Desmos Critique - Additional Tool

About: 
Desmos is an online calculator that allows students to graph functions of many different complexity levels. This online graphing calculator has a great interface, allowing a student to immediately begin using it as soon as the student arrives at the site.

Likes:
I like this program because it is so smooth to use.  As soon as you get to the website, you can start using the program.  It's free, and even linkable to your Google Drive so you can create graphs from Google Drive.  Because it's free, students who cannot afford a calculator can use this at home to do their homework.

Dislikes:
Desmos isn't nearly as powerful as I would like it to be.  It would be nice to have a program that can be a direct substitute for a TI-84, even though it's a stretch to expect that such a powerful tool could be free.  For students who need a calculator, they need internet access.  It would be nice to be able to use the utility offline, and make it transportable.

Uses in the Classroom:
Desmos is a great utility for students who may not have, or cannot afford, a graphing calculator. Many teachers have class sets of graphing calculators, but due to expense, many do not let the students take those calculators home to do their homework. So, while this tool isn't necessarily designed to be used in the classroom per se, it is a great tool for students to use at home in order to be prepared for class.
Overall: 

Artifact:

Tagxedo Critique - Artifact 1

Artifact pictured above.  Snowflakes are a type of fractal that is often discussed in mathematics.

Overview:
Tagxedo is a word cloud creating program that allows you to use websites or lists of words in order to create graphics for many uses.

likes:
Tagxedo is very easy to use.  Infact, if you google Tagxedo, you are able to immideately go to the sites create page and start creating word clouds.

Tagxedo is also easy to understand once you get to the website.  If you click "create" on the google page, you are immediately taken to the interface to create your word cloud.  The interface is very easy to manipulate in order to create your graphic.  Every time you change something in the interface, the graphic graphic updates in order to show an up-to-date word cloud.  During your manipulation, you can even upload your own pictures to use as the word cloud.

Dislikes:
Tagxedo has a shop to purchase products from the site which means to me that the creators of the tool are not necissarily 100% dedicated to the web 2.0 tool.  There are advertisements posted on home page which are a bit distracting.  If you want to have full use of the site, you should create an account and pay for some of the more intracate/advanced options.  During the creation of the word cloud, you can only paste words into text box, cannot type directly into the box.  While you can connect words with a ~, you cannot cluster certain words together.

Uses in the Classroom:
This tool is a great alternate way to show knowledge and can create a very interesting presentation piece - especially if a student takes the time to copy the most important words first in order to make them larger.  It can also assist students in organizing their thoughts during a presentation by discussing the smallest to largest words, or vica verca.

Overall:
This is not a large tool that would not make prominant in my classroom.  I would allow my students to use this tool to create a different way of presenting information, especially if they need a visual component to the project.

Quizlet Critique - Artifact 2

Overview:

Likes:

While I was working on my artifact, my computer's browser crashed.  I was devistated that my work had all dissapeared.  When I went back to the site later in order to start over, I had a wonderful message asking if I wanted to continue working on the project I had started or if I wanted to discard it.

My heart soared.

Other things I enjoyed about quizlet is how easy it is to log in using my already established educational google account.  It's nice to have one more way to connect my educational tools.  I also like how easy it was to begin creating sets of flash cards, or quizzes.  Because many people use this tool for second language learners, you are required to establish which language you are using. To make this easier, the site has easily clickable languages that are most used.  You do not have to wade through a long list of the languages of the world

Dislikes:

In order to make full use of the site, you must have an account.  The creating of whole sets of "cards" is very time consuming, especially if you are writing in two different languages.  Further, you may need to adjust your computer settings in order to use the keyboard associated with the language you are trying to use.  Because the tool is so easy to use, more complicated math types such as "greater than or equal to" signs are impossible to include depicted the same way as one would hand write the sign.

Uses in the Classroom:

The uses of this tool in the classroom are vast.  Quizlets can be created to study vocabulary, work through various problems, practice through quizzing yourself, and more.  For the math classroom, I can see myself using this to help students learn vocabulary, and while it is possible to teach procedure through these quizlets, it is difficult to learn or practice procedure.

Overall:

I had fun using quizlet to make the artifact below.  It was fun and entertaining on my part, and I would hope that my students would find it a unique way to practice mathematics.  However, if I were to use this as a consistant tool, it would be time consuming and hard to pull together.  The quizzes require a student to type in verbatim the definitions used in these flash cards which can lead to very high levels of frustration.

Artifact:

Podcast as a Tool Critique

Overview:
Podcasts can be use as a tool in any number of envioronments.  Podcasts provide a way of communicating with a large group of people in an individual way.  The formats for podcasts are limited by the imagination of the person creating the podcast, but typically has some formulaic elements such as the podcaster's name, the date, and location of the podcaster in the intro.

