#22 Audiobooks and #23 Downloadable Media

I confess, I am an audiobook and ebook junkie!  They always say that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.  Just don't know where to go for therapy.  I like to download audiobooks for my smart phone so that I can listen to them when I go for a walk/run or when driving to and from work.  Ebooks  are great, I use an Ipad and have numerous ebooks.  It has cut down the number of books I carry between classes when I am teaching and has prevented me from building more bookshelves at home.  At one stage I calculated that at the current rate I was accumulating books that I would need a at least two more rooms built onto my house!!  Now that is a thing of the past.  I can have thousands of books on my Ipad and they are totally portable, I can even take them on holidays (just have to find the money for the holiday). Try taking your bookshelves on holidays!

Copyright is always a problem.  I tend to find that I will spend the money on books that really interest me and I think that the vast majority of the population would be the same.  I would be interested to know if your carbon footprint is smaller by using an ebook rather then buying the book.      

#21 Youtube and Teachertube

Youtube and Teachertube are staples in my teaching.  They are great teaching tools.  I love trawling through Youtube to find clips for my teaching.  For Biology there are some great clips out there.  You should listen to the Glucose song or The Central Dogma Song (DNA to RNA to Protein).  The students really engage with them.  Have a listen to this one:

I am sending this one to my mother next Mother's Day!!! Oh and if your students think your Youtube clips are lame, you can be assured they are never going to forget them.  You can not get a better revision tool than that.

#20 Podcasts

Podcasts are awesome!!!  Have always wanted to say that and the freedom of the Internet and this new, more social Web 2.0 platform has allowed the impossible to be possible.  Really does bring a tear to the eye.  I have used podcasts in my teaching in several ways: 

• Made podcasts to illustrate particular concepts taught in class
• Directed students to podcasts to reinforce particular concepts
• Have had students make podcasts to demonstrate their understanding of particular concepts (they loved it, and they learnt so much!!)

What more can I say without shedding more tears. 

#19 Rollyo

Rollyo is a very useful Web 2.0 tool.  It is a simple concept and is great for teachers when they want students to use a particular bank of websites.  I have decided to use it for when I am setting assignments or web quests.  The only negative with such a tool will be checking regularly that the websites are current and that it isn't to restrictive for the students.  Don't want to stifle their creative talent.  

 

 

#18 Wikis

Wikis! What would the world be like without Wikis? The Launch of Wikipedia has unequivocally changed the Internet landscape. In education it herald the end of setting assignment tasks where students regurgitate already known information! It really begs the question as to why many of the assignments educators set are still of this old paradigm.  It definitely is time for change.  Instead of shunning Wikipedia we should embrace it and setting assignments that use Wikis!!!  Mmmm, sounds like a plan.  I had a bit of a look at Moodle (which is an online content manager that many schools use) and it has a Wikis function (is it one Wiki? two Wikis? is it a real word yet? I think I am getting side tracked, but it could be a new word, I just need to get everyone using the word!!). I feel a new assignment is starting to be born!!!  I sometimes feel just ever so slightly sorry for my students.

#17 Delicious

Social web browsing! Sounds like an oxymoron to me!  To be social and web browse???  Is that like holding your breath while breathing!!! However, I must admit it does sort of work.  Except and here is a little warning, don't download the Delicious toolbar if you are running the newest version of Windows Explorer (not sure how FireFox would go).  I had a week of Explorer crashing every few minutes.  Since I disabled the Delicious toolbar I haven't had a problem.  That aside, I can see some real benefits of using Delicious.  I use to perform large website searches finding various resources and then cut and paste the websites into Word documents and filing them.  Delicious completely does away with this and it is faster and a much better retrieval system (try tagging a Word document, not to mention the document clutter it created on my desktop!).  As for Delicious replacing my Bookmarks/Favourites, it might in time but I am still a little bit old school and love to have them saved where they are safe and sound on my personal computer.   

#15 RSS and #16 Subscribing

RSS where have you been my entire life?  I think this is true love.  Or at least the digital equivalent, if love truly exists in cyberspace.  RSS have solve a major problem for me.  I have recently encouraged my students to download a series of biology podcasts.  Unfortunately, this has involved me periodically checking to see if a new podcast has been posted on the website.  Well, not anymore! RSS to the rescue!
 
Ah, and just when I thought life could not be any sweeter (see love does this to you) I have taken RSS to the next level and incorporated them into my first love Moodle.  Now, every time my students open up their class Moodle page, up pops a list of the recent posted biology podcasts in the right-hand activity list!!!  How awesome is that!!!  I don't quite know why my students don't feel quite the same as I do about RSS?  I really do want to share the love.

#13 MySpace and #14 Facebook

Mmmm social networking.  It really isn't my thing.  I don't know why?  Is it a genetic thing, a guy thing or just a severe case of wanting to lead a completely disconnected life?  After coming home from work I cannot think of anything worse than checking my Facebook page to see what my friends are doing (most of who are really just acquaintances anyway).  Or the other one I really dislike is keeping the page open throughout the day, just to see who might say hi.  I can see its uses though, it is definitely a great tool for keeping track of relatives and friends.  Just like Flickr I feel privacy is a real issue with social networking sites such as Facebook.  These sites are really designed around sharing of information and are not really geared towards limiting information. So privacy to such sites is really is a conflict of interest.

