5 Favorite Apps & eReaders

My favorite web 2.0 apps are:


1. Wikis---wikispaces.com is a great site, very user friendly and I believe many students would like to contribute and edit their work for an assignment.

2. Flickr---photosharing at its best. Students could look up photos related to their topic and then discuss why they chose those photos in either.

3. Blogs---you can incorporate so much into blogs---photos, text, videos---it really is the catch-all for many wonderful things plus you can get feedback from your readers.

4. Evernote---I love this tool! It makes the web seem less intimidating and overwhelming. Knowing I can copy, save and tag all of my web searches is so helpful. I still need to check out pageflake but I think either of these tools would be helpful to teach faculty and students.

5. YouTube/TeacherTube----love these sites! So much great content and I like how students/faculty can be the creator with these tools. Having a $100 Flip Video to loan out from the library, groups of students could create some very interesting content to upload and show their classmates. Great for the visual learners.

eReaders

Like most people, I was skeptical when I read and heard about the digital book Kindle. Being a die-hard book fan, I thought I would never even consider purchasing one. However, I have since changed my tune and am now thinking about purchasing one (iPod Touch vs. Kindle? Kindle or iTouch? Hmmmm. Gotta start saving!)

One of my friends in my Book Club has had a Kindle for quite some time (2+ years?). She got it when it first came out and she loves it! I could not meet up with her and play with it this past week nor could I go to B & N and check out their eReader.

However, I did watch the promo video on Amazon and I was quite impressed! I had heard that it is light and I was quite surprised its battery lasted like 5 days. I had thought it was short-lived. The template seems really easy to use and the buttons to push the pages up (or turn the page) look to be quite user friendly and the internal dictionary is a great feature.

I had heard that the special text and lighting technology made reading easy on the eyes and most people claim that it s great. So that for sure is a big factor for me and seems to be OK. Another big thing for me is that I like to write in my books and highlight passages etc. You are now able to annotate on the Kindle so I am now completely sold! :)

I only know one person who owns a Kindle. I went to a library conference recently and one of the presenters said her school just received 3 Kindles I think (maybe even more!) and that the students in her Book Club were downloading the books they liked. I can't imagine being in that position in our library. That would be so cool yet I feel like that would be ions away because of budget cuts and funding issues. However, I can see how the argument should be made to have these readers in schools so students can be familiar with them.

And oh, I loved the newer feature of the text reader---how cool is that?

I am sold on eReaders and it seems like Kindle has set the standard, just like the iPod is the best MP3 player.

***I'm getting better with placing the images! Yeah!

SL & FB

OK, I tried Second Life but didn't get off the ground, literally and figuratively. I think I have to download the program in order to change my Avatar.

My SL name is Josie Lynkskey which I think is a real cool name. Signing up was fine and easy but then I got confused. I watched the how to change your avatar video and did think it was amazing how you can change the physical features. I couldn't help but think of that SNL skit Franz and Franz from the 90's---"I'm here to pump you up!" when the chest size changes! :)

I liked this place: Literary%20%26amp%3B%20Artists%5C%26%2339%3B%20Villageand found it so easy to export this link to my blog. I am finding sharing a site or link to be so easy on so many applications. I think the programmers are on to something here, they want it to seamlessly interface with many different apps.

Overall, I don't know if I am an SL fan because I haven't had a chance to play and fly around it. I did find everyone's comments interesting this week and was a bit put off hearing about the weirdos and stalkers and child avatars. I did think the big picture of SL, the different worlds, the way you can change yourself, how you meet people ...to be incredibably creative.

As I mentioned in a post, I think in the future, virtual worlds will be popular and more defined so I hope to have a SL world geared towards educators like wikispaces and PBwiki are geared towards educators. I would like that environment. SL seems all over the place to me right now.

FACEBOOK

(For some reason, I can't import the Facebook Logo here. This is where I find technology to be so challenging! I checked the "import photo" button and it doesn't do anything!)

I am not a regualr user of FB but I know many people who are, especially my friends who are in their 40's. I know there are heavy users of FB all out there but it is just not me. Every time I go on FB, I am on it for much longer than I wanted to be. One thing leads to another, reading everyon'e wall etc.

I first set up an account about two years ago because my high school kids were using it and I wanted to know how it worked. I orginally didn't use my full name because I was unsure of the technology and didn't want to be too public.

I do have private settings but I can't stand how I can read a friend's friend comment on their wall. The whole wall thing bothers me or maybe it is the status updates and how people feel compelled to let eveyone know that they just worked out at the gym and will be having a tuna sandwhich for lunch. I just don't get it.

Facebook is great for connecting with people from the past and I was so happy that a college friend found me as soon as I added my real name to FB. I like chit chatting with old friends but at some point, what else more is there to say? And I really don't want to read about all of their mundane activities nad see their "trail" when I log on.

FB can be a huge time sucker and that is probably the main reason I do not use it as much as other people. Maybe when I am done with this program I will spend all of my "free" time on FB? LOL! :)

I would like to learn more about how FB can be used by school libraries. I get the whole group thing (X Library Group on FB) and students /faculty could post about books and links but how can you monitor what people say or upload? That is my most pressing question and one that I am realizing way too late in the week!

