Lately I have been hearing the term “The Cloud” used more
often. At first I was not sure what that meant. What was this cloud? Was it a
specific program, software, or some term that the internet world had created?
And then I was asking myself, do I need to know what this “cloud” is? Is this
something I will have to get or use in order to maintain everything I am doing
on-line? Well the answer is; I was already using “The Cloud” without knowing
it.
“The Cloud” is space out in the unknown of your computer.
When you use programs such as Google or DropBox – you are using “The Cloud.” What is
happening is that you no longer need to have flash drives, thumb drives, your
physical computer – you can access all your files from any location throughout
the world. For instance I can create and save a file from a computer in one
location, walk away from that computer, drive 3000 miles across country, and
finish working on that file in another location on another computer.
Incredible!
What is really happening is that the sites, such as DropBox
(same concept as Google Docs if you are using that), are providing the storage somewhere
out in cyberland for your files to live. You do not need to carry any devices
with you or take up any space on your hard drives. Those large files you may want to save, you can now save without having to wait long for them to download as well as for them to take up all your space.
For a teacher something like DropBox is an incredible tool to use. I
access my DropBox account at home, correct, update, and/or change a file, then
access it at school through my account. No forgetting flash drives at home, no
forgetting copies at home; it works out great. I have all my students using
DropBox also. They have expressed how it has made things easier for them.
“The Cloud” is something you are probably using already. It
is just another term used to describe the cyber space that we are all now
connected to.
How would you describe “The Cloud”? Are you using “The Cloud”?
How do you feel about using “The Cloud”? Do your students use it? How are you
feeling about all these quick changes in technology?
Social Bookmarking is a way for you to save, organize,
monitor, and access on-line resources. Social bookmarking is a tool that is
available to any on-line user. You are able to save the URL or a screenshot of the first page
of a website for future access. If you are like me, I come across several dozen
sites that provide me with information that I am currently using or want to use
in the future. And I don’t want to have to remember how I searched for these
particular sites or write down the URLs and then try to remember where I wrote it.
Prior to learning about social bookmarking tools, I would save the sites in my
favorites. And although it worked out well with creating files for the variety
of topics I was interested in, it did not help me to organize and access them
as quickly and as conveniently as an on-line social bookmarking tool. Yes I
admit I have become that person that expects technology to provide things for
me immediately. I don’t want to wait, look, or spend the time looking when
something can do it for me quicker.
How do we choose what social bookmarker to use? Well, this
answer is up to you and your preferences. There are many social bookmarkers out
there but for the purpose of not overwhelming us, I will briefly discuss Diigo. Other bookmarking tools to check out
are LiveBinder, and Sqworl. All three of these bookmarking tools are
easy to set up and easy to use.
Diigo has been around
for awhile. After the bookmarking tool Delicious
(2003) popularized the use of on-line book marking tools, Diigo (2006) followed in its footsteps with
its popularity.
Diigo allows you to save
the URL from a site, make annotated comments about what the site is, how you
would use it, what you would use it for, and/or any other information that you
may want to remember why you wanted to save the site.
Diigo also allows you to
use tags to help
organize your resources. Tags come in handy because you can really get carried
away with saving sites and then when you have to go back and think about what
site is it you know you saw the information on, you can click on the tag of
interests to find all the sites within that category.
Diigo also has a bookmarklet tool. What a
bookmarklet tool does is it provides you with just one-click to do many
functions. For instance, when you find yourself on a site that is of interest
to you and you want to save this site you just click on the Diigolet icon on your toolbar
(you have to load the Diigolet icon onto your computers toolbar by following
the directions provided by the Diigo
website.) Once you have this loaded, you are able to use many of the tools
provided. Within the Diigolet, the bookmark
tool allows you to save the sites URL by capturing the title of the
website, your annotated information about the site, create tags or use the tags
they provide, and also allows you to share you findings with other groups.
There is also the highlight tool that allows you to
highlight information of importance to you on the site so that when you go back
to the site you will notice only the information of importance to you or if you
are sharing the site, the information that you want others to see, is
highlighted.
The other tool that works well is the sticky-note tool. This
works just like a post-it note. Click on this and a note page appears. You can
type in a reminder, information, a question, or anything that you want to make
a note about for the site and/or page.
The read-later
tool is great for those sites you may not want to save but want to read at
a later time. The tool will save the
site for you to access it later to read.
Where these tools can be used with any browsers, Diigo also provides other tools such as screenshot (allows you to
save a visual of the site) and quick-note tools, that can only be used with
specific browsers.
Sharing your Diigo
bookmarks or creating a shared bookmark group, is a great tool to use in the
classroom for your students or among your colleagues. For you students you can
create a group that allows them to access certain sites on particular topics.
