Thing 18

I added a clustrmap to my blog...I don't expect to see too many hits. I may "convert" this blog to a personal blog at the end of the class and make it about Michigan hiking, biking, etc.

Thing 14

I'm liking blogger just to keep track what things I've finished. I think I'm going to talk my wife into creating our grocery list online so I can add things to it!

Thing 15

I created a page on Pennsylvania. I invite anyone to join me who is interested! I look forward to working with anyone.

Thing 16

Creating a wiki is easy! It's amazing how much user friendly things have become in the last few years.

Thing 8

Delicious...I learned about this a year or so ago. I never bothered with it, I didn't realize it would come back to haunt me. I've added some bookmarks, I don't know if I will use it personally or not.

I think current events would be huge with delicious. Many of the other tools we have learned about would be great for current events too...RSS feeds.

For a high school or college student I would push delicious as a tool to use. A typical high school or college student may find themselves working on multiple computers throughout the day, different pc labs, houses, etc. Most of us know the websites we visit frequently for our daily dose of the internet but how great would delicious be for a research paper? You find a page you want to use, but when you go to school in the morning for open lab, you can't find the exact article again. Delicious would help with this.

Thing 13

Editing pictures with picnik was rather easy...easier than I thought it would be.

And below is a Christmas card I created with one our cats curled up in a pile of the "snow" my wife uses to decorate around Christmas time.

http://www.dumpr.net/photo/6543434538bb1c7f/

One cool project I could think of would be restore an old family photo. This could be done in conjunction with a genealogy lesson. Of course a teacher could always have their students make funny faces of the teacher.

Thing 12

Flickr is cool, I use Google Photos for online photo sharing, but I don't back up every photo there. I use it just for sharing. I think the biggest benefit of photo sharing in classroom is the ability this has to bring things to life. When you talk about place in social studies, I'm sure it doesn't matter where, there will be so many photos about the topic being covered. This feature can add layers to a lesson plan, beginning with the photo being just a photo, but beyond that looking at the people in the photo and kind of "dissecting" the photo; why is that person wearing those clothes? What is that building? And so on. For photo sharing the easiest connection I see is to social studies.

I feel redundent in the pitfalls/drawbacks section. Availability of technology and monitoring this would be two concerns.

Thing 11

I found this slideshow to be pretty inclusive of many things we are discussing in our class. Even though this appears to be from a couple years ago, it's kinda cool to see some of the early(ier) thinkings of the "social web"

http://www.slideshare.net/charleneli/sxsw09-the-future-of-social-networks

One possible use of slideshare in the classroom would be to assign the students to find information on a math concept, instead of giving them the information. The slides below would be for a quadrilateral lesson. Information is completely at their fingertips. We don't have to show them how to do every little thing, tell them what they need to know, let them find the information and then prove that mastery to us...just assign topics to know but not solutions.

http://www.slideshare.net/corinnegallagher/sorting-quadrilaterals

Problems would still be that digital divide that people talk about, not everyone has a pc or internet at home, or access to the library after school to use the "free" computer and internet at the library.

Twitter during surgery!

Take a look at this!!!

http://gmy.news.yahoo.com/v/12610355

Crazy

Thing 10

Google Docs is awesome! It completely solves the "my dog ate my jumpdrive" issue, seriously, she did. I have used Google Docs for some things in the past, in fact, before we even got to Thing 10, I used a google doc to save my usernames and passwords!

I use this tool currently personally and professionally. Personally I have used it to create spreadsheets that have helped friends and I plan for a trip. Professionally, a group and I have access to an agenda we can all add items to.

I have had problems with compatibility before. I have used the presentation before but have had issues when I opened it up in PowerPoint.

I see many many uses for Google Docs in the classroom, especially on group projects. I see more immediate use for this tool than some others.

Thing 6

I have created a blogger account at Bloglines. My username is rgkrueger.

Thing 5

I think the power of web 2.0 is pretty obvious, the Gen Y Guide-Web 2.0 @ Work, this person actually got a job at IBM as a result of Web 2.0.

One personal experience I had with web 2.o was last summer. Three of us were planning a week long backpacking trip to Isle Royale National Park. One was/is a full time student and works full time, another lives is Baltimore, the other was me. We used Google Docs to create a spreadsheet that we could all view and edit. We planned what each other was bringing, paying for, packing, responsibilities, etc. It made planning for the trip a snap.

Professionally I feel that I can use web 2.0 to maintain professional conversations, networks, collaborations, with others who are educational professionals.

Ultimately, for the students it provides yet another learning modality. How great of an experience is it for a student to be in a world cultures class and be having an essentially real time conversation with someone from an area being studied-South America for example?! It provides another layer of learning and provides some authenticity. We know from our own lives that we learn best from doing, we can't take trips around the world when studying various cultures but web 2.0 provides an opportunity for some authentic learning related to the subject.

My wife has a friend in Argentina. They began writing actual letters-on paper-about 13 years ago, about as long as my wife and I have known each other. They have had the opportunity to watch instant communication evolve. It's been really exciting to see how their communication has evolved as well...we had the chance to visit Buenos Aires in 2006 for a couple of weeks. It provided us with a great learning experience, a lot of that experience could have been documented and shared with a class through web 2.0 applications.