Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Thing 17 So this isn’t Rachael Ray


Okay, well I think someone should have warned me about Thing 17.  As I read the word “Delicious”, I was so psyched because I thought I was going to use my newly acquired technology skills to conduct some research on Chef Rachael Ray.  After all, her famous catchphrase, ‘Delish’, is derived from the word Delicious.  I have all of her books and constantly use her recipes.  That story sure changed when I started exploring Delicious and social bookmarking.  There was nothing about Rachael Ray or cooking. 

            After I got over the initial shock, I did become interested in learning more about social bookmarking.  The most bookmarking that I have ever done was was use a piece of scrap paper to mark my place in Culinary Mystery novels.  Once I read through the discovery exercises, I realized that social bookmarking was similar to my ‘primitive’ scrap sheet of paper.  The potential for social bookmarking in the classroom can be advantageous.  I can see teachers using this application on their classroom websites.  Teachers can do some of the legwork for projects and bookmark some trusted, useful websites that will help students with their projects.  This will enable students to start working, without wasting their time searching around the internet for websites that might not even be applicable.  It can be especially beneficial for elementary school students.  Because their understanding of research is limited, they can use the social bookmarking sites to help them find appropriate websites.  Social bookmarking can also help teachers.  With social bookmarking, teachers can easily call up important websites that will help them in class.  Sometimes it is difficult remembering all of the great website addresses, and social bookmarking is a way to organize and combine favorite sites in one convenient place.  Teachers do not even have to use their own computer.  Because their information is stored on the web, they can assess their personal site from anywhere - not just on one computer.  By tagging certain sites, it is easy to call up specific groups of websites that are pertinent for particular topics.

            Below are two websites that I found that sound very useful to education.  The first link is called Thinkfinity.  It is a website dedicated to helping educators enhance their curriculum.  It provides lesson planes that are aligned to state and common cores standards, professional development, technology tools, and activities.  The second link is called Schooltube.  It is similar to Youtube, but for education.  Here, students and teachers can post videos to show off what they have produced in school.  There are educational videos that cover subject lessons, there are student created projects, news stations, webisodes, and other fun things.  So check them out when you have a chance.
 
www.thinkfinity.com

www.schooltube.com

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