Thing 22

I think the idea of social networking on line is probably a good one, but there must be a lot of teachers with a lot of time on their hands.  Much of the information is useful if you are stuck and need a resource for immediate instructional purposes.  I am not sure how beneficial spending a lot of time on these networks is versus keeping up with the advancements in your own subject area.   I did find some interesting workshops on Classroom 2.0.  And, I do like the fact that Classroom 2.0 categorizes discussion forums by subject matter area.  Of course I immediately gravitated towards music.

On Ning in Education William Peterson’s blogs had some useful information about developing online quizzes.

Thing 21:Pageflakes

Okay, I STILL think that these applications can inadvertently invade one’s privacy.  I just feel queasy about putting so much information and profiling of self out on the web.  I can see using this for classroom purposes – sort of like a virtual general meeting place, but suppose a server goes down and you are in the final stages of a project with a deadline.   Oops, you are stuck!!!  I can see the usefulness of this page for gathering various information from various sources of data.  I bet some journalists love this application depending on the data sources they can tap into.

The video help on Jing was very useful!!!

I had a little trouble finding the template page.  I think I found “Jerrie’s Flake” which is the same thing.

Thing 7C

Thing 7C

Okay, I was taken aback to find the feeds from students in our class.  I had forgotten that I subscribed to them and was pleasantly surprised to be keeping up with discoveries from others.

I also subscribed to the ‘Classics for Kids’ podcast and was inundated with a wealth of music for pre-collegiate students.  This was a really terrific site for me to find.  I think I found this earlier through someone in our class!!  Thanks.

This Week in Education was another useful feed because it helps in keeping you aware of the pulse of developments in the profession.

Thing 20: Google Docs

I really like the direction Google is taking with applications.  It is great to have something that doesn’t have to be updated every time a company comes out with a new operating system!!!!  Google Docs really is easy to navigate.  The Help Video “Intro to Google Docs’ and the PDF ‘Google Docs Basics’ were very useful.  I know I will be using this application, especially for team projects at school.   Although you can kind of track the history of edits in other programs, Google Docs really simplifies it.  I have actually already shared this application with colleagues and friends.  For me, this was a really good discovery.

Three uses:

I can use google docs  for student reviews of lessons especially those presented through power point.

Students can collaborate on projects.

You can easily create faculty surveys.

Thing 19: YouTube

I have used YouTube before to find items and it is always fun to find videos of past violin pedagogues teaching a private lesson or a masterclass.  I found several videos, two of Jascha Heifetz teaching a master class and one of Dorothy DeLay and Howard Gardner talking about prodigies and how they develop.  My fun video was of Howard Gardner talking about the development of his theory of Multiple Intelligences.  I did not find as many useful videos on Teacher-Tube as I had hoped.  I did recently get access to a Flip video camera and created a video for my students outlining steps to developing a good performance posture on the violin.  I am embedding code for the Violin Master Class with Heiftz, and the discussion between Howard Gardner and Dorothy DeLay about how prodigies develop.

Thing 17: Podcasting

I think pod-casting is grand.  Having partially grown-up in an era where radio dominated, I love listening to great conversations and to fiction and to documentaries.  One of my all-time favorite pod-casting sites is “Speaking of Faith” with Krista Tippett.  But, the directories for NPR and PBS are also FABULOUS!!  I am glad to know about all of the educational sites.  Although, I knew about MIT’s open-courseware, I had know idea that you could access UC Berkeley, Standford and a number of other world class universities sharing lectures through pod-casts.  If you know how to access knowledge, there are no barriers given real determination.

I specifically visited:  Skip the Tuition: 100 Free Podcasts from the Best Colleges in the World Wow!! You can get the pod-casts and the class notes.  I will be visiting some of these sites immediately after I finish my blog.

Thing 16. Social Libraries

Again, this is a useful tool.  I tend to want to know with whom I am interacting before sharing with the world.  I do recognize that privacy can be protected in these sites.  I can see that this site would be great for teams of workers, especially if they are located all around the world or even in the same classroom.  This site would be also useful for simply organizing private collections and trying to make one’s collection in certain categories complete.  I am not sold on reaching out and touching someone, especially if you don’t know them.

Thing 15: Social Bookmarking

I think that social bookmarking is great if you like to do that kind of thing.  I can see it being great for certain groups of researchers and also for groups working as teams on specific projects.  What is not so apparent is how you back out of the tools that get integrated into your browser.  To me, this information was not easily accessible.  I tend to like to know how to undo things as easily as they can be installed BEFORE I install them.  I did find it easy to save bookmarks and access them and I think tagging is useful because it helps you to develop a categorizing system.  I think social bookmarking can be a useful tool.

Thing 7B

I want make general comments about the feeds.  I am glad we had to revisit our Google Reader, because after a few weeks, you get a better feel for the personality of the feed services you are receiving.   For instance, I was disappointed with one of my classical music feeds because the feeds were not frequent and I ended up with only a few resources.  On the other hand, I signed up for feeds from cspan.org and got a tremendous number of feeds, but realized that cspan is so easy to access that maybe I didn’t need to get feeds.  I did wind up keeping my feeds from “This Week in Education” because I felt that this feed updated things I needed to know about.  This feed also allowed me to stay current in the field of education so I was pretty happy with it.

Thing 14

I decided to try the Weebly site first BUT ran into monetary costs so I went with http://30boxes.com.  I am going to use this site to track my “To Do Lists” for lesson activities for school.  It is a very easy site to navigate.  I may also look at the collaborative concept mapping site “Giffy”.