Blogs You Might Like...

Educational Technology Summaries

One of the more interesting blog sites being reviewed is “Cool Cat Teacher Blog. Teaching Students with New Tools, Enthusiasm, and Belief that Teaching is a Noble Calling” (Davis, 2012). Davis (2012) suggested that the blog site is aimed at those who would benefit from “Productivity Tricks, Tips, and Apps.” One of the reviews that links to another blog is “Sixteen Habits You Should Do Every Day” (Kratos, 2012). Unmentioned by Davis is the lack of article attribution other than ILP, presumably the initials of the author’s name. In fact, the website “KratosGuide. Dominate Your Life” has no mention of any author and viewing the site credentials using the utility “Whois.net” shows that the registration is private (Whois, 2012). Putting these concerns aside, Kratos has a lengthy discussion of the benefits of starting and keeping habits, stating, “Your daily habits are HIGHLY correlated with success or failure. By doing something everyday you can achieve goals that would be otherwise impossible” (Kratos, 2012). Dividing the argument into the sections “Overview, Paradigms, The Sixteen Daily Rituals, and Implementation,” Kratos ends with the concept of anxiety being good for us, because if we can keep the ego from rationalizing behavior and suppressing anxiety, the inner feeling can show us areas of our life that need attention and effort, leading to personal growth (Kratos, 2012). 

The second blog being reviewed is "Diane’s Digital Discoveries. Resources and ideas for the successful integration of technology in the classroom" (Krause, 2012). Her blog looks professional; The author states that she is a Technology Staff Development Specialist and Classrooms for the Future coach. Krause appears to post daily to weekly, and her April 18, 2012 post asserts that she has developed iKeepSafe curriculum with Google as part of the "Google Digital Literacy Tour" (Krause, 2012). A link to the iKeepSafe blog site allows educators to view four Youtube videos (iKeepSafe, 2012). Each video is two to four minutes long with titles such as “Detecting Lies and Staying True” and “Keeping Safe on Youtube.” Selecting Educators on an icon on the left reveals another fourteen iKeepSafe subjects. The iKeepSafe program appears to be aimed at students of all ages using stick figures to illustrate the stories. iKeepSafe will be used in my classroom in the fall.

The last blog that I am reviewing is “Free Technology for Teachers. Free Resources and Lesson Plans for Teaching with Technology” (Byrne a, 2012). This is a well-designed site, although some might comment on the monetization; There are ads everywhere. In Byrne’s July 20, 2012 post, he states that there are five ways that he uses the web-based service Google Sites (Google, 2012) in his classroom. He uses it as a wiki, as a digital portfolio, as a digital file cabinet, as a blog, and finally, as a website. Google Sites has added a page-level permissions option that he uses to allow students to only edit their own pages. Byrne has a link to “47 Page Guide to Google Sites for Teachers” that I found useful as a reference (Byrne b, 2012).

References

Byrne, R. (2012, July 20a). Free technology for teachers. Free resources and lesson plans for teaching with technology [Web log post]. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Byrne, R. (2012, July 9b). 47 Page Guide to Google Sites for Teachers. [Web log post]. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/07/47-page-guide-to-google-sites-for.html

Davis, V. (2012, July 20). Cool Cat Teacher Blog. Teaching students with new tools, enthusiasm, and belief that teaching is a noble calling. [Web log post]. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/

Google. (2012). Google sites - Free websites and wikis. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from http://www.sites.google.com

iKeepSafe. (2012). Google digital literacy tour. iKeepSafe. [Web log post]. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from http://www.ikeepsafe.org/educators/google-digital-literacy-tour/

Kratos. (2012). Sixteen habits you should do every day. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from http://www.kratosguide.com/16-habits-you-should-do-every-day/

Krause, D. (2012, July 18). Diane’s digital discoveries. Resources and ideas for the successful integration of technology in the classroom. [Web log post]. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from http://diannekrause.edublogs.org/

Verio Incorporated. (2012). Whois lookup and ip. Retrieved on July 22, 2012 from http://www.whois.net/whois/kratosguide.com