Thing 10
What is the value of Twitter? For me personally I don't think I could religiously keep "posting" the events of my day which honestly are not that exciting. I could see this as a great way for someone to relate their travels in real time. Sort of like an instant travelogue that I could live through vicariously. Or imagine the students in a language class who could follows someone's visit to the country they are studying as they are there - no details to remember - instant thoughts; instant pictures. Or a soldier's comments on a day in battle as it happens.


Select one of the sites that you explored from The Best of the Web 2008 or Time's 50 Best Websites of 2009. What did you like or dislike about the tool? What were the site’s useful features? Could you see any educational applications for it?

I like two different sites. One is the Wayback Machine. It is described as , "Browse through over 150 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible. Keyword searching is not currently supported." This allows teachers to find a site that he/she used to use successfully but can no longer access as the original host can no longer maintain it on the server. First Grade Backpack is one example, I have used this site for.

The other site is drop.io. it is described as "a private file-sharing service where you can stuff your stuff. There's nothing to learn, just open drop.io, select the files you want to take with you, and when you arrive home — or anywhere with a Web connection — there they will be. It's a great way to share a lot of data with other people too: just upload your files and then e-mail or text people the URL "key." There are tons of other features for working with groups, but you don't have to learn about them to start using the service. " How many times have we emailed to ourselves or others or carried around several USB drives?This would be a great way to have students comment on a question or problem that you propose without you having to copy or email anything. Or to allow you to finish that document that you start at home and need to finish in school. I think the features for working with groups will have lots of educational uses. Something for me to explore.