Following
Will Richardson's lead (and therefore
TechCrunch's) I thought I would make a list of the Tools and Sites I currently use on a regular basis. Like Will, I'm just going to include those I use at least once a week, and I'll star the ones I use on a daily basis.
- Google Search* (just discovered the 'define' feature--it's wonderful. In your search type "define:"and then a word and you'll get definitions from multiple websites)
- Google Video* (less porn/questionable material than YouTube)
- Google Notebook*
- Google Calendar*
- Edublogs*
- Moodle*
- Firefox* (I just love the tabs and that it is open source and not a Microsoft product :-p It blows Safari out of the water too.)
- YouTube*
- Google Reader*
- Elluminate Live! (I teach in a DL program, so I end up tutoring over the phone quite a bit. Now, if a student has a math problem we usually just go into Elluminate and use the whiteboard--it's great. Better yet, it is available to all public school teachers in BC through a provincial license.)
- Wikipedia
- iGoogle* (I have Gsearch, Gmail, Gcalender, Greader, plus news and weather all in one handy place)
- WebCT/Blackboard
It will be interesting to see how much this list changes in a year from now. Nine of the items on my list I was not using at all as of five months ago. Five of the items are from Google. Forgot YouTube, that's six. I sure hope that Google uses its awesome power for good and not evil, as they sure must know a lot about me!
Now here's my list of tools/sites that I would either like to start using or use more frequently. The ones I haven't tried sound
really good, but I just haven't found the time to check them out. OK, I'll admit it; I'm actually scared of trying Twitter.
- Twitter (not sure I get it, worried that it will suck me into the abyss)
- Ustream (all this time I thought folks were talking about 'United Streaming' which I have found to be pretty ho-hum. Ustream--whole different thing.)
- Del.icio.us
- Flickr (I have an account, just haven't put the time into seeing how to make optimal use of it.)
Site that went from 'Cool' to 'Ho-Hum'; Facebook. When I first signed up it lived up to its 'Crackbook' nick name. But now I hardly ever check it out. Maybe I'm too old for Facebook?
Any tools/site you couldn't live without? I'd love to hear about them!
*List photo by
nocos
the links they provide. My challenge right now is finding my voice. So far I feel like I've been lurking. I feel like I need to have something really important say, which is silly since there's some pretty everyday things that people comment on. Perhaps it is just that I don't know the people in my network very well yet, but I know that will change :-)
