Thing 16

RPC and the Teacher Guide
I already introduced my english teachers to this resource last year and one tried it. It was helpful for the struggling students. I hope to intoduce it to more students this year.
I think I may have my students invovled in the inventors fair sign up for this project. Since I only see them once a week it is sometimes difficult to keep them on task in between.

Thing 15

Puzzle Pirate was interesting to explore. I have played SIM type games and also the Pop Cap type games but never together. I think I could get very addicted to this type of game. I can see why some schools might block this because it seems to take up quite a bit of bandwidth. It was blocked at my school and I went to the public library to try this out. I am sure the kids next to me were wondering what an adult is doing playing games at the library. I can also see that this type of game might be useful in learning how to interact on the online environment. It is great to see the creativity of all the computer programs out there who continue to tweek and improve.

Thing 14

Library Thing
Interesting way to keep track the books you are reading or have read or recommend. I like that I can add it to my blog and share with others what I am reading. Another way to keep in touch with others in the field. I am not sure if I would use it much with my elementary students but I think my highschool students would enjoy it.

Thing 13

Productivity Tools

I chose iGoogle since so many of the features so far have had Google as the owner of the product. Now I can surf between many sites and my RSS and Gmail. I see this as a useful tool but would spend to much time rearrange things for a bit. It is very easy to use. I like the feature of moving the gadgets around and minimizing

I was not able to get the calendars from the website article to work so I used the the Google calendar. Extremely easy to add events and delete. I just would have to get into the routine of check it. I think I am a bit old school with a paper calendar still.

I am not sure if I would the list sites in my library. I like to write lists but not sure I would log on to create one. I think the biggest reason is that I am not always close to a computer. If I was mostly at my desk during the day I might use it.

I looked at backpack and I think I may try it some time. My brain has had all the new information it can handle today.

Thing 12

I can see myself never coming away from the computer by just exploring these social media sites. Power to the people seems to be the way the top sites are posted. The Diggit site felt like a familiar set up for other social networking sites. Newsvine felt more like going to a news site like BBC.

I can see why these sites would be helpful. You can see some of the current topics of interest and keep up with popular news articles. I think the students at school would find these sites of interest because they can input on what is on the website.

I knew these sites existed but I had never visited them before. I am not sure if they are productive in say a research sense but it gives you several perspectives on the world with being able to see others comments.