Week 9 #21 Podcasts

At the rish of sounding trite, podcasts are cool. They are certainly numerous, but they are informative and in many cases they are interesting and informative. I'm convinced one could spend his lifetime listening and viewing podcasts and still not cover all of them all. Educational formats that cover university professors' lectures to first year foreign language programs that deal with a daily word or phrase and even entire first and second year programs, including English as a second language, as well as virtually all academic endeavors represent only a small portion of what is available for the inquiring mind. Podcasts could be useful in the classroom as well since they also deal with science, the environment, physics, nature, politics, history, and global affairs and current events just to mention a few. Depending on the podcast, someone could return to the thrilling years of yesterday by listening to audio (radio) accounts of things that society can and must deal with in the future or he could listen and see a video over things that interest him the most. Podcasts can be very useful as projects for students who want to go the extra mile and create an audio or video of some event that has taken place in real or fictional life. I have often toyed around with the idea of a grammar podcast that would explain one common grammar mistake a day or a week and how to correct it. For example, lie/lay are so confused by the general public that it seems as no one knows the difference or another example of clearing up the common mistake of saying "between you and I" instead of saying "between you and me."
The main idea is that I think students would really get involved in with type of tool because they seem to enjoy working on wikis. This tool would allow them the opportunity to progress from the written word to the world of audio and video.

Week 5 #10 Image Generators

The idea of the Image Generators is a truly fascinating site. The idea of introducing something literary and then having students generate a book jacket, magazine cover, or comic strip design in a effort to protray the basic theme of the literary work could challenge the creativity of the students. In addition, they could also create a picture that could illustrate a particular scene from the novel, the play, the short story, poem, or another genre. After all, if you can read it and imagine it, then you can illustrate it. The students could also "visualize" what the writer or poet, wanted the reader to see at the end of his work. The idea of the old cliche that a picture is worth a thousand words would certainly be appr0priate with Image Generators and The Image Generators contain a wide range of possibilities to cover any potential idea that could be illustrated. In many aspects, students could basically learn that literature can be considered as a slice of life and art, and going hand in hand with literature, art is a pictorial representation of life as well.

Week 9 #20 Discover YouTube and Sites

YouTube and the other video sites are incredible. The videos themselves consist of wide range of topics, easily accessible as a result of the search engines. Content varies from commercials to culture, politics, sports, economics, history...well, you name it and there is some material there to cover your interests.

In researching YouTube, I found two commercials that were especially intriguing, not necessarily because of the content of the commercial but because of the subliminal message that was being aired at the same time. The first was the 1984 commercial by Apple which introduced the McIntosh that year. I'm not so sure that the date wasn't intentional since it is reminiscent of the novel 1984. The year of big brother which heralded in a new wave of technology that was to replace the antiquated computer system of that day. At the beginning the user saw a large crowd looking at a giant screen which showed a person spouting forth the traditional propaganda of the establishment. As he spoke, a young woman comes in waving a sledge hammer. As she is chased by a large group of officers, she spins around and releases the sledgehammer, which obliterates the giant screen into tiny particles of glass slivers. Without revealing any information about the product, how is was designed, what it was supposed to do, the voice simply announces that Apple will introduce MacIntosh in 1984. In a sense, YouTube and the others are in the process of revolutionizing the spectrum of computer uses as well as redefining the purpose of the internet. I find it ironic in a sense that the 1984 commercial would be as appropriate and as futuristic today as it was twenty-five years ago.




The other YouTube commercial dealt with the talking baby advertising E-Trade. Once again, it was was not the content of the commercial so much as it was all about the subliminal message. The commercial shows a baby wearing a golf sun visor in a men's locker room at some country club. The baby, who is in the forefront of the commerical, is talking to an older golfer in the background. It is obvious that the baby has just defeated the older gentleman in a game of "skins" on the golf course. The subliminal message, which is quite clear, in a not so subtle way that the new generation has arrived on the scene and is in the process of taking over. Although the elder gentleman complains about the baby moving his golf ball, the baby curtly tells the man to "read the rules." Once again the message is clear: the new generation (i.e., web 2.0) has played by the rules and in the process is changing the landscape, pushing the envelope, and in the process will dramatically change the face and the character of the internet. Both commericals in a rather arrogant way seem to serve notice to the establishment that they are the new boy on the block and as a result, the old order will vaporize. In essence it will redesign and rejuvenate the old establishment which has become somewhat stale.

