Thursday, April 16, 2009

Zotero

Zotero Pictures

Listed above is my website with pictures that I made using Zotero. I thought that the Zotero software was very interesting and also could serve as a very useful tool in education. I think it would be very useful in allowing you to bookmark pages or articles about something you want to teach in class. I also think it serves as a very useful way of having all of your information in the same spot and easy to access. I would however like to see them make it easier for you to share your bookmarks and sites with other people.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

PrezJing

http://www.screencast.com/users/mozerj/folders/Jing/media/1735f06d-9013-4819-aba1-90c125e07991

This is a video of my Prezi presentation that I captured using Jing. I thought both websites were very interesting and have numerous uses. Prezi is a nonlinear PowerPoint like presentation tool, while Jing allows you to capture what your doing on your screen. I espcially enjoyed making the Jing because it was unlike anything I have ever seen. The Prezi that I designed was just a basic one because this was one of the first times I used the site. It provides a little insight into Google Sketchup 7. Enjoy.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Twitter While You Tweet....in School


The main way I thought of to use Twitter in the classroom was to use it as kind of an update students did at the end of each day. In this update students could include maybe something they learned, what their favorite part of the day was, or an event that had taken place by changing their status. I thought this would be a great way to keep their parents, grandparents, and you their teacher informed with not only what they did but how they were learning and how much fun they were having in doing so. I also thought Twitter allowed the students to share information about their day in a really quick and efficient way.

The twitter tool that the students would be using in this activity would be the status update. As mentioned above the status update would serve as a means to let people outside the classroom know what is taking place inside the classroom. To use the status update application you just simply sign in, click in the “What are you doing?” box and click update. To see this update you would have to tell parents and grandparents to add the student as a friend on Twitter.

I think that the use of Twitter in the classroom could be very valuable in communication with students and parents. The method I mentioned above is just one of the many ways it could be implemented in the classroom setting. Some other ways that I thought of included:

- Having a high school student follow a person that currently was in the profession they wanted to go into. (i.e. – future lawyer follows current lawyer)

- Communicate to people if school is canceled or late because of bad weather.

Once again I think Twitter serves as a great means of communication between the school and its students, and also the school and the community.

I would also use Tweeterology to help inform parents of upcoming weather threats. This would also serve as a way of letting people outside the school know about possible upcoming cancellations or postponements. Using this application would have parents "ahead of the curve" and could more easily plan what to do with their children for the day if school were to get canceled.