Technology+Toolbox

__**Intro**__ Here are some tools I looked at along with some criteria I evaluated the tools with:

Glypho || Yes || Is it applicable to an English class? Yes. Would I use it? Probably not. You can edit stories and it's collaborative, but I'd just rather have my kids write something on Google Docs together. It felt like too many people could edit your work on Glypho; it was too collaborative. || Free, but need to sign up ||
 * Web 2.0 Tools || User Friendly? || Application to English Classroom? || Cost ||
 * Browser Set-Up: Mozilla Firefox || Yes || Great for searching the web… obviously. Easy to organize too. || Free ||
 * Aggregators: Google Reader || Yes || Could help kids keep track of news stories pertinent to the classroom/research papers || Free, but need to sign up ||
 * Social Bookmarking: del.icio.us || Yes || Organization for research, great for keeping track of all your bookmarks for those with multiple computers. I'm not sure how the sharing feature would work for me, but it could help bring new info to me from folks who track the same stuff as I do. || Free, but need to sign up ||
 * Search Tools: Webcrawler || Yes || Of course. How else are you supposed to teach kids about the invisible web? Even though I'm used to Google, it was good to check out Webcrawler and Hotbot. || Free ||
 * Webstart: Protopage || For the most part || Yes, but I prefer blogs and wikis. Having a class website of any kind is good, and you can really customize this space. The variety of widgets is great for making the pages "yours." The problem is you can't upload documents. I need that in an English class. || Free, but need to sign up ||
 * Weblogs: Blogger || Yes || Besides good for posting stuff for like a class website, discussion (through commenting) is possible- and can be moderated very easily. || Free, but need to sign up ||
 * Wikis: Wiki Spaces || For the most part || Yes. Great for student group projects that they can work on without being together all the time. It would be good for teachers to use for things like posting assignments, podcasts, etc. Formating and setting up tables has been difficult though. || Free, but need to sign up- Can be "upgraded" for a price... ||
 * Web-Based Word Processing: Google Docs || Yes || The concept is great for student projects that they need to type up. The document stays in one place and all can edit it (if they sign up for Google). It did take someone smarter than me to show me how to post documents to my wiki though. || Free, but need to sign up ||
 * Web-Based Spreadsheets: Google Docs || somewhat || The only application I see for this is building a rubric in a spreadsheet, so I probably wouldn't use it in my English classroom. It seemed to have fewer options for formatting cells, etc. too; thus, I'd probably just stick to Microsoft Excel for any time I used spreadsheets or databases || Free, but need to sign up ||
 * Creative Writing:
 * Assessment Tools: Survey Monkey || Yes || This is awesome for getting feedback from classes on what they thought of the unit, aspects of an assignment- really awesome tool for two-way communication. || Free, but need to sign up- Can get more expensive if you sign up for "pro" package ||
 * Podcasting: iTunes || Yes || If I could find readings of certain books or interviews with famous authors, then yes. The only hard part is how many podcasts there are on iTunes. Sometimes searching for content of podcasts (rather than the exact name of the podcast) is difficult. || Most are free, some cost a few bucks. ||
 * Screencasting: CamStudio || Yes || At it's very basic, it is easy to use. I could see using this for showing students how to use all the stuff on my wiki. To create great videos though, it would be nice to have a mic and a tool like a stylus. || Free! ||