And for your colleagues you can create a shared bookmark group that houses
sites that are related to issues related to teaching, content area topics,
and/or tools for teaching. Creating shared groups is easy to do. Using the
highlight tool or the sticky-note tool can became a positive benefit for any
shared group. These tools take away from the time it may take to read a site
and also allows for collaboration on both levels.
Make sure you create lists for all your bookmarks. List help
you further organize your sites. Create different lists for your different
areas of interest and/or for you classroom. Lists allow you to create a list on
your topic of study and share it with your students. . On the main library
page, go to the “My List” section. Click on edit and here is where you can
title your lists, give a description of your list, as well as make your list public
or private. Your list will show up on your left side toolbar within your
library.
Think about using Diigo in your classroom. By creating groups and lists, you can organize your topics so that students can easily access the information they need. You can also create an group and have your students do the research on the topic and add the sites for other students to use.
Check out this video on how to incorporate Diigo in the classroom.
Don't forget to visit the Community tab within Diigo. to find sites that others have
bookmarked to share. I do not know how Diigo has this set up, but it seems to
target bookmarks that are of interest to most of my bookmarks. Diigo mysterious!!
At first I did not like Diigo.
I thought it was too simplistic and “wordy.” To me it just looked like a list
of sites with words attached to them. And although all the sites of interest
were in the same spot, I had a difficult time finding what I needed without
reading all the titles or using the tabs and then reading all the titles. After
playing around with all the settings I was able to organize even further with
the use of the “My Lists” feature. Now, like when I saved my sites in my
favorites, I was able to organize them into groups that I can easily access and
find. And although this sounds like it was doing me a service, I still was not
completely pleased with the site. I started looking at other sites because I am
a visual person. What this means when using a social booking marking tool is
that I don’t always remember the name of the site or the tab I could have put
it under, but I can tell you some features that the pages of the site consisted
of. I find things quicker on a visual level. It is like when that person comes
up to you and starts talking to you as if you are great friends, you know the
face but for the life of you, you can’t remember the name. Diigo must have heard my cries because they
now have a screenshot feature. This allows you to bookmark the site by saving
the screen you are looking at. You can capture the first page of the site or
any other page within the site. The only downfall is that you have to be using Google Chrome,
Mozilla FireFox, or Apple
Safari browsers. This is not a
downfall if you already use them or are willing to use them, which I have done.
Here is my Diigo Library. I say it is a work in progress. Enjoy and feel free to save any sites into your Diigo account.
What social bookmarking tool do you use? Do you use Diigo?
What do you think? What neat feature do you use with Diigo? What challenges
have you encountered with Diigo? How do you use it in your classroom? Would you
use it in your classroom?
Being new to teaching I am excited about using technology in the
classroom to connect with my students. Last semester was my first time
teaching my "own" class. I had begun to integrate technology into my
classroom. And let me tell you, not only did the kids have fun, but I
had fun also. How incredible to be able to play with great technology
tools and then benefit from the learning experiences of the kids. I am
so excited about integrating technology into their learning as much as
possible, and to continue to have a fun time doing it.
One
of my technology goals this year is to work on using the SMART Board
the smart way. Currently I am using it mainly to view PowerPoint
presentations, show websites, and/or show VHS/DVD videos, to name a
few. I mainly use it as I would a projector. I have been using some of
the tools such as the slides, pens, and highlighter. I also have had the
students brainstorming or writing on the board. Although I feel
that this is a good start to using the SMART Board, I would rather find
ways to use in as an interactive tool.
I
have begun to research how to use the SMART Board as an interactive
tool within the secondary level. The activities that I have come across
have been mainly for elementary level students.
I watched
this video to get more information on how to use the SMART Board on an
advanced level. The video gives some great ways to use the tools as long
as you have the activity tool kit.
How
have you been using your SMART Board in your class? What tools have you
been using? What interactive activities have you created? What have you
noticed about the engagement of students in the classroom?
If
you have not used the SMART board, what other technology have you been
using? If you do not have a SMART Board do you think you would or would
not use one in your classroom? How would you see yourself using it.
Looking forward to hearing your answers and learning from each other.
On Feb. 9th 2012, Saint Joseph
College (SJC) hosted the iCitizen Town Meeting. The meeting was held to
give the opportunity to have a discussion on how to create a positive
climate within the school systems that will help to prevent and stop
bullying and cyber bullying. Marialice Curran Ph.D, assistant professor
of education at SJC, and SAGE put together a well verse panel to discuss
these topics. Below is the url to the video courtesy of CT-N.
What
are your thoughts about creating a positive climate? What are you doing
personally to create a postive climate, in your classroom and in your
personal life? Do you feel that creating a postive climate in our
schools will help stop cyber bullying and bullying? Is it important to
have a positive climate in every state?
