The Internet

[Shaun.P]

Hey guys!

I've started a post-graduate course where I will be trained up to become a High School maths teacher.

One of the lectures today was on ICT and how it can help you be a more effective teacher. A lot of the websites the lecturer recommended were ones that I've heard of, but not really sure what the point of them is. I also feel in recent years that I've not been keeping up to date with all the new internet technology and I'm getting too set in my ways, only visiting a small selection of websites religiously.

I'd like to change that!

A few of the sites mentioned in the lecture (but not explained):

Delicious (del.ici.ous): You always see a little icon for this site on the bottom of new articles. Visiting the webpage makes the idea behind it seem pointless. I have all my bookmarks in my browser. Why would I want to navigate to another website to find more when I could just use Google?


Twitter: The lecturer couldn't recommend this enough as a useful tool for educational purposes. I have always found it difficult to see the purpose of Twitter - but I can see some use in pupils following you on Twitter for another way of keeping up to date on homework assignments and other tasks / small snippets of information? I've never really thought about it as a useful tool in education.


GoogleDocs: I love my GMail email account - I'd happily pay for it if it wasn't free. It's a complete archive of all my email messages since 2005 and the spam filter / user filters are very good. Is GoogleDocs just like OpenOffice but online? Meaning I can edit my documents from any computer? Is that it in a nutshell?


What other websites / services can you recommend? Can you help me understand the above even better? It doesn't have to be education related - but can be social websites too. If you use any unique type of web-based technology often, I'd like to you explain what it does and how it helps you.

I use FaceBook, MacRumors and IMDB (I like to keep track of movies that I've watched). I use Wikipedia a lot too, aswell as YouTube.

Thank you!

Some others:

 

[Melrose]

I can't recommend enough DropBox, Cloud and/or TinyGrab, and Notable (online app), and there are a few others I can't think off the top of my head that I don't use every day but that have their own dedicated, well-put-together use. All are cloud based.

Cloudapp is a feature or two short of TinyGrab, and a feature or two up in other stuff. The one thing that makes TinyGrab awesome is the ability to have your screenies upload to your own FTP server.

 

[chrmjenkins]

delicious is a way to have your bookmarks with you wherever you go. For instance, if you use a public computer, you can sign in to the service and get your bookmarks. Twitter could be useful for assignments as long as you kept a strict teacher/student barrier up. Googledocs is sort of like openoffice or MS office or any of the other variants. You can do docs and spreadsheets and the formats are somewhat compatible.

Digg, reddit and stumbleupon are social news sites, not really relevant as I see it.

 

[Shaun.P]

I can't recommend enough DropBox, Cloud and/or TinyGrab, and Notable (online app), and there are a few others I can't think off the top of my head that I don't use every day but that have their own dedicated, well-put-together use. All are cloud based.

Cloudapp is a feature or two short of TinyGrab, and a feature or two up in other stuff. The one thing that makes TinyGrab awesome is the ability to have your screenies upload to your own FTP server.

Thanks Melrose for the well put together list. DropBox sounds very interesting. A nice way to backup my files and access them anywhere?

I just feel like I'm not using the internet to its full potential so would like to try some new services!

Edit: I used your referral link for DropBox. I love it - what an easy website to use. I love to idea of sharing my information so easily. Are upload speeds fast if I was decided to upload 10GB? (Paid Subscription)

 

[yojitani]

Quickly:

Googledocs allows for easy collaborative editing/writing. You can assign groups of people to work on a single document (or perhaps a problem since you're in maths).

Twitter: I find it useful for getting and sharing links, information, etc. within a group of people I have some affiliation with. I can see it being used for classes as a way of communicating small pieces of information with other people. Not sure how you'd use it for maths since it's not my area. I'd recommend signing up and following people who interest you. I'd avoid certain celebs though. What a waste of bandwidth they are! Keep it professional (i.e. the professor who recommended twitter, mathematicians you like, authors you like, that sort of thing). You can just be a reader.

 

[Melrose]

Thanks Melrose for the well put together list. DropBox sounds very interesting. A nice way to backup my files and access them anywhere?

I just feel like I'm not using the internet to its full potential so would like to try some new services!

You can. It's cloud-based, but runs locally on your computer (Windows or Mac) and iPhone. Once you move something into the DropBox folder on your hard drive, it uploads to the server and you can get it from internet access point in the world.

That was a referral link, which gives you extra space. I don't care if I don't get a referral since I'm nearly maxed out anyway, but you might like the extra space.

 

[Shaun.P]

delicious is a way to have your bookmarks with you wherever you go. For instance, if you use a public computer, you can sign in to the service and get your bookmarks. Twitter could be useful for assignments as long as you kept a strict teacher/student barrier up. Googledocs is sort of like openoffice or MS office or any of the other variants. You can do docs and spreadsheets and the formats are somewhat compatible.

Digg, reddit and stumbleupon are social news sites, not really relevant as I see it.

Delicious sounds as if it's not for me. I don't have many bookmarks.

Quickly:

Googledocs allows for easy collaborative editing/writing. You can assign groups of people to work on a single document (or perhaps a problem since you're in maths).

Twitter: I find it useful for getting and sharing links, information, etc. within a group of people I have some affiliation with. I can see it being used for classes as a way of communicating small pieces of information with other people. Not sure how you'd use it for maths since it's not my area. I'd recommend signing up and following people who interest you. I'd avoid certain celebs though. What a waste of bandwidth they are! Keep it professional (i.e. the professor who recommended twitter, mathematicians you like, authors you like, that sort of thing). You can just be a reader.

Is GoogleDocs any use if I don't want to collaborate with other people? For example, essay writing? Would there be any point using this over Word?

I like the Twitter ideas you gave me and I think I will follow your advice.

You can. It's cloud-based, but runs locally on your computer (Windows or Mac) and iPhone. Once you move something into the DropBox folder on your hard drive, it uploads to the server and you can get it from internet access point in the world.

That was a referral link, which gives you extra space. I don't care if I don't get a referral since I'm nearly maxed out anyway, but you might like the extra space.

I honestly love it. So simple to use and such an elegant idea. Is the company reliable / been doing this a while?

 

[Melrose]

I honestly love it. So simple to use and such an elegant idea. Is the company reliable / been doing this a while?

They are. They've expanded quite a bit since their beta days, and they're very popular. TUAW loves it as well, and has posts galore with little tricks to make it even more useful.

 

[Shaun.P]

They are. They've expanded quite a bit since their beta days, and they're very popular. TUAW loves it as well, and has posts galore with little tricks to make it even more useful.

Seriously I can't thank you enough. I love it and considering upgrading to the 50GB plan - if the upload/download speeds are decent!

 

[Shaun.P]

Is LinkedIn any good?