First of all, how awesome is the 'starring' function in the Reader? It's turned out to be very helpful for me since I'm always short on time. When I skim over the items in my Reader and star the interesting ones, I can easily check them out in detail when I have more time. Many of the items I starred for this assignment were from the Free Technology for Teachers blog. I particularly liked the info on Google Similar Images Search. Good lord, do I need to make my students aware of this...starting tomorrow! They are taking FOREVER and a day to choose one picture from Google Images for a project and while I appreciate their meticulous attention to the task, frankly it's getting old. As the "Applications for Education" section of the blog notes, Google Similar Images Search should help students refine their internet searches and so "find relevant resources more quickly."
And here's something that's totally cool and very new! Again, another starred item that grabbed my attention a couple weeks ago and I wish I would have made time to read more about it then. It's the Free Music Archive which I read about on the Free Technology for Teachers blog post by the same name. The name says it all: free music that is legal to download and use in videos, slideshows, podcasts, etc. You can look at the specifics for each song on its 'track page.' The site is very well laid out and easy to navigate. You can use the music even if you're not a member, but joining gives you permission to leave comments, tag, make friends and other Web 2.0 things. Pretty neat, but there is a disclaimer. The music is for everyone and so not all songs may be appropriate for school.
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I'm happy to hear that my blog helped you with your assignment. It sounds like your students will benefit too.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all - Cool image!!
ReplyDeleteI completely live by the star function in Google Reader. I don't have time to read full posts, so I star the interesting looking ones and then go back later to read those when I have more time.
I definitely learned something new. Although I'm now hooked on using Flickr for image searches, I had no idea that Google had that feature. Thanks so much for sharing that and the Free Music archive, too!!