Added comment to sandbox (comment #6 under "Using Wikis")
Wikis are a great way for teachers and students to collaborate. Teachers can modify assignments or syllabi together by putting it on a Wiki site. Also, students or groups of students can gather information and modify it by creating a Wiki site for a project. For example, each year I assign a different disease to a group of students. This year I think I will have each group create a "Disease Wiki" for their assigned disease and each student in the group will contribute information their wiki site without having to physically meet together, which is usually a problem.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Thing #14: Exploting Technorati
1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “School Library Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different? I found that the search results were similar in blog posts, tags and in the blog directory. In all three cases some of the student blog for this course came up.
2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results? I was surprised to see "janet jackson" and "animal testing" in the top 10 searches. Some of the most popular blogs are related to technology. This is not a surprise. There is very useful technolgy information available on blogger sites that may be more helpful than calling customer service when you have a technology problem.
3. Create a blog post for Thing #14 and express your thoughts regarding how Technorati and its features could assist you. Since you have now looked at several tools that use tagging (Technorati, de.licio.us, & Flickr), add your thoughts about the value of tagging information.
Technorati is an excellent searching website for avarage people like us to locate blog sites that we can use to share news, information and lessons. Technorati opens up the world of blogging so that we can all share news and information with each other, rather than relying only on traditional news media for news and information. Tagging information with relevant key words is an great way to find useful information, especially on del.icio.us.
2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results? I was surprised to see "janet jackson" and "animal testing" in the top 10 searches. Some of the most popular blogs are related to technology. This is not a surprise. There is very useful technolgy information available on blogger sites that may be more helpful than calling customer service when you have a technology problem.
3. Create a blog post for Thing #14 and express your thoughts regarding how Technorati and its features could assist you. Since you have now looked at several tools that use tagging (Technorati, de.licio.us, & Flickr), add your thoughts about the value of tagging information.
Technorati is an excellent searching website for avarage people like us to locate blog sites that we can use to share news, information and lessons. Technorati opens up the world of blogging so that we can all share news and information with each other, rather than relying only on traditional news media for news and information. Tagging information with relevant key words is an great way to find useful information, especially on del.icio.us.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Thing #13: Tagging and exploring del.icio.us
3. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool.
Del.icio.us is a great website for saving my own favorite or useful websites. It is much easier to search for needed links by searching with tags than searching through hunderds of saved favorites. However, it is even better to have the ability not to just access my own sites that I have saved, but also similar sites that others have found. Often the sites that others have saved provided more information than the sites that I found. Again, social networking on the computer increases the effienciency of finding useful and relevant information. Teaching is now a community effort to find the best resources.
Two heads, or millions in this case, are better than one. Using tags such as "biology animation videos genetics" I was able to find several very useful sites for my lessons.
Teachers and students can share useful websites for student learning very easily on del.icio.us. Also, small groups can share useful websites by creating and using an unusual tag.
Del.icio.us is a great website for saving my own favorite or useful websites. It is much easier to search for needed links by searching with tags than searching through hunderds of saved favorites. However, it is even better to have the ability not to just access my own sites that I have saved, but also similar sites that others have found. Often the sites that others have saved provided more information than the sites that I found. Again, social networking on the computer increases the effienciency of finding useful and relevant information. Teaching is now a community effort to find the best resources.
Two heads, or millions in this case, are better than one. Using tags such as "biology animation videos genetics" I was able to find several very useful sites for my lessons.
Teachers and students can share useful websites for student learning very easily on del.icio.us. Also, small groups can share useful websites by creating and using an unusual tag.
Thing #12: Creating Community through Commenting
The two most important points in blog commenting are to read carefully before responding and to be polite. Make sure that you are not misinterpreting the blog post before commenting. And a little kindess goes a long way. If someone takes time and effort to create a blog, then make sure that you are polite in your comments, whether you agree or disagree.
I enjoyed exploring and commenting on the other sbisd bloggers. I came across a couple of "outside" blog sites and commented on those as well. The biology teacher blog is not a typical blog site, in that it only has links to biology vides, however I found these links useful. The parenting wesite has somoe hilarious stories for those in need of a good laugh.
http://biologyteacherblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.5minutesforparenting.com/
I enjoyed exploring and commenting on the other sbisd bloggers. I came across a couple of "outside" blog sites and commented on those as well. The biology teacher blog is not a typical blog site, in that it only has links to biology vides, however I found these links useful. The parenting wesite has somoe hilarious stories for those in need of a good laugh.
http://biologyteacherblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.5minutesforparenting.com/
Thing #11: Library Thing
The Libary Thing website was easy to use. The sign-up was fast and I was able to use the tag word search feature to find the recent books that I have read. I have not had a chance to visit any groups. Students may want to explore this site for book discussions.
Thing #9: Useful blogs and news feeds
Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? I liked the technorati's category groupings. I was able to find a few useful blogs using this search site.
Which Search tool was the easiest for you?The google blog and technorati search were easy to use. I found some interesting blogs on parenting using the category search on technorati.
Which was more confusing? Syndic8 was not as user firendly as the others. However, I found myself getting sidetacked and overwhelmed with information when searching in general.
What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? I found a blog on finding happiness when searching health and fitness on technorati. That was interesting.
What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds? I used the links provided and typed in key words in the search box or clicked in categories. I was able to find some good science news feeds.
Which Search tool was the easiest for you?The google blog and technorati search were easy to use. I found some interesting blogs on parenting using the category search on technorati.
Which was more confusing? Syndic8 was not as user firendly as the others. However, I found myself getting sidetacked and overwhelmed with information when searching in general.
What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? I found a blog on finding happiness when searching health and fitness on technorati. That was interesting.
What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds? I used the links provided and typed in key words in the search box or clicked in categories. I was able to find some good science news feeds.
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