Nine: Thing 23 Summary

I learned a number of very useful and interesting things from this class. Some things I would use more for personal reasons and others I would want to incorporate into my classroom as well. This class forced me to try new things and realize that unless I continuously seek out new things in the world of technology and involve my students in this new learning, we will be left behind. Although I cannot possibly introduce all these things into my classroom, I know that these things are available and can incorporate them into my current lessons to improve the lesson and capture the attention of more students. Overall, this class was a positive experience and I look forward to using my new skills

Week Nine: Thing 22 ebooks and audio ebooks

The World EBook Fair site is a very interesting place. The free ebooks from Gutenberg Project could open up a new world for some learners. Since we must constantly adjust our teaching to meet the needs of our students, we must be open to including audio (other than lecturing) to capture the attention of certain learners.

Week Nine: Thing 21 Podcasts

Podcasts could be very useful in the classroom to cover topics that are necessary but students find "boring" such as the history of computers but also they could be helpful in teaching new topics or helping students that have been absent understand a topic.

Week Nine: Thing 20 YouTube and a few Sites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e6EAAY-WfA

I never really thought about using youtube for anything productive. Until I started looking around, I considered it to be the sight that posted videos of usual things such as fights and other things that don't need to be seen by young people. Although there are lots of these videos out there, it is nice to know that some very useful videos can be found. I found an interesting one from the computer museum. It gives me another option for introducing the history of computers to my students.

Week Eight: Thing 19 Library Thing and Catalog Books

I created a Library Thing account and entered books. None of my books had a review but I think this is a cool tool to use if you are thinking about reading a book. You could see if there was a review before starting to read it.

Week Eight: Thing 18 Online Productivity

Zoho writer is a cool tool. It would be useful if students need to work on papers at home and don't want to email the file or use a zip drive to carry it back and forth. Also, if students do not have access to a word processing program they could use a public computer such as those found in the public library to produce the document and then open it up at school to print.

Week Seven: Thing 17 Add an entry to "Sandbox" wiki

I posted my ideas about Rollyo on the Classroom Learning 2.0 Online Learning section and an entry to the "sandbox".Wikis have the potential to be a tremendous resource to get information or to even just get started learning about a topic.

Week Seven: Thing 16 Learn about wikis and how educators use them

Wikis are an excellent way for educators to communicate with their students. The students are very familiar with posting and they are more likely to interact with each other using the computer. Also, using a classroom wiki is a good way to prepare students for education after the high school level. Most students communicate with their college professors using a wiki or similar format. A school wiki would be an easy way for parents to stay informed and even communicate with the staff.