A Thing: The 19th One. (More.)

In our last post, we explored some of the world's most currently popular social networking tools, but today, we are going to delve even further into the social networking, to find what no man has ever found before.  (More.)

Alright, so maybe someone has found other social networking sites before.  Just look at Xanga or Myspace.  Those existed once, didn't they?  And they were the height of popularity, weren't they?  Until the social networking tools of today came along, that's right.  However, there is still always use in looking for new social networking tools.  One component that is definitely worth considering is the popularity of the site, though.  The more popular a social networking site, the more it will benefit you, because the more popular it is, the more connections you can potentially have, because the more popular, the more users there will be.  For this reason of popularity, I decided to explore Pinterest.  It's all the hype amongst soccer moms and crafty college girls, isn't it?  So why not look into it?  

All jokes aside, Pinterest actually has a lot of potential as a tool for teachers everywhere.  I am a member of a blog site called Tumblr, and mainly what I use it for is a source of inspiration.  Pinterest acts as just this for a larger portion of its users, and educators could utilize it in this same way.  Pinterest is appealing, due to its vast breeding ground of craftiness and creativity.  It's like a treasure trove of ideas galore!  This could surely act as a resource for educators.  Pinterest uses a tagging sysetem, so all one would have to do is search the tags for whatever he/she is interested in finding.

Although Pinterest does not initially seem like it would be a very professional resource, as an educator, I could see myself searching for everything from projects my students could do to classroom decorating ideas on Pinterest.  It would be a great way to initiate some creative sparks, which are always a good thing to be able to conjur up, when trying to spice things up in a classroom environment!  The more tools, the merrier!

A Thing: The 18th One. (Networking.)

As a human being, we naturally require connections with other human beings, and as our world moves more and more towards the realm of the virtual and the technological, our connections must tag along, thusly.  This means that there is one thing of ours, that is the utmost importance, that must tag along especially closely.  (Networking.)

Without networking, we would know very few people--even no one, arguably.  It is crucial for educators to be able to establish social connections, just as it is crucial for any other member of society. Therefore, it is also crucial for educators to familiarize themselves with the new-fangled technological tool, social networking.

While I tend to believe that social networking tools don't really have a place in the classroom (they tend to just act as distractions), networking certainly does.  It is just as important for students to make connections as it is for teachers.  So, while it may not be appropriate for a teachers and students to make  online social networking connections, online social networking tools could prove as being very useful for student-to-student relationships, and teacher-to-teacher relationships.  Websites such as Facebook act partially as contact books, which, of course, is useful.  However, Facebook, and other sites like Twitter can strengthen bonds among peers and colleagues, as they also act as a means of sharing small thoughts and life events.  This personalizes the social connection between "friends" and "followers".

I have a Facebook, myself, which can be found at http://www.facebook.com/magjacks.  I have had an overall good experience with Facebook, since I created it.  However, I have found that it is moreso a distraction than anything else, a lot of the time.  I also think it may heigthen my awareness of others' approval of me.  For this reason, I feel that a certain maturity is required to use websites like Facebook. However, I think that having social networking connections is expected, nowadays, and that this is actually a mostly beneficial bandwagon to jump on.

A Thing: The 17th One. (Delicious.)

Among all of these tools we keep discussing is the tool of remembering.  Remembering can be hard for us, especially when it comes to the web, and namely websites.  How are we supposed to remember complex URLs if we want to access a certain page again, or if we want to share it with someone else?  Some of these link locations would be nearly impossible to recall.  Is there no tool that can help us remember these links?  (Delicious.)

Who are we kidding?  This is Web 2.0 we're talking about, here.  There's this magic little thing called bookmarking, which makes remembering those web locations you wish to access over and over again incredibly easy both to relocate, yourself, and to share with others.  Today, we will look at the website, Delicious.com, and discuss how it can serve us as educators.

Delicious allows you to create an archive of links, to save them for later; tag the links, so that others can find the links you've posted; and add your commentary to them, to tell others and remind yourself what the links are for.  Likewise, you can search tags to find other users' posts, and you can view their commentary by clicking on the number of "saves" each link has.  We can take advantage of this site by both posting and browsing, to both give and take from the Delicious world!

This tool as a great benefit to educators who are interested in utilizing technology to its fullest potential, for one can continue to expand the list of links, by searching on their own, and searching through others' findings both, to make the expansion twice as fast.  This allows educators to compile resources in no time!

Did I mention that this is a great place to create an actual "toolbox"?

A Thing: The 16th One. (Productivity.)

Remember a while back when we talked about tools that you can add to your tools to make your tools power tools?  Yeah, well this tool is more like a tool that you can add to your tool to power your tool.  (Productivity.)

There are a variety of tools available online that can be used to augment your productivity and jumpstart you on the road to getting your work done.  One of the most useful tools among these tools is the homepage.  This is like the equivalent to sitting down at a neatly-organized, work-conducive desk.  Homepages can be used to collect and sort useful, often-visited links, calendars, email inboxes, information-update gadgets, and any other number of tools that you may want to customize your page with.

For example, I created a homepage for myself using iGoogle, and customized myself a "desktop" suited to my needs, which I found most likely to increase my online productivity.  I included a weather gadget, an email inbox display, a date and time display, and a to-do list gadget.  I had to delete many of the pre-loaded news and cultural update tickers, because I found it more effective to have a cleaner, less cluttered workspace, than to have one packed with information I did not absolutely need.

