Sunday, September 23, 2007

Week 6 Thing # 14

I played with Technorati today. I searched School Library Learning 2.0 using tags, the blog directory and keyword search. To find these options you had to go to advanced search. When I used the Blog Keyword search, I went to exact phrase and keyed in the phrase. I got 211 hits - all from our online learning community. With the tag search I got over 1 000 then refined the search using Boolean (" ") and got 205. The Hey Jude blog came up as well as the blogs from this tutorial. With the Blog Directory search, I got 17 hits - not sure why and really don't want to take the time to figure out why.

Would I use Technorati with students? I would if I was teaching a lesson on how to recognize authority and refining searches.

I usually find good blogs to follow by seeing who my experts are following - people Like Joyce Valenza, Doug Johnson and David Warlick. Much easier!

Week 6 Thing #13

This week I looked at del.icio.us. I have to say that I was playing with this social bookmarking tool prior to this week's exercise. I certainly see the advantages of having access to my favourites from any computer. I add to my list constantly from work or from home so it is very convenient. I have now added my account as part of my email signature so that people can see what I have book marked. I don't have any PD budget this year for my high school TL/LMSs so I am going to attempt to provide it via emails, blogs and RSS feeds. We'll see what happens.

I see this as an excellent tool for teachers and students. This certainly can be used as a pathway by teachers for students. Another use, which is far more valuable, is for students to use. I don't know how many times students bookmarked sites at school and then couldn't access them at home because the bookmarks were stored on their school accounts and inaccessible at home. This will solve the problem. Another problem that always occurs is the difficulty of students getting together for group projects. If they saved all of their sites to a group del.icio.us account, all members would have access to all of their sources. This to me is one of the most applicable tool (along with a blog account to track the research process).

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Week 5 Thing# 12

I'm not sure that I like this Rollyo thing. I tried using one of the suggested sites to find a quote on learning. while I did find some legit sites, there was also a lot of ad sites that came up on the list as well.

I generally don't have a list of favourite sites that I use. I generally search the Internet for commercial reasons - clothes, furniture etc. - but that is only if I am purchasing something that I can't get at a store. This means that I am rarely in those sites so I don't think that they are classified as a special list of sites. My blogs are on on Bloglines or on my iGoogle page. I guess I could list some of my ed sites like ASCD, and IRA - most of these are on MY Favorites list. if I am doing heavy duty research, then I generally go to my databases - I generally do not search on the 'net.

Maybe I should put some of my favorites into a search roll - when I have more time!