Using iGoogle as a PLN

I've been working a lot with my iGoogle homepage a lot lately and have discovered a lot of new ways to incorporate my teaching needs into the site. Various RSS feeds from Ning websites really help me stay updated with what's going on with other teachers in my field of study. As a personal learning network, it works really well especially because it can be constantly updated.

Using Delicious Socially

Delicious is pretty useful on its own. It makes it easy to keep track of websites you find all of the time, regardless of where you are and what computer you're using. However, I never thought about how useful it would be to bookmark certain pages for other people as well. Delicious provides a service for its users that allows such a thing, and makes it very easy too! This screenshot is of a bookmark that I successfully passed on to another Delicious user. Kudos to me.

ProfilerPro Survey Accomplished!

One of my goals at the beginning of this semester was to learn how to conduct a survey on ProfilerPro.com. I finally learned. Unfortunately, I couldn't just conduct a survey with the people already in my class because of my status of a member in the group, but I did create a test group and put a few sample questions on a survey just to get a feel for what it's like. ProfilerPro also makes it possible to use other surveys for your group. For example, as a secondary language arts teacher, I can search for surveys that have a literature or english content and assign them to those who are in my group! Crazy cool. Here is a screenshot from my work.

Citations

With the world of technology growing all the time, new and different media sources are constantly being used in research. These different sources are helpful, but also need to be properly cited. I found that one particular Wikispace's sole concern is this kind of citation help. Here is a link to the site if you ever need help with citing different technological sources.


This site helped me when creating my digital story which I created in my Education course here at IU:

Station 6: Persuasive Speaking Survey

Here is the link to the actual google form.

HotChalk

This site provides an easy way for students, teachers, and parents to communicate and keep track of quizzes, homework assignments, and grades. And it's free! The site concentrates on practicality and ease of use instead of fancy gadgets and flashy html work. I am not a dry and empty person, but I much prefer this kind of setup when it comes to staying organized. HotChalk is also great for communication amongst all parties involved.

Pivot Tables in EXCEL

Working with EXCEL can be rewarding in all sorts of ways. Not only is data collection easy, but different tools that the program provides make it easy to present the acquired data as well. Here is an example of what the results would look like when plugged into EXEL from two survey questions. Various other changes can be made to the graph when it comes to labeling and/or color.