Category Archives: Web

Comments?

seenoevil Just a short note – on the very slim chance that you actually subscribe to this blog, there was a nasty link left in comments some time ago. I have a feed for comments on my google page and while I removed the actual comment, it still shows up in my feed on google. It may have something to do with google and how it caches pages. If this is happening to you I apologize but am unable to remove it from the feed for some reason. I don’t know if this has happened in bloglines or any other feed reader so if you subscribe and don’t have the porn comment showing then I am glad – if you do, cruise by and leave a comment or two and maybe it will move far enough down the list to not be staring you in the eye LOL

Friday is Stop Cyberbullying Day

“Let me propose a radical notion: The weblog’s greatest strength — its uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled voice — is also its greatest weakness” Rebecca Blood

For resources and activities join StopCyberBullying.

I did some searching on ethics and blogging and found some things I really liked. At Rebecca’s Pocket I found a post that expounds on a list of blogging “dos” and the above quote. Worth a read. Rebecca Blood is the author of The Weblog Handbook.

1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.

2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.

3. Publicly correct any misinformation.

4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.

5. Disclose any conflict of interest.

6. Note questionable and biased sources.

The LibraryJournal has an article by Karen Schneider called The Ethical blogger. The article advises us to be transparent about the things we feel strongly about that might bias our posts, to cite our sources, and to admit our mistakes.

The next site I looked at was the CyberJournalist which had a detailed Blogger’s Code of Ethics. The main section headings begin with “Be honest and fair”. My favorite under this heading and one I think would be a great to build a lesson for our students around is to “distinguish between advocacy, commentary, and factual information”. The next section header is “Minimize Harm”. My favorite entry in this section was “Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by Weblog content”. The last section deals with “Be accountable”. My best choice here is “Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others”.

I hope you will go read the original articles and use this material to start discussions with your students. Your students could use this as a starting point to creating their own code of blogging ethics.

As Sarge on Hill Street Blues used to say “Let’s be careful out there.”

disagree

Follow-up On Kathy Sierra

In response to what happened to Kathy Sierra, a social networking site has been started by Andy Carvin at CyberbullyingHurtsLearning Now for discussion and resources to help educate everyone on Cyber-bullying. If you would like to add your voice or find out more you can go to Stop Cyberbullying and join in. Friday March 30 has been designated as Stop Cyber-bullying Day. This is a good time to talk with your children or students about the subject and maybe incorporate some ideas into your lesson plan. Bullying only works if the victim is alone –
Stephanie Sandifer has a great post on giving each other grace at Change Agency that I think is timely, well…anytime.

A great resource is the Center for safe and Responsible Internet Use.

If you blog with students there are some great discussion starters found on Andrew Pass’s blog and one in particular called Death threats is about the situation that prompted Stop Cyber-bullying. The discussion starters are linked to current events with thoughtful questions.

If you wish to place a picture on your blog like the one I have on this post there are some at Dangerously Irrelevant.

Kathy Sierra

One of my favorite bloggers canceled a speaking engagement and is unable to leave her home today because of death threats and sick comments on her blog and some posts on some other blogs that also referred to her.

She is not in education and yet she has taught me a lot. I wish I had some sage advice to offer her but I would be terrified myself.

As I read her post describing what is going on I couldn’t help but think it could happen to anyone. While she has the added public exposure of speaking to large groups (including SXSW) it just underscores that we really have no idea of who is out there reading what we write. I don’t think we should stop writing, and blogging is not responsible for a stalker. This kind of thing could happen to anyone at any time. We do need to be aware of our surroundings online though, just as we should be mindful of our surroundings in any public area.
We talk about teaching our students how to post online with a positive image and there is so much controversy about what should be blocked and how we should protect our students, but there really isn’t any such thing as truly protecting them. We can take measures to the best of our ability, to make sure that their educational experience online and off, is safe – but what it comes down to is no one is ever safe in this world. We just have to prepare them as best we can and hope it’s enough.

