What happened?

I do not have enough time to even write everything I want to say! It has been a busy week of written assignment after written assignment. TPTE486 has two assignments due and TPTE 355 & 352 are not much different. I liked the ole days when I had time to watch some TV. Now I come home and start on homework. Boo! Delicious is useless but Glogster is pretty neat! That is all!

Did I really just make a twitter account?

Yes, yes I did. Every once in awile I promise myself I will not get caught up in "some silly fad", i.e. facebook, toms shoes, and twitter. Fortunately, I had suceeded in two out of the three cases. Until Thursday, when I created a twitter account because I did not want the presenters to waste their time and mine. I do not plan on using this web 2.0 tool in my classroom but could see it being useful for parents to stay connected to teachers. I added tosh.o, the dali lama, and several music artists but I did have trouble distinguishing some of the authentic twitter accounts from fake or in memorium twitter accounts. Honestly, I have to rate this web tool 4 out of 10 based on utility alone. My life does not need to be updated each and everyday on the world wide web.

Amethyst is a Rock Star!!!!

I loved the activity we did today because I recently bought my girlfriend an amethyst ring for Valentine's Day. I did not know much about the stone but thought it looked nice, plus purple is her favorite color. The rock star activity also gave me some perspective on how students can use the worldwide web to learn  content. I thought the activity was simple and straightforward so almost any type of learner could accomplish this task. The website we were supposed to use looked a little tacky so I searched Wikipedia and gathered all my information from there. I see nothing wrong with my students doing the same for a small activity such as this. Honestly, I love 486 class because we are allowed to have some freedom to explore. Speaking of exploring...Wordle! Wordle is an online tool that allows users to paste text, url, or delicious file and form a 'word cloud' with text size appearing in reference to amount of word use. I think this tool is interesting but the uses do seem somewhat limited. I only enjoyed forming word clouds for five to ten minutes. Wordle fatigue... I guess!

WEBQUEST: Search for the perfect website

As the title may suggest, I assumed webquesting was some form of cheesy, interactive ride at an amusement park. However, I soon learned of the amazing virtual world of webquest where teachers compose websites to take students through an assignment. Typically the assigenment is a detailed project related to some unit of study for the grade level. The webquest includes both a student and teacher page. The student page includes background info. sometimes with links, instructions, conclusion, etc. The teacher page includes instructions, standards, uses, etc. I will definitely use a webquest with my students at least once a year to promote collaboration, communication, and project-based learning.

PREZI !!!!

Our class chose wiki tools to present and my partner, Cassandra, and I drew Prezi. From what I know so far Prezi is a wiki tool designed to design presentations. This tool is free to everyone but accounts can be upgraded to higher capabilities. Cassandra and I decided to make a Prezi about Prezi. I may even use this wiki tool to create a prezi for my 355 book report.