Family Mingle and Wiggio

I was showing my best friend Go2Web20 one day and now he is obsessed with all of the websites! His favorites are family mingle and wiggio. He created an account on family mingle and has been slowly added all of his family memebers. On family mingle he created a family tree of his immediate family, and then sent them all emails to join him on the site. They can add pictures and profiles of themselves and update their family on their lives. He likes it because it makes it easy for him to keep in contact with his aunts, uncles, and even his grandparents. There is a comment section where you can post family announcements or family events that will be taking place.




The other website he likes is Wiggio. He likes wiggio because he can use it to send mass emails out to his entire fraternity. He is in charge or sending out text messages, emails, and announcements to his fraternity and its always been really hard to do. Now on wiggio he can add everyone on it with their phone numbers and emails and send out the messages easily. There is also a calander that he can update about upcoming events. He is also considering using the polling section to poll the fraternity about how they feel about new ideas and even for voting for new positions in the fraternity.

21st century assessments

Hands on assessments are a good idea for elementary students. Instead of filling in bubbles on a sheet or circling answers, hands on assessments let the students actually perform what they know and have learned. In my social studies methods class for elementary students we have recently been talking about these types of assessments. Students learn and do better when they actually get to perform their work and show what they know. There was an example in our social studies book from an assessment for 4th grade. It showed a map and it asked the students to draw certain things at certain points and locations on the map. A question on a test like this would be more interesting and fun for the students. It would also show how well students read instructions and follow instructions. Hands on assessments are something that are becoming more popular as 21st century education starts to make its way into elementary classrooms.

web 2.0

What is Web 2.0? Web 2.0 is a new generation of the internet. It isn't exactly a new kind of internet, but just the idea that he web matters again. Its more of an updated internet. There are now tons of websites devoted to making life easier online. Websites from yawnlog where you can log everything about your sleep, to a tool created to managing your to do list at doitdoitdone. Also web 2.0 is all about social networking. Myspace and facebook are two major social networking websites that are used by millions of people everywhere. People are interacting and reconnecting through the internet more and more. Youtube and many other video websites allow you to post your own material online to share with people. You can also view material from music artists, clips from movies and even tv shows. Web 2.0 is fully coming into its own right now.

Over the past few days I have been hearing a lot about the facebook issues. Everyone is worried about the new terms of service that facebook issued. People are worried that facebook "owns" everything you put online, even on your own facebook. So all of your pictures and information can be used for advertising or any other way they want to use it. There was supposbly new terms of service that were put up saying that facebook owns everyones content. Mark Zuckerbag posted a new blog regarding the issues people are bringing up about facebook. He says they are going back to the old terms of service until things get figured out. Hopefully this means we won't be seeing our old facebook pictures twenty years from now on random online advertisements!!

ipods and illegal downloading

I finally gave in and got an ipod over over the summer last year. I was really against them for a long time for some reason. They almost scared me because they are becoming so small and compact. It's almost scary how far technology is going to convenience us. We no longer have to walk around with our big cd player and case full of cds. The scariest thing for me is not buying cds. I know that its cheaper to use itunes or even to download illegally but I really liked buying cds. It wasn't just about the music but the art on the covers and the hard work the band put into making it. I really feel like cds are eventually going to disappear, and music will only be used on ipods and computers. Music won't actually be something thats on a disc.
Since I have gotten an ipod though, i have really enjoyed it. Its small, and easy to carry around. If only all of the accessories for it weren't so expensive!!

To Do

-Elementary Lit. project due Thursday
-History group meets tonight at 7pm
-review geography
-review math

x-mas list

Christmas List:
-forever 21 purse
-Andy Warhol poster
-pink digital camera
-itunes gift card
-target gift card