Diigo vs. Delicious

Web site bookmarking…

Currently I save my bookmarks on my hard drive of my computer.  I’ve started to use Google bookmarks and find it very easy to use and like the new List feature they have. It reminds me of folders but is not exactly the same.  I don’t like that they don’t help you out with tag or label suggestions, both diigo and delicious have that option.  Five years ago when I was a computer lab teacher in an elementary school I used www.ikeepbookmarks.com.  It was a great site and exactly what I needed at the time.  I have hundreds of sites that I used and teachers in my school.  I kept folders for different grade levels and folders inside those for different projects they were working on.  I loved the organization.  However, I have since forgotten my password and don’t have access to the email account anymore, so I can look at all those bookmarks but I can’t save them anywhere else.  So learn from my mistake, don’t use your school district email address for an account like this.  It’s a sad, sad day when you find you have to save them one by one on a site like diigo.com or delicious.com.

I first learned about diigo.com for this class when our instructor had us use it to find the web sites we needed for this class.  I found it very confusing and didn’t know really what I was looking for or at.  I think my problem was the lack of folders, which is what I was used to in ikeepbookmarks.com.  I’m not a real fan of the list format.  Now that I have my own account and have played around with it I find it very useful.  I especially like the highlight option.  Bookmarking sites is great but when you can highlight the part that is most meaningful, WOW, I find that amazing.  I like the ease of set up and the easy bookmark tool, diigolet you can put on your toolbar.  I like that you have the choice of highlighting, bookmarking or sharing right from that tool. 

I signed up for a delicious.com account and found the set up very easy.  It seems as easy to use as diigo.com but again did not have the folders I really like.  It also did not have the option of highlighting parts of the site and saving it with your bookmark.  Delicious.com is a Yahoo product and I don’t like all the ads associated with Yahoo.  I think this is why I like Google products better.  I know in the end they are all just out to make a buck but I don’t like Yahoo’s style of IN YOUR FACE advertising. 

In the end I think I like diigo.com better because of the highlighting option. I think in education students will be able to see at a glance what they found interesting about a site because of the highlighting.  When students have so many classes keeping information at their fingertips like this will be very helpful.    

Virtual Worlds and Learning

I started my research on Virtual World Learning in general, not specifically Second Life and I found some very interesting articles.  I was disappointed on the dates of most of the information I was finding, everything seemed to be from around 2006.  I thought this was very old for such a dynamic topic but then got to thinking that maybe this is when the popularity was increasing and it was the big buzz.  So maybe, just like good teaching, the ideas and concepts behind Virtual World learning might not have changed that much in the last 5 years or so. 

The most informative and helpful article was by 3 men; Tony O'Driscoll from IBM On-Demand Learning.  Eilif Trondsen,director of  Learning on Demand project at SRI Consulting Business Intelligence and founder of eLearning Forum.  Jay Cross author of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance.  From looking at their credentials, I found them and their opinions very valuable.  Some of their main points were: (my thoughts/comments will be in italic)

·         Virtual learning will not replace other forms of learning but it will enhance the experience and transfer of learning.  Virtual Worlds won’t every replace good teachers (hopfully).

·         VWs are somewhat a solution looking for a problem. VWs can provide a platform for collaboration, community, and commerce, but so can a sofa. Aside from entertainment appeal, what's new here? The most powerful learning technology ever invented is conversation, but most VWs lack the horsepower to entice people to converse naturally. Time will bring voice, more expressive avatars, and higher resolution to VWs. When the virtual environment functions much like the real world, conversation will flow-making it easier to mentor, coach, teach, brainstorm, discuss and manipulate prototypes, and to collaborate on problems. Sometimes I think we’re putting the cart before the horse with the technology, and I’m skeptical of those that make money off education and kids.  But if it’s useful and engaging enough teachers should be using it. 

•         VWs are what we like to call a Learnscape. They are learning/working ecosystems that by their very nature embrace:

• Flow, balancing inactivity and challenge in just the right proportions to keep people moving through the experience
• Repetition, which allows learners to try-and-try again as many times as they choose.
• Experimentation, encouraging learners to try new things and learn in the process.
• Experience that is much more engaging than other digitally mediated technologies.
• Doing, because practice makes perfect and VWs are big practice fields.
• Observing, because if you're not ready to act now, you have plenty of opportunities to observe others and learn from them.
• Motivation, because all of these factors culminate in an environment that cultivates teachable moments at every turn. Motivation is baked into the context as people want to learn within it.  All of these take TIME and classroom time is so precious, I would hope most of this could be done as homework.  But then we keep saying kids should be restricted to how many hours a day they spend in front of a screen.  It’s a hard balance.
•  The industrial-age approach to learning put a wall around schools and training departments. This "protected" the learners from outside interference and distraction. Children were kept at school rather than sent out into the community. Workers left work for training. Talk about artificial life! It's so much more effective to learn from the real thing, and VWs are the closest we've got for practicing without customer consequences.  I agree that getting them out into a community is a great learning experience.  I can imagine how much time and money could be saved it a 3^rd grade class went on a virtual field trip to the zoo instead of the real thing.  However, if the real experience is available it should be obvious choice. 

