Alison's Blog

I was not overly impressed with Ning, perhaps because there are other social networking tools that become our favorites the more that we use them. I did enjoy looking at the groups and the members to see their blogs. There were several with student responses. These responses from the students show how this tool is working  for the group members. I do not see myself using this tool very often, but only because I have other favorites…and if I’m not careful…I will be on the computer again..like so many times before in this course…dragging myself away..before I spend hours and hours looking…and playing..and best of all….learning….

I would have to say that perhaps Pageflakes is my least favorite tool, only because I use my Google home page for the same purpose. I did like the selection of information that can be added and manipulated. If I were to use this tool in my classroom or for other educational purposes, I would use it with podcasts and to-do lists with assignments etc. This tool can be overwhelming with the amount of information that is available. And if you are like me, you will spend way too much time playing and looking and listening.

Delicious…I love it! What a great way to find and save resources. My delicious site now holds not only information for use with my Art & Film and Music Appreciation classes, but personal interests as well…It is always fun to “jump out there” and try something new…I could spend hours looking at sites (like I want to do with my Google Reader). It’s nice to know that it will be easy to retrace my steps and find my “bookmarks.” The most difficult part of this exercise was tagging the sites. It is often difficult to find new tag words that haven’t already been used. My next visit to Delicious will include further searches on topics such as college admissions and high school counseling.

Google documents is a great resource for saving documents, especially if you don’t want to carry around several jump drives and you worry about losing your work. I have used Google documents to save word documents but I have never created a document to share. This is an amazing benefit of this resource. It will be especially useful as we develop documents for academic advising that need the input of more than one person. I also think it would be useful in the future as we prepare for the science fair. Science teachers can easily collaborate on presentations for their science classes. All of the instructions for the fair could be presented in power point to each class, after the science teachers have created the presentation together. By using this tool, all students can receive the exact information without room for error. Students could also use Google documents as a vehicle for writing a group report or presentation. Each student could add their own slide into the presentation.

Using TeacherTube was very insightful. This video link is really incredible and should be viewed by every teacher. It is perfect for our Web 2.0 course and the use of technology in the classroom. It was another great reminder for me that my students need to use technology. It is not a stretch for them….the stretch is for us…to make the time to use and develop resources for our students to use. I especially liked the question stating, How will we use the new www? The answer..whatever, whenever , wherever. Powerful. Hopefully my students will be able to use YouTube as they listen to the works of great composers and search for videos that capture the theme of each piece. Peter and the Wolf will be our first search…I’ll keep you posted on the results!

This is it! This is the source I have been looking for….I am really excited about the possibilities….Podcasting..the perfect addition to my Music Appreciation course. I previewed several podcasts and found some great examples to use in my classroom…one of my favorites came from LearnOutLoud. The podcast is called Music and the Brain and it is provided by the Library of Congress. The titles are really for music geeks, but very creative..my favorite is Halt or I’ll Play Vivaldi which deals with playing classical music to stop crime.. my students will think this is cool..Another favorite is a Great Performances podcast from PBS called From the Top. This podcast spotlights young musicians at Carnegie Hall…and I could go on and on..needless to say, I will be using these podcasts and others in my classroom..Who said taking Music Appreciation would be boring???

I am so excited to find LibraryThing. This great tool can definitely be used in the classroom, but I was happy to find it for my personal use. I am always looking for suggestions on great books to read and to find all of these reviews in one place is awesome. It is also great to have a resource that suggests books by your favorite author. I especially like the Suggester category. It is often hard to find books that are similar to ones you have already read.

Wow..I love the Google Reader I just wish I had more time to spend reading all of the great articles that have been posted. One article that recently has caught my attention deals with the new privacy settings on Facebook. Check out the following passage:

And Facebook’s current “privacy policy” has some gems — really, there are too many to list, but my favorite is probably from Section 3: Information You Share With Third Parties: “We take steps to ensure that others use information that you share on Facebook in a manner consistent with your privacy settings, but we cannot guarantee that they will follow our rules.” Translation: People will get your information through our site, and we don’t really have much/any control over what they do with your information.

In other words, this great social networking tool gives out your information whether you like it or not..but…is this fact scary enough to make us give up this networking tool where many people spend “hours” of their time daily to keep up with their friends…I don’t think so…Don’t get me wrong..I love Facebook and have found numerous old friends that I am thrilled to reconnect with….but, we need to be careful…no telling who is using your personal info…

I had no idea there were so many fun and educational tools for our use just floating around out there on the web. I choose one just for fun, ToonDoo. Hopefully you will be able to view my goofy cartoon about technology. I think my students would enjoy using this site and I think I may use it during my Music Appreciation class. I was  also interested to see how this site is used as a social networking tools with members commenting on various cartoons…I also like Whiteboard, which I have used before. I am anxious to use it in my classroom as a document that can be created by all students.