535 Session 5

Ugh! I managed to carelessly delete most of the page templates I made for the first unit in my math class. Grrr. It does not feel good to lose hours and hours of work. Well, the good news is that I won't have to worry about it until next year, and next year I won't have to re-create all of the other templates for the year... if I'm careful...

Twitter Deck, Twitter Deck, Twitter Deck...why does it always have to be about Twitter Deck?? Well, I may have discovered why. I now can see postings from my Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace accounts without being logged in. These postings appear in the upper right-hand corner of my screen when they are shared. Now I won't be as disctracted by the other apps on these sites, nor will I be available to chat when I really am not available.

I have a Facebook account to keep in touch with people I can't see. There's a lot you can learn about a person when you are not limited to a specific amount of time, a specific time, a specific topic, and oral conversation only. I find interacting with family and friends whenever, wherever a bonding sort of activity. I have a MySpace account as an attempt to play around with the social networking scene. I haven't been on it very much at all since I began this program and added a Facebook account...pretty much since last winter. When I did frequent the site, however, I learned things I didn't really want to know about some students. I tweet because I needed to for this course, but I am beginning to find some great information from some members of our class, some additional information NCTM tweets, but doesn't necessarily post on Facebook, and I will be looking into following other professional tweets. The difference between Facebook and Twitter for me is that I have begun to use Twitter as a professional resource, while Facebook has a more personal focus, keeping me in touch with family, colleagues, and former students; people I enjoy, but don't get to meet up with.

I found a neat Web 2.0 app that I will be using as a review tool for my 7th grade math students. Quizlet's main attraction is the ability to make flashcards. It's a tool I don't have available to students quite yet. There are also collaborative features that I am in the process of exploring.