Wiki

Addictive!!!
I spent a lot of time last week playing with Wikispaces and making a Wiki for a group of extension students at school.  Hopefully we will start using it next term and they will start helping me in my learning of this tool.  I am quite excited about the potential of the Wiki in this class and hope to extend it to my other classes, especially my Year 12s.  The address for my Wiki is: https://naglestellar.wikispaces.com/ .

RSS

Spent some time with Ann Boyle working on what RSS was last week. To my way of thinking, it is a way of keeping up to date with any changes to any websites/blogs that I am interested in.  I have tried to make a RSS link from my Wiki page to  my gmail homepage - don't know how successful it is yet, as it is holiday time and none of the students who will be using the Wiki know anything about it yet.  I also had an RSS-type link from some websites (e.g. Glogster to my Facebook page) - except they were driving me nuts so I deactivated them.  I found that I really didn't want all those updates on what is essentially my family and friends page. I am still thinking about these and hopefully will use them more in the future.

Facebook & MySpace

I was a user of MySpace before Facebook came along.  I can't remember my login now - so there is a long forgotten unused MySpace page floating around in cyber space belonging to me. I went back to visit and can see why this would be a favourite of younger people - links to bands, musicians, movies, stars, celebrities, fashion as well as friends.  I have had a Facebook page for a few years now and use it to keep in contact with family and friends in other cities, states and countries - I love viewing their photos and keeping up to date with their lives. I find this a really important part of my social world now.  I check my page daily - now have the link on my gmail homepage, which makes it easier. I also use it to talk directly to my daughter in Perth (at night when she is studying and I am doing school work) just quick little messages to keep in contact. I won't be going back to MySpace - Facebook is more than enough for my needs.  I watched 'The Social Network' on the weekend - so even have a bit of background knowledge as well!!

Online Image Generator

Made a magazine cover using the flickr page at http://www.bighugelabs.com/
I could see a huge use for this as a secondary English teacher. I also played around with the Popart poster.
My good friend Ann told me how to get rid of the excess photos that I uploaded from Flickr, so now there is only one photo of our side-ways trees.  I enjoyed playing with these and can't wait until the holidays (end of the week!!!) so that I can play around with all of this a little more.

LibraryThing

Ann and I worked on this on Thursday afternoon and we have set up our own Bookclub - with the huge membership of 2 - Ann and I.  We are going to let other friends know about it, so who knows - it could be the start of something big!

Interesting!!!

Hmmm
How did I manage to put one photo onto my Blog 3 times!!!
Oh well - it definitely proves that I have done my Flickr homework for the week.

Geraldton Western Australia

Geraldton Western Australia, a photo by tim phillips photos on Flickr.

We are famous for our 'sideways trees'

Virtual Worlds

I have read about these, and definitely heard a lot about them from my secondary students - mainly the boys. World of Warcraft takes up a lot of homework time!!!
I can see how these could have an application in the classroom.  The Second Life website was interesting, I spent a quick 10 minutes reading through the blurb for it and then another minute signing up and getting my own avatar - I look hot!!!
The idea of being somewhere virtually and developing environments etc virtually has me thinking...
I was planning a SOSE lesson for my Year 10s as I was learning about it.  Whether or not it is appropriate I'm not sure - I need more time exploring the possibilities.  I need more time to get to the things I need more time to do - one day.
Shelley