The Best of Web 2.0

After looking at the list of the best Web 2.0 classroom tools, the first one that I saw that looked interesting was “Eyejot.” I think the whole idea of being able to take videos and send them is so cool, especially for kids nowadays. It would be very fun to use something like this for maybe a Social Studies class where students could communicate with people across the world about their culture. This would also be fun in an English class at the end of a Shakespeare play. Students could dress up and act out a play while being recorded. One feature I don’t like about “Eyejot” is that you can only use it through a mobile phone. It would be better if there were an actual device that schools could buy for this. The second tool that really stuck out to me was “Cel.ly.” What a great idea! I think it has always been a challenge for teachers to get into contact with students/parents outside of work, and this tool makes it fairly easy. As sneaky as this may sound, I think it would be a great tool to send parents the homework for the night. That extra reminder from the parent could really go a long way. I remember telling my parents all the time, "I have no homework" when I really did (guilty). If parents received a mass text message from the teacher, the student could never really get away with that line again. However, this may also not work well because not all students (however, most do nowadays), have a cell phone. I'm sure by the time I get my own classroom students will have cell phones by the age of 5! The next tool that really caught my eye was "IcoFX." Especially in an English classroom, this tool would be very useful. For teaching vocabulary, English teachers (or any subject, for that matter) could have the students create icons for the words they just learned. This would definitely help them to remember the word more. As a visual learner myself, I would have definitely benefited from this tool. The only downfall that I see from the website is you have to pay for it! I really like the tool called "Trendsmap." I was actually playing around with it myself for a little while. It shows you the latest trends from on Twitter all around the world. I dont think this tool would work well for an English, Math or Science class, but for a Social Studies class it would be great. Maybe once a week when class starts, students could explore this tool and talk about what is going on in the world. This is a really interesting tool; I'm very nosy and like to see what other people are tweeting! The last tool that I really enjoyed was the "Teaching Channel." This reminded me a lot of Pinterest (and I LOVE Pinterest!) except for with teaching ideas and questions only. This obviously wouldn't benefit students at all, but I think it would be a really great way as a teacher to keep up with the latest trends with teaching.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel has always confused me to no end. I work at Wegmans and my manager asked me to create a sales sheet one day using Microsoft Excel. He wanted me to add in sales from previous years and how they connect with hours used at the store. I literally sat and stared at the blank screen for an hour until I started to get to work. Eventually, with a little help from other employees, I was able to start and finish the sheet my manager wanted (which ended up taking me my whole eight hour shift). After I did that, I thought to myself, "thank God I went to school for teaching English and will never have to deal with putting numbers in Excel ever again." I guess I was wrong! I didn't realize how much you really can use Excel for in the classroom. Keeping phone numbers/ email addresses of all the parents of the students and also keeping grades are two great examples of Excel in the classroom. Luckily, I won't have to do any sort of extensive sales sheet again, but I know now to not be so scared of Microsoft Excel.
For the assignment we had to do for Excel, I chose the crossword puzzle. I always wondered how people created crossword puzzles! Does everyone use Excel to create them? I based my crossword puzzle on Halloween. It was very easy to make the boxes and questions/answers, but making it so the boxes all fit together perfectly was tricky. I had to draw one on a piece of paper first before I could do it on Excel. Is there any easier way to do that?

Microsoft Word

I was searching the Internet for cool ways to use Microsoft Word in the classroom, and came across this really fun website:
Check it out!

This website is a great example of how to truly engage readers. Instead of words, it uses pictures from Microsoft Word to show examples of 60 ways to use Word in the classroom.