Week 8 #19 Library Thing

Library Thing is not something I would be interested in, especially since I don't care anything at all about cataloging books and I am not thrilled at the idea of social networking about books in general. While Library Thing could be of use for small libraries where each library catalogs its holdings so that other libraries would know what those holdings are, there is no reason for me to list the holdings in my own personal library. I am surrounded by those books that I am extremely interested in every time I enter my computer room; I don't need a list to remind what I have. In addition, I'm not particularly interested in social networking with other people who might share similiar interests in books that I like to read. In addition, I seriously doubt that anyone could get freshmen in high school to catalog any books they may have in their personal library, nor do I suspect that they would be remotely interested in sharing ideas about those books using the Library Thing format. This idea would be least attractive to them since they would more than likely use some other social networking tool such as Facebook or MySpace, etc.
While there may be some useful academic purpose in Library Thing, I'm not convinced that one could not find that same academic information using another source. However, the main reason for Library Thing doesn't appear to be academic per se; it seems to be a tool whereby one can get his library holdings cataloged so that anyone else may see what is in his library while at the same time affording that person the opportunity to get in touch with someone else with similar interests. That way anyone could read about books that someone else has already read and decide for himself whether or not he would want to check out another book that deals with that subject.

Week 8 #18 On Line Productivity Tools

Clearly Zoho Writer is the next generation of word processors but it is more than just the average run-of-the-mill word processor. The Zoho Writer allows anyone access to the document and it also allows that person to edit it, making his own comments in different colors, fonts, etc. In addition, once the person has completed his document using Zoho, he can save it in a file, tag it, save it to a blog. It seems as if the possibilities are limitless with Zoho. Clearly, it is the wave of the future. While I have omitted a number of features that Zoho offers, the idea of trying to remember to include more than what I have stated makes me somewhat swimmy headed. I got that way just reading about all the features it does offer. I am going to try and save this document to my blog. If I am successful, you can view it from there.
Oh well, I failed to complete the mission. Fortunately, I copied and saved my comments just in case this failed so that I could post it on my blog. I still feel that Zoho will be huge in the future. The features that are offered are just too diverse to overlook. It is vastly superior to virtually anything out there. I especially like the spell check; however, I especially like the idea that someone can post his comments on line via zoho which in turn posts it in cyberspace where someone else can not only read it but also edit it.

Week 7 #17 Sandbox

Since the basic nature of Sandbox is described as "fun," I doubt that anyone would seriously consider this as an academic research tool---and it isn't. Sandbox is a hodge podge or eclectic collection of ideas written down by different people. If one were looking for some kind of coherent meaning from this site, he would be disappointed. It seems best described as a "stream of consciousness," where things don't necessarily add up to anything but extemporeanous fun. In many respects, it is kids at play. Yet there is something refreshing about Sandbox because it is a place that allows anyone to visit and add his thought of the day and then move on. Although there doesn't appear to have any academic value, it might be attractive to those who are given to moments of frivolity. Unfortunately, as perhaps would be expected on a "fun" site, there doesn't appear to be any kind of organization to it.

Week 7 #16 Wikis

The realization that Wikis are a collaborative tool where individual members of a group can log on and make his contribution to the research project from anywhere in the world makes this feature one of the most interesting aspects of web 2.0. In open format a wiki can deal with anything anyone is interested in and anyone may join and make contributions to the individual wiki.
Obviously, the most popular wiki is Wikipedia, a highly suspect source of information. There has been so much misinformation put out by individuals who pass themselves off as experts in a certain field. One example was man who passed himself off as a college professor with a PhD degree. While passing himself off as an expert, he wrote a vast number of book reviews as well as adding erroneous information about his field of expertise. This person was finally exposed and allegedly his misrepresentation of the true facts was correct. But, in my opinion the damage has been done and the credibility of Wikipedia is a source for accurate research information should be viewed with a grain of salt. Most of the contributors may be honest and above board, but I don't know these people and their credentials could be fraudulent just like the information that they post. I think poeople ask for trouble when they create something in open format where anyone can pass himself off as an expert. In a closed environment, things might not be so suspect, depending on where students get their information.
Having stipulated that Wikipedi is quetionable at best (as are other wikis no doubt are as well), I had a wiki set up with Patty's help for a research project with my honor students. This particular process has worked very well; I divided the class into small groups and assigned research topics on The Once and Future King. The collaborative effort would have been more difficult without the wiki because the group members would have had to arrange a time and a place to meet and discuss what they had found in their research. The Wiki project required no specific time or place to meet. Each member worked on his own section of the project wherever he happened to be (at home, the library, or a computer lab) and then he wrote the results of his research effort in the wiki section reserved for the group's project. All other members could read what he wrote. They could also edit his research or question the results of his research or correct any grammatical mistakes when it was convenient for them to do so. In addition I could monitor the group's efforts and progress, adding comments to their paper finding out who was doing the work and who wasn't contributing anything.
This format could work well not only in virtually any academic endeavor but also it would lend itself very well in the business world as well where special projects and research and reports would need to be done in a collaborative way.

Week 6 #15 Copyright, Commons, and What's coming down the Web 2.0 road?

