Myspace/Facebook vs. Plaxo/LinkedIn

Social networking sites have become the new way to stay connected. With everyone leading such busy lives, it has created a quick and easy way for people to be able to keep in touch. I believe that the popularity of myspace/facebook is far greater than plaxo/linkedin. I say this because I actually have heard of and used myspace/facebook before whereas I have never with plaxo/linkedin. I do think that each of these sites are great when used for what they are intended. I view myspace/facebook to be more personal rather than professional - a way for friends to stay in touch. I'd like to use plaxo, however, as a way I stay connected to the other professionals I've met during this time.

Professional Portfolio

Being able to use technology to create and display my professional portfolio was a great experience. These three methods which I used - personal websites, plaxo, and linkedin were all good ways to be able to put it together and share it with others. For me, I prefer both the personal website and plaxo as they were easy to work with as opposed to linkedin. I also like how with plaxo you can both determine the type of connection you will have with others and use it to connect with other sites as well. Using the personal website was easy and allowed me to be creative in the way I put my portfolio together. The one downside was only being able to display it to email addresses that I knew or make it public which I prefer not to do. As a student of technology, I pretty much determine the pros and cons of each site by whether or not they are user friendly to me. For me plaxo and the personal website were, linkedin not so much.

Inside vs. Outside

Sitting here in front of the computer, I was just wishing I was somewhere else - like DOUBLE REEF. Outside it's nice and sunny, just the perfect weather for a family day at the beach. Oh well, don't think that I'm going to get my wish though, but I'll make the most of it.

LibraryThing

LibraryThing is just the kind of site that my mother-in-law would love. Books, books, and more books - the possibilities are endless. This is a site that can be very useful for both professional and personal purposes. It makes searching for books quicker and easier. Personally, I would probably continue to use this site more for professional reasons. It would help me to not only find resources that I need for class, but also organize them so that they are in one place.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/taitano10

Image Generators - Fun!

I really enjoyed taking a look around and playing with the sites. They were easy to use which is the icing on the cake for me. I think that introducing sites like these to students would be a great idea. It would definitely expand their creativity on a project for class. I selected the link I did because I thought it would be a great tool for my students to use to complete a weight training project that they have. Although the site I picked requires you to pay for the final product, it does allow you to put in all the information and view it which I believe would help my students generate ideas for their final project.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/magazine.php

"Summertime" - YouTube

I must admit that when I had to select a video to post I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I'm a huge fan of my sister and her beautiful voice. I looked, saw a video indicative of the moment I'm in and want to share it. Joy's singing with Dave Santos on a Friday night at the House of Brutus. Dave is another amazingly talented musician from Guam who spends his days teaching and his nights living his passion. Together they made a dynamic duo. During this night, there was no rehearsal. It was just two great singers getting up on the stage and singing with soul. Amazing!

Looking around youtube is always fun. There are so many videos to chose from and such a huge variety. There are definitely videos in this site that could be used by teachers and students. The question is just how do we monitor the videos that students view if schools allow access to this site? From this class I'm thankful for all the different ways I'm learning to help me take the positive things from each site, and fix them in such a way that it allows me to use it in the class.

Mission: Podcast

Wow... that was so easy! Using the site podcast.com, I was able to search a variety of different podcasts, select what I like, and create a feed to my Bloglines account. I definitely should be able to use this in both my personal and professional life. With podcasting, the more that people learn just how easy and fun it is to do, the more they'll try it, and we'll have access to it.

Technorati

Experimented with another new site - Technorati. Interesting to see how many posts come up when I search for "kinesiology." Plugging in 'search blogs' and 'tags only' helped to narrow down the number that pops up. I can't really say that I'd use this site often, but I can see how it makes searching for a particular topic easier. It's always nice to be able to put in a key word to help you find what you're looking for. After that the difficult part is going through all the information that comes up, and deciding what to use or what you need.

Deliciously Del.icio.us?

After some experimentation with del.icio.us, I realize that I can use this site to work for me. The phrase "two heads are better than one" comes to mind after playing around with it. I like the idea that I can pick something of interest, see all the different sites that are offered, and see what others thought of it as well. Also, I think that it's a great tool to be able to help organize all the different information I'm accumulating on the web. At this point, I welcome anything that offers some relief to all the madness.