Edvibes Blog

Problem: Some educators won’t use google’s blogger because of the danger of the random

next blog button that could lead to a student finding an inapproiate blog.

Solution: Read How to Disable Blogger’s Sometimes Problematic ‘Next Blog’ Button

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.

Web2.0 has brought us free office suites webapps (short for web-applications, which run inside your internet browser window).  This new free webware (software run on the web not on your computer) have the potential to threaten the giant  MS Office Suite  as more and more switch to using the free services online rather than shelling out the hundreds of dollars to purchase the new commerical software.  This is especially relevant in the education sector. The two online office suites I use for myself and my students are:

1. Googledocs formely writely until google bought them out. It’s a suite that has a free replace for Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.  Googledocs has made me a more productive teacher,  I love and swear by it I use it everyday to write and share my lesson planning from home and school. Googledocs is free and requires no downloads, you just need to register for a google account. Only problem is, they do not support apple’s default internet browser Safri.  One way to get around this is by installing firefox onto your mac.

2. Zoho Office Suite is another great alternative, see this wikipedia link for a great explanation.   It has a much bigger suite with everything that googledocs has and  then some.  I decided to use zoho for my class because I didn’t want to have to worry about the mac compatibility and downloading firefox on all the laptop carts.

Related Posts

What are WebApps, Webware, Widgets, Web-based, and Webdesks for a greater explanations.

Read Zoho Suite vs Google Docs to see a great comparison between the two.

Discussion:

What are some of the possiblities and implications of this capabilities?

What are the best practices and classroom management of using web-based office suites?