Thing 13

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Free jigsaw by dumpr.net


I feel there are many things that this can be used for in class. I think students can take pictures for a project and do something creative with them. It gives them something fun to do.

Outside of the classroom I could have a lot of fun with these types of sites. Since I have two children it would be fun to allow them to make funny pictures of themselves online. I look forward to playing around a little bit more with these sites.

Thing 12

The use of Flickr in the classroom would be a great asset. Students could use Flickr to find pictures for a project. For example, if students were doing a biography on a professional athlete and they wanted to find some pictures on the athlete they could look to a site like Flickr. The problems that arise with using a photo sharing site would be that not all pictures a student would encounter may be appropriate.

Thing 11

Digital Storytelling

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: storytelling)

I found this presentation and found it interesting. I am currently working on Digital Biographies in my class.

SlideShare would be a good thing to use in class and it would allow students to share PowerPoint's that they have created. The biggest problem that I feel I might face with this is that not many people are ready to make that jump into the World Wide Web as something that is useful in the classroom. Students are more open and willing to do things like this but I feel the problems rest more at the teacher level. While I know there are many teachers who are open and willing there are some who just don't want to "learn" something new. I am not 100% sure how to solve this problem. It would be interesting to see what could be done to handle that situation.

Thing 10

It would be nice to use google docs in the classroom. The possibilities are endless. The idea that students could write a paper and share with each other and do a peer editing all without paper being used is exciting. The problem being that not all students have access to computers to do this along with many of the other "23 Things." Not all schools have computer access on a regular basis either. While I see the benefits of Google Docs I also see the problems too. But one of the things I do like is that my documents that I create can be used anywhere and this has proven useful. I started typing up this blog on Google Docs at school and was able to go home and finish it there.

Working in the "cloud" does have some advantages. One of them being the opportunity to work on a project with people from all over. I can see the benefits of this in a group project in class. Where students are able to easily work on a project from home without have to get together for group work outside of class. Students essentially would never have to "meet up". I also find this as a disadvantage too. If we continue to do things online how will people ever develop "in person" relationships?

Thing 8

I like the idea of social bookmarking. It makes taking your bookmarks to other places easier. I don’t know how many times I have been at home or school looking in my favorites to find a link that I need only to realize that it is on the other computer. The prospect of taking those “favorites” from one place to the next without losing them is nice.

Using del.icio.us in the classroom would be great. I am currently working on digital biographies with my students and it would be nice to use this site. Having students create a del.icio.us account and save what they find they can have it for another day not to mention another place. I also like the idea that if I am doing research on something I can bookmark it and share it with my students in class and they can easily find it.

As I learn more and more about these “things” I am finding the value of using them more in my classroom. But first, I still need to have a better understanding of them myself.