Application+of+the+Tools

Application of the Tools With Blogs and Wikis I will most likely use this for general communication with parents and students. Right now they are set up with explanations of what we study, an integrated unit, explanation of one of our LISA classes, and extra credit. My team and I have discussed creating a wikipage with a page for each core class and another page for general team information. The general information page would have information pertaining to our team and not general school information. Things like field trips, team activities, Pride Tribe, etc… With the blog, I am most likely going to share this with my LA teacher since we work together on a lot of the extra credit assignments. Parents will be able to post questions (us answers). We will need to make a schedule on who checks the blog when and whether or not to post certain comments made (never can tell).

With the Delicious and Diigo, these would be great not only for keeping track of my own sites but for new teachers or general content areas and for students to look for information on an assignment. With sites like Delicious and Diigo, I don’t have to worry if the site I was using was bookmarked on my computer or the one at school. Wow, what a concept! With new teachers, it’s easy to say you’re going to email them that website but these would make it easy for them to look at the sites you use on their own. When it comes to general content areas, each content area can add their own favorite sites and save time when it comes to looking for information.

Voicethreads, Google Earth and the online photo albums would be great for both staff and students. Teachers can spice up their lectures and notes. Students will love creating and presenting reports. These seem to be fairly user friendly and you will have less chance of students being disruptive during presentations. The Google Earth will most likely be the star with its 3-D views.

Teacher Tube would be great for not only finding lessons but (if we had the time) we could post important demos/classes for students to watch if they were absent or even something the sub can show (provided everything is working). I like the fact that they are pre-screened. You may want to keep in mind that when you upload a video, when they say a few minutes it usually takes a few hours. Skyping is great. This would be a great way to contact other teachers, scientists, and other professionals for live interviews. Right now I will probably just use it for personal calls.

The Google Docs is something that I think we will get the most use out of. When I called my LA teacher he was very excited to try it out. Right now he has students email papers to him to save on paper. Now, he doesn’t have to face 120 emails in his inbox. I am looking forward to having my students put their lab write-ups online to save on paper and I can check them at home without having to worry about losing any papers. Google Docs has all the formats that students are familiar with so teaching them to use it would be a breeze. Now all we need is a class set of laptops.

When it comes to getting to the next step, as long as we can contact people with experience to help when we get stuck would be the biggest help. Not all people are familiar with computers so getting help from those that are will be needed.