Flickr

My sister uses Flickr all the time, but it was through this class that I saw a link to classroom displays, pictures of bulletin boards and other ideas from contributing teachers who wanted to share their work with fellow educators! This is awesome because instead of us, newbies, having to "reinvent the wheel" all the time, it is much faster and easier to create and "re-create" projects and ideas from what has already been done.

I hope to post pictures of my students' work on Flickr so that the students can show their parents/friends, and other educators can see my students' achievements.

Furthermore, kids love to see pictures of themselves, so it would be exciting for them to see themselves working in the classroom throughout the year to see the growth that they have made.

Web 2.0 Winners

I chose Google maps. I know many people use this all the time, which is why I am not surprised that it was a Web 2.0 Award Winner. I personally use this countless times when traveling to an unfamiliar destination.

This past week, my class has been going over the metric system. I never thought to use Google maps, but this site can be used should I assign a project in the future. Projects could include students figuring out the distance in meters/kilometers from one destination to another through google maps. This is a great way for students to practice converting between metrics and using technology educationally. Not only can this site be useful in mathematics, but also in social science. Social science can use this site by having students find local spots that are historical and etc.

RSS Feeds and Bloglines

I have a few websites that I visit everyday. I never realized how much time I spend typing in the site name and searching for specific articles regarding certain topics. Subscribing to a site’s RSS Feeds makes it convenient for surfers because instead of them spending accumulated amounts of time searching, sites like CCN and OCRegister can be brought to them through their respective feeds.
Without being bombarded by ads or having to consume a lot of time visiting each time individually, we can use our RSS. RSS brings the “news” to us.

Learning about this not only saves me time, but also gives me the information that I need with just one click!

If I were to use this with my students, my students will also have easy access because I can post my feeds on my blog!

Oh the brilliance of RSS feeds! :)