CEDO 535 Week 2

This week we were to examine some more resources and information on blogs, wikis, photo sharing, and Twitter. I've used blogs, wikis, and Twitter personally and professionally but haven't done much with photo sharing. The main method I use to share photos with my family and friends is via Facebook. I'm not sure how I would integrate photo sharing into my content area or why I might use this tool with students. I can certainly see this being integrated very nicely into the arts but right now I'm stuck with how I might use this tool in my business classes.

As mentioned before, I've used blogs with my students but would like to use blogs in more of my classes. Right now I only use the tool in my Web Tools class but could see it fitting nicely especially in my Intro to Business class. One topic we cover in that class is investments, specifically stocks. It would be cool to have a weekly blog discussion about the happenings of the economy and the effects on the market, current events that discuss the market, or news bits about specific companies.

This is my second year using wikis as my online tool for all of my classes. My school subscribes to a service for all teachers to have a webpage but it is very limiting. One can only have 30 documents, 30 links, 30 pictures, and a few more options. It is extremely difficult to embed any Web 2.0 application unless one can stumble through turning on the source code and working with the HTML code. Instead of putting up a few documents for each class at a time on my teacher webpage and then having to delete the documents to free up space for new documents (and having to do this over and over through out the year), I have created a wiki for each of my classes, put basic information on my teacher webpage, and use the wiki as my main resource to organize all of my class content. I post all of my handouts digitally so the amount of copies I have had to make since I've started using wikis has been cut down tremendously. I used to go in over the weekend to run copies or spend hours a week at the copy machine. It would be really neat to get a report on my usage from this year and last and compare it to my first 4 years at Xavier to see how much paper I'm saving. :) In many of my classes I will have my students do an online poll or a Wallwisher as a KWL or something like that. I'm able to easily embed these other applications right on the wiki so the students can easily review what was created. By having it embedded right on the wiki, they don't have to remember a link to the other application which is nice. I also have a Google calendar embedded on each wiki so I can quickly and easily update what was covered each day, plot test dates as soon as I know when they will be, etc. This makes it easy for the students to plan ahead and also know the basics of what they missed if they are absent.

Finally, after being introduced to Twitter 2 years ago, I thought the same thing that many people probably think....First, I don't have time for this. Second, I don't care to know if people are going to coffee or walking their dog. After hearing so many good things about Twitter from a friend I finally decided to sign up and see what all this talk was about. I can say with confidence that Twitter is the tool that has changed my professional development and learning of new technology applications and ways to integrate it. I've realized that I don't have to have time for Twitter....There are times that I'm on Twitter every day during a week but there are also times that I don't get to go on Twitter for a few weeks because life is crazy. Twitter SAVES me time because the resources come to me; I don't have to seek out the resources so in the end it saves me time! Also, the wonderful people in my PLN (personal learning network) are so generous and share so many valuable resources or helpful tips. If you are new to Twitter, I have 2 tips for you. Find 2 or 3 people that have similar interests/content area/etc. All you need to do is find 2 or 3 good people to follow; from there, just look at the people they are following and branch out to follow some of the people they are following. Second, develop a method to organize all of the resources that you are going to get. I used Delicious (social bookmarking) but they are no longer. I also have an account with Diigo (another social bookmarking site) so I've now imported all of my bookmarks to Diigo. For those new to social bookmarking, think of it as your online version of "My Favorites". The wonderful benefit of organizing your resources with a social bookmarking site is that they are stored online and not to a specific computer. I can access my Diigo bookmarks at home or work or wherever I can access the Internet. Also, if something happens to my computer I know I won't lose all of the resources I've gathered because they are stored online & not to that specific computer. For those new to Twitter, don't be scared off....It isn't all about knowing where the Hollywood stars are going for coffee or if someone chipped a nail. This used to be the reputation Twitter had but educators have figured out its potential. I hope you do as well... See you in the Twitterverse! :)