Thing 4: Productivity Tools

* Which customizable homepage did you choose? Why did that one appeal to you? Will you make it your permanent home page?
I tried iGoogle. I know lots of you love it, but most of the things that could be added just didn't seem that fantastic to me. I actually use the Google Toolbar for most of this stuff. For example:
Maps: If you have the google toolbar, you can just type (or paste) and address in there and it will give you a map. Just as easy as iGoogle.
Weather: Firefox can show weather in the status bar (down by the clock on your computer).
Google Bookmarks, Gmail: also in the Google Toolbar
Joke of the day, Optical illusions, etc.: Entertaining, but not really "productivity tools" Maybe more the opposite of that, actually.
Blog reader: I actually prefer to not have all my blogs on my homepage. I tried it, but found it distracting to have them popping up all the time. I'd rather choose when to read blogs, and then have them all in one place (Google reader) rather than in front of me all the time.
So I guess I'm not an iGoogle fan, mainly because I've already got other ways to do this stuff that seems easier to me. But one advantage is if I'm at a public computer that doesn't have my google toolbar or other firefox addins, then I can still get at this info.
* Did you find a tool that has some uses for you at school or home? Which tool(s) would you recommend to others?
See above.
* How can the online calendars be useful to you?
My wife and I have tried to use the Mac online version of iCalendar (through their MobleMe service). It just hasn't replaced our paper calendar, though. We kind of like being able to see the calendar hanging on the wall so we can quick glance at it during dinner or on the way out the door-without booting up the computer.
At school, though, my online calendars are very important to my functioning. I use outlook calendar to manage everything I need to do at school, and the reminders are really helpful to me. In fact, when I get the stereotypical "buy milk on the way home" email from my wife, I put that on my calendar with a reminder 15 minutes before I think I'm going to leave so I remember.
The most important use of my wikis (for Honors and AP Chem plus Knowledge Bowl) are the calendars there. I use the class calendars now for lesson planning instead of using a lesson plan book. I can do everything in one place so it's less work for me (not having to transfer it over) plus kids/parents have instant knowledge as soon as I schedule a test or something.
* What about the To Do Lists -- helpful? too much work?
I use outlook calendar for this (see above). It's more useful for me to have it all in one place.

OK, one more. A friend of mine was scheduling our traditional Thanksgiving football game. He sent out an email that was a horizontal list of dates. Each person was supposed to add their name and mark an X under the dates/times that they could make it. He had basically invented the Doodle poll that we used last summer. I sent him the link and we did it that way instead. Now there's a simple yet very effective online productivity tool.

Thing 2: blogs

* What was your reaction to the videos (or one video in particular)?
The links to the videos seem to be broken (unless I'm missing something).
* Are you thinking about using blogs in your classroom? Why or why not?
I've been thinking about how blogging could be used in a science class in a meaningful way. I don't want to incorporate blogging just for the sake of using the tool. I've seen lots of examples of using student blogging in a literature or social studies course where students respond to prompts, or in a language course where they practice dialogue by typing to each other. But in math or science the applications seem less obvious.
I have seen one example, though, of a student blogging about her college math course. I'm not exactly sure what the assignment was, but there are posts about each week where she reflects on what is difficult about the topics they're learning, what she is gaining from the course, etc. That might be something that could fit into my course.
* Are you using blogs in your classroom? How?
Not currently.
* What are some ways you envision blogs being used in education?
See above.
* What do you like or dislike RSS readers (or Google Reader in particular)?
Like: the obvious stuff--saves time by collecting them all together.
Dislike: often shows just the first few lines of a posting so to read the rest of it I actually have to click over to the blog. I've looked for a setting to allow Google Reader to show more content, but haven't found one. Anybody have a clue?
* How do you think you might be able to use RSS in your school or personal life?
I've added blogs from a few friends and relatives, so it's nice to see those family pictures when they're posted rather than having to wait until I remember to check their sites.
* Did you find any great resources we should all add to our Google Reader?
Not yet. I'll let ya know...