I enjoyed doing this research on the bigger picture rather than specifically Second Life.  I did poke around in SL using my Tracy Mellow avatar again, she was brought to life in my Communications class and has been idol ever since.  I’m not a huge fan of the virtual world, it just doesn’t appeal to me.  I first landed on Moose Beach Info Hub (58,57,24) and heard all these people talking about strange foods they have eaten.  It was strange and intrusive I thought to be walking in on someone’s conversation.  So I teleported to UCMO and walked around.  I had never noticed the little airport before so I checked that out.  Is there an aviation department at UCMO, or is this just for fun on SL?  Then I noticed a brown unicorn and went to investigate, but it turned out to be the UCMO Mule, so I pet him and took my picture.  I never chatted with anyone, I’m not a real conversation starter and didn’t see anyone to chat with at UCMO so I just checked out the campus a bit more.  It’s fun and I appreciate getting to spend a bit of time in SL.

Mobile Technology- I LOVE my iPhone

I was looking forward to February 10, 2011 for several months.  I didn’t sleep well the night before worrying about out of stock situations.  Verizon and Apple were finally ready to work together and I got my first iPhone.  I’d never had a smartphone and had been out of Mac loop for about 5 years and missed it terribly.  I’m having a lot of fun with the phone and see a ton of education and learning opportunities.  There are some limitations but I think the advantages far outweigh them.    

            Tablets and netbooks are similar in their performance but netbooks have a keyboard attached.  There are after-market portable keyboards but if you really need to type that much a netbook might be the best choice for you.  The iPad 2 has 512 MB of memory, up to 64 GB of storage, up to a month of standby battery life and is only 1.3 pounds, it starts at $499.   A Dell Mini netbook has 512 MB of memory, an 8 GB of storage and 4 hours of battery life, weighs 2.28 pounds and starts at $399.   The keyboard on a netbook is not a standard full size but is very close.  So depending on what you want to do there are pros and cons to each.  If you are briefly browsing the web, watching video or keeping in touch with social networking sites than a tablet is really all you need.  But for any more complex tasks like playing games getting home or school work done a netbook or pc is probably going to be a better choice, but mostly because of the keyboard.  From a teacher and computer lab teachers’ point of view I would also be considering durability as an issue.  I would think the protection of the top would be a good idea.  But they don’t have the apps you can use on the smartphones and tablets.

            The apps are what make the smartphones are what make them so fun, productive and useful. I’ve been using Evernote as a digital organizer.  For students it would be a great way to keep track of assignments, taking notes and organizing your schedule.  I also love the app Vocab Ahead, Word of the Day.  I get the email version, so I didn’t have to pay the $1.99 fee.  It gives a word each day and the definition is animated.  It’s great for SAT prep.  I also use a few apps with my 5 year old and 3 year old.  They like the newness of the phone and touch screen, so it’s very fun for them.  Preschool Memory Match is a great one for increasing their memory and is available in easy, medium and hard.  Kids Math Fun is a great one we’ve been using a lot with my kindergartener.  There are versions for different grade levels and it’s free.  ABC Tracing is one both girls have been using and really enjoy.  The only negative I’ve heard about this is that the kids are not using a pencil to learn to write their letters, they are using their fingers but it is great in my opinion for learning letter recognition and how to make the letters. 

            For my own personal school work I have downloaded the Blackboard app, but I have only used it a few times.  I just don’t have the need since my situation does not call me to be far from a computer for long periods.  I do check my discussion board on Facebook on my iPhone a lot.  I can read new posts when they are posted and give them some thought and then respond when I’m at my computer.  I feel connected and up to date but it doesn’t make me feel like I can respond and get actual work done.  