I think that I will keep the homepage.  It acts as a good source of reminders, with the to-do list and calendar gadgets in it.  I like being constantly reminded of things, and I am a huge proponent of making lists and datebooks.  I feel that I could be far more organized, if I made this my online headquarters, seeing as I'm on the web so much.

Try creating your own homepage!  See what your results are!  If you have a good homepage experience, comment about it!  Or if you have a bad one, for some reason, I'd love to hear your war stories, too.  Let's see if we can make productivity a tool that's more widely used in this short-sighted, distractible society.

A Thing: The 15th One. (Wikis.)

In your web-escapades, have you ever wished there was a place where you could share information with other internet users, in a big melting pot of editable-if-you-have-an-acount knowledge?  If so, you're in luck, because there is a tool out there for you!  (Wikis.)

Wikis are websites that are used as these information melting pots.  These sites are used to gather and organize knowledge from as many sources as there are that which to contribute!  And not only can you make original posts, but you can edit the posts of others!  Wikis are all about collaboration!

However, in a recent experience with a Wiki, pbworks.com, I was completely dissuaded from an attempt at editing an article.  First, I could not find the incredibly elusive "Sign Up" button.  After several minutes of searching high and low for a way to create an account, I was finally successful.  However, after that, the option to edit the article was working improperly, and in spite of multiple attempts to make the edit, I was unsuccessful.  (An annoying empty white bubble kept popping up, with nothing useful in it whatsoever.)

However, this was simply a bad experience of mine.  You may have wonderful experiences with Wikis, if only you try this tool out!  Add it to your belt.  You know you want to.

A Thing: The 14th One. (Charts.)

As an educator, your mind is a crucial tool, and the thoughts inside of it are even more important.  But what good are your thoughts if you can't make sense of them?  Fortunately, there are tools out there that can help you do just that:  unboggle the contents of your brain.  (Charts.)

Visual representation is a tool that is useful, regardless of the context, it seems.  Graphs, photos, videos, anything.  All of it works towards the same goal:  enhancing your understanding of a concept.  Charts work towards that very same goal, as do the specific kinds of charts we will now discuss:  flowcharts and mind maps.

These may seem like synonyms, at first glance.  However, there are integral differences between these two tools.  Flow charts are used, to put it very basically, to establish relationships between different concepts.  Mind maps are used to establish relationships between concepts and their subconcepts.

Some tools that can be used for these purposes are Gliffy (which creates flowcharts), and Bubbl.us (which creates mind maps).  I prefer Gliffy over other flowchart creators, because it does not require a membership, and I prefer Bubbl.us over other mindmapping sites, because it has a very intuitive layout that makes your mapping easy!

Feel free to explore other sites, though, such as Flowchart.com, (obviously for flowcharts), or Mindmeister (less obviously, for mind maps).  Whatever floats your toolbox boat!

A Thing: The 13th One. (Docs.)

Of all of the tools one may encounter as an educator, the word processor, spreadsheet program, and presentation creator are some of the most likely to crop up.  These are all staples of modern classroom technology, but can often be a costly tool to equip your "box" with, given that many word processors (such as Microsoft Word or Apple's Pages), spreadsheet applications (such as Microsoft Excel or Apple's Numbers), and presentation creators (such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple's Keynote) are not free to users and must be downloaded at a cost.  However, luckily there is a loophole that can keep you from having to spend money on these useful classroom tools!  (Docs.)

Web Applications (which are programs that you do not have to download in order to use and run online) such as Google Docs or Zoho Docs can provide the same services that these offline programs do, but for free!  I have found that these applications are extremely similar, and that the only difference is that (for me, personally), Zoho seems a little more intuitive, layout wise.  If you find yourself a preferer of keeping all of your online accounts linked together, Google Docs is probably the site for you, as it is automatically connected to your Google account.  If you would rather keep your online accounts separated (as I like to do, myself), you may find that Zoho Docs is a better fit for you!  Fundamentally, however, the sites are the same.  Check out these example documents prepared by each of the programs:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p7eLoZKg6ynFomZ5b_1qb1aXrxAcNjLkx4HfYj3qkMA/edit

https://writer.zoho.com/public/11d3e3e3f60d862f38190f2b921f322eaf561363378adaf38073c78ecae72b1f73ea19673eb7916a

See how these documents are just as good as any document created with some fancy schmancy downloadable word processor?  

What's handy about online programs is that all of your work is already one step closer to being sharable than work produced with offline programs!  All you have to do is click "Share", since your work is already online!  This enables others to see your work without the hassle of waiting around for your document to upload!  

Concerned about not having your work saved to your computer?  Not a problem!  Just export the document to your computer through the online application (download it), and you can save wherever you want in the file type of your choosing!  

Educators and future educators:  Consider the possibilites that these web applications hold for your students!  Collaborative projects would be made exponentially easier by these online programs.  All the students would have to do is create a common username and password, and upload all of their work to the same place for instant sharing!  Another option is utilizing the ability to list another Docs user as a collaborator, so that they can see all of your work on a project, if you enable them to!  This would work around the inconvenience and confusion that is trying to share work between different computers, different file types, and different programs.  

Give these sites a try!  Just sign up for a free basic account and do some exploring!  Web-based applications could save you a lot of trouble in your future, if you add them to your toolbox, now!