Thing "not that thrilling" 19

So, I get onto the Teacher Pop thing and am completely unimpressed.  It seems very sterile, and I have to be approved before I am a full member?  Now what strikes me funny about that is, isn't education supposed to be all inclusive without restriction?  So here I sit and wait for my full acceptance.  BUT what's interesting is how many social networking sites are out there for educators that just take your info and you're in. 

BUT the silver lining in this assignment was Gather.  I totally signed up and am in!  I love that on Gather you can just say what you want and people will respond or not, but at the same time it's interesting, informative and get all kinds of different perspectives on current events and subjects that interest you.

So I fully promote Gather!  The jury is still out on Teacher Pop.

I can vote!! Thing No. 18!!

I gotta tell ya, this was a rough one because I have had my you-know-what burned by people who didn't quite understand me or my love for exceptional kids on facebook, and now my facebook is under my maiden name with no reference to anyone or anything that I currently do in life.  I do have a fun twitter that also has no reference to my name or what I do, it's purely fun and to keep it that way, I will introduce you to my boring twitter. Now, my boring twitter account is under the name Kim Burnard.  Very boring.  Says the right things, etc. almost makes me nauseous, and with that, here is the link to the boring one.  https://twitter.com/#!/KimBurnard

I do love twitter, and quite honestly, I enjoy it more than facebook because it's a statement that can be done right then.  Someone's bugging you, BAM! you can post it right then.  I love it because it's in real time. 

Okay, now from the educational perspective, I can see how creating a facebook page for a classroom would be a lot of fun because people in the news could be subscribed to so the class could follow their travels or thoughts.  I can see how posting experiments or classroom thoughts on a facebook page would be awesome to bring a cohesive element to a classroom.  Twitter would be a huge benefit because political figures, sports figures and academic figures and institutions could be followed and updates appear constantly.  I do think social networking has a place in the classroom, but it has to be closely monitored with strict settings.

On the edge of thing 17

Okay, in all honesty, Delicious is very overwhelming to me.  I can completely understand it's incredible usefulness and how it can connect educators throughout the world, but it is intense when you first pull up a search.  The results for "educational technology" were enormous!  Over 77,000!!  That's a lot to process.  Once I have my own classroom, I can see the benefit of being connected to so many resources and other teachers and having all that at my fingertips to help me be a better teacher, and to provide the best experience for my students possible.  I do look forward to exploring Delicious further when I can really get into it and use it for my own "kids".

No. 17-1=16

This is my google home screen.  I love the water and especially when there's a dock that leads me out to it, like my own personal peninsula!  I can see how having a customized start page is helpful because I can load it with all the things I want to see first thing in the morning like news, sports, stocks, etc.  This tool is a very cool thing, and I can absolutely see how this would be great using in the classroom because the class could collectively have a home page and place on it all the things the students need to know about current events or even sports teams to follow for the sake of stats and mathematical situations.

Okay, I am officially sold and a big fan of MSN calendar!!  I logged in and added an event, and then looked at the calendar on my phone for my hotmail account and there was the event!! I could totally get into using this tool because with age comes a certain level of forgetfulness and if I can be reminded of the events in my life everywhere I look? Well, then that's a very good thing.

I absolutely love Remember the Milk!!!  I even got the app for my phone just to keep my you-know-what straight!  As a teacher I can completely see how important this tool/app can be because there is so much to keep track of and so many things I want to do, and I know I hate when I forget to do things. 

So to summarize thing 16, I love my Google homepage, my MSN calendar and Remember the Milk.  I can see how using all three of things tools/apps will help keep my world productive and my you-know-what straight.



My journey into a Flowchart Nightmare (aka Thing 14)

Okay, this was a horrible experience.  So many buttons, colors, boxes and THEN after I create this poor excuse for a Design Chart, I'm told I joined a collaboration!  Seriously?  So at this point I'm laughing, but I will grudgingly admit, this is a pretty cool program once I settled down and started exploring I could absolutely see the benefits this would have in a classroom environment.  I tried to copy and paste my chart, but alas to no avail, but this link should take you there should you want to see my Flowbee.

http://flowchart.com/editor/#e655656e21a9e451:101889

The Wacky World of Wikis (aka Thing 15)

Well, first off, what the heck?  This was not a thrill a minute, BUT I can see how it's very cool and would make an awesome class project.  I did not accept that challenge at this time, only because this class and math, I am on a slight overload of information.  I will though, create one at a later time when this part of my academic adventure is complete.

The sandbox activity was interesting, but I had trouble navigating, hence the post of absolutely nothing, but then I was able to get a picture up there.  Here's to hopin' it's correct!

Lucky 13

                                   
This is my attempt at google docs drawing.  It was not wonderfully user friendly and navigating it was not my favorite thing to do.  I was going for the punch effect in the old Adam West/Burt Ward Batman episodes.  The choices of fonts is not that great, so I think it's missing the true BAM impact.

My zoho experience...

 

Okay, so with both programs I can see the benefits, especially if students do not have computer access at home, but they use a library computer or a friend's in order to access these programs and do their work.  That's a very cool feature of both.  To me Zoho offers a little more in terms of creativity and it is more user friendly.  I would probably push for my students to use Zoho before google docs.  However, having only poked around these programs for a short time, in all fairness I would have to take more time to really get to know them.