library thing

Thing 13

I tried to put the countdown widget on my page I got the info but it is not counting down. I tried it a couple times. I set two appointments on a calendar in yahoo calendars since I already have accounts set up with them. One appointment I set for a time I knew that I would be using the computer, another date I set in the future so that I can see how both of the reminders work while I am using this service and maybe not using the service. Zamzar looks promising for some of the instances where I have had some non-jpg pictures that need to be transferred into jpg. Also since we have macs and school and I need to have some things converted into microsoft that don't always transfer very easily. I didn't try any of the list sites because they wanted more logins to try them out I will keep them in mind for a situation that I may want to use them for. I could see teaching kids to use the calendar and the lists to keep track of assignments and when they are due.

Thing 12

I didn't like the fact the digg didn't let you back out of their site when I went to check it out. I like that in some of the sites in reddit you can change the font size. I also found the searching easy and I see that people can add comments to add to the articles. I thought that newsvine was pretty easy to navigate as well. I checked out Mixx as well and found a funny video about a dog who had figured out how to reload a ball throwing machine to play ball with himself. I have seen and tried the share button to send cute things to other people. What I have a problem with at these sites are because the don't have editors it will be harder to teach student to be discrimate users and how to what information to trust. I also noticed that some posters of information don't always use what I would consider appropriate commentary for my students to be reading. As far as how I would use these in the classroom, I haven't checked yet to see if any of these sites would be blocked at school and I likely wouldn't use them in a classroom situation because I would prefer to find sources that I know are reliable and direct the students towards these. I also noted that if you wanted to vote you had to create yet another login and password. I am also not a news junkie so I would probably not use this site myself.

Thing 11

This thing had us using del.icio.us to try and manage web sites. I can see a lot of potential for this so that you would be able to access your bookmarks from a remote location like a public library. I like the way that you can connect to other links so that you can see that they connect to yours and you can even add them to your site as you locate them. I could see this being used to connect students to research items when they are doing a project but it would need to be created so that students would have access to a common site. I would like to explore using it to manage the web sites that I have my students use so that I wouldn't necessarily have them all sitting on my web pages because the tags would almost make it easier to use than trying to set up an organization on the web pages. I am going to add a note to myself to see if I can try and use this in my classroom for this purpose. One question I have is does this service monitor dead links and remove them or will you encounter them and need to remove them yourself?

Thing 10

I actually was introduced to wiki's during a conference in St. Cloud sponsored by the MN History center. I thought the wiki was easier to edit and add things to than using google docs. This is another source that I would like to pursue a little more. I know that some people have used them to communicate with their students and let them add information to a topic as well. I have let students use wikipedia at times to gather information but I do warm them that some of the information posted there may not necessarily be the most accurate because anyone can post to them. How can we tell when using a wiki if the authors are experts in their field? Through the MN History project I did try starting something on wiki spaces but have yet to get back to it to give it more of a try. I was going to see if a group of friends could use it to get information faster than using our e-mail. I added a comment and a picture to the mn 23 wiki page. I signed it as jlundholm.

Thing 9

Ok, now I tried zoho writer and Google docs. I was able to make comments on google docs but I was not able to actually make changes in the document. Some time when I have a little more time than I do right now I would like to create my own document and have a co-worker make changes just to see how it would work. I was not able to make changes on the zoho writer document at all, I didn't even see any tools like I did in google. I can see how this would be very useful if someone is doing collaboration with another person in another part of the country or the world.

Thing 8 continued

The link lazybase was not working when I tried it on Mar. 16th so I was not able to check that site out. I did look a little at the e folio. Sometime when I have some time I think I would like to look at that more to look into creating a place there to showcase what I have been doing so that if I ever need to change jobs or want to create a supplement to show my co-horts what I have been working on that would be location to put something together. I would use the slide show posts in my class as a means for students who don't have power point at home for a way to post and look at the work they have done in class. I do send their slide shows home via e-mail but not all students can view them because they don't have power point at home.