My Wordle Example

Wordle

Using Wordle was quick, easy, and effortless. I will be using this tool in the next week with my Algebra 2 students as a review for Chapter 5. Every student will come up with 10 descriptions and then will be partnered up with another student to share their ideas. I will do this twice so the kids can share and brainstorm a few more and then will go to the website and create their own. I will have them print them out for an assignment and will pick a few to post in my room. I am also going to suggest to the kids to keep their copy so they can be reminded when it comes to the end of the semester some of the key ideas for each chapter we study. I am looking forward to project and I'm hoping the kids will see the benefit.

Blog Post on Jing Video

It did take me some prep time of course to the get the video ready to record. I was pleased with the end product and loved to have choices as to have it sent to someone by email, share the url, and embed into my blog. As you can see I need to make a modification somehow to decrease the size. If you have any advice on how do to that it would be welcome.

As far as how can this be used in my professional life. I have tried to demonstrate that by creating a video over a project that my students do in Multimedia. This is a great way to share with a class if I am gone for the day at a meeting. There are TWO problems that I have encountered with this program. One is that I am having problems loading to screencast. As I mentioned in the Forum for class it took me 2 hours to get it to load so I could share it. The other weakness that I see is that it limits you to 5 minutes. I am long winded and some of my projects are very detailed. Otherwise it was a GREAT experience and I will be using this tool in the future.

Jing Video

Flickr

This was my first experience with Flickr and it is easy to use. The reason I used examples of my student's work is to see if this would be another option for the students to post their projects and have access to them for many years to come. This is also a very useful tool because it would help those students who are applying to be accepted into a graphics program at the college level. It would allow for them to share their projects by sharing their website. I also find that uploading a quicktime was as easy as uploading a photo. The big reason why I would move to Flickr is the option for kids to "comment" on their project. This would allow for reflection on their work. We could also form groups of 4 and share their websites so the others can also make comments besides the reflection of the student.

Another tool in my toolbox.

Here is the link to my project: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47192058@N07/

Diigo

I did have a Delicious account up until I was introduced to Diigo. I was very excited about using the Diigolet to bookmark, highlight, post a sticky note, tag, and share with a group. Yes Delicious and Diigo are great for bookmarking but I am excited to explore more of what Diigo has to offer. At this point in time I would say that I understand the basics of bookmarking, taging, sharing with a group but I need to spend more time with connecting with other professionals. I have joined two other groups to see if I am going to be able to apply what they have to offer. I am looking for a resource guide to help narrow my search. Any suggestions??

RSS Feeds are easy to set up!

RSS Advantages:

The list below are some of the reasons why I became a subscriber to RSS feeds about 6 months ago.

My news in one place: I can subscribe to multiple news groups or blogs and it is a great time saver because I have them located in one place. When I subscribe to a site I no longer have to have them bookmarked. The information comes to me!!! I have the majority of feeds listed on my Algebra 2 blog and they are sorted by the most current update. I do use Google reader to catch up on others that are not listed on my blog. What a GREAT TOOL!!

News when I want it and keep my privacy: I can go to my Google reader or my blog page when I want to read an updated feed. I no longer have to worry about receiving spam or unwanted junk email from a website. Along with the spam I have also avoided sharing any personal information or my email with this website. Here is a snapshot of a few examples from my Algebra 2 blog as they are posted at the right of this blog.

READ only the news I want: I don't have time to read all of my news or blogs so the RSS feed comes in the form of a headline so I can easily scan the headlines and read only those that catch my attention.