Likes:
Podcasts are a great way to get information out to a large group of people.  What is nice is that you don't have to get that large goup of people together in one place in order to distribute said information.  Listeners can listen to the podcast from anywhere they have acess to the internet allowing a multitude of comfortable locations for listening in today's technological society.

Podcasts are extreemely diverse.  As said earlier, similar to formats for creating podcasts, the subjects those podcasts cover are as diverse as the human mind.

Dislikes:
In a world where we have been continuosly required to be visual people, it can be distracting for people who are required to listen to a particular podcast to actually listen to it without going off and stimulating their eyes elsewhere.  It is for that reason that I prever vlogs or enhanced podcasts.

In the Classroom:
Podcasts are great for getting additional information out to your students that they aren't necessarily going to be tested over, or that you think they may find interesting.  They are a great tool for students to listen to instructions and then attempt to work problems at home through step by step procedures where you expect your student to pause the podcast, then play again when they are ready for the next step.

Overall:
While podcasts are often entertaining, people can easily get distracted away from the podcast, especially if they are young and distractable.  Podcasts tend to focus on the topid at hand and do not stray, hence allowing a resource for direct, straightforward information.  However, this information may not be accurate.

Wikispaces Critique

Wikispaces is a wiki hosting site that allows you to have numerous people contributing to a website.  More specifically, a wiki becomes a website that allows collaboration between users in order to edit its content.

Likes:

I am a huge fan of collaboration.  I enjoy working with people who are just as passionate about working on a project as I am.  Using wiki's and their hosting sites create a great place to collaborte.  I like how a wiki's end product shows the teamwork of a number of people who work together.

Dislikes:

I dislike the limitations that pop up in wikis when applying them to potential mantematical topics.  It's very hard, if not impossible, to use math type in a wiki.  Students would have to post a picture of the math type in order to incorperate math into a wiki.  If another student sees an error and attempts to fix the error, they would have to create a completely new graphic.

In the Classroom:

In a society where teamwork is becoming a requirement, and with common core, students will need as many options to work collaboratively as they can possibly get.  That in mind, wikis provide a very important option for students to work together and provide proof of that collaborative effort.

Overall:

I like wikis overall.  In education, they have more useful/pros than cons.  Unfortunetely many of those cons appear when one is attempting to use wikis in the mathematics classroom.  I look forward to working with wikis more and talking with other math teachers who use wikis so that I can make it be a positive tool in my educational toolbox.

Record MP3 - The easy podcast tool

About:
Record MP3 is an online recording tool that easily allows for the recording of podcasts and other sound recordings and then allows you to save those recordings in mp3 format - the currently most widely used audio format.

Likes:
If you pay attention, following the directions, it's very easy to use and even easier to begin putting out mp3s.  There are very few steps required create an mp3 from start to finish.  The tool allows for any microphone that is compatible with the computer you are using at the time.  Something else that I liked about this is that because your recordings are saved in mp3 format and the site gives you a link to your recording, those recordings are compatible with almost all other presentation software.

Dislikes:
On the front end, you really need to pay attention to the instructions or you will not be able to record, or you will be spending a lot more time than necessary to prepare for recording.  You need to be in an absolutely quiet room in order to create recordings because when you initially playback, the recording may sound one way, but on speakers presenting to a class, you will hear all the background noise during the recording.  Finally, I didn't like that you absolutely must remember to save the website given for your recording or it is lost forever.  You still have the saved mp3, but if you need the website it has been saved to, and you didn't save it, you've lost it.

Uses in the classroom:
This is especially useful for the classroom as a great alternative for shy students.  They can pre-record their assignment, and, instead of speaking in front of the class, they can provide the narrative, while manipulating the presentation, or working out the problem on the board.  Students can use this to create voice overs for various projects.

Overall:
Record mp3 is an amazing tool.  The website that hosts the tool is completely ad free - if there are ads, then I didn't notice then the many times that I have been to the site.

Diigo - The Social Bookmarking Tool

About:
Diigo is a social bookmarking tool that allows you to bookmark a series of websites and organizes them by the tags or categories you associate with the various websites. You can then form and share lists with other people to share those resources.

In the classroom: With Diigo, you can quickly compile a list of sources for your students to use for various projects along with various lists for different projects. Your students can use this to annotate webpages for critique, take screenshots, and send them back to you in order to complete assignments online.

Likes: In using Diigo, I have found that there are a number of positives to using this particular social bookmarking tool. First off, it's simple and straightforward. There isn't a in the way of visuals with this tool - something I like. It's very plain and practical in the way of a tool. I like how the websites can be narrowed down by list, or viewed by tag. Further, I also like the idea of using annotations to give a better description of each website

Dislikes: There is a lot of text. It would be nice if you could pick an icon out for each website in order to quickly peruse your bookmarks. I also wish that there were some way to permanently sort your bookmarks in alphabetical order.

