Mrs. Lena R. MacLean

Week 3

Social Bookmarking is a way of sharing information where groups, or individuals can shared websites that they find valuable. I created my first hot list "MacLean's Hot List" on Diigo. At first, I found this a bit confusing. I totally see the benefit of high lighting, commenting and tracking reading and research materials. I think it saves a great deal of time, effort, energy and TREES. By this I mean that I would usually print valuable information and manually highlight the information I want to gather for research. I found it a bit confusing to set up. After a few hours of playing with the tags and links and installing the toolbar, I think I did get the hang of it. I can see this being valuable in departments that want to share information. I can see it being very valuable in personal research.

RSS Feeds(Really Simple Syndication) & Google Readers is something I am already seeing a benefit from. I registered every classmates blog in my reader. This is a time saver because It automatically posts changes. This saves me time, because I don't have to go in and search for information. The changes are send directly to me! I think this is fabulous. Especially with our class wiki. I know if and when there is activity without any searching. I also added several other blogs and I can see if updates were made.

Media sharing is a great way to not only teach, but students can demonstrate proficiency. I have students that do not do well in a traditional classroom setting. They hate exams and do not do well on research papers, or projects. If I give them an opportunity to collect images, sound and video they do the most impressive projects that will clearly demonstrate their understanding of the topic at hand. I took a philosophy class and I had a difficult time understanding a reading on PLATO. I went to You Tube and within a few minutes, I found a short video that clearly described the reading and I had no problem reflecting on the reading. I also use video websites to learn new tricks in technology. For instance, I wanted to learn how to build a flash slide show. Within a few minutes I found a clip that some one shared. It took a bit of time, but I was able to accomplish my goal. The best part, is that it was FREE. I think media sharing is a great tool and resource. I wish there was a better way to filter information.

In school, we cannot access you tube. This frustrates me. I do understand. Teachers can get to You Tube, but students cannot. I use a down loader to access and take a copy of the video off you tube. Students can use them in PowerPoint. I have a selection of the videos in a folder on our network drive. After this weeks reading, I plan to create a wiki to share the information with my classroom. I think media sharing is a valuable tool. It just has to be censored first.

Here are some of the resources that were mentioned in the readings.
http://streamingvideo.wikispaces.com/
http://www.schooltube.com/
http://teachertube.com/
Take a QUIZ, just for fun!
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=97