Del.icio.us is a site that will allow you tag or apply a keyword that organizes your bookmarks. For instance, if you tag bookmarks with Education, all will be organized under this tag or meta data. Further, you can share your tags/bookmarks with others which is where the social comes in. My delicious bookmarks are at: http://del.icio.us/kschaefer. You can see what I have tagged. You can set up and account and use this system to share bookmarks for your students instead of giving them a handout or a long URL to type in. Set up tags based on folders or topics that you teach.
Category Archives: Web 2.0 Tools
Wes Fryer
I had the pleasure of listening to Wes speak at MacWorld in January. I have been a subscriber to his podcast over the last 2 year as well. He has a wonderful message on what we need to do to help our students learn in the new learning environment. Check out his wiki at or his curriculum ideas. Finally, his podcast and blog are well worth the time it takes to subscribe.
Online Concept Maps
Check out the online site Gliffy.com to create, save, share concept or bubble maps.
Google Power Searching
Google is leading search engine on this planet. Almost everyone who uses Google does so by typing in the small box the search topic and then hits enter or return. This is the “I’m Feeling Lucky” approach. While it can be very successful, it can also lead to many pages of potential sites that may or may not provide the user with the needed information. Take a minute and check out how Google for Educators thinks you should use Google.
Google Docs and Collaboration
This is a wonderful example of how the Web 2.0 or The Read/Write web as Will Richardson calls it, can transform education by eliminating boundaries. The latest issue of MacWorld lists the top 10 trends of 2007. Number 4 is “The Net as Computer” by Lisa Schmeiser. She discusses Office 2.0 and by this she means what happened when Yahoo offered free e-mail accounts and how it started to change where and how people worked.
Check out a database of web-based Office 2.0 aps. Three notable ones include gOFFICE and Zoho and Joyent. All of them offer on-line tools that could replace local applications if users have constant on Internet access.
How will this impact our educational program in 2007 and beyond? Some students already use Google Docs so the future is closer then anyone thinks.
NCETC
| David Warlick again takes a hard topic and makes it easy to understand. His introduction to wikis was interactive as he had us work on a wiki as we were active learners. Check out my notes. I am now in Patrick Crispen’s Complete and Total Waste of Time.Zombo.com is a web site where you can do everything you want. Pandora.com is really useful if you like to listen to music. This site will allow you to create a web-based radio station based on artists you like. Check it out. Makebigpictures.com – This site with a sort of bad name that means to Rasterize and images. It allows you to upload images and create multipage blow-up of the image. Freeplay Music.com is a great site to get royalty-free short background pieces of music for movie projects as long as you do not make the finished project public. Tiny URL.com will allow you to take a long URL and make it small. Concert Ticket Generator will allow you to create realistic concert tickets. Could be useful to make tickets for events in a classroom. |