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Webkinz

Webkinz is also a website from the end of chapter 6 about virtual worlds. This website is aimed towards younger children than teen second life. To be a part of this virtual world a child must buy a Webkinz or Lil' Kinz animal and enter the secret code to make their stuffed animal come to life virtually. After entering the code, you enter a name and decide if it's a boy or girl, each animal then receives a room, or house, and this is where they live. They have money to redecorate with, eat on, or buy anything they want or need. Each pet has multiple meters to tell if they are happy, hungry, or healthy. There are games that can be played, or activities to learn from. You can earn more "money" to use by winning these games or getting answers correct. There is chat set up to use between friends, but they have pre-typed sentences that they can use only. This is a safety feature that I see as very necessary for young ones using a website like this one. Children can have multiple webkinz registered and play whenever they please.

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Teen Second Life

Teen Second Life comes from the list of websites at the end of chapter 6 called Virtual Worlds. This is a website to be used socially. The avatars have a life that the person using the avatar can control. This website can be free, or cost money. This website has tutorials to teach new users how to use their new avatars and make their lives realistic. In teen second life the people can fly, which is weird. Teen second life is a very large website with many people to interact with along the way. This website allows people to shop, create, work, buy land, etc. If there was time for use of this in the classroom it would be great for teaching students budgeting, living, etc. in older grades. There are blogs, forums, groups, etc. about teen second life for even more communication and understanding of this virtual world.

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Juice

This website comes from the end of chapter 3; this chapter is titled MP3 Players. This is one item I had not even thought about using in the classroom until reading this chapter. The website is great because it's free, which is always good! It supports more than 15 different languages. This is a place to get podcasts. This download has four tabs that allow users to download, subscribe, look through a directory of podcasts, and clean up. Users can also schedule times for the program to automatically check your stations for updates. This is a free program, but it is not completely an online program. You have to download Juice to your computer to really be able to use it. This website takes money donations to help keep it going!

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Polleverywhere

This website is great! It goes straight along with chapter 2 in the book. This chapter is titled cell phones and is all about the usefulness of cell phones in the classroom. Polleverywhere is a way to use the technology of cell phones to receive answers. This is a free site for up to 30 users. Above 30, the fees go up in increments and can be a bit pricy, but for small groups it's very useful. There are many groups that use this website, some are "presenters, ad agencies, educators, faith-based organizations, non-profits, and more." All you do is simply go to the website, click on create your first poll, choose whether you want it to be multiple choice or open ended, create the question, and watch the answers come in! If I had a class that I knew would all have cell phones I think this would be a great way to get anonymous answers to share with the group when necessary. The home page is very informative and does a great job at making polleverywhere a desirable technology to be used.

HTML

My website!

Finally done!! :)

SMART-9

Creating Content-Images

I have personal experience accessing videos and photos on Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube, and other websites. I have used this for keeping caught up in the lives of my friends, entertainment, educational purposes, learning how-to, etc. I have downloaded some when necessary. Some I save for myself, and some I share with others.

I have personal experience uploading videos and photos to Facebook, Tumblr, and Youtube. All three of these are very easy to use as long as videos are formatted correctly and photos are small enough to upload easily. The use of most of these was just to show others. Sometime it was for educational purposes, like for this class and other classes where it was necessary to upload videos to share. 

"Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation." The aim here is "realizing the full potential of the internet — universal access to research, education, full participation in culture, and driving a new era of development, growth, and productivity." This to me says that I can use photographs and videos that I find without getting in trouble for using them if it is helping people learn and grow in knowledge. For teachers this lifts a huge worry of copyright infringement from their shoulders and gives them more resources to be able to use in the classroom. (quotes from: creativecommons.org)