All Things Google

*I tried to post my Google Document of this entry, but for some reason it said that my Blog preferences wouldn't allow it. So I just copied and pasted the entry.

Google Documents, Notebook and Calendar are several of the new and very useful tools that I have been shown through CEP 416. These tools are not only useful for my own personal daily life, but they will also become extremely useful in my future classroom.

• Google Calendar will have a very clear position in my future classroom. I will create a class calendar that contains assignment due dates and reminders for students. I will teach students (and parents) how to view this calendar as a way of remembering the various activities and projects that are a part of our class. Students will be able to check this calendar whenever they are confused about an assignment. Another important aspect of the calendar is that parents can look at it and not have to ask myself or their child about assignments. Besides the academic use of the calendar I would also like to post (perhaps on a separate calendar) extra-curricular activities that are happening at the school or in the community for students to participate in. I believe that maintaining an up-to date calendar is the best way to stay organized and on time. I plan on encouraging students to develop their ability of keeping a calendar up-to-date.

• Google Notebook will also be an encouraged tool for students to use in order to stay organized. Researching on the web can often be a bit overwhelming and I hope by the time I am teaching I have collecting enough useful tools for my students so that they will feel confident surfing the web for information. I often find myself losing particular websites or quotes online that I would like to use in papers or projects and I typically get a bit frustrated. I think Google Notebook will provide students with a way of storing useful information while they are researching. I think the important aspect of Notebook is that the user doesn't have to stop their searching in order to file or take-note-of important information, they can simply copy and past the information into Notebook. Their entry will then have the desired information and the source waiting for them to use after they have finished researching. If students are working on research papers I could also see Notebook be useful in the regards that I would ask for students to print off their Notebook entries and turn them in with the paper. These entries will help with connecting the written information with the source of the information. As the grader of these potential research papers I think it is important for students to develop their skills in citing their sources correctly and Notebook would help me to understand where they got their information.
• Google Documents will be another useful tool, especially when writing essays or research papers. Students will not have to worry about where to save their works-in-progress. They can simply store their papers in Google Documents. This tool could also be very helpful for teachers because students could include teachers as viewers or collaborators on their individual documents, allowing for the teachers to monitor their progress or edit while the student is between steps. Google Documents would provide students will clear ways and places of saving work that is in progress. Students would also be able to have their peers edit their papers online using the revisions tool. I can see this tool be very useful in every aspect of paper-writing.
  

Social Bookmarking

I chose to explore the social bookmarking website BuddyMarks because when I initially read through the various choices I discovered that this one is supposedly filtered for inappropriate material. I thought that exploring a filtered site would be the most beneficial because I could see myself using this in a classroom. I found many similarities between Del.icio.us and BuddyMarks. The following are similarities that I felt were important:

• both allow users to store their bookmarks in one specific area
• users can share their list of bookmarks with other users
• users can share their bookmarks with non-users
• bookmarks can be tagged and organized into categories
• users can give each bookmark a personalize title and description
• bookmark lists can have an RSS feed so that viewers are alerted when the user adds or modifies the list
• users can update and delete bookmarks
• users can create a button for their browser toolbar that allows them to bookmark any site into their Buddymarks lists
• users can search for topics or tags
• users can view a list generated by the website of random or recent bookmarks tagged by other users

Despite the similarities I found that these sites varied in appearance and opportunities for the users. BuddyMarks seems to be a more "user friendly" site, while Del.icio.us may be more beneficial for the user who wants a multitude of preferences, settings and options. I believe the Del.icio.us user would be more tech-savy and have developing ideas of different ways to use the site. I think BuddyMarks would be great for the average websurfer. It's appearance is clean, neat and clear. The pages for BuddyMarks are pretty simple to view and navigate. Users are limited, compared to Del.icio.us users on their options for changing or modifying their list. Del.icio.us provides modifying options for the users that may make more sense to the avid web surfer. This type of user would be more familiar with the available options and would be successful in finding those options. BuddyMarks users would probably be the web surfer who uses the internet for very specific and clear objectives.

