Monday, July 28, 2008

Chapter 10: Tutorials

I chose to read this chapter in hopes of getting a deeper level of understanding with ideas and uses for Web 2.0 tools. These are a few of what I looked into and think would be great for teachers in our school. I'd love to share these with our staff at the start of our school year.
Tux Paint is a program geared for children age three twelve yrs. old and is similar to Kid Pix. The layout and operation of the program is similar in nature and children will be able to figure it out and probably teach us a thing or two. I like that program is free, we don't have to purchase a site license. Just download it to the computer and you're set! The only challenge I see is possibly the download because our computers are linked to the server and are managed that an administrator password may be required.

Audacity is another free, downloadable program that allows you to record and edit audio clips. This is very handy for creating podcasts. The only way I have been able to create a podcast is by using the GarageBand program. This also has the capability to convert tapes and records into digital or CD recordings which is great for our Spanish teachers. GarageBand also can do this, but again you'd have to purchase the program, site license, etc.

Class Blogmeister is another online blogging tool meant to be used by educators in an educational setting. I have been considering ways to start an online bookclub and this might be a great tool to use.

Google Earth is so popular and widely used and is just plain fun! I use it so many times throughout the school year and the students love to come up and type a location and have the projected image show up on the screen. I love to use this at science fair time also, it really helps get those space books off the shelves and out the door!

Google Reader is a tool I discovered through this class. I really like how I am able to organize my "feeds" and I can see what's new at my convenience. I keep adding more sites and will be sharing with teachers and friends.

1 comment:

Katie said...

All the free tools available are just wonderful. But I would caution you to check out copyright on the converting of materials for your Spanish teachers.