Thing #18

Educators need to be familiar social networking because most of their students use it on an daily basis.  Since I already use Facebook, I did not learn anything new about it.  I do like that you can keep up with friends.  I am not impressed with Twitter; I honestly have no need or desire to "follow" what a person thinks or feels like sharing everyday.  Both Twitter and Facebook are useful tools for the classroom.  Students can stay in touch with each other and help each other with homework and projects.  Teachers could use Twitter to remind students of work or projects that need to be turned in.  Teachers could also remind students about special occasions and days during school.

Thing #17

After joining Delicious and searching Educational Technology, I found a site from Microsoft.  It has free lessons, products, and services as well as technology tools for the classroom available for teachers to use.  Some of the tags used for the bookmark include:  lesson plans, resources, education, and Technology.  Delicious would be a wonderful tool to use in the classroom.  One of the other bookmarks was Ten Ways to use Skype in Your Classroom.  Teachers could share lesson and unit plans, teachers could teach students on the other side of the world, students in different schools could work on projects together.  There are too many possibilities for me to wrap my head around.

Thing #16

I chose iGoogle simply because I was already familiar with it.  I like that it is very easy to use and there are lots of gadgets to choose from.  Since I want to be a social studies teacher, I have This Day in History on my page.  I also love reading quotes so I have Quotes from http://quotes4all.net/ on there.  It is a great way to keep up with things but I do not use it as my home page; I am going to try it for awhile to see if I like it.  Online calendars can be helpful keeping up with things in your life.  When I tried to use one it took a long time to get the information into it.  I am just going to continue using the pocket calendar I keep in my purse and the calendar I have on my refrigerator at home. The to-do list was more work than the online calendar.  I am perfectly happy having Post-it notes covering the sides of my computer.  It makes the computer very colorful.  I would recommend iGoogle to others who want a good page that keeps up with the things that are important to you and what you find interesting.

Thing #15

I like the idea of being able to share information and ideas that anyone can add on to.  People from all over the world can contribute.  The only question I have is if people can go in and edit anytime they choose what's to keep someone from adding incorrect information?  With that being said, wikis seem like a great way for students to brainstorm project ideas.  Teachers could collaborate on unit and lesson plans and project ideas.  I added thing #9 to the apsu23thingssandbox wiki.  I like that you can share your ideas and others can add more to those ideas. 

Thing #14

I chose https://bubbl.us/ (mind map) and http://flowchart.com/ (flowchart).  I had a much easier time using bubbl.us.  It was very easy to put the information I wanted into each bubble.  It is not one that you would use if you had to show it to a group or present in a project.  It does not look professional. When I started using flowchart.com to make a chart, I had a difficult time getting it to work correctly.  Again that is probably the operator's fault and has nothing to do the website.  I tried to make a mind map and could not figure out how to get anything written into the chart.  Then I started an organizational chart that was mush easier to use.  The charts on this site look more professional; you could present these to others if need be.

Thing #13

I don't know if I like Zoho.  I'm sure once I become familiar with it, it will be fine.  I prefer the old way of creating documents, give me Microsoft Word any day.  I do like that you can share your documents without having to send them in an email as an attachment.  Groups projects would definitely be easier to manage with Zoho.  Now I really do not like Zoho, I have spent the last twenty minutes trying to share this to my blog with no luck.  

I enjoyed searching Google Docs.  It was very user friendly.  I created a drawing; it was really easy once I decided what I wanted to do.  Google Docs is a great tool for students to use collaboratively.  They can share and work on projects, like power points, documents, and spreadsheets, outside of class.

I liked using Google Docs better than Zoho.  It was more user friendly in my opinion.  Plus I could get the drawing on my blog, unlike downloading my document from Zoho.  It is probably a user problem but it was very frustrating.