Professional Portfolio

When I first started this assignment I became increasingly frustrated. But the more I worked on the site the easier it became. I have a portfolio binder that I keep at work and look forward to updated the digital portfolio more when I return to work and have access to many of the details that still need to be filled in. Here is a link to my current digital professional portfolio (definitely a work in progress :) )

https://sites.google.com/site/tamaramaiocco/

LinkedIn vs Plaxo

There are very few differences between the two sites. One of the pros that Plaxo currently has is there is an App on Itunes that I can download on to my iphone and all of my contacts will be easily accessed there. Since I always have my phone with me and not necessarily my laptop it is nice to have that feature. Another pro regarding these sites is that everything is easily formulated for you whereas on a professional portfolio page you have to build it from the ground up. The biggest con I believe among the sites is to not use all three but to chose one that works for you.  Often times people may be members of one but not the other so it would be beneficial to encourage contacts to be a part of the one that I chose. Also it is nice how the sites plug into Facebook. Plaxo and Linkedin tend to be on the professional side where as Facebook tends to lean towards the social side. So because of this it is nice to see the three come together.

Kin 710 Course Wiki

Had heart failure this morning. I went to the site where Kin710 Course wiki was located and proceeded to do the assignment and realized I was personalizing it when I was supposed to just add a suggestion!!!! Fixed my mistake but need to engage my brain better as I am doing homework!

Library Thing

I love to read, but one of the problems I have with reading is that I will not put the book down until it is finished. This is difficult especially if I am reading late at night. Often times I will stay up until 3 in the morning finishing a book. I also have a hard time buying books because I finish them so fast. Lately my daughter and I are going to the library to borrow books for her because she is similar in that she is a fast reader and finishes the books quickly.
I enjoyed the Librarything website and think it will be fun to organize the books that we do have here at home. http://www.librarything.com/home/Tmaiocco
I am looking forward to using this site more possibly this summer to become more organized as well using it this semester to look for more resources for projects and assignments.

Image Generators

I am loving the image generator websites. For the picture below I used www.bighugelabs.com. As a teacher and a mom this could be a significant motivator for students and my daughter.

Podcast and my google reader

Today I found a great podcast that had a lot of health, nutrition and fitness information. The Instructors were entertaining and had a lot of great information. It would be a lot of fun to set something like this up for my PE students.
http://kinfit.typepad.com/kinfit/rss.xml

I attached the RSS feed to my google reader in hopes that if there are more podcasts created it will come to my attention.

YouTube

My experience with YouTube before the Masters program was always entertainment in nature. Mostly the videos that I watched on YouTube were videos that friends had posted on their facebook accounts or videos that my daughters have come across that are funny.  I think that YouTube can also be used in an academic setting as well. One serious dislike I have regarding YouTube would be that there is less than desirable content on the site. There seems to be no filter in the way content can be accessed and if my daughter is on the site some very inappropriate videos can be brought up. Skill videos can be loaded and accessed by students as well as Coaches can use the site to recruit players and watch videos that players upload with their skills highlighted. As a PE teacher the beginning of the year brings many challenges. One of the biggest challenges is teaching students how to open a master lock.  I found a video on YouTube that would be great to attach to a site that the students can access and watch to learn how to open a master lock.

Technorati

Using the leading search tool for blogs proved to be disappointing to me in the fact that when I used the term Kinesiology in several different searches often times no results would return. There were 31 blogs that were returned when the key word kinesiology was plugged in for a general search, but when I inputed Kinesiology into the Blog Directory no results were given. I was disappointed that there seem to not be very many blogs in relation to Kinesiology or even Physical Education for that matter.  Visiting the different “Kinesiology” blogs also proved disappointing because the sites were more directed towards mind-body connection and one blog site dealt with making clothes! The top 100 sites were mostly daily blogs about life and news worthy material. If I was to use Technorati in the future it seems that the keywords need to be exact in nature so that the blogs targeted are what I am looking for.

Del.icio.us = Delicious???

Is Del.icio.us delicious? I think that this particular bookmarking tool could be very beneficial to individuals that are computer savy as well as individuals who are not. By incorporating all of a person’s bookmarks in one place it could help streamline the research process.  Delicious.com helps the user by categorizing by topics the most popular websites available. The major concern I have regarding the website is once again having another site that I need to keep track of. I suppose the more I use it though the more friendly it will become and will help keep material in a focused place.  Another benefit is that Delicious is accessible anywhere and if I do not have my computer but need to access my bookmarks from school I will be able to do so in a very easy manner. I look forward to creating an account to see how beneficial it will be to use.