Thing # 18 (Social Networking)

My Facebook

It's important that educators know how social networking works because it is most likely that their students are already networking socially through Facebook or Twitter. The teacher needs to know the pros and cons.

I dislike Twitter because I don't like to just scroll down for information I want to see. I would rather have it come to me, rather than try to keep up to date with all these different people and different organizations and news companies that I am following for ever 3seconds.

A classroom could use twitter to tweet what they are doing or to follow someone that is beneficial to their class subject at that time.

Thing #17 (Tagging and Social new stuff to do...)

• I can see the bookmark on a site that I explored and I could see the comments added about that bookmark and could see tags used as well.

• I do not see how a bookmarking web tool that organizes bookmarks is helpful in a classroom unless it is private. I personally think this would be time consuming. It is a good tool however for teachers to use of other teachers.

• StumbleUpon is my favorite tool out of the bookmark/favorites tools. IT takes me straight to the stuff that I am intersted in that is new and up to date, rather than me looking for what I am interested in more.

random various helpful education links for Social Studies

http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/interact-socst.htm
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/games/geographygames/geospy/

Thing #16 (Ahhh!)

• Which start page did you choose? Why did that one appeal to you? Will you make it your permanent home page? 
• I chose iGoogle as my home page because it is colorful and very personal as in that it is exactly what I want it to be. It doesn't give me updates on sports because I don't want that. It does give me my weather updates, National news, and movies, etc. I will not make it my permanent homepage because I rather have Yahoo as my homepage where I can go directly to the email I use the most.

• How can the online calendars be useful to you? 
• Online calendar through MSN/Hotmail is very helpful in categorizing and showing me visually what is coming up and what is planned just by automatically syncing with my MSN/Hotmail email account (Which I use for APSU email)
 

• What about the to-do lists—helpful, too much work…?
• The to-do lists are only helpful to me if I have a mobile device with web access to this stuff at all times. Other wise I would have to get on my computer everytime I think of something new to add to the list, and if I am nowhere near the computer, that would just be a hassle. I would end up using paper instead anyways.
 

• Did you find a tool that has some uses for you at the school or at home? 
• Which tool(s) would you recommend to others? The only tool I found to be of use was the calendar that I can check on my computer but if I did have that mobile device with 24/7 web access , it would be handy!

Thing #15 (Wikis...)

Uses for Wikis:

• Conference planning
• Collaborative editing of documents
• Meetings (posting agendas, discussion prior to meeting, etc.)
• Project space
• In place of structured courseware
• Presentation medium
• Web-based notebook to organize your thoughts
• etc.
 

My experience with wikis was a disappointment as I had come in thinking it was easy as 1-2-3. I didn't know that I would be lost in the apsu23things sandbox... I tried to upload pictures, documents, and instead, I just was more confused. 

I would definitely use this tool though as a way of communicating with my students. It would work in a school where majority of the students have internet access. I could send them their assignments and have them help each other out through a wiki tool that I would use for class.

I like how it is editable no matter the time that has passed. However, it is not as safe as one would think, unless there are ways to make a wiki private.