I read Lawrence Lessig's blog only to learn that he is shutting it down forever after working on it for seven years. This statement only reinforces the idea that blogs come and go and take on a life or death of its own. In addition, Lessig also pointed out that in that seven year period, there were 30,000 comments and of those 1/3 if them were fraudulent and that Google had kicked him off their index because too many illegal casinos were linking to his server. The idea that 1/3 of 30,000 comments were fraudulent serves only to reinforce the question of how valuable and valid are these blogs (and on-going research projects). This idea is particularly true because it calls into question the validity of one's research efforts when it is based on fraud.
Neverthess, the important question here is the idea of copyright, commons, and the future. The video about copyright is dead on target as it seeks to explain the nature of copyright and why it is important. Some of the animation may obscure the most important aspects of copyright, however. Copyright is important as it is subtle. I remember a few years ago that a popular TV series Murder, she wrote was orginally scheduled to be called Murder, she said. The network decided against that title because of copyright infringement on the movie series with Miss Marple which was called Murder, she said. In addition, students need to be taught the nature of copyright and what it involves in order to prevent "borrowing" from sources and then having to defend onself by claiming ignorance of the law.
It is anyone's guess as to what is down the Web 2.0 road, but it will no doubt be decidedly different then than it is today. When one looks at the service of the libraries of the past and what it is doing today, one would have to agree that the basic nature of the library has changed drasticallty. With the advent of electronic books or ebooks and papers, the library will have to change again to accomodate these latest innovations. Even the Web 2.0 project has changed since we first began our operation because it has been modified to suit our individual needs as we prepare for our teaching roles of the future. Web base 2.0 now features a host of social networking sites which never existed a few years ago but they within themselves will eventually change and morph into something else down the road. Again, just look at the cell phone of a few years back and examine it in the presence of what it does today as an example of change and reconfiguration.

Week 6 # 14 Technorati

Since Technorati is the leading search engine for blogs and therefore the leading expert in blogs, it becomes important to take a serious look at Technorati. Technorati affords the researcher with the possibility of searching all blogs through one search engine. The idea that there are over 175,000 new blogs created everyday with over eighteen updates on older blogs every day, there is no way to keep up with new blogs, much less older blogs. Technorati does a good job in trying to categorize blogs as well as provide search opportunities with the massive body of blogs. However, when I tried to go to their web site, I received the message the page no longer existed. They did list alternatives by providing links to home page, technorati top 100, blog directory, and the Tag pages index. But even some of these listed the "No page available." Obviously, they are in the process of developing new pages to handle the onslaught of new blogs. They also listed new channels that contained editorial content under the categories of technology, blogging, videoes, business, sports, and entertainment, and lifestyle.
I personally would not expect much from Technorati, not because of its missing pages that may re-appear at some later date but because it seems more related to business. Perhaps teachers in the business department may be able to utilize some of the information listed here, but it doesn't do much for language and literature.

Week 6 #13 Tagging and Delicious

Everytime I read about the idea of social networking I cringe. I personally don't like social networking. As a result, I normally have all sorts of bad vibes and consequently I am not very receptive to this type of learning. My basic aversion was further underscored when I logged onto the "Libraries that del.ic.ious," and was wisked away to a German website, where everything was written in German. My thoughts immediately turned to the question of how useful would this be if it were written in another language that I could not use. Well, the answer is obvious: if you can't read it, you can't understand it. One of the German articles pointed out that it would be beneficial to know who was the original author was the artcile was but even more important would be to know who posted so that the site could be evaluated as its revelance or its fluffiness. I'm not sure how one would do that in a meaningful way. In a sense who reviews the reviewer or who evaluates the linkster seems as if we are going ever deeper in a morass of obscurity.
The Ed Talk Net seems somewhat more appropriate than the simple organising individual web sites; however, it also seems as if the Ed Talk consists of nothing but blogs that offer a personal insight into something. It is the old idea of it's opinion and everyone has one. Ironically, these personal opinions are what I consider fluff because they are without literary or scholastic merit. While something of value may actually be found, I sometimes wonder about the fruits of our labor in terms of time spent to find these little jewels. Rather than search, it seems to me that the RSS feeds and the Rolyo would not be more informative and easier to gather information.

Week 5 #12 Rollyo

Rollyo would be an excellent tool for facitating research for students. It will, however, require extensive work on the part of the teacher. Since Rollyo provides teachers with the ability to develop their search engines, they must preview and find the best, most reliable sites to include in Rollyo. The process of adding sites to one's own personalized website will save students time and energy because the teacher has already examined a particular website. This way the student will be afforded the opportunity to examine only the most useful, informative websites rather than waste his time exmaining questionable and inferior sites that are of no value. Another added feature that Rollyo offers is the opportunity to be in contact with other teachers to learn of even more search sites that are valuable.
One disadvantage that I see is the sheer amount of time it will take teachers to conduct their searches and to evaluate the sites usefulness, especially given the tremendous number of search sites that are available. However, it is far better for the teacher to search these sites than for the student to do so since students tend to become to frustrated and overwhelmed in an effort to determine whether or not a particular search site is valuable or not. Nevertheless, it will require a lot of leg work on the part of the teacher to create a good, informative site to add to his own personal search list. But, the student will benefit enormously since he will only have to visit one web site for a host of valuable websites rather than to have to search the entire web.

