YouTube

You Tube can be used for many things. My brother uses it to watch people prepare food, my friend uses it to watch concert footage, and a coworker watches it to see the humorous TV commercials. While I was exploring YouTube I remember that I used it when I was teaching English to high school students. I would use it so they could hear poems being read by the author. Coaches and physical education teachers can use it to show demonstrations.

This is a YouTube piece of an event that I planned at Sacramento State

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHP66zUoPvs

technorati

Technorati is a tool to search tags in the blogosphere. This can be helpful because there are so many blogs, with more and more popping up as I write this. I was not too impressed with Technorati at first. It is interesting to see the different blogs that pop up when you type in "kinesiology" using the different search features. The results are slightly different when searching in Blog Posts, in tags, and in Blog Directory. I like the related tag window.

Another picture of something del.icio.us....

del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is another website I knew nothing about. I am actually not a big fan of bookmarking or tagging, but I can see how this can be helpful, especially in the long term. There are so many sights out there that can be forgotten, using del.icio.us is a good way to store and organize websites in a place where you know you can find them. Tagging help categorize all these websites. As an instructor, you can use this to seperate sites about different subjects, topics, and units. Maybe you find a bunch of Edgar Allen Poe sites for your English lesson one year, but decide not to teach him the next. If you tagged him with "horror", or "american authors", you will find a ton of resources on him in the click of a button. I like how it can be assessed from anywhere, so you are not a slave to your computer.

Web 2.0 Awards

There are so many progressive and helpful sites that win Web 2.0 awards. One site that I thought was interesting was Livemocha.com. It provides its users a way to learn another language at their own pace on your own and with a learning community all around the world. I instantly thought of my friend Steve who is going to Korea to learn the language and culture. Although that will be a priceless experience for him, a site like Livemoch.com provides someone who cannot afford to go overseas, or does not have the time, the chance to learn a language and communicate with people from all around the world.

Google docs

Wow, this is really like having Microsoft Office on the internet. Its even easier to use. I am already a huge fan of google and its programs and applications. Google Docs is Email meets Office. In my professional career I would use this to write day to day documents and share memos. As a physical education instructor and athletic coach, I could use the presentation feature to lead my lesson plans, new game strategies, and scouting reports. I could use the spread sheet feature to organize my student's progress in the classroom and to chart statistical categories in the game of basketball for my players.

RSS

I just signed onto my google reader. I had no idea that it would be so easy to get constant updates from my favorite sites. The training video was right, this saves a lot of time bouncing from site to site. Out of all the new things we have been exposed to in this class, I am most excited about this one (picture is evidence).

Interesting articles about technology and educaiton

I like how Ferdig’s editorial, Examining social software in teacher education, breaks down how the social networking sights can be used in the education process. She mentions how it can create opportunities for collaborative and cooperative learning. Although she acknowledges the negative points of social software on education and that such software is not necessarily new, she thinks that there is much research that needs to be done on the subject in relation to education.

Kajewski’s article, Emerging technologies changing public library service delivery models, explains in depth the various new web technologies and how they can be utilized by the library system. It is interesting how many of these technologies such as podcasts and blogging, are used to promote the library and its resources.

Bolan, Canada, and Cullin’s feature, Web, library, and teen services 2.0, is very similar to Kajewski’s article, but with an emphasis on the teen market. Like both previous mentioned articles it mentions using video games as a teaching tool.