Moodle vs. Blackboard

     I think both Moodle and Blackboard applications are great, and it was a lot of fun to see behind the scenes. I’ve often wondered how and what the instructors see from their point of view.
     After a few sessions of poking around, I think both offer the same capabilities so the only major difference I see is the layout or look. So I think it is totally subjective whether one is better than the other as far as the feel goes. I think their functionality is the same, but I don’t know if they will interface with district Student Information Systems well or at all. So from a teacher stand point, I think they are both great. I will say I preferred the layout of Moodle, it just felt easier to navigate and I found the vocabulary they used more straight forward. Ever since my first class with Blackboard, I’ve found I had to dig and dig to find what I was looking for and never felt like I was digging in the right place. I haven’t had to use Moodle for a class and have only seen brief presentations on it from other classmates in other classes, so I haven’t worked a lot with it. I liked the Moodle format where you add assignments and such from the calendar view.
     If I was in charge of picking one of the other, I’d have to make sure it worked well with the district Student Information System and if Moodle did, I would have to go with them. Who can argue with FREE. When I was first poking around, I kept saying to myself, “WOW, this is free?” It looks so professional and polished and it had every single choice any teacher could ever think of for creating an online class. As you can tell, I was very impressed. Go Moodle!!

Camtasia vs. CamStudio

And the winner is...CAMTASIA by a landslide.  The victory was a total embarrassment for CamStudio who showed no skill or any finesse.  Seriously, I had so much trouble with CamStudio and will never again use it.  I could use the so called software properly but when I tried to save to the SWF format I got error after error.  I uninstalled 3 times and continued to have the same problems and then started getting more and different errors.  I finally used my husbands older PC and got the SWF html page to not give me an error, but I don't know if what I submitted was viewable.  I took the AVI format and saved it in Windows Movie Maker and was finally able to save to Youtube.  I can't wait to uninstall for a final time and be done with it.  It has really given Open Source Software a very bad taste in my mouth and will be very hard pressed to try any more OSS again.  Camtasia on the other hand was FUN.  I've used video editing software for a LONG time, iMovie starting back in 2000. I've actually taught a class on iMovie and got my first glimpse of my dream job.  It was easy to use and fun to add elements to.  It came out great in my opinion, although I'd done the Evernote tutorial so many times on CamStudio, I'd lost most of my enthusiasm.
Here is the Camtasia version...

This is the CamStudio version...

Ed Tech Funding

I taught in TX for a short while but was very impressed with the standards and funding.  So when I came across this article about the very deep cuts, more so than CA for the next school year I was interested.  It talks about the BILLIONS they will be short next year and some of the cuts, especially to the ed tech funds they will suffer.  It got me thinking more and more about education funding and patterns I've noticed.  In my state of Colorado each  student funding is supposed to be cut by $500 and $600.  So class sizes will increase and non-essential teachers will be cut.  I was a non-essential teacher for 5 years, I taught in a computer lab. 4 of the 5 yrs I was part time and they only had a certified teacher in the lab because we were a low performing Title 1 school that got a lot of money thrown at us.  Most schools in our district have a para making $9 an hour in the computer lab, not to say they are not qualified, but they are mostly showing kids fun stuff on the computer and not working with teachers on quality lessons (in my opinion and from what I've seen).  I had a serious debate with  myself about home schooling my 5 year old next year.  She has 25 in her class now and it's only going be to worse next year.  I just kept saying to myself "This is not good enough for her."  It makes me so sad to think that public school, which I have been a huge advocate for, is not good enough for my daughter.  This degree in Ed Tech might be great but if no one has the money to hire me, than I don't know if it will do me any good.

Web 2.0 and Education

Web 2.0 and Education
     So far I’ve enjoyed this class very much. Not only because of the very interesting tools I’ve seen but also because I know this is the kind of stuff I’ll be using when I reenter the work force. I’m keeping a list of all the tools I’m using and adding them to my resume. It is very empowering to feel like I will bring something to the table when I go looking for a job.
     Since I want to go into the Instructional Technologist arena, I think Jing has been the most useful tool I’ve used to far. I’ve been able to help my parents out with computer issues they have had by showing them how to make Google their home page from 1000 miles away. I think with school financial resources at their limits, helping teachers and staff remotely will be very useful. If someone has a question on how to make Slide Masters in PowerPoint, I can easily make a tutorial and sent it to them electronically. This will save time and money.
     For classroom teachers, some of the Web 2.0 tools can make classrooms very fun places to be. Some of the presentation tools I’ve seen like Anamoto, Prezi and Blabberize can make boring, dry presentation really interesting. The practice sites like Cobocards for making flashcards, and Typingweb for typing practice and Zoodles for preschoolers can be great for rote facts. However, some of these types of sites can be more trouble than they are worth. Sometimes it may be quicker to make flash cards out of index cards. You still must analyze how you need to use the tool.
     There are also many Web 2.0 tools that I think will be universal in education in the near future if they are not already. There are many blog sites that students and teachers can host their blogs, I’ve used Blogger for this class and found it very easy to work with. Social network sites like Facebook, or ones geared to education like Graspr are great ways to communicate and connect. YouTube, TeacherTube and Woopid are very useful for tutorials on technology applications.