This past class was very exciting and busy! We learned many new and interesting tools to use for fun and also the classroom. I was not familiar with most of them so it was a lot to take in!
We first talked about the use of images and copyright. Did you know that you are not supposed to copy and paste images from the internet? I didn't. I frequently took images from websites and put them in documents or what not. I don't think a lot of students know this either. This would be a great thing to discuss with them and ask them why they think it is not allowed. Can we take written work of someone and use it as our own? Nope, so it makes sense that we can't do this with images. A website called Flickr enables us to use other people's pictures because they have given us permission. How nice! You can also post pictures and make them public for others to use or make them private or copyrighted, but it is nice to give others the benefit of using your photos if you are willing. Flickr is a great website to introduce students to because the photos there are available for use. Some students may not think it is a big deal, but it is since photos (like written work) belong to someone. It is like stealing. That is a no no.
We also looked at mapmashing. It is as fun as it sounds. You can create your own maps using google maps. They can be world maps or they can be zoomed in to be neighborhood maps. You can pinpoint locations with a marker and create lines between various places. This would be a great tool to use with students to have them follow the travel of explorers or where battles were fought. They can use them to make a wish list of places they would like to travel to or make a travel route for vacations. The possibilities are endless!
After learning about these tools, I think I will use some of them. I use iPhoto a lot and plan to continue using that. It would be fun for scrapbooking to use Dumpr and Fauxto. I might use Flickr for some of my pictures also. I definitely will use Google Maps to create maps of my own for personal use and probably for teaching as well!
Monday, October 15, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Social Bookmarking
After being introduced to del.icio.us this past week, I had to think about whether I liked it or not and would use it in the future for teaching. I think there are benefits to using a social bookmarking application. For one, you can access your bookmarks on any computer with internet access. Most people, including myself, only have bookmarks on their personal computer. Another advantage with social bookmarking is you can make a tag(s) for each website that you bookmark. This enables you to quickly find the website you are looking for by the given tag. If your bookmarks are public, then it enables others to find a website that you have marked based on your tag name. The down side of this is if I only tag a website about dogs as "dogs" then people who type in "dogbreeds" or "pugs" will not find this website because their search did not match my tag.
I can definitely see myself using del.icio.us for my personal use. I would use it primarily for my bookmarks and not the social aspect of networking with others.
As far as using it when I am teaching, I think I may use it to some degree. If would be convenient if I created a general account (kind of like our 416 resources!) for my students to use. I would put helpful websites there that my students can access and use. If I wanted, I could also have the option of allowing them to add to the list of websites if they found an appropriate one that they found useful. If this was public, then parents could also access it and use it when helping their students or when they want to know what we are using in the classroom as resources. I could post websites for parents such as helping your child read and write or a helpful disciplinary website. I think some parents would appreciate the extra resources.
One problem with using this application with students is that it assumes everyone has access to the internet. I cannot hold my students responsible for having a computer at home. I would have to count on having computers available in my classroom and/or school.
Overall, I like del.icio.us but I truly think I would use it primarily for personal use!
I can definitely see myself using del.icio.us for my personal use. I would use it primarily for my bookmarks and not the social aspect of networking with others.
As far as using it when I am teaching, I think I may use it to some degree. If would be convenient if I created a general account (kind of like our 416 resources!) for my students to use. I would put helpful websites there that my students can access and use. If I wanted, I could also have the option of allowing them to add to the list of websites if they found an appropriate one that they found useful. If this was public, then parents could also access it and use it when helping their students or when they want to know what we are using in the classroom as resources. I could post websites for parents such as helping your child read and write or a helpful disciplinary website. I think some parents would appreciate the extra resources.
One problem with using this application with students is that it assumes everyone has access to the internet. I cannot hold my students responsible for having a computer at home. I would have to count on having computers available in my classroom and/or school.
Overall, I like del.icio.us but I truly think I would use it primarily for personal use!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