My prayers are with Kathy tonight as they are every night with the kids in our community. Sometimes when you have done everything else you know to do, that’s all that’s left but it’s no small thing. So stay safe Kathy and I hope the person is caught soon.

Weekend Tips and Links

Vicki Davis has a new look to her blog and a new video site – Teachertube! There isn’t a lot there yet but a few good things can be found so I will keep checking. Here is a video tutorial for creating a poster using Excel.

Excel Poster Video
I tried to embed it even though WordPress was not on the list of sites it stated it works on but no luck. Hopefully they will get it working soon.

Google has a new option out for Picasa for Mac users – Picasa Web Albums. You can upload from your computer or export directly from iPhoto. You get 1GB storage and you can designate whether the albums are public or private.

I learned another tip for Macs tonight. Veteran Mac users may already know this but I’m still relatively new to macs and still find some great surprises! I do a lot of cutting and pasting, sending or saving bits and pieces of web stuff and now I can highlight some text and drag it to Mail App and it will open with the text already in the body of the message ready for me to add an address and click send.

This also works for TextEdit, Stickies, and you can even drag the text onto the Safari icon in the dock and Safari will open with the google search results.

Reflecting on Web 2.0 and where We Are going

I read blogs. I read constantly. I read while I am watching TV at night and before I go to sleep. I read in the morning while I am drinking that first cup of coffee and getting ready to start the day. There is so much to read and every day it seems like I find a new resource on the internet. I search, I check out other blogger’s blogrolls, I create google alerts to help keep up.
It seems to me that while the points of view are varied, the themes are similar and so much work is being duplicated. It takes passion and reflection for the amount of writing that gets done and while I love blogging, I can’t help but wonder if this is just a step in a process that will at some point make all these little sparks of light come together in a more cohesive manner.

The majority of blogs that I read are written by educators but when I step back, the picture looks more like a great, spread out class of students, all trying to move ahead but because of the size and distance and time – the direction is unclear and the pieces are hard to put together.

It’s wonderful that we have so many choices for web 2.0 tools but paradoxically those same choices seem to slow the journey. As soon as I think I’m getting the feel for a new tool there is another one to learn. I’m grateful that there are voices out there willing to share what they are learning but I can’t help but think it is all part of a transition and that we aren’t quite “there” yet. I’m not even sure what “there” is.

The collaboration that goes into wikis is a step and the blogs that have guest bloggers or are written by several people is a step. The conversations that grow with the comments and links back to other posts on other blogs are a step. Online conferences are another piece. It just seems like we should be moving towards something that gathers these pieces into a less unwieldy unit.

RSS has taken us to a new level where we can pick and choose what information comes to us and because of it, the information gets there so much faster and easily than it used to. Tags are also a part of the process. I can’t help but think that at some point we will have a more efficient system of grouping the information as it comes to us in a way that allows us to see where work has already been done or is being done simultaneously so that we can quickly see what needs to be built on or tweaked to fit our particular school or situation.

How many of the new web 2.0 tools will be around in a year? Five years? Ten? Look back five years and try to remember where your school was on the technology adoption timeline. We’ve come a long way kids and we are moving forward faster all the time. How can we share more efficiently? If we are heading somewhere – where will that be? What will information literacy look like in the near future? What will happen to primary sources if the writing that takes place is mainly on the internet? Do you as a blogger keep hard copies of posts?

Help Site Done Right!

I spend a lot of time looking for answers to computer questions on the internet and I usually find what I’m looking for but help websites are not usually fun. Technology Ninja is a great resource with a definite coolness factor. It is only for Macs and I will be spending some time looking around there. I wish there were similar sites for Windows and Linux.

The site has a very dramatic color scheme and a very cute Ninja character that oversees the question and answer format. You can access the archives through the category list on the sidebar or use the searchbox to search by keyword.

It looks like students ask most of the questions and I can see how this would be valuable in a one-to-one computer situation.

