Another Beautiful Weekend

Well another weekend gone by. I pulled up some things that were still in my vegetable garden. I'm ready to plant tomatoes and squash now. My bluebonnets are blooming. They are so beautiful. We did some grilling on the porch tonight. I love to cook out and sit on my porch and watch my dog (Sparky) run around in the yard.

Web 2.0 applications

Wow! Where do I start? According to our book, Web 2.0 is a set of principles and practices intended to connect the collective intelligence of its users. (Jonassen,et al., 2008). So basically it is a collection of the thoughts and knowledge of many people from all over the world through many forms of technology. Wikis are a form of technology in which a people can join together and communicate easily by adding, editing, or removing information. The simplicity of wikis makes it a user-friendly, effective, collaboative tool for constructing knowledge with others. (Jonassen, et al., 2008). I think this would be good to use in a classroom so students would not have to worry about making mistakes. They could be easily corrected. There is a concern of wikis in that the content might not always be true.  Social bookmarking was another form of technology that allows a person to share information that others can see. I like this in that teachers can post website sources and information. People can see each others posts and vice versa. This is great for teachers in that they can share informaion among each other. We can alway have fresh and updated information and resources for lesson plans. This is a neat way to organize them. Voice thread is another way to use technology. This is so neat to use multimedia as a way to share and show information. People can communicate in many different ways. This can by done by typing, talking, video, or webcam. I like that you can draw or write while talking at the same time. I guess this is what the sports comentators use when they draw a play with the yellow pen in the replays. Many people can be involved in the conversation at the same time. This could be very useful to communicate with people from all over the world. With this there is not racial, cultural, religious, or language barriers. This will allow communication among all people of the world. In the sample of voice thread, I like the map where people are talking to each other from all over the world. They would point to where they were in the world while they were talking so you could have a visual of where they were and what country they were from. It would be good to use as a teacher if there was a certain holiday or celebration in a country in which the students could share and visit with those students about the events and learn more about others. I also like the idea of the blog which is basically to share and discuss information. At the school where I work, the second graders have a blog. I think this would be good for the students to communicate with people and share their learnings and ideas. This gives some students the opportunity who might be quite in class have a way to share with others even if they are shy. This might help them open up. This is a good way for parents and other teachers to comment on what the students are doing. Hope you have enjoyed reading about what I have learned this week in class


Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Rose, M., & Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful learning with technology. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education.