Thing #20 YouTube, TeacherTube and Zamzar

I never get tired of watching this video. I think it is one of those that might touch somebody each time it is played. Hopefully, we are the ones helping to close this gap...

Thing #19 Web 2.0 Awards List

So much information in one place! I am very impressed with the Web 2.0 Awards List; I feel like I can keep exploring this one until this year's winners come up and then spend the year discovering the new ones...
I have already said before how much I liked Delicious; to me this is really a great help since all your favorite sites are organized and available from anywhere. I was surprised to see Pandora on the list. This is one of my personal favorites. You can create a free account and listen to uninterrupted music of your choice.
For school, I can see the usefulness of many of these sites. I liked the mapping sites like Wayfaring and Google Earth. Google docs can be use as a collaborative tool as well as PBWorks and Wikispaces.
I can see students being very motivated to create project products using tools like Flikr and Picasa.

Thing #18 Online Productivity Tools

I had used Google Docs before to collaborate with others while taking a class and it is a great tool to have for free. Open Office was interesting to explore. I really liked the templates available and how you can contribute to the site with your own templates.
Advantages: Collaboration, accessibility and easy to use
Disadvantages: Not being accessible from inside district, having to be online with the danger of losing your data

Thing #17 Rollyo

Rollyo was a challenge for me...maybe because I discovered Delicious first, but trying to create a list of pages from my favorites didn't work for me. I truly think this is a site for the very advance tech learners. I will keep trying since I have an account now...

Thing #16 Wikis

I am actually participating in a "wiki camp" at the same time I am playing with blogs. I think the two go "hand in hand." I will have at least two different uses for wikis:
1. With other teachers
2. With students
Being a technology specialist, my job revolves around troubleshooting daily tech problems and providing teachers with the opportunity to incorporate technology into everyday learning. I could create a wiki to target both of these areas. The wiki could have pages that will include:
Tech troubleshooting resources
Tech resources for teachers
Tech lesson ideas (divided into content areas and grade levels)
With my students, I could create units in which they will be getting information from the wiki, and then editing and adding to it.

Thing #15 Library 2.0

Reading the different perspectives from The OCLC Newsletter about the library 2.0 just affirmed my opinion; when change is happening, we have a duty to be pioneers. With the shift of the traditional library to a web 2.0 library, librarians have to embrace this new way of exchanging information. I think this blog is a great place to start. We are not only being exposed to the latest tools available, but are also getting an incredible sense of awareness about how the way learning is happening in today's world.

Thing #14 Technorati

The Technorati experience was interesting. I do believe this is a site for "advance" bloggers. I had to watch their video to understand how to navigate their site and even after that, I was not able to find blogs that I would follow.
I did claim my blog (that was cool), and I added their "favorite" button to the bottom of my blog. Their widget tool was not available...I will try again later; I feel like I need to spend some more time in Technorati, but now that my blog is there, I know i will.