The site is actually a blog so you can subscribe and read the latest questions and answers in your feed reader but it is worth it just to go look around on the website.

Google Does Some New and Not So New Tricks

I went to my personalized Google homepage this morning just like every morning. My “must-reads” are there as well as a quick peek at my Gmail inbox, and the day’s weather report. There was a new present from Google this morning! Themes for my page. I confess to liking pretty wallpaper, screensavers, and themes so this was a fun new toy. The themes seem to be customized for your zipcode – they get darker at night or with bad weather.

Google advanced search also does something that was new at least to me – you can specify usage rights! The choices are – not filtered by usage, free to use or share, free to use or share – even commercially, free to use – share – or modify, free to use – share – modify – even commercially. This is a great thing to share with your students, I would advise that they still check for license issues but it will certainly narrow down the possiblities of accidently violating copyright.

A lot of the options that are available from the main searchbox if you know the syntax are also available here. If you don’t know the syntax or don’t want to be bothered with looking it up you can still narrow down your search results by making use of the advanced search page and just selecting the options you want from the drop down and check boxes.

Another nice tool is available if you click More at the right side of the main searchbox and then click Still More you get a list of other Google places you can go to. Click on Alerts to create a search that sends you updates on the topic of your choice. This is a great research tool. You type in your search terms and then specify news, blogs, web, groups, or comprehensive. Then tell Google how often you want to be updated, enter your email address and you will get everything you always wanted to know about your topic right in your inbox, You can edit the alert if you find your results need a bit of tweaking, and you can even place a module on your Google homepage so you can see your information anytime.

A Continuing Conversation about Student Blogging and Possibilities

The conversation that about students posting online has continued both at Assorted Stuff and at The Not So Distant Future . This is such a hot button issue for everyone involved and I hope we can continue to approach it from a positive perspective. Maybe the next discussion after asking questions about how students would feel if various people in their lives were to be the audience for their post, should be the why. We know that part of a student blog is going to be for the grade, but as well as an accidental audience there are also hidden surprises.

For me it is when someone else responds to a post or a comment I’ve written and the gains can be the connectedness, the respect of my peers, friendship that grows from the communication, a clarification of my own thoughts – those sort of things that you don’t think about going into it.  It can be the sense of community and the gratification that comes from finding that others are having the same thoughts, fears, ideas, and experiences that I am and the excitement that you get from sharing those things with others.  They are also not really things we can tell students about because the experience is going to be different for everyone. So how can we get them thinking about the possibilities?
1. Why are they writing?

2. What do they want to get out of it?

3. When they reread what they have written, how do they feel?

4. Would they take the time to read it if it was written by someone else?

5. Do they care about what they have written?

6. What are they passionate about?

7. What stories do they have to tell?

8.  What are they saying between the lines?

9. If their blog entry was a time capsule, what would they want to say to their future self?

10. How can reflection and commenting help them in their educational experience?

Any ideas for additions to this list?

Student Blogging With Positive Online Image

I’ve been doing some reading about student blogging and giving some thought on how to help students look at what they post to promote a positive image online. In particular this post on Assorted Stuff made me realize the need to be more intentional about communicating the things we should be thinking about. This is aside from abiding by a school’s Acceptable Use Policy and whatever a teacher decides to include in a rubric. This is more in the form of discussion with students about how and why they should filter what they post online.
Here are some ideas I’m thinking about:
As a student blogger, before you post, read what you have written with the following in mind:

  • What if a future or present employer read this?
  • What if a family member or friend read this?
  • What if this were printed in a local newspaper?
  • What if this were written by someone else – what opinions might you form about the writer?
  • What if a teacher or student at another school read this?
  • What if your future teenage child or grandchild was reading this?
  • What if this comment were on a screen in front of an educators conference?
  • What if you were trying to find the person who wrote this – are there any personal clues?
  • What if a family member read this?
  • What if your future spouse read this?

