Tech tools to explore Part 1

After a series of energetic and engaging conversations about different tech tools to explore when we have time over a break, we have compiled a comprehensive (if not complete) list of great resources to explore when you have some time.  So in the interest of openness…

If you want to get more organized… check these sites:

Calendars:  Google Calendar (it can sync to just about anything), and you can get it, as well as the Outlook calendar on most phones.

Scheduling- got student meetings/ conferences to organize?  Check out doodle.com it is designed for such things. 

Email- think about what you can offload-- to a Virtual Office?  Elsewhere?

And Filters! Many email programs have ways to auto file your emails so you can collect and address similar emails at once.

Google docs… where can you get away from sending versions around and share a common document.

Other organizing tools to explore Evernote and RememberTheMilk.  These are two free online tools you can use to keep track of and alert you to your to do list.

If you collect a lot of bookmarks and webpages check out social bookmarking: Delicious and Diigo host different communities and have

Zotero, Bibme, and CiteULike are also great resources well worth checking out.

Also, blogging...a blog can be a great way to organize, archive, and document your stuff.

If you want to read, take in new info, learn check out:

One thing you may want to do is figure out your way thru a blog... how is it structured? what is a blogroll? what is rss? Yes, how to subscribe and track your subscriptions? 

Tools such as http://technorati.com  and http://blogsearch.google.com/  can be useful in determining what to focus on. Pick a specific focus, something relevant to your own interests and collect some blogs.

Explore the way you might want to store them.  Google Reader and iGoogle are two different ways you can store and access rss feeds.  Check them out and see what appeals to you.  Then when you click to store an rss feed you will often open a menu of choices of possible readers/aggregators.  Explore and see what might be a good layout and easy way for you to access this information.

Edu blogs: most professional organizations and publications have blogs now; several also have twitter accounts so you can follow both macro and micro versions of their thoughts!

• AskDaveTaylor- DaveTaylor on twitter- for just about any tech/how to you can think of.
  
• Garr Reynolds- Presentation Zen. Great book.  Great blog.  Great person to follow on             Twitter
  

Nancy Duarte- Slideology. Great book.

YouTube- Just spending time browsing around, searching and viewing some videos.  Michael Wesch has some great ones, as do many others.  And the Discovery Education Network has it's own channel: http://www.youtube.com/discoveryeducation.  There are also other aggregate sites that give you access to video and images.  Great ones we have found: Teachertube.com ; flickr.com;  VoiceThread; Vimeo.com; slideshare.com; and slideboom.com.

Twitter- not sure where to get started? http://twitterpacks.pbwiki.com/Education+Pack.  This is a wiki that was created to pull together great recommendations of people to follow.  This is the education one… but there are twitterpacks for all different interests so browse around.

Listen to the TechHeds podcast: http://www.techheds.com/ and hear what Brian, Anna and Patrick are exploring and recommending in the tech world.

Check out resources for free, usable content you can embed right into your classes: http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm and www.creativecommons.org are a great place to start.