5. Web tools

      The podcast gave some great insight to programs that are available on the web and can be utilized in the classroom. These "Web 2.0" sites and tools are more advanced than web 1.0 tools used in the past. I personally think that all the tools mentioned in the podcast can be very helpful, all to their own extent. One tool that I find very useful is YouTube. YouTube is a site that has all sorts of videos on all sorts of topics. I believe it can be a great source for videos that pertain to standards and lessons. However, this site can quickly turn unsafe for students. There are great educational videos out there for teacher and student use, but they must be found in a safe way. I also like the use of twitter in a classroom sense. Twitter has grown to be a very popular app and has proved to be useful in many aspects. The podcast talked about how students could follow professors or other educational handles and view content that way. I had never thought about using it that way. Teachers must be aware of which sites are compatible with which operating systems to be able to effectively use them. Chapter 5 explains how they must also be aware of their system's processing speed and access memory.   

     The podcast introduced a site to me I had never heard of called Diigo. This site has many helpful tools and aspects that I believe can be very helpful as a teacher, or to have students use. Users are able to collect, annotate, organize, and share all on the website. With collect, one can save and tag sources to come back and visit them later. With the annotate tool, one can annotate web pages and pdf's directly as you browse online. You can organize your links, references, and personal input in a structured research base. And then you can share any work with your friends, classmates, or associates. There are many tools on this website that are very helpful and could be very beneficial in a learning environment. 

     I really like Diigo because of easy to use tool, and the set up of the site, itself. The site is very aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate. The site has graphics that are cute, colorful, and all around inviting. The site has clear buttons to navigate the site, and easy tool bars to help. It is easy to sign up, and the tools are very supportive of any research that needs to be done. One aspect that I love is the sticky note tool. You are able to put sticky notes on anything you are reading and keep them there. You can go back later and use the sticky notes as notes to write on the organization outline. 

     Concept mapping was very new to me before last week. I am not sure why, but from my educational background, I have never had a teacher or professor that used the maps as a learning tool. So this was new for me, but I found them to be a great way to show difficult information to an audience and transform it into something pleasing to read and study. I liked the webspiration classroom because it was very easy to use and create the perfect concept map. I think next time I should work to make my concept map more complicated, and improve my map by thinking more outside the box. I thought the whole assignment was a great introduction into the many ways concept maps can be used at any grade level. You can easily add more information for a secondary class, or keep it simple for a K-12 lesson. I enjoyed learning the benefits of the map.