Social Bookmarks Post

During the ED 505 class I have been taking we have been making social bookmarks of web pages we find useful or interesting. In addition to bookmarking the pages, we have to tag them with a keyword or catch phrase so that we know what that bookmark is about. I have really enjoyed doing this assignment throughout this semester because it has made me search the web for new things that I might use in my classroom and I have found some really cool stuff. Below is a tag cloud that I made of the tags that I used on my social bookmarks and I have also included the URL to my social bookmarks. http://www.diigo.com/user/jonesd5464

Google Reader Post

  

         My ED 505 class was required to follow and read a couple of blogs in addition to five educational blogs that were assigned by the professor. The five the professor assigned were CoolCatTeacher Blog-- http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/ , Will Richardson-- http://willrichardson.com/ ,Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day-- http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ , Free Technology for Teachers-- http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ , and A Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet http://mediaspecialistsguide.blogspot.com/ . The two that I chose on my own were Ermerging Ed Tech http://www.emergingedtech.com/ and US history teachers’ blog http://ushistoryeducatorblog.blogspot.com/. My favorite blog by far was the US history teachers’ blog. I really enjoyed this blog as did my students. It regularly has videos and lessons that accompany the videos. It has a great deal of material that fits well it my US and World history classes. My favorite post of all was a video and lesson on the song "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel. The song simply list events and people from 1949 to 1989. That is all the lyrics of the song with the exception of the chorus. It is accompanied by a lesson plan that goes with the video and makes a good and interesting change for students. I haven't yet shown this video nor have I done this lesson with my students but I am going to and I look forward to seeing what they think.

Being a Good Digital Citizen

Since the invention of the internet and the explosion in the number of personal computers, there has been new problems and issues created for all of us to face in this new digital world. There are many safety and privacy issues that we have to deal with on the World Wide Web. There are things like online predators, sales pitches and ads, privacy problems, viruses, and hackers. When all these things are out there for us to deal with navigate through we but be very careful and responsible digital citizens. We must also establish a good online reputation. Since the time of the internet explosion there have been many efforts to create good online reputations. One way this is done is to have feedback systems like Ebay or Amazon. Trust is a key element in many online dealings such as commerce and internet friendship.  When you have a good online reputation there are some things that you might be able to avoid that can cause issues. Knowledge is power and knowledge of how to be a good digital citizen is also power when you are on the internet.

Thinkport.org Simulations

This week we were suppose to investigate some of the simulations on the thinkport.org website and identify a couple that we would use in our classroom. After multiple attempts to view the simulations, I decided that it wasn't me causing the problem instead it was the website that was having issues. I did click and browse through the website and checked out everything that I could access. After looking through the website, the two things that I think I could use the most for my classroom were both listed under think classroom and they were the interactive tools and the lessons. The interactive tools section provides many different interactive programs and tools for the students and the teacher. The lesson section provides lesson plans as well as student activities and projects that align with state standards. I wish I could have accessed the simulations but even without them I found several interesting and useful things on this website.

Web 2.0 Assignment

We were recently assigned a project of sorts that required us to use four different websites to create resources for our classroom. We were to use glogster.com, animoto.com, bubbl.us, and another site of our choice and I chose classtools.net. Of these sites, the classtools.net site was my favorite. I really liked the ease of use of this site, and I really like what it had to offer. My least favorite of the sites was glogster for the difficulty of use. I had major problems creating hyperlinks on glogster and adding them to my glog. I also was unimpressed by the graphics that were available. I think the glogster site has a lot of potential but at this point I don't like it. I liked the animoto site as well as the bubbl site. Both of these sites offer very different but very useful ways to use technology in the classroom. I have attached links on this page to the websites and hopefully you can access my work.

http://jonesd5464.glogster.com/r-jones/

http://classtools.net/widgets/fruit_machine_5/fhFpV.htm

http://www.classtools.net/education-games-php/dustbin

http://animoto.com/play/x1fLNBd0k4YRkPJm6SvS3w

https://bubbl.us/?h=b67d4/15c887/74.CY4spFFItc

Software Reviews

This week’s blog is about a list of software review sites from our class textbook Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching by M.D. Roblyer. All of these sites are used to do many things which include educational software reviews. I was able to access and compare the information from all of the sites except SREB Evalu Tech which seems to no longer be in the educational software review business. The book wants to know which site evaluates the largest number of titles. After looking at all of the sites I would say that superkids.com has the largest number of titles. There is no clear winner on question two, which asks which sites are most recently updated. All of the sites seem to be regularly updated and some of them even have the current date on the home page. I couldn't find anywhere on any of these sites where I could post my own review or where other visitors had submitted reviews. There may be a place to submit reviews of your own if you’re a member of the site since all of them have a member login section. The last question asks which site I would use to learn about software I was considering for my students. I believe all of these websites could be very useful but I prefer the superkids.com website over the others. I like the setup of the reviews and the search setup better on this site. I think these websites could be utilized in many other ways besides just software reviews.

I found this video on YouTube about technology in the future. It doesn't really speak much to education in the future but it gives a lot of facts and theories about how technology will evolve over the next several decades, which will directly impact education. The information that this video makes light of is amazing. Even more amazing is the ideas of how things are going to continue to evolve and grow over time. One really neat piece of information that was stated in the video that I found interesting was that a single week of the New York Times contains more information than someone in the 18th century would have encountered in their entire lives. So what do you think? Is all this info just a bunch of garbage that really won't happen? Can we have a super-computer in the near future that will have more computational ability than the entire human species? Also there is a question in the video that asks who were the 31 billion questions a month answered by before Google. That’s a great question, so who were they answered by? Lastly, and the only easy question to answer, what did you find most interesting and what did you find most unbelievable. Talk to you next week. Roll Tide

About Me

Hello everyone. My name is Ryan Jones and I'm a first time blogger. I'm a high school history teacher in Northeast Alabama. I coach high school golf and high school basketball. I enjoy spending time with my wife and family. I'm a huge University of Alabama fan and have a room at my house entirely dedicated to the crimson tide. In addition to my love for family and the crimson tide, I am history lover. I enjoy studying and learning about history and historical figures.  In my spare time, (what spare time?) I like to travel with my wife or friends to places all over the world. I have been to several other countries and well over half of the United States. I usually travel to play golf or go to an Alabama game, but I do occasionally travel just to travel. Well I guess that’s enough blogging for this week.