Thing 17...Tagging!!!

I viewed several educational technology websites that were tagged in Delicious and found this very helpful.  If I want to know what type of information a website offers then I can judge it by the tags displayed.  I am not familiar myself with socially bookmarking material other than the website of the day activity, so I would need some exposure to this myself.  By tagging and then compiling like groups of websites or video you can keep your research or information organized.  This also helps in a collaborative way with other teachers who might tag professional development articles, websites, or seminars.  This a great tool to share ways to educational strategies or management tools that might be helpful top other teachers.  By making social bookmarking available all of the shared information is in one place. 

Thing 16...Organized!!

I chose the iGoogle start page because, to me, it looks fresh when I open my page.  It was not difficult setting either page up in iGoogle or Netvibes, but when I open the Netvibes page it looks like alot of information that I may not need.  I like that I can modify the theme of my page with the information I am interested in in each of these, but on this particular activity visual is more important to me.  I also thought a calendar is a good way to keep track of current and upcoming events to ensure nothing is forgotten.  The programs I observed were pretty straight forward calendar applications.  I did like 30 Boxes putting the forecast on the upcoming week on the calendar that was useful so you could see if you can plan outdoor lessons.  To-do lists are useful I just don't know if I would keep one online rather than in a planner book.   I do like Basecamp's program where you can download documents, view discussions, and compile your to-do list on the same page.  I did like the  MyStickies tool so that you can have daily reminders on your dashboard.  That would be a great tool to have in the classroom.  Google Docs and Spreadsheets is a great tool to use in  the classroom as well to compile data and create organizational documents for your class. 

Thing 15...WIKI WIKI!!!

This activity was interesting to see how collaboration can be integrated in communication board.  Blogging is a way to do this but this was neat to see how each member of a workspace can add/remove information that may have changed or is no longer needed.  This method keeps everyone updated on changes in just one click to view the workspace.  Someone would not have to worry about contacting every individual member.  This would be great when doing group projects in a class.  Each member would be able to maintain updates to the project so everyone can see the progress but participate as well.

Thing 14...Mindmap or Flowchart. How does my brain work?

I like the Bubbl. (mindmap).  This was an easy program in putting random bubbles to brainstorm through.  This is definitely a great program to do just that.  Brainstorm.  You can blow up the page with miscellaneous bubbles that may not connect with any other ideas but that first main bubble.  A flowchart program like Flowchart.com for example, is different.  This would be used when you want to show connections with your thoughts.  This program is great for organizing your thoughts on a project to bring some order to your brainstorming.  I love the Family Tree template as well as some of the more complicated ones.  It was really neat to to design a flow chart where some ideas are connected where others are not.  But, because of the chart you can see every "line" of connection with each.  In short, I like them both for different purposes.

Thing Thirteen...Google Docs vs. Zoho Writer

I think that both of these tools are useful as an alternative to Microsoft Word or for the need of a thumb drive.  Zoho Writer appeared to be useful when collaborating on a document and it does have some of the same features as Google Docs but I did find Google Docs to be easier to manuever in.  I created a "presentation" or "powerpoint" in Microsoft terms.  It does seem pretty similar to the Powerpoint program.  However, I may be wrong but it did only offer to let me insert pictures of my own or off the internet.  There did not appear to be any "clip art" options.  I just may not have seen them though.  This is my presentation in Google Docs:   https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Kw--MFtWufGNl9161_lrAr8-oII7cTZiZUEps-sTspM/edit#slide=id.g3c8e4100_0_68