Web 2.0 Tools

There are countless web 2.0 programs available. I knew about some of them but there were a few new ones I really liked. Socrative is what interested me the most. It can give the teacher on-demand assessments of their students' progress. This can help the teacher guide their lesson plan as needed - if the class does poorly on a particular topic, they can immediately change focus and spend more time on that particular subject. Being that it is web based - and multi platform, if students come to class with several different types of devices - all will be compatible. Blabberize was another one I found quite interesting. I pictured having the Statue of Liberty speaking the Pledge of Allegiance or various presidents 'speaking' various speeches. It is nice that you can upload audio or have the text to speech - which in some cases may be even more effective than the actual recording. With all the Web 2.0 tools available, and more on the way, the days of textbooks are going to soon be just a memory.

Google Earth - needs a lot of work

One word: Junk. While it is very cool you can 'fly' around the world wherever you want, and for that matter, whenever you want, it is very buggy. It may be how it is setup on the computers we were using, but it was very buggy. Pictures I had saved on my 'tour' were not there when I ran the tour - but were there when I clicked on the links in my tour. Earth has a very rough time transitioning between a zoomed-out view and getting close in detail of whatever you are wanting to zoom in to. I can see how it would be beneficial for classroom use - showing students where places are in relation to other places, I can't see this program, as we have seen it, being used in anything professional. I would not use it in a business, but for fun or classroom use, it would be acceptable. My other major gripe - Google saves almost everything you do, even if you don't necessarily want it to - except apparently Google Earth activities. Everything I made the first night of class was gone the next day. Also "Saving" does not give the option of saving to Google Drive - that should be the default place to save projects.

What's Up Doc? (Google docs)

Google Docs has many features within it that are very beneficial to students and teachers. It is very easy to collaborate on individual documents which would help on group assignments. Students can work at home and not need to worry about the logistics of meeting in person after school to get assignments and projects done. Googledocs also allows you to centrally store your documents which eliminate the 'my dog ate it' excuse or forgetting your jump drive at home. Teachers can use googledocs to produce, and even score tests (with an add-on). A teacher could put all of their class records online from attendance, grades, contact info, etc - so they can always access their information wherever they are, whenever they need it. Other than the 'distrust' that some people have against 'The Google' - I have not seen a lot of complaints about Google Docs. People will always find something to complain about - no matter what the topic or program is - but I have not been able to find any more against google than any other application that offeres similar services. The best part is it is 100% FREE. People grow up with the mindset that Microsoft is the Holy Grail of everything and everyone computer related. Not anymore - with alternate operating systems, be it MAC or a hodgepodge UNIX clone, and Google products, you could never spend a dime on anything Microsoft related and still function normally, and in some cases, better than you would if you lived in a Microsoft World. Personally, if I had stock in Microsoft - I would have sold it a long time ago - their days as the center of our PC Universe are numbered.

You can't rewind your teacher (Video in the Classroom)

I remember the days when seeing a video in school was a big ordeal. You were lucky to see a video really at all. I got lucky one semester in High School where our class time was spent watching Headline News - then talking about the news for the rest of class. Video today is becoming more and more common place in the schools. Making videos available online, either done by the teacher themselves, or posted to various websites like youtube or KahnAcademy makes your lesson available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can pause, rewind, fast forward through the boring stuff - anything you need to insure you grasp the lesson at hand. While currently not a teacher, I would think having my lessons online would benefit not only me, but my students as well. I would only have to 'teach' once and put that video on line, for my students to watch. I could spend more time helping students who need a little extra assistance during class (assuming a flipped classroom scenario). Several sites are available for sharing/posting of lessons - Kahn, Schooltube and Teachertube were the ones I saw most promising. There are of course videos on YouTube but that is a risky site. Thankfully they developed programs to strip away all the fluff and allow you to download the video itself. All in all I believe the days of 'live lectures' day after day in the classroom are going to be few and far between in the not too distant future. As technology evolves, so does the means of educating our children. With today's children having access to the internet almost anywhere and them being exposed to devices like iPads - keeping up with educational technology will help guide not only the student learning habits, but also the teacher's habits as well.

Google Search

I think I will be able to search a LOT more effectively now that I know the Google search tips. I used to search for things that would result in possibly millions of hits. No one would ever go through that many options. Now that I know how to narrow it down by things such as date range, country of origin, +term and -term to include or exclude certain words is a nice thing also. The '-term' I think will be more beneficial - especially when you are getting a lot of false-positives dealing with a specific search term. Filetype:.type is also going to be a favorite of mine when I am searching for certain things - especially in my InDesign class. Another search tool I never knew existed was the ~ for synonyms. Very cool. It will make it easier to search for things and give you broader results that may give you unexpected, but useful information.