Even if commenting on a blog is restricted, you can be quoted and a discussion about your post or comment can find it’s way to another blog. Everything on the internet is searchable, clickable, and quotable so it is always a good idea to step back and look at what you have written with an objective eye.

Google some people to see how clickable they are. If you are a “blogging” teacher you could even Google yourself or someone else in the community that would be familiar to the students.

Any ideas to add to this? I would be glad to hear them.

My Personal Reasons For Blogging

The internet reflects how fickle people are. I have been reading about blogging. Some say it’s the be all, end all. Some say that it’s already history and are already off to the next greatest new thing. There are opinions about what should be in a blog, how to drive traffic to your blog, how to make money on your blog. Some writers say you shouldn’t post personal articles on your professional blog. There are some blogs I read for pure enjoyment of the writing, some I read for information, and some to make me think.

A post by Doctor Bell made some of the thoughts I have had about all this bubble up to the surface. E-mail was discussed in another post and I have some thoughts about that as well.

I am easier to reach by e-mail than I am by phone. I use it constantly and have long passed from the stage where I forwarded every story that came down the electronic pike and rarely have time to read all the forwards that are sent to me. I try though and for a very personal reason. I recently had a relative in another state who had had a heart condition for years. She had stents, by-pass surgery, valve replacement, and through all that kept going as much as possible. She sent several email forwards a day and usually I just read them and deleted but tried to answer a few from time to time with a note. Last month one of her replies led me to realize that she was on hospice care. several weeks later we got news that she had passed. My inbox is emptier and the crazy thing is – I miss it.

That said, I want to list my reasons for blogging. I started out again, for personal reasons. My husband was very ill and we spent almost two months altogether in the hospital. I stayed with him and the hospital was nearly a hundred miles from my kids, my job, my church, and my friends. I felt completely overwhelmed during that time, and very much alone with my fear for my husband, my worries about my kids, bills, and the future. Writing and reading became my survival. I wrote about what was happening so I could look at it and say “okay – that’s that – now move on”

As Dale recovered, I was able to read and think about other things. It helped to think and write about a future I was starting to believe might exist. I was starting to hope again.

I know that there are probably only a handful of posts that have anything of any real value to people not actually related to me and even fewer that have any real original thinking in them, but I also see a growth process happening.

Blogging has become a habit I enjoy. The reasons are varied and in trying to break it down it comes out like this:

1. To crystalize my thoughts about something I am learning.

2. To share something I have learned with others. Even if I am reiterating information I think of it like rain on the pond. Each person posting on a topic is a drop and the ripples spread out from their little drop. Eventually the whole pond gets covered.

3. To pass on a memory, hopefully to my kids or to share with my brothers who live in other states and who I don’t see nearly enough.

4. To keep a record, maybe just for myself of what is going on in my life and around me.

5. To have conversations with people that can teach me, who I would never have the chance to get to know any other way.

6. To satisfy my addiction to note-taking (in a place where I can always find them LOL)

7. To make it pretty – it’s just fun for me to play with. I will occasionally change the theme and in the process of changing and adding things I learn more and more about the mechanics of the software.

WordPress and the Akismet feature do a great job keeping spam away. I will get the occasional spam comment entry but so far I have gotten an email telling me to moderate the entry every time.

My little corner of the blogosphere isn’t going to shake the world or make me rich. I will post occasionally about the personal daily muddling of my life. My grammar will NOT be perfect and I may even let a spelling error get through now and then. If you come here expecting some deep thought provoking conversation and find it, no one will be more surprised than me. It could happen – life is funny. I hope Ma Bell will keep blogging as well – her part of the pond needs it’s raindrops. If blogging is becoming old hat then so be it – I like old hats. They keep the rain off my head.