Overall: Diigo on a personal level is a great idea in order to share bookmarks with friends and family – perhaps used as a type of wish list/ongoing Christmas list. In the classroom, Diigo has many more uses, especially in helping students learn/understand what a reliable source is through the restriction of websites. It will also prevent students from going overboard with resources for projects.

Netvibes critique

In my technology class, I've been introduced to a dashboard site that I can use as my homepage.  Netvibes is a dashboard site that allows you to add RSS feeds and various widgets to your dashboard in order to have a one stop shop to look at these various sites.

Likes:
Once you get used to the site, it becomes quite intuitive.  It is very easy to add RSS feeds from URLs in order to create a one stop shop to read news about the topics you've added to your site.  You can also rearrange these into tabs or folders that arrange your feeds into various topics.

An interesting read that I'm super excited to have is the Huffington Post Education feed.  Huffington Post does a great job of incorporating both sides of the coin with news in education.

Dislikes:
You definitely need to have some understanding or a willingness to hunt and peck for what you are looking for.  The ability to add gadgets is fairly simple, however many of the gadgets are broken or no longer work.

Overall - Netvibes is a great way to bring various news sites together to make it easy to read news about all the topics that interest you, but in the way of extras, it is very limited.  The fact that you can bring all these different news sites into one place far outweighs the limited use of the extras or gadgets.  In the classroom, I see Netvibes as a great tool in social studies where students need to keep up with current events.   After setting up a public dashboard with reliable news sources, a teacher could give this to students as a one stop resource to finish assignments relating to current events.  Further, in the math classroom, current event news in mathematics can be set up to connect what students are learning to the real world, along with real world applications that further their understanding of the need to learn mathematics at a high school level.

Cool Cat Teacher - Educational blog critique

This week I was asked to explore various educational blogs.  The large majority of blogs that I chose to look at were blogs that had won awards for their sites.  The  blog I've chosen to critique today is the blog called "Cool Cat Teacher" at http://www.coolcatteacher.com

At first glance, the site is very cluttered.  Take a deep breath and look again.  Deep down there are a number of amazing resources for teachers.  So.  Take a deep breath.... again.

Likes:

There is *so* much information! Under the banner that lists all the sites that have given Vici Davis awards, there are a number of buttons with topics that her blog posts have been sorted into.  Along the right (after the adverts for her various products), you are able to search her archive to read her blog from oldest to newest blog posts.  

Dislikes:

Advertisements for products that she has created are plastered all over the place and it's a little challenging working through the ads for her products to find the grit of the blog posts that promote teaching practices.  Also, she hasn't been a teacher for very long.  She has experience teaching, and she claims she teaches full time, however she also has written two books, does speaking engagements and/or professional development classes, and spends time creating materials.

Overall:

The site has some good information - if you're willing to find the information.  On the surface though the blog is more of a one page advertisement for all her materials.

A Brief Introduction

Greetings!
My name is Sue Shonley.  Above is a video I did in a previous technology course that gives a little more information than what is entailed in the blog.  Feel free to watch it at your leisure!

Personal introduction:
I'm half Korean on my mother's side.  Most of my family lives in Korea with a few cousins scattered around the United States and Canada.  The first part of my childhood was spent in Minnesota.  I moved to Middle Tennessee my sophomore year of high school.  I graduated from a very small school north of Cookeville, TN and started college at MTSU with my major in interior design.  After three years, my father, who had been fighting various forms of cancer, succumbed and passed away.  It was a very troubling time in my life and I decided to take stock of my life and decide if I really wanted to continue with interior design.  During that time, I got a job as a substitute teacher and caught the teaching bug.  After meeting my now fiance, moving to Knoxville, and exploring my options, I decided that the dream of being a teacher would become a reality.

Educational Introduction:
I have now finished a bachelor's in mathematics with a minor in education.  I am currently working on my masters in secondary education with a concentration in mathematics.  As of now, I have finished my year-long internship and am working on my last three masters level classes to finish my degree.  Most importantly, I am waiting for my teaching licence to come in the mail! So exciting!

The purpose of this blog is to explore web 2.0 tools.  My previous internship experience was at a 1-1 school and it has inspired me to take time to focus on learning as much about current technology as I possibly can to prepare for my future in education.  I truly feel that technology in education is here to stay and if we as educators are not willing to stay on top of current technologies and their uses in education, we will not be the best teachers we can be.  It is for this reason that I'm creating this blog - so that I can remind myself of what technologies I've explored and maintain a list of uses and critiques for those technologies.