Professional Social Medias

I never really considered Facebook and Myspace Professional social medias, but now that I think about it, a lot of businesses have pages and ads on Facebook. But do businessmen really post their professional portfolios on here too? I wouldn't consider that very professional because Facebook seems much more laid back or conversational (friends talking to friends, not businessmen promoting themselves). But maybe I just see it that way because that's the only way I use Facebook.

Linkedin and Plaxo seem much more professional to me. I think if I were an employer looking for someone to hire, I would first go to these sites before I checked out Facebook/Myspace. And I would consider it more professional if the person I was looking to hire told me to see his or her portfolio on Linkedin or Plaxo rather than Facebook or Myspace (but that's just my opinion).

Professional Portfolio

This is the link to my portfolio.

http://sites.google.com/site/jodysprofessionalportfolio/

LibraryThing

LibraryThing was very cool! I would use this to keep a list of books that I want to read. I often find myself hearing about a really good book, but don't write it down so I forget the name and author. Reading isn't one of my favorite things so I don't know about a lot of books. Now as soon as I hear of one, I can put it on my list. I also noticed that there are sections on the home page listing most added books, recently added, etc. (giving me an idea of what some popular books are). As a student, I remember getting reading lists in my English classes. Instead of handing out a list with only the book titles, teacher could create a list and have his/her students go to the site to look at them. This way the students could read about the book and look at the reviews other readers have posted.

Here's the link to my catalog: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jzw3

Image generator

The image generator websites are probably my favorite new "tech thing" so far! I'm not artistic at all so these are perfect. I first went to letterjames.com, but then went to Bighugelabs.com and it had a lot more categories. I could use these type of websites so much no matter what I do. For example, if I become a teacher I can make posters with different game rules. I could also give out awards and make posters or certificates on here. If I become a personal trainer I would be able to make posters and magazine covers with clients on them to put up in my office. They are also great websites to give to students so they can use them for all their projects. I really like the online image generators because they allow you to use your ideas even if you're not necessarily artistic.

This is a picture of my dog Zorr that I already had on my computer. All I did was choose the motivator poster and it already had the layout and everything. I just chose the colors and text!

Amazing I Love Basketball Kid Interview

So funny!!

TIM TEBOW'S PLEDGE

Sweet...YouTube has a link right to Blogger so you can post videos right to your blog. If you just click the "share" icon, a bunch of different buttons come up (twitter, facebook, email, etc.). Click blogger and it sends the video right to your blog. We'll see if it works!

I love YouTube; I've used it for a bunch of different things--some just for fun, but other times for school. One of the best things about it is when you type what you're looking for in the search box, it gives you suggestions. I'm not very good at remembering a video from the past, or just coming up with a good keyword in general so it is very helpful for me. I also like how it gives you a long list of related videos along the side of your screen.

I picked this video because I think it is one of the coolest, most inspiring, amazing speeches ever (the end especially). I learned of Tim Tebow two years ago when he became a star at the University of Florida. A lot of stories came out on him after he won the Heisman Trophy, I started researching it a little bit and discovered that he is a great role model as not only a football player, but a strong Christian as well. I've showed this video to my softball team as an example of a great leader! My teams usually really enjoy things like this because it is something new. There are countless ways to use this resource. Just searching around I found examples of how to play certain games, different work outs and exercises, and a lot of other things. Teachers would be able to post videos to blogs as resources for students. It never hurts to have extra examples.

I have noticed that recently there have been a lot more ads than usual. A couple years ago there were hardly any ads that came up prior to videos, or pop up at the bottom of the screen. Google ads pop up on almost every video. You have to be careful too because sometimes videos are listed in the "related videos" section that aren't appropriate.

podcasts

I thought podcast.com was easier to look around in than the other. It was good to look through both sites though because they were really different (regarding the type of blogs). It's really useful because you can search a keyword and find podcasts just for that. For example, I just put in "softball" in the search field and a bunch of channels came up for different shows. Some were mostly drills and technique, and others interviewed different players and coaches in the game. I've searched the internet so many times trying to find new/different drills and I can never find any (they are all for little kids). But these podcasts are for more advanced players. I'm sure if I looked around more there would be some in there just for coaches. It's even better that I have the blogline account because now all those podcasts will come right to me!

Technorati was really cool. I like how things are tagged because I can't always find what I am looking for when I go to search something. I put "kinesiology" in the search line and searched blogs and tons of blogs came up. When I clicked on one, not only was that blog's information shown, but it showed numerous tags that were also related. I couldn't figure out how to search for videos though. It's amazing how many blogs are out there! I wish I would have had these resources while I was going through high school and my undergrad!!

Delicious

Again, I am amazed at how much I have learned about all the cool websites and tools online! Del.icio.us is another great one. Why don't students learn about these resources earlier in their academic career? It would have been very helpful. Maybe the teachers don't know about it either? It's a great resource because you can find your "bookmarks" on any computer, and you can view others. I would use it to find useful websites, bookmark them, tell my students about Del.icio.us, then have them check out the websites. It's so much easier than writing the URL down and copying it into the address bar--a lot less chance for error. Another cool part about it is the tagging. I didn't really think it was a big deal until I actually got on the site and saw how many tags there were; it narrows it down for you. This would really help me because sometimes I can't think of good search words/phrases. Can't wait to use this.

This would definitely be a great resource for research assistance. You could just find the right tag and all the bookmarks for that would come up. It gives you a bunch of sites for your research. Students could also bookmark sites, tag it with something special, then have the teacher look at it to make sure it is a legitimate source.