Edvibes Blog

I have been stuck for a couple months on the easiest and safest way to share class pictures on the web. I started with flickr but found it just isn’t very easy for new users to pick up on and learn how to use. So recently I decided to try Google Picasa’s Web Albums with their public and private unlisted albums feature. (read more about What’s the difference between public albums and those that are unlisted? from Google’s FAQ Help section) I really liked the flexibility with their privacy options and it is very user friendly. I also especially like their easy to use embeddable slideshow feature.

Note: I make the decision on whether to publish and share pictures publicly by the following criteria.

*Is the photo appropriate and have an educational value?

*Does the photo reveal the complete identity of a student face?

See how we used picasa to share our some of our photos from our YMCA Camping trip from our class blog here.

An excellent presentation by Will Richardson, who most call one of the founding fathers of edublogging, recorded by Wesley Fryer, at the National Educational Computing Conference entitled, “From Hand It In to Publish It: Re-Envisioning Our Classroom”

Will raises the questions:

How are our schools responding to the new informational and global landscape?

What does it mean to be in the interconnected, transparent, and collobartive world?

This podcast is a must for any professional teacher and concerned parent to understand the cutting edge of education. This episode goes up on my all time top 3 most influential educational podcasts!

To listen to the post click here

To read the show notes click here

DESCRIPTION:
Goodreads is a social network for book lovers to find, meet, and link up with other readers to share, review, discover, and recommend books on your virtual book shelf. Their mission is “to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world… Knowledge is power; and power is best shared among friends.”

TAGS & CATEGORIES:
folksonomy, social media, networking, books
It’s like a myspace for readers or Last.fm for books

SCREENSHOTS:

PROS:
*Quickly and easily browse or manually add, rate, and review books you have read, are reading, or want to read.
*Discover link-minded book lovers to find good books to read
*Has a book club group feature where you can meet and discuss with other readers.

CONS:
*None

COST/SET UP:
*free, just need to sign up for an account
*web-based no downloads required

EDUCATIONAL USEFULNESS:

I have started a group in this network called the Educator Book Club specifically for students, teachers, parents, administrators, and professors to link up and share their favorite books. Your invited to join in or add me to your friends network I am edvibesproducer.

“READ/WRITE SOCIAL WEB2.0″-NESS

OVERALL GRADE:
A+

LINK:
http://www.goodreads.com/

DESCRIPTION:
The best and fastest introduction to what RSS is and how it works, done with a marker board and a hand.

TAGS & CATEGORIES:
rss video

LENGTH:
3.5 minutes

VIDEO:

EDUCATIONAL RATING:

Understanding RSS is foundational to empowering digital immigrants into the new Read/Write Web2.0

OVERALL GRADE:
A+

AUTHOR & SOURCE:
by leelefever
http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

WEBSITE:
http://www.cocomment.com/

TAGS & CATEGORIES:
rss blogging

FEATURES:
*bookmarks, tags, and tracks your comments
*alerts you (via RSS) of updates to the conversations you participated in so you don’t have to continually revisit the blogs you commented on to check for updates on the discussion.
*has a firefox extension for one click tracking
*has a wordpress pluggin (that is activated on this blog) that facilitates comment tracking

PROS:
*this service overcomes the one big obstacle I had to completely entering blogging by participating in the discussions and be able to keep track of it all

CONS:
*that this wasn’t released sooner

COST/SET UP:
*free
*web-based, just need to sign up for an account (2 mins)

EDUCATIONAL USEFULNESS:

No better way to facilitate online participation and discussion!

“READ/WRITE SOCIAL WEB2.0″-NESS

This epitomizes the essence of reading and writing on the new social web2.0

OVERALL GRADE:
A+