#12 Flickr

Another account!  I must say the number of accounts does become just a little staggering.  Flickr seem to be a reasonable photo sharing site.  I can appreciate its use, especially in being able to distribute pictures to friends and family.  My only major concern is privacy.  There is nothing better than having your photos safe at home.  Does this make me sound really old? Will I become so disillusioned that I will start keeping my life savings under the mattress! I hope not!!!  As for posting a photo, once I obtain some from my secure location I will upload one to Flickr.  Stay tuned, should be good.  What a wait!  Here they are:

#11 LibraryThing

I must admit I was slightly sceptical about this Web 2.0 tool.  I couldn't exactly see myself cataloging all the books I have at home, nor am the type of person that chats endlessly about books!  But I did give it a go and I was pleasantly surprised!  Where I really see the potential of this tool is in searching for and keeping a catalogue of books that I am interested in reading. It was reasonably straight forward (could be made easier)  to find books and import them into my "wish list" library.  I think I have enough reading now to keep me going until Web 10.0!!!

#10 Online Image Generators

I had an experience recently that I have just made sense of.  I went out to buy software that could manipulate photos, in particular that would allow me to make cards or invitations.  One such software package that I had used back in the good old days was Printmaster and wondered if this software was still available. When enquiring I received a lot of blank stares and not many places sold such software.  Nobody told me that most of these tools were now freely available on the Internet!!!!  By the way Printmaster is still available! (it is only 25 years old!!!) I think it is up to version 10. I won't tell you what version I used to use.

I had some great fun manipulating photos.  Here is a motivation poster.  I thought that one on perseverance might be appropriate this far into the course. 

#9 Virtual Worlds

I have mixed feelings about Virtual Worlds.  I can see them as excellent teaching tools. Take for instance Van Gogh in second life.  One of the islands on Grid has a gallery with all Van Gogh's paintings.  In this gallery users are able to walk into the paintings. See the following two YouTube clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UQfm8f-BDg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehSeGeBAbzQ&NR=1

I can see the value in a teacher taking their students to this gallery so that their students can develop a deeper understanding of Van Gogh and his artwork.  I also like the idea that the creators of second life will close off the island to other users while you take your students through (a great safety measure).  Where I struggle with virtual worlds is are we just feeding young adults with what is coined as hyper reality. Are we really teaching them that the virtual world is where all things are possible and that our real lives are just dull and boring in comparison.  I wonder, will we end up with a generation of people that spend more of their life in the virtual world rather than in the real world?  Something for us all to ponder!

#8 iGoogle

Well it has been a while.  My blogging has started to fall behind my Web 2.0 experience!!!  Sometimes it is a little too much fun finding out about the next Web 2.0 tool.   iGoogle is fantastic, I don't know why I haven't used it before.  There are so many different widgets you can use.  Check out the Satellite Tracker, World Sunlight Map, Science Daily, Scientific America, New Scientist, Moon Phase, Wikipedia, Google Map Search, IMDb, National Geographic, GodTube, oh and one for the Science teachers out there Science Teacher Lesson Material, and for the Molecular Biology Geeks (I don't know any of those but if I did) Molecular Biology Sequence Tools and Genome Biology -Latest Articles.  What is really embarrassing is that is only some of the widgets on my iGoogle page!!!  iGoogle is now my most used homepage.  With this much information at my finger tips I feel smarter every time I boot the computer!

#7 Google Books

Google books is a nice little search feature.  I found it to be quick and has plenty of information about the books I am interested in.  I would use such a search engine both at work and at home.  I really like how it will show up other books by the same author. Found a few new books to buy and read!!!

#6 Google Maps

Google Maps is a real favourite of mine.  I use it regularly on my Ipad and on my mobile phone.  It is a very simple map program and seems to have a better search capabilities than most of the GPS Navigators.  I have attached a Google Doc which details my virtual holiday.  Had a great time. Enjoy reading.  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pVBCsSUeIhX_WNs7VJdnzPS9A86LgYr8P16F3lvZtrg/edit?hl=en#

#5 Google Docs

My first Google doc!  Wow, works much better than I thought.  It does have the limitation that you need a reasonable Internet connection.  I didn't find any problems with it lagging and it was easy to use.  I had to look a few things up and found the Help function far more user friendly than with MSWord. I was also impressed that you could import pictures and use tables.  I will link my Google doc to the the Next post as it is applicable to Google Maps. 

#4 Web 2.0

I must admit I was one of those people who thought the Internet was getting an upgrade.  We were going from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0!  It seemed an exciting prospect, a whole new Internet world, but what a task!  Considering the number of years I had heard the term Web 2.0 it certainly took some time to upgrade all the computers on the Internet, I really don't know why people thought the Y2K was difficult!

I am so glad I read the article by O'reilly on "What is Web 2.0".  While it did make me feel old, considering I have used Netscape and just about every other program mentioned in the article, it gave me some perspective as to what Web 2.0 is.  I can see that Web 2.0 is more of a shift in the way the Internet is used and in the way web tools are developed.  It is more about users creating and modifying the data present in databases rather than about Internet companies just delivering their own content through the Web (what happened with Web 1.0).  I like the comparison of  Britannica Online vs Wikipedia.  

#2 Create A Blog

Hi my name is Simon and today is the first day of my Web 2.0 Journey.  Blogging is not something I have had any experience with before and so this is definitely uncharted territory.  I was very surprised as to the ease at which I was able to start blogging. I have held a Google account for several years but never tried blogging through it!!!  I am sure I have much more to learn over the coming weeks.  I really am looking forward to the challenge.