www.youtube.com

I'm scared to go to YouTube.com because last weekend, I downloaded a virus that I think turned off my firewall, and despite how I try, can't turn it back on. So I am sketchy about going to MySpace or youtube or anywhere else for that matter. I have been to YouTube before however; and am surprised at how it seems that just recently people have started to praise the educational aspects of the site. I think it is a great tool to utilize in the classroom because kids easily identify with it. I did learn how to embed video, which is very exciting and incredibly easy! This is my little cousin Cassie's YouTube music video that she created to Katy Perry's Hot N Cold. It has had 29,458 views. She is 16 years old and created the whole video in one lazy afternoon (including editing, costume changes, and lip-sync sychronization). It certainly proves the technology that high school students are not only capable of, but able to utilize easily just for fun.

Web Awards-SpanishPod

Rated #3 in the education field is SpanishPod- "Que tallia es?" What size is it? - At SpanishPod you can download relevant, daily lesson podcasts to Spanish lessons! Teacher Discussion, Translations, flashcards and exercises are part of the program. At first, I was apprehensive because I feel one would need a written portion to learn a different language but, low and behold, there are also printable PDF's which would be extremely helpful to those of us visual learners. Although I have not signed up yet, as I didn't want to waste my 7 day free trial (who has time to learn spanish right now?) I will in the future. Of course I realize you may not become fluent, however, it may help to know several words or phrases that could be used in daily conversation with a student. In the time I was at this site, from the demo podcast, I learned "esse" means small (not clear on the spelling), "emme" means medium, and "elle" means large. Oh and also "burro" means dude (or donkey, if you prefer) As soon as this semester is over though, I am starting my lessons! You can too at http://spanishpod.com/

Google Docs and Zoho

Ok, this week in 2.0, I am, once again- amazed. We have learned about two new online apps that will be totally useful to me in the future. Google Docs and Zoho writer. Sometimes we view apps that I think are fun but will never really use but these are truly useful to everyone who uses the Microsoft office suite. I do have questions though. First, how secure are these apps. For instance, I would imagine that you would not want to create a spreadsheet with any personal financial info. And let's say everyone started using GoogleDocs instead of Word. Will Google ever...overfill with saved documents and crash? To some it may sound stupid, but these are truly things I wonder. Here were my some of my thoughts on the Blackboard discussion.
Zoho

Zoho Writer is awesome. This is a great idea and certainly could be the death of Microsoft Office, just like Skype could be the death of land phone lines (or apps like them in the future)! All of this new technology that we are learning about is so amazing but it's kind of scary that everything is starting to be web-based. This may be a stupid question but is the web truly infinite?
For instance, I love the Document History feature that lets you track every change made to the document. Sometimes that is really helpful and I'm surprised Microsoft Word doesn't have it, but does that mean all of these pre-versions of documents are being saved by millions of people on-line?
Regardless, this is way cool. I love that you can pull up the documents from any PC and also that others can share and edit. laTeX Equation Editor would have been great to have had in Algebra! It was just 3 years ago, I remember thinking that I wish there was a software program that had all of the symbol and function keys so my work could look more professional and look, here it is! I find that revelation happens alot with 2.0.

Google Docs

Are you kidding me? Is there no end to what Google can do? I really would like to attend a workshop/class on just Google alone. I love this week's 2.0. I can't believe we can do all of these apps online. I seriously was going to buy a new laptop because I couldn't access my documents that I create at home elsewhere but who knew, I can! My question is ..can I save the documents I create at Google Docs to my home computer or are they saved at Google only? I tried but it didn't give me the option. I did see that you could download but I don't know how safe that is, being that I just downloaded a virus last week that took out my firewall. Now I'm weary to even be online. But holy cow, totally impressed with all of these new findings.

RSS-feeds at bloglines

This week's RSS assignment is pretty cool. It's basically an email account of current newsfeeds. It works like this. After registering for an account at www.bloglines.com, you subscribe to several feeds from different websites and each time they have a new post, it will appear in your blog lines account. I learned from MTV news that Chris Brown and Rhianna are back together, even after a supposed physical altercation. At iTunes Top 25 songs found out the song Alone- by Heart is on their top 25 list although it's been around for 25 years. Could that be because a contestant sang it on Idol last week? Teens have no idea these days where the good music comes from.

I think Bloglines could be useful if I can figure out how to get the feeds that I want- I tried to subscribe to the Salt Lake Tribune (which is the one I most wanted to have a feed to) but couldn't figure out how. Also, I thought it would be interesting to subscribe to George Norry- Coast to coast (which is a radio cast about paranormal things) but couldn't figure that out either. I haven't subscribed to a library feed because then it would feel more like a chore and responsibility to check it than fun. I really don't need any more whispering responsibilities in my head. Having to check my email is enough. But I'm sure that as soon as it pertains to my job, it will be very useful. I wish we could have bloglines at my work now, just to peruse through when we are not on a call. I could be up on all the important news that way.