Thing 1: Here I go

OK, so I know it's been a long time coming...but my first thing hereby begins now...

At 31, I’m not young (though some of you will think of me as young) and I’m not old (though I’m older than some of you). I was in college in the late 1990s (St. Olaf) and then again in the mid 2000’s (MS through Mankato). Both involved some research into scientific literature, but the process was very different.

The Washington Post article reminded me of sitting in the St. Olaf Science Library and looking through the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature for journal articles about whatever I was researching. When I found an abstract that I liked, I checked if it was on the library’s subscription list for the year I needed and then went to the stacks and pulled out the issue. After 15 minutes of searching (if I was lucky) I had one article. Usually I then paid 10 cents per page to photocopy it and bring it back to the dorm.

For my master’s research, I never left my dining room table. I browsed hundreds of abstracts and dozens of articles just by clicking and ended up with a much better product in fractions of the time.

I know that much of the Washington Post article was about using just general web searches as opposed to credible sources, and what I did in the two settings actually centered around the same journals. But no matter what you feel about technology bringing up new concerns about validity of sources, nobody can deny how much it helps the research process.

One teacher mentioned in the article requires books as sources because he says the research process is valuable. Would anyone argue that finding journal articles the “old fashioned way” (in a bound index and on a library shelf) has any value anymore?

Google sites? Anyone?

With all this thinking about wikis, I'm wondering if anyone out there has used Google Sites for anything. They claim it's "Free websites and wikis." Since google seems to do everything else in the world better than their competitors, I'm investing energy in the wrong tool with PBwiki.
Anybody know anything about google sites?

More Google Docs

I was just lurking around the Edina High School science department website, since they're our inspirations now (see http://www.district112.org/board_goals.html ) Anyway, I found a chemistry teacher who posts study guides for his classes in .rtf format (http://home.comcast.net/~stesanger/Chem_StudyGuides.htm ) The idea, I believe, is that is't more accessible for people without Word than .doc or .docx. Or maybe he's using a mac or OpenOffice and that's just how they came out. I don't know.
My revelation came when, becuase I was logged into google already, these documents opened in Google Docs. My idea was to create something and post it on Google Docs. I believe that I could then make it public and send out a link to it so others could view it (but not edit it). I'm not totally sure if this would work, but I have a hunch it would.
(Full disclosure: when I clicked on the link and it opened in Google, I actually thought that he had posted it in GoogleDocs. It wasn't until mid-blog that I realized that GoogleDocs taking control of it was an accident.)
I've always converted stuff to .pdf (just in case people they didn't have Word at home) and posted them online. But with rSchoolToday's inability to do just about everything that I want it to do, I knew I'd be looking for a better way.
I'm pretty sure that pbwiki is the solution to most of my problems, but I liked this idea too. By making a GoogleDoc (or making it in Word and importing it), it's stored online where kids can get to it without any special software. I don't know if they'd need a google account to open it or not, but I thought I'd pass along the idea in case it sparks anything for anybody else.

Google Docs forms

OK, so I know I'm a blogger lagger. I know it's 10 minutes before the meeting. I'll do better next time.
I use Google Docs forms quite a bit for data collection. Today I set up the computers in my classroom to a survey (http://www.rschooltoday.com/chs112/LeniusC and click on Survey). I collect book numbers and email addresses this way, so I don't have to write them down and risk losing the paper, type the email addresses, etc. It's pretty handy.
I also use it for course evaluations at the end of each quarter and other times I need to collect info from kids.
See half of you soon...

blog blocker

So today for some reason, WebSense was blocking our blogging. Eventually we figured out that if you go to some other site, like games.com, and type in the websense password, then you can access blogs for a while. But it sure seemed more aggressive in blocking us out today than it did yesterday. Maybe because Chuck was in the building.
One concern: If we have kids writing blogs, will they get blocked like we have been? We can't give them the password, so what then? If we do this with classes, we better figure that out first.