Google Custom Search Engine

I played around with a tool that’s fairly new to me today. I now have a Google custom search box at the bottom of this page that will let you search this blog and my work blog. I wanted to see how easy it was to create a custom search engine using Google’s Co-op and found it completely painless. You follow the link and the click on the custom search engine link and then just follow the steps. They consist basically of giving your search engine a name, a brief description, keywords, and URLs you want it to search. Google creates the code and you paste it into your blog where you wish it to show up. The only thing I changed was adding tags to get it to display in the center of the footer.

I will make one that searches all my favorite blogs. I’m not sure if there is a limit to how many URLs you can add but I wouldn’t be surprised as there was a limit to the suggested keywords you could associate with your search engine (7). The search box is wider than I would like for my sidebar which is why it lives at the bottom of the page. You can even “brand” your searchbox with an image you have uploaded to the web if you like. You can open it up for people to collaborate – either publicly or just those you invite. There is also an option to have it added to your personalized Google homepage.

Combining this custom search engine tool with Google Notebook, Google Calendar, GMail, Google Docs and Spreadsheets and tabs on your personalized homepage gives you a free and very practical research and productivity center.
It would be useful to add a custom search box to a classroom blog that limited your students research to sites you designate. This requires you being able to edit the theme of your blog. Some other ways to use this tool would be to create a search engine to browse items you are looking to buy and limit the search to places like ebay, amazon, and buy.com. A search engine that only returned results from designated newspapers would be useful for debate students.

I hope you found some useful information here and that you will give the Google customized search engine a test-drive. Search some blogs from my education category

Google Custom Search

Link, App, and Information Overload

The TechChickTips blog had a list of Links and one in particular caught my attention. It’s called Litesum and it was created by high school freshman Jake Jarvis. You type a topic in the searchbox and it brings up a summary of the corresponding wikipedia page. This led me to start searching for web apps or mashups that were created by students. While that search took my down several very interesting rabbit holes I didn’t have a lot of luck. I am still searching and if anyone out in the blogosphere knows of more I would be very interested in hearing about them.

One of the sites I found while I was searching for student created apps was called TerraClues. TerraClues is a game played using google maps. There are already some games created but you can create your own too. Using text, pictures, and maps you leave clues that send the player on a search of google maps to find whatever you want anywhere in the world. There is even a teacher area where you could use the game with your class. There is a tutorial game that you can run through without signing on for an account that gives you examples of the type of clues and how it works. Fun stuff!

Another great idea that I was led to was on the Tech Savvy Educator site (which will rapidly be on my blogroll – great stuff here). To recycle keyboards take the keys off and use them for scrabble! The board is created using excel and there is even a hint to tell you that the squares need to be 3/4 inch. I just happen to have a collection of dead keyboards and if anyone at school is interested in giving this a whirl I would be glad to supply them with a sack full of keys!

This site led me to a lesson plan and directions for students creating “MySpace Like” webpages on Medieval characters. The link to the directions is here and the link to the students’ completed pages is here.

This landed me finally at Think:Lab, a blog I plan to spend a lot more time! Lots of food for the brain there. I read a post there that taught me a new term – Participation Culture. You can click and go to an online presentation by Steve Borsch of Connecting the Dots. This term makes more sense to me that web 2.0.

Our students are completely at home with technology. They’ve never known a time without computers and the internet is a part of normal life for them. As they navigate through the information and often as in the case of Jake Jarvis, not only participate but create new ways to utilize it, I look ahead with anticipation to see just where technology will take us next. The interesting question is who will be driving the bus?

A day With Debate Students and a Link

Imagine spending an entire Saturday with a group of teenagers all in business suits (including the ladies) going room to room with carts and dollies full of file boxes (their research and case cards) and hearing snippets of conversation involving politics, the latest unemployment figures, and vocabulary that includes hegemony, solvency and paradigms.

Sounds kind of surreal doesn’t it? That’s debate. A bunch of smart stress puppies putting in many hours (along with their exhausted coaches) and traveling many miles hoping to get just a few extra speaker points and maybe end up with a college scholarship.

