My Favorite Web2.0 tools / Post #4

Web2.0 is a wonderful resource for web based functionality. It's a great resource, especially for people like me who are unaware of the immense amount of possibilities of applications and services on the web. More importantly, this site shows you how to use such tools. "Cloud computing" is another way to explain it--the idea that a local computer is not as necessary as it use to be.  I could probably spend all day pocking around all the tools, but being a MAT student, there just isn't much time for such things. Being "in the cloud" may soon be in most of our vocabulary banks. It truly is a more efficient and also safer way to compute. You can use any computer to access your projects, and they are safe from simple computer malfunctions or human mistakes.  In undergrad, my computer crashed when I was just about finished with my ten page final paper. I lost it all! If I had been using google docs or some other Internet program, I wouldn't have had to rewrite the entire thing from memory. I also like that with most of the tools, you don't have to download something to your computer, or purchase something at the store and then install it. Picasa is especially cool. I like that I can put my photos up and access them from anywhere. I can also share my photos easily with my friends and family. I am excited for the time when I can actually play around with all these wonderful web based tools. For now, I've mostly just tried a bit of many.

I was placed in the "Tiny URL" group. At first I though: big deal, you can shrink an address. I didn't think it was all that useful since you can link a URL to  a word pretty easily. Then I played it around with it, and after a bit more thought, I realized the significance. It's much easier to share a link via email, for instance. You can just shrink it down, past the new link into your email, they click on it and boom. End of story. It takes just a few seconds as well. You simply go to http://tinyurl.com/ , paste your long URL into the space provided, hit Make TinyURL button, and bam, there it is. You can also customize part of the name if it is available. You can also secure privacy if you wish to keep the actual URL private for some reason. 

In regards to increasing a teacher or student personal productivity, is just that it gives you a smaller link to share. For teachers, you can write the "tiny URL" on the board being more confident that the students will write the address correctly. The smaller URL would be time saver for the classroom. This would in turn enhance learning by increasing productivity. You would be spending less time getting them to the correct site and more time would be left over for actual learning.

3. Screenr

Screenr is a screen cast. It is an easy recording system that records your voice and the images on your computer. You can use it as a tutorial if you wanted to show someone how to do something on their computer. You can do so many things including, power point presentations with voice overs, demonstrate how to use different search engines, make a mini lesson for your students showing them the elements of a plot line, and many other things.

The first thing that popped into my mind for using this in my class room were readings. In a creative writing class I could have my students read their poems or stories and have images they think go with it in the background. This would promote fluency because they would be hearing their reading and know what to work on. They could share it with me and I could give them pointers as well. By hearing their own narratives, they will have an easier time at revision as well. They could also share the read version of their writing with other students to get a critique on the actual story and not be distracted by most grammar. If they are extremely shy and never want to read in class, I could use this as an alternative. I could also have them recite poems or passages from stories and choose images that they think relate to the piece. I believe reading out loud is an important aspect of literacy and this program could be a great tool for this. 

Here is my example of what a student could do. I read the intro to a short story by Marquez and had three images: a picture of Marquez, the book cover, and a piece of art I found with searching for images of the story.