Thing 22

In Classroom 2.0 I watched an introductory presentation. It allowed me to watch the creator of the site navigate, answer questions, and discuss with others their use of the site. It was long, but I feel that it gave me a lot of insight for an hour long tour. It would have taken me much longer to learn that much on my own. I saw how groups are formed and discussions are started and tagged. I also learned how to have conversations on the net about various topics and in all sorts of ways. As far as use in my teaching, I am not so sure that I am ready for this type of site. I like wikis and pageflakes better, so I will probably start out with those. They seem to be a little more in line with the teaching of mathematics.

This investigation has also opened a door for me to finally look into joining facebook. My best friend has one with all of his family pics on it and is trying to twist my arm to join facebook. Maybe I will take that step, because this is interesting stuff.

I also looked into an eductional ning, but it appeared to be VERY similar to Classroom 2.0. I could not find much of interest there.

Thing 21

Pageflakes is a very cool site!!!! I really like all of the tools that it allows you to use in one place. I can see it as a very helpful site and it might even be able to do a lot of things that I wanted my wiki to do. I can post homework, make announcements, have an assignment calendar, post podcasts, and basically anything else that I want all in one place. I really enjoyed the weather flake and the podcast flake. I made my page fit my interests outside of school, but I can see how useful it would be to my students. I found flickr pics of my team and tried to post them (still working on that one), woodworking podcasts, local weather, and kept the calculator. I like having everything in one place. It is like having an on-line desktop of the tools that you use most on the web.

Thing 7c

I found an interesting page discussing dividing by zero. I liked the way the author broke down three problems and discussed the answers and why they were the answers. He also interjected quite a bit of his own opinions of math teachers that I found interesting and agreeable (most of the time). I have not thought about this topic too much so it was refreshing to see it described in such great detail.

Thing 20

Google Docs are a useful tool for creating documents within a group. It allows all of the contributors to work on one document without the trouble of having multiple documents all over the place. I would like to use this service to allow students to create review documents for their classes over a chapter or even for their final exam. It would also be nice to see presentations created through this service. This might also be a useful way to keep up with our basketball stats. Currently, I have many documents with lots of different names floating around our network. This may prevent this problem, if I can get this spreadsheet to do everything that I want it to.

Thing 19

I have use youtube in many ways for the last two to three years in my classroom. Before that time, I had never heard of the site. Once I found it, I have used it in my geometry lessons, summer reading discussions, and leading bible studies. It is a very useful tool and there is nothing that you cannot find on it. I have also had success in using Godtube which is a video site with Christian videos. I could not find much on teachertube, but I did see some good lessons as well as some nice presentation ideas from other schools. It is a site that I would like to investigate further. I really like the use of videos to help introduce, expand, or to give a word picture for my lessons. One interesting video that found interesting was this video involving a rhombus. Be sure to listen closely to the music.

Thing 17

I listened to some of each of the podcasts in the math section. My favorite was the MathGrad Podcast. I enjoyed his description of this famous problem and its solution. I would like to hear more from him and find podcasts like this one that I could use in the classroom. I am not quite sure how, but maybe I could use them in a problem solving unit or to introduce problems in my classes. Other than the previous, I did not enjoy the other choices in the math area. I have recently bought an ipod and have really enjoyed podcasts in all of my areas of interest (golf, home improvement, woodworking, home theater, and even some Christian comedy) for the drive to and from work when I am on my own. I love the feeling I get of learning in an otherwise wasted time, so if I can find some math content for that time in the car then I will be quite happy.

Thing 16

I examinded Library Thing in detail. It seems to be a great place to find books and people that match your reading interests. If I am ever looking for a title or ideas for something to read this would be an excellent place to start. I found several suthors and I even looked at a member's page to see what it is like. I am not too sure how to use this in a mathematics classroom, but I do see it as a useful educational tool and especially useful personal tool. It also appears that you may trade your books with others through many different serives, but you have to be willing to give up your own books. I might be willing to try that depending on the shipping costs.