In general I found a great bunch of kids, able to hold their own in a conversation better than many adults. They support each other, fight like cats and dogs, critique each other and whoa to anyone from the outside that treats one of them badly. Teams from different schools pass each other in the halls asking how they did in their last round and commiserate on the shortcomings of their last judge. I love their humor and drive.
I got to watch two rounds and as always was amazed at the speed and the level of intensity. I was tired and I didn’t have to do anything but listen!

One student shared a link with me that I want to pass on. The site is called Progressive U and their opening paragraph on their about page says the following:

Do you want to regenerate brain cells killed by countless hours on MySpace?*Do you need rehab to cure your Facebook addiction?

Are you exhausted from wading through piles of nonsense on Xanga and LiveJournal?

Stop banging your head against a wall of pictures, and put your brain to good use!

Progressive U is a blogging site for teens with a vision:

The mission of Progressive U is to provide young people with opportunities to discover, analyze, and discuss the values and democratic principles that promote a healthy, just society.

Youth can also earn scholarship money here. A $1000 and two $500 scholarships are available. The rules are available on the site.
This is a great use of blogging and as they say on their site ” Friends don’t let friends waste all their time on Myspace”

I’m off to bed now, watching debate wears me out and time springs forward tonight.

One Foot in the Future, One Class Stuck in the Past

I’m going to do a little complaining and the names have been omitted to protect whoever!

scenario 1: A class that entails completing paper lessons and recording audio on cassette recorders and sending them through the mail to be graded. The students must purchase said cassette recorders and blank tapes, record themselves, put the cassettes in envelopes and then postage has to be paid to send them to the appropriate person who must then put the tape in another cassette player and listen to grade the student. Several processes, several costs, and quite a bit of time is entailed here.
scenario 2: Student records audio on a Mac using GarageBand, sends it to iTunes, exports it as an mp3 file and I upload it to a webpage where the appropriate person needs to do nothing but click to listen. Or the student can record on a PC using Audacity and saves as an mp3. No extra cost, no extra procedure comments could be added immediately with each assignment.

The world may be flat but some colleges prefer scenario 1.

We are trying to bring our teachers and students into an age of literacy at the high school level but how frustrated will they be when they get to college and find out that those skills won’t be put to use? Probably as frustrated as I am right now.

Combining RSS Feeds and Organization

There are several tools out there for combining your RSS feeds and I just happened to try Feedblendr tonight. There was no registration necessary and you simply type in a title for your new feed and then enter URLs for the feeds you want to combine and presto – you have a new feed that you can enter into your reader and it will now display the headers for articles of all the feeds you combined. Tonight I created one called the Dynamic Trio – I entered the links for the blogs of Wes Fryer, David Warlick, and Miguel Guhlin and ended up with one feed that displayed all three of their headers. You also have the option to display it as a webpage and read it right then. It was fun to play with and hopefully will be another tool in my battle to tame the wild blog bloat. I want to read more than I have time for and I want to organize but at the same time I don’t want to miss anything. I’m planning to create a few more tonight and do a little consolidating.

This is part of my resolution to pare down, down size, organize, and clean out. Maybe it’s spring, maybe it’s the growing pile of things I want to get to but can’t and they keep calling to me and distracting me. I recently started making notes on colored index cards. I bought myself an accordian file folder sized for the cards with tabbed dividers and a card file box. The folder is fairly flat and goes with me in my laptop case and as it gets full I transfer cards to the file box. I have a card in the front of the folder and one in the front of the box with the color coding legend and I am slowly trying to shrink the piles of printouts of articles I have saved because of some bit of information or ideas I knew I would want to refer back to by transferring the information to my cards and filing it. I keep a supply of blank cards in the front of the folder and extras to replenish my supply in the file box. The price is reasonable and for a terminal note taker like myself it gives me a place to keep and find all those bits and pieces of information. Now I have mentioned this system in my blog for the whole world to see, I’m hoping it will keep me motivated. Besides, if I get more organized I will have more time to read all those newly combined feeds!
Now if I could just come up with a better system for my closet…..