Keeping these similarities and difference in mind, I begin to think of how social bookmarking could make it's way into my future as an educator. I believe that this tool can be used in my professional and teaching development. I have already started using Del.icio.us instead of bookmarking anything on my laptop or desktop. The online list of bookmarks has already come in handy when I'm away from work or home and I need to show someone a site with information that pertains to our area of interest. I no longer worry that I will lose a important website if/when my computer crashes because I know all I have to do is pull up my Del.icio.us account and all of my links are saved there. Del.icio.us will also help me to stay organized by creating tags and bundles, this way I can categorize my bookmarks. I have already began to keep bundles of teaching resources, educational articles and kid sites. I have also begun to think about the possibility of my students using social bookmarking in our classroom. I have read various articles about ideas for implementing sites like Del.icio.us in classrooms and I'm excited to discover how they may fit into my room. I know that our usage of these tools will be completely decided by the grade level that I am teaching, so any type of implementation of social bookmarking would have to be established after figuring out what the students are capable of doing on the internet. I do not think I would feel comfortable trying to get some of the younger grades into social bookmarking because so much time would be wasted teaching and monitoring their use that our computer time would run out. Older elementary and middle school students could definitely use a tool like social bookmarking. After exploring Del.icio.us and BuddyMarks, I would chose to use Buddymarks in my classroom. I think that the site would be easy to understand for the students and I would not have to spend as much time teaching how to use the tool and monitoring their usage. I would love to have student creating their own Buddymark account and list of bookmarks. This would be an excellent way for students to keep track of their resources for papers, projects or exams. This tool would also allow for students to share their resources with each other. I believe everyone should know how to pull their resources from their surrounding environment. This tool would help students to use each other as sources of information. Students could tag sites that they used on projects or papers. They could also tag sites that connect to class discussions or areas of study. I am also hoping that I could have the students enable the RSS feed option on BuddyMarks so that their fellow students and myself would be notified when they updated their bookmarks. I know that I will continue to develop ideas for using social bookmarking in my class throughout my personal use and experience with this type of tool. I hope to one day pass that knowledge to my students.

Resources from Technology Conference

We are in the process of posting handouts, PowerPoint presentations, websites and notes from the different lectures and sessions from the Technology Conference. I know I plan on using quite a bit of the resources that were discussed at the Conference, so I figured that some of you may benefit too!

2007 Technology Conference Resources

Site Subscriptions

The ability to subscribe to feeds changes the way people get information from the Internet. The vast amount of information and material that is accessible through the Internet can be a little overwhelming if you (as a searcher) are not looking for specific information or details. I think that the more people work with searching and surfing the Internet, the more comfortable and efficient the searching becomes. If you have a clear understand of what you are looking for than the information can sometimes be right in front of your nose on the Internet, but if not sure of your goal than the search may become a bit longer and more complicated. I think that subscribing to feeds allow the desired information to basically be delivered to you. If anything, I feel that subscribing to feeds almost makes us (as "Internet searchers") more lazy because the work we have to do in order to get the desire information is minimal. But maybe lazy is the wrong term because these feeds allow us to become much more efficient and possibly more productive. So overall I believe that these feeds allow us to directly and quickly find our desired information, therefore allowing us to spend our time working towards other goals and desires.

As for the combination of students and feeds, I believe that there are numerous possibilities for students using feeds in a positive way. I have a particular passion for geography and I can envision my students subscribing to various feeds that would provide them with useful geographic information. I would love for my students to subscribe to feeds that vary in geographical subject, so that they would be exposed to a variety of information and resources. Possible feeds would allow students to view and familiarize themselves with the geographic issues that are present. I will also be teaching ESL students so I've included some useful blog feeds for ESL educators.

I had a really difficult time finding the RSS feeds for my students to subscribe to that focused on geography so I decided to include the general feeds that I thought could be beneficial for educators and students.

For educators:
http://www.edutopia.org/rss.php
http://www.esl-lesson-plan.com/
http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/2007/02/practising-questions-lateral-thinking.html

For students:
http://www.weeklyreader.com/kids/index.asp
http://www.verybestkids.com/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/index.html

Internet and New Literacies

The website that I found was: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslstudent.html

I decided to search for resources regarding ESL students, since I will be graduating with a minor in TESOL. I spent some time search for resources using different types of search techniques and wording. I used combinations of ESL, "elementary education", student, educator, lessons and activities. I was able to find the site searching Google with the search phrase "ESL student". I chose this particular site because I could tell from the URL that it was from a university's website so I figured that it would be credible. My search gave me many different sites to chose from but I preferred this one because it provided me with resources to use for any occasions. Many of the other sites that were shown would only give me sample quizzes and activities for ESL students and I wanted a site that would allow me to find what I was looking for by providing lots of resources. I am planning on using this website in my future classroom in order to find the necessary resources for my ESL students. Since each ESL student will greatly vary from the next ESL student I believe that I will need all the resources I can get in order to successfully them them.


My searching techniques and thoughts have changed a bit after our class concerning new literacies. I know find myself analyzing what kind/type of information I am actually searching for and then thinking about the best way to find that information. I now understand that there are differences in search engines, metasearch engines and directory and that each type is used for a particular reason. I think that my new understand of searching the Internet will help me to be more productive and efficient in my searching.