TeacherTube?

Before my CI classes at Marshall I had never even heard of TeacherTube, and now that I have some experience using and working with it I'm really not all that thrilled. TeacherTube is basically YouTube only not as cool or aesthetically pleasing. I do see how it is useful though so I don't completely hate it. It provides a safe online environment for students and teachers to share videos. It's completely free to use which is also nice. The video player is not anywhere near as good as the ones that can be found on YouTube and I think that TeacherTube videos often streams a lot slower. Over all TeacherTube is good because of the fact that you're most likely not going to find any inappropriate content in any of the videos.

http://www.teachertube.com/

Yummy?

Delicious is a website used to share bookmarks with other people. One of the best things about it is that it's completely free to use. Once you find a bookmark you wish to share with others you simply copy paste the URL of the page into form found on Delicious. Delicious will then allow you to tag your bookmark so other people can search for it. It will also show you how many other users have added this same bookmark to Delicious. By default anyone who visits the site can see which bookmarks you have added. You do have the option of turning on privacy settings if you would rather not let anyone know what you're bookmarking. However, since the main aspect of the site is to SHARE your bookmarks the private options are not emphasized.

Wonder World of Wikis

A wiki is a collection of web pages than is built collaboratively. With most wikis anyone who has signed up for an account with that particular wiki can log in and edit pages. While wikis often have a lot of misinformation published on them, they can still be good starting points for research. Wikipedia is one of the most popular wikis on the web. It contains information about thousands of different topics and doesn't really focus on any one area. There are, however, many wikis that focus on just one subject (see below). From Star Wars to RPGs wikis rock!









http://www.wikia.com
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.wikipedia.org

The Funnest Place on the Interwebz!

YouTube. Pretty much everyone knows what you're talking about when you mention YouTube. But does everyone really know how interactive it is? Every day thousands of videos are uploaded and shared via YouTube. People post their original music there, some people make short films, a lot of people simply make Video logs (it's called a vlog, yo!) about their daily lives. YouTube is a great way to interact with other members of an online community. Almost everyone and their mother has a YouTube account these days.

Some people have even made YouTube their sole source of income though YouTubes partnership program. Michael Buckley (known as whatthebuck on YouTube) quit his day job because "his online profits had greatly surpassed his salary as an administrative assistant for a music promotion company." Even celebrities like Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and Katy Perry have jumped on the YouTube train because of how easy it makes communicating with fans.

YouTube might just change the world, and if it doesn't it's at least making it a lot more fun for the time being.

New York Times Article on YouTube Partnership Program:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/business/media/11youtube.html?_r=2&em

Google Stalker?

At first glance Google Latitude seems like a really neat idea. However, when you really think about it, it makes you wonder, "is this really needed?" Google Latitude allows you to see where your friends are on a map that can be displayed on your cell phone or computer. It will only work if your friend gives you permission to do this. While I think that in some cases, such as parents wanting to keep tabs on their teenage children, this idea isn't such a bad one. I have to say though, it does seem a little stalker like. If you really want to know where someone is, why not just call them? If Google Latitude gains enough popularity there is going to be a whole generation of kids growing up using this technology. I don't really know what will happen with Google Latitude, but I'm very interested in seeing what happens with it. Only time will tell.




Video comes from YouTube.com and can be accessed by clicking here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Oq-9enE-k