Random Weekend Tips

These are not my own ideas – they’re bits and pieces of things I read this week that I have found useful. I’m so thankful for folks who freely share their knowledge on their blogs. This post is more a reminder to myself about the things I have found and need to put to work.
Gmail – I love it and use it all the time. I read a post this weekend though that made me slap my forehead. I send email to myself On links that I want to check out later or if I’m on the PC and find something that pertains to the mac or linux, I email it to my Gmail account so I can refer to it when I’m on the machine it relates to. I often forget about the post or forget which post it is and I have used the search function in Gmail to find it later but semantic keywords or tags in my subject line to make the process easier and quicker. I will from now on! The article I was reading suggested using the Google toolbar for the Gmail it option. I have resisted this one little Google option thus far but I may have to give it another look.
FireFox – I have used FireFox for several years. The only time I use IE is when I need to check for updates on a PC. I constantly have multiple tags open and in the morning, after I have made my latte and I’m ready to spend a few moments reading and waking up before the rest of the family starts to appear, I open my usual morning reads. Gmail, my work email account, google homepage, and DIGG, and sometimes the local paper. I have a brand new folder on my bookmarks toolbar named MorningReads that contains the bookmarks to those items. When I click on the folder it lists them with one extra item on the bottom – Open All in Tabs. I can now click that one item and all my usual links open in tabs across my browser window. As I excitedly tell my kids about this little trick they roll their eyes and tell me I’m such a geek. They think that they are insulting me but I can’t help it if the idea of clicking once instead of four times makes me grin!

Google Notebook – I have been using it for several weeks and have fallen in love with it. You can install an extension so that you can right click on any webpage and a contextual menu item called Note-it is now a choice. “Noting it” saves it to your Google Notebook. It can be an entire webpage, a picture, a quote, a URL or anything else you can right click on. I have been saving items to one big notebook, knowing there had to be a better way to organize but not knowing quite how. This weekend I learned that you can drag-and-drop anything anywhere in the notebook. I spent the last hour creating new notebooks, adding section headers, and dragging things around to organize them. You also have the choice of keeping your notebook private or sharing it publicly. You can export items directly to Google docs and spreadsheets, you can print a notebook, and you can add a note and just type or paste a note directly into the application – great for research, organizing a project, or collaboration. If you have a Gmail account you automatically have access to this application and if you don’t have Gmail it’s worth it just to have access to all the Google apps. I still use a main notebook to capture and then open my notebook and move things around to make them easier to find. I also have the Google Notebook widget on my personalized Google homepage so everything is right there and visible which just seems to work best for me.  There is a great information and tutorial Powerpoint to download here. (warning clicking starts the download)
New Online Application – Mindomo. Online mindmapping. You have to sign up for an account but it’s free. I’d like to see Google add something like this to it’s suite of apps (along with a presentation piece which I’ve already mentioned on this blog). I made a little practice map and it was very straight-forward and simple to follow.

Support Net Neutrality

The very fact that I can publish on this blog makes me a supporter of Net Neutrality. I am going to make an intentional effort to learn more and be more vocal about this issue because to me the internet is the last place people have where freedom of speech truly exists. We read newspapers, listen to radio stations, and watch news shows on TV stations that are all controlled for the most part, by large media companies and so we see, hear, and read, what they want to put out there.

While there are issues in education dealing with kids safety online, validation and quality of information, copyright issues and more, I would rather we work to teach our students how to deal with those issues than open up my browser and find nothing but what my provider decides is appropriate or newsworthy.

I want to be able to choose for myself, and even if no one ever reads what I write, I want to be able to publish it. I want those same things for my kids. If you are interested in learning more about Net Neutrality there is a video you can watch that will give you some food for thought. It’s a little long so get a cup of coffee and have a notepad handy in case you want to jot something down.


Save the Internet | Rock the Vote