Week 5 #11 Web 2.0 Award Winners

After perusing through several of the Web 2.0 Award winners, I found two sites that offer great potential in terms of gaining information and insights. The first was LibraryThing.com which one can join and categorize all the books in one's library. While that in and of itself is no great incentive to sign up. the idea of reading book reviews might be of some interest, particularly if a new textbook needs to be adopted. In addition, by joining the website, there is the opportunity to share information with others and to discuss the ideas of others about a particular book. This exchange of information could very easily be adopted for classroom use. The second award winner that I became fascinated with was NING classroom 2.0. Although I am not interested in joining a social chat group, there is the possibility of communicating with other educators about what is going on in their classroom as well as getting involved in discussion groups with others about teaching techniques, research projects, or even things that were tried in the classroom but were not successful.
The most disappointing Web 2.0 Award winner site was the first one Lulu which was nothing more that a site where you could market books to sell and buy or the idea of publishing a cyberspace book (ebook) that you had written yourself.

Week 4 #9 Educational Blogs

The educational blogs seem to be a good idea in that you can contact other teachers to discover ideas about what they are doing in their classrooms and perhaps pick up some interesting ways to introduce or to handle a variety of literary topics. The Google reader I thought was the easiest to use, perhaps because I'm so used to doing searching using Google. I searched the educational blogs for The Once and Future King to find how others are handling this project. In the process, I have learned that a person could spend an extremely inordinant amount of time searching for the right blog. A lot of the blogs that I perused were of no use because of a lack of academic research or endeavors involved in their blog. As a result, there was no significant blog that I found that was beneficial on this topic. No doubt, there exists the possibility of something out there is worthwhile; however, the blots are so prolific that it would be a Herculean task to examine all of them to find the ultimate blog that would deal with an academic analysis of this particular work. Everything seemed to be too superficial for my purposes.
If there were more of an organized system for finding just the right academic blog, things would be more interesting.

Week 4 #8 Learning about RSS Feeds

The RSS feeds are a wonderful Web 2.0 tool that allows the teacher to follow the progress of students on any research project. Rather than to have to monitor each and every student, this systems allows the teacher to receive any recent updates on a particular student's research automatically rather than having the teachter access each student's work. Any updates are automatically.

In addition to this feature, there are a wide variety of RSS Feeds that anyone can sign up for in order to receive the latest news on virtually any company, any news media, or any educational RSS feed where teachers post their own comments about successful teaching techniques in the classroom. Aside from the teacher's ability to read about a students research project immediately after an update and aside from the teacher's ability to read about what is being done in classrooms across the country, the RSS Feeds would be extremely beneficial in a current events class where the class can receive the latest news about what is happening around the globe without having to visit a variety of different websites and to comb through newspapers or watch entire news broadcasts on television. Through the RSS Feeds they can have up to date news as it happens and it is sent directly to the class. If a class happens to be discussing the war in Afgahnistan, they could tap into a RSS Feed for the latest events taking place. In addition, a class studying investing in the stock market can sign up for RSS Feeds on companies that they are interested in. The information would be the most current and the students could see how this information may adversely affect a particular company or enhance its value in the stock market. Such information could lead to better decisions in investing.

Week 3 #7 Technology

I have been especially intrigued with the cell phone, not in terms of calling someone but all the possibilities that are associated with it as it has expanded the meaning of reaching out to touch someone. Moving away from the traditional use of the cell phone, one now has the capability of not just calling someone but also the capability of sending an e-mail or text messaging a person. Instant messaging and accessing social networking for the latest updates about friends are but two more applications. In addition to these, one also has the ability to access the internet for research purposes as well as calling up a GPS system to get directions from a map in the event you are lost. You can also organize all your personal data. You can also now listen to music, take pictures or make a video as well as view film clips, watch a favorite television show, or even view a movie.No wonder they call the cell phone a smart phone!

Equally intriguing is the computer chips that drive these smart phones. With ever increasing applications for the smart phone, there is even greater demand for faster computer chips. Intel is now getting involved with smart phones because of their ability to manufacture faster and faster chips. Their most recent computer chip is called the Williamette with 1.5 gigahertz which means 1.5 billion bits of information per second. That is mind boggling!

Although 3G smart phones are still maturing, it is interesting to note that work has already begun on the 4G smart phone.