Google streetview with additional photos

I've been checking out google's street view. You can now see user generated pictures of famous places by clicking on the thumbnails in the corner of the window.

Here is a link to short video about what they have done.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/02/news-from-google-world.html

Teleconferencing

My engineering class borrowed a teleconference set up from the district this week to have a couple of conferences. One was with Medtronics and the other with 3M. It was really cool to be able to interact with the speakers and listen to what questions other schools asked. I can see that an application like this would really be nice for getting current information to a large group of students in different locations. The only trouble we had was with band width, got a little slow and pixilated at times. My students really liked it so I think we'll try it again sometime.

Backchanneling

After class Tuesday I got to thinking about how I could use edmodo or Todaysmeet in my engineering class for them to communicate across the room while working on separate parts of their project. I talked with them today about it and they thought it would be very helpful for them to see what each other is doing without having to stop and talk about it. They know they need to do face to face communication at times but not all the time. They are always yelling across the room for so and so to check out this website or source that they found. If nothing else it should quite things down a little;) I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Clipmarks

I've been wanting to try out Google notes for awhile now but hadn't gotten around to it. Well I waited to long, they are not letting any new people sign up. I thought they just weren't going to support it with any updates but they are not letting anyone even sign up for it. They will still be somewhat supportive to those that are already using it in that they still have access to all their stuff. So I moved on to trying out Clipmarks. I think it will be helpful. There are times when I find a piece of an article or picture that I want to use and trying to copy and paste or even using Grab can sometimes be not quite right. I clipped a few things and sent them via email and it worked really slick. I'll have to use it some more to see all that it can do.

Cloud fun

I had my first go at using wordle tonight, it was fun. I think it could be used as a way to get some students hooked on a new topic. I was thinking that if I gave them the wordle before they started a topic and had them do some research on the words to see if they could make some kind of connection between them that they might discover some relationships beyond the standard curriculum. I tried to post the image but it wouldn't let me, not sure about the copy right stuff of posting either so maybe its a good thing it didn't work.

Scientists Solve the Mystery of “Flu Season”

I was going through my Reader feeds yesterday and came across this article that I thought was interesting. It talks about why we get more colds and flu in the winter than in the summer. I always thought it had to do with people being inside more and therefore being exposed more often. Well, I still think that may be part of it, but from the article it sounds like the flu virus just likes the cold dry air of winter, not much we can do about that. If you want to read the whole article follow the link.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/02/10/scientists-solve-the-mystery-of-flu-season/

Trying to make the time

I've been reading through some of the other blogs that get sent to my Reader account and there are some great things that people are doing and experiencing. I read and responded to Paek-Man's post about being frustrated with the news that if you didn't have 15 or more blogs your SOL. I'm sure we were told that we need to blog every week, just like we tell our student's that they need to do their homework every week. I think the difference is that not all of us understood that it was an absolute requirement as apposed to a suggestion to do if we could. I'll take the resposibility that I didn't ask more questions to fully understand. I know for me there were times when I was working on understanding parts of what I was reading and was somewhat overwhelmed. Those are times when I just need to process the information before I can write about it and depending on what else is going on, it can take a week or two.

I have learned a great deal from this experience and look foward to each class and the new things I get exposed to. I've had my students using google docs. and have used it myself with teachers from other schools all working on the same activites for IFL. I'm now using it with my student teacher which is a new exerience for me. I think the most important part of a class like this is not that we blog about it but that we actually use it. Having a million tools but never using them is like not having any tools at all. I would much rather learn and practice and teach about a few things that I find that I can use right now as blog about the wonderful things out there that I may never use. I guess it all boils down to time and what has to go in order for us to make the time to blog.