Using the Garmin

This week Paul and I worked on a Garmin 500. Paul works with an outdoor club at school and they purchased a Garmin to put lakes on for fishing. We loaded the software and last night tried it out on Sherman Reservoir. The night was a total success except for the fact we only caught a couple of fish. As we move into a new school year the adventure just goes to show him and I that we can figure out technology and try new things successfully. I am looking forward to putting some of what I picked up in this class to good use.

Google Docs

Today Paul and I spent time in Google Docs. We used it to collaborate on a collaboration project for our class. We came up with a pretty good project as we worked to develop it, but not only that we came up with some awsome ideas for using our docs in the classroom for us. I have known about google docs and all for over a year now but really didn't quite understand the uses. Now that we did our project on there and have had some idea of its uses, I think it's going to open up a whole new way we teach in our classrooms.

Twitter

I took a long look at twitter today and really am not sure I care for it. I have been on Facebook for awhile and it seems that twitter is just the same thing as status updates on FB. I guess it's ok to post routinely about what little things are going on, but people knowing I am mowing the lawn really doesn't seem that important to me. I know a lot of news agencies are using twitter to answer questions and communicate with their audiences so I can see some use for it, but I rarely keep up on Facebook, how am I supposed to add another networking tool?

Web 2.0 Reviewed

I have been looking into more Web 2.0 applications and one drawback I see is the issue of having so many login names and passwords. Using these in the classroom with many students may end up creating management issues. I have also noticed some are not edited or restricted which would not work in the school setting. The main issue I see right now is finding a good site that has some monitoring and one that will not over fill your inbox with lots of junk email. I am still looking for a good site.

Visiting Rushville

I went to Rushville, NE for the past 4 days to help my Mom and Dad get their yard into order. I took my laptop so I could keep up on my class. It is amazing how going to a small town up in the desolate Sandhills can make you appreciate your cable modem and all the technology that you have at home. I had to sit outside to catch a wireless hookup from across the street at the Nebraska Land motel. I was able to connect, but wow so slow. Needless to say, I only got on a couple of times.
The other technology amazement was when my sister wanted me to go over to her mother-in-laws to figure out why she couldn't get a network connection on her computer. She had not been able to get hooked up for almost a week. As I checked out her DSL I found she had put her line directly into the computer and not into the DSL modem. It took me about 4 minutes to fix the problem and get her back on-line. I got a large loaf of banana bread for my troubles. It actually was very good. Anyway, I am home now and very much appreciative of my Charter connection and all my toys I have to use.

Paul

I teach with Paul. He's older than me and has been at my school a couple of years longer than I have. He started teaching keyboarding and then progressed to computers. He does a great job of trying to keep up on technology and loves to experiment with new applications. Paul makes me laugh when he can't find something or is mad because something isn't working. He is the only one following my blog right now so I can write this and laugh even more. I really hope Paul takes me fishing again soon. I don't have much luck when we go, but it is something I really enjoy doing.

Web 2.0 views

I went looking for a sharing application to use in the classroom today. I spent almost an hour looking for the right one. Since I will be looking for one to use in the classroom it had to be private and free. I started with Photie but when I went to use it, it seemed to random and I wasn't comfortable with students posting pictures for public view. I then came across DropShots. DropShot was free. It allows on the free version 500 photos and 2 minutes of video to share. You download a simple application that you drop pictures into and then you can create albums to put them into.
I think this one will work. It is simple and not to complex. I plan on looking deeper into other sites and seeing what else I might come up with. Paul has found another one that I will need to look at.