I Did it!

Wow! I just did voicethread and it really was so easy! I can't believe it because as I have lamented in this space, technology can be fickle with me! I love it but it acts up on me and I get frustrated.

I really like voicethread! The pictures uploaded so easily to the site and it was way easy to record too! It really was like sending an email. And I love the feature where you can export it and all of your options are right there! So quick and easy. Wow!

i am so happy I did it and I am also happy that I will be on time with the assignment! :)

I will remove this after you grade it because I do not want my children up on my school's website1 LOL!

Podcast Blues

This week was a mixed bag for me. I had difficulty with several of the podcast sites. And for some reason, it seems like I always have a hard time with the iTunes site. The window will never close for me (it just freezes on me) and I have to work around it. Even when I'm synching music, some of the tabs aren't there at first and I get so confused and frustrated. I don't know why that happens. I go to the help tab but still, I do what it says and it doesn't work. Argh! practive, practice, practice.

I downloaded the newer version (9?) and it seems to be going OK for me and on a positive note, I had no IDEA what wonderful free podcasts they have! I must get a car adaptor so I can listen to my iPod when driving--- for music, books and podcasts.

I'm curious though: I wonder how students would react to the podcasts of educational content? I totally get how they like their music and maybe some of them would like to listen to books and it would great to encourage it with reluctant or struggling readers but I'm wondering if high school students would actually listen to educational podcasts? I know they'd listen to friends and would probably really get into "creating" one.

All this iPod talk this week is making me pine for an iPod Touch! They really are beautiful!

I didn't have time to complete the voice thread/video assignment so I will have to complete that tomorrow and post it. This week had a lot of content and assignemnts and was a bit overwhelming. It was the first week where I really felt both overwhelmed and ineffective! It'll get better.

On a more postive note, the CANTON BOYS HOCKEY TEAM WON THE DIV.II CHAMPIONSHIP AT THE GARDEN TODAY!

It was a great game and well deserved for the team! I'm so glad I went with my family to watch it.

Navigating Teacher Tube

Wow, this was so easy to link to my blog! Amazing! I was wonder though, how I could embeded the whole video so people would just have to press the play button. I have seen this on other blogs and really like it. I'll have to play around with it.

Actually, I should use You Tube or Teacher Tube to find out how to do this! In one of my classes, I wanted to embeded a YouTube video in a PowerPoint and so I searched how to do this on You Tube and someone showed me thru their posted YouTube video tutorial on how do it in three minutes! At the time, I remember thinking I was using YouTube to learn how to use YouTube! So surreal!

I just found the ass video button on the task bar above.....gotta figure out how that works and what it'll do.

These is a very cool video by a history teacher in NY and he has many others simliar to it on TeacherTube.He uses visuals and mnumonic devices to help kids study for the Regents exams but these could be shown in any US History class. What a great way to get kids attention and have them learn something they will likely remember becasue this teacher's presentation is so memorable.

I have no idea how to get rid of this yellow highlighter on the text above!

Easy Ways to Remember Constitutional Amendments

Hello Flickr & Evernote! How Do I Love Thee?

OK, why have I not hopped on the Flickr bandwagon until now? Why didn't I join it earlier?
I think because I had thought it was a public place to share photos, I didn't realize you could set privacy settings so only family & friends can see which is important to me.


I am loving how Flickr allows you to write notes underneath the photo, a huge feature for me as a hobbyist photographer and scrapbooker. That is so cool! Goodbye Kodak Gallery & hello Flickr for me!

Flickr seems to be working with Snapfish as a developer and I am a diehard Kodak Gallery fan so we'll see. It does seem to be that there is always a relationship made between one of this major tools and another company (Flickr & Snapfish, iPhone & AT & T etc).

Oh yeah, I'm suppose to talk about the educational benefits of Flickr! :)

In Richardson's chapter on Flickr, the description on how to find out the origin of where a photo was taken or uploaded was really cool but a bit scary too!

I can definitely see how Flickr can be used in an effective way in our Photography classes we have at my school, where students can share and critique their work. For history related topics, though, you could also do a search of Civil War photos, for example, and great pictures come up. I really think history classes would find it very useful too.

Evernote is another amazing program! Good-bye "favorites" feature on my computer! This is exactly what I need, especially now as a librarian. I can see why Bryan calls it his right hand when searching on the web. This program is so helpful. It may be worth upgrading to the premium account.


I have to explore StumbleUpon more and that too looks great! It is like your own personal search engine or favorites site! My favorite menu bar on my PC has a LOT of pages on it! This seems more doable.


When I did a quick "stumble" for photography, the first webpage I came too had photos of Star Wars stormtroopers posing in funny position (not R-rated) but very very and humorous! I never would have come across that if I didn't stumble upon it. :)


I am blown away by the sheer innovation of these tools. We really are in the midst of a technological revolution and we're smack in the middle of it! So cool!