Terry Freedman has organized a group of educators (14 I think) to put together a resource summarizing new web developments (Web 2.0) and the role these developments may play in education. The product is an interesting summary being distributed as a pdf.
If you are interested in taking a look, I would recommend downloading the pdf from another site (e.g., edu.blogs.com) because I had difficulty with the Freedman site. An affiliated wiki has also emerged and is fun to explore although very slow.
I am working on my site attempting to add a plugin that allows individual posts to be tagged. So, from now own, I will try to tag my posts. The idea is that a reader can not only locate related posts based on a reader initiated search or using categories, but also based using tags created by the author. Aside from a different way to locate information, the theoretical benefit for readers should be to observe the semantic system the author uses to organize posts. For me (learning aloud), there is also possibly a benefit in making the effort to index the content I record.
A tag cloud should begin to form at the bottom of the sidebar. At this point, I am making no promises regarding the effort required to go back and tag previous posts.
Yahoo Online has an article describing a new Michigan high school graduation requirement. Students must complete an online course or learning experience to qualify for graduation. The article states “the State Board of Education will approve the basic level of technology and Internet access required for pupils to complete the online course or learning experience.”
I have no idea what problems this will create, but I like the idea. Mandate that students and the educational infrastructure deal with the challenges of online learning. One such experience, blended with traditional experiences, seems a good way to start.
The list of online productivity tools continues to grow. The newest addition in my personal experience is ThinkFree. This site offers a suite of products providing word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation services. A user has 1 gigabyte of storage space. The voluntary social nature of this site allows collaborative authoring, collaborative file searching, and tags. At the low end, access is supported by ads and contextual ads (i.e., the system knows what you are writing and matches ads to this content). A “pay” version is available.
An extended review can be found at ExtremeTech.
I am becoming interested in Google’s Writely. This product is a very functional online word processor that you operate from within your browser. Writely is free AND it was developed to allow multiple authors to work on a file.
I learned that Writely can be used to author and then send blog posts. So, if you see this post, the blog upload function works.
So, why I would want to author blog entries in this way – the editor in WordPress works great. I suppose there may be some interesting opportunities for several people to co-author a blog entry. Perhaps there would be some advantage in creating a file, inviting specific individuals to work on it with you, and then sending the finished version to your blog.
Now, to see if the upload function works.
I must admit that I would be hard pressed to provide a reasonable definition of web 2.0. Perhaps the best way to explain is by way of example – the term applies to services such as ….
The Web 2.0 Awards site provides such a list examples broken down by category. You are provided the added benefit of learning which examples someone feels are the best of class.
USA Today has a recent piece outlining healthy habits that can help you stay sharp. The article concerns activties that may reduce the risk of dementia.
I would like my wife to review the list of suggestions. Doing Suduko puzzles is not on the list. Writing regularly in a journal is.
Blog on!