Thing 16

I chose the iGoogle start page and I really like this.  It is kind of like your own information page. You can have many different things sent to you about all your interests.  Online calendars are very useful to people of all ages.  In today’s world, there is so much going on it helps to not have to keep up with dates in your head and have someplace that does that for you and this is perfect for that.  You can put all kinds of information in your calendar and forget about it until it shows up on the calendar.  I did not try any of the to-do lists because I chose to do the calendar.  Both of these tools could be useful to you as a teacher.  The calendar is a memory jogging tool that helps you keep up with what you need to be getting done.  The start page is something like your rss feed that you can get information sent to you from all over, like the news or anything, and helps you keep your class up to date on what is going on in the world.

Thing 15

I enjoyed the activity we had to do.  It was very easy to do and it was neat looking at all the things people had posted on there.  I think a wiki could be very useful for teachers and students.  Teachers can post their syllabi or anything that is important to the class like checklists or important announcements that students can easily access from home and stay on track with what is going on.  Students could also post things they are doing for maybe a group project or something so all their piers can see what has been done and what needs to be done.  All in all, it is a very useful tool and will be a major part of the future of education.

Thing 14

I started out with the gliffy flowchart.  I really like this tool and it could be a very easy way to present information to your class without it seeming to crammed or jumbled up.  You can create a chart and when you switch ideas just start a new one on the same template and start branching off of this one.  After doing this, I started thinking about it and there are not any other tools on the web I can think of that allow you to create charts this easily and proficient.  It is definitely something I will use in my presentations to come

I used the Bubbl.us mind map and once again I have high praise towards it.  A mind map is more like a brainstorming tool whereas a flowchart is used to organize thoughts and see how they transition from one point to another.  I can see using this mind map when brainstorming ideas for a research paper or brainstorming ideas once you already have a topic and deciding which ones would be more appropriate and easier to explain.  I know many other people have mentioned this too but I liked on both of these sites the fact that you didn’t have to create an account unless you wanted to save your work so you can get on and see if you like the scheme without having to go through creating an account.  Overall, these two sites are excellent tools for teachers and helpful towards them in helping them do their job more competently.

Thing 13

The zoho writer is a lot like Microsoft word.  In fact, I couldn’t find hardly anything that was different.  The thing I like most about is you don’t have to worry about emailing it to yourself or saving it on a flash drive.  It is very accessible anywhere you are.  I think most people are very comfortable using Microsoft word and since this is practically the same many people will enjoy using this.

The Google docs are good but I didn’t care much for it.  I tried to create a drawing and it is hard to get it to do what you want.  I couldn’t find an eraser on the Google docs which is one thing I did not like at all.  A person could use the document builder on Google docs but I don’t think it is near as good as zoho and as far as the picture tab goes, I don’t see where that would come in handy at all in anything you tried to do.  However, I have used Google docs before and it comes in handy just like zoho would if you have a group project.  When I used it we had a group project and anybody could get on and do their part of the project at anytime because all of it was stored in one place and we didn’t have to worry about emailing to one another and thing like that.  Here is a link to my drawing I created in Google docs.  https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1Fg_3G6b5VywYCxQ6tW6FvMlcpF_xD-he5D8gW2dPa5k/edit

All in all, I think zoho is the way to go out of these two.  It has a better document setting and looks more like what people are used to so it is more easily navigable.  Everything Google docs has zoho has and I think they have it at a higher level.  I just lean towards zoho because I feel more comfortable with it.