Podcasts-Finally I know what they are!

I am really excited about this concept. I really did not know what podcast was and I constantly heard my favorite sports talk hosts imploring me to subscribe to their podcast. Well, I just did it. I explored Podcast.com and looked at some truly weird sites and podcasts. I found some which could be useful for teaching and coaching but I must confess I was really more into finding the podcasts I have subscribed to with my bloglines account. I am really looking forward to listening to these at my desk in the locker room while I take care of business at work. I do not even own an Ipod or Mp3 player or any other device besides my computer with which to listen to the podcasts. I guess that is going to have to changel. I have resisted all of these new technologies but I am quickly becoming engrossed with all of the possibilities.

Technorati

Technorati is quite honestly a bit overwhelming for me. It seems like it is so massive in its scope that it would be very difficult to choose what to read and explore. The most popular tags: politics, celebrity news, Iraq, sport, football, music news, Barack Obama, music news, and united states are all contemporary issues which are distinctly fascinating for large segments of society.These tags make sense as the most frequently utilized and they do lead to some creative blogs. I guess if one spent enough time going through this site there are sure to be numerous interesting and enlightening writers expressing their thoughts about a multitude of topics. I wonder who has the time to do this? I also wonder about the people writing the blogs and how much credibility they deserve. Much like many of the new technolical programs and opportunities we have explored I believe this one will make more and more sense for me as I practice with it more extensively.

del.icio.us thoughts

Delicious is a really interesting site. I use different computers at home, friends houses, at my cabin and at school and it is going to be really cool to be able to try this site as a way of finding all of my favorites. This truly could be an extremely useful research tool as fellow students and educators and others could share information and use tags to help identify and organize useful sites. I could see how a teacher could have students join his/her network and have them complete assignments using tags to find specific related sites and then add their own as they discover them. I believe this tool is one of the most intriguing and useful and may really become part of my future technological activity.

You Tube Site Experience

This is actually the first time I have ever gone into You Tube. I had an idea of what it is and have looked over people's shoulder as they viewed videos. I am really amazed with what is on this site. In just a short time I have watched my middle school band perform, watched the video produced by the kids in our video production class, and enjoyed numerous funny and interesting videos. In addition to these casual videos I also found numerous "how to" videos demonstrating many of the skills and sports we teach in class. Specifically I found videos of team handball which are very interesting and would be great to show the kids as we teach that unit. I found videos teaching the triple jump technique and a slow motion breakdown of it that would be really beneficial for my coaches and athletes. The features which I believe would be useful or helpful on school sponsored sites are the tags which help guide the user to a specific sections, the ability to blog on the site, the ability to run contests and organize groups and video selections as well as the ability to share videos.

YouTube Video-Best Wedding Dance Ever

Technologies in current/future careers

The technologies explored thus far in the course have really opened my eyes to possible uses in my current and future careers. In my present position as an athletic director physical education teacher at Savage Middle School in Modesto I am already planning on how to implement some of the concepts which have been presented. Twitter is an interesting technology in that I can see it as a way to improve the communication and unity among the coaches in my program. I would like to encourage all of my coaches to twitter about game results, field conditions, practice plans, transportation issues, and other information which would be good for a selected group of people to view.

Google Docs is another technology which I believe could really improve and streamline the function of the athletic league to which we belong.
http://www.salidamiddleschool.com/mval.htm We are constantly revising and updating documents relevant to our member schools, which if available for multiple users on this site, could expedite and even eliminate some of the time consuming meetings.

In the future I would like to teach or coach or work in the athletic administration at the collegiate level. I believe it could be very useful to operate a blog specific to my school, team, or program and it could provide a forum for anyone interested to keep up with and discuss and evaluate what is going on. The social networking sites like Facebook could be an effective way of networking within a community of people with common interests and connections.

Web 2.0 Award's Site "OODLE"

I chose to explore a few sites from the Web 2.0 Award's list. One that I found to be very useful and fun to play with is a classified/retail site called Oodle. It is a buyers and sellers site with options allowing the user to search wide or narrow areas for general or specific items. I enjoyed checking on available boats similar to the Ski Brendella which I own. My brother and I are avid water enthusiasts and we are always curious to see what our boats are worth and what is out there. These sites really enable a person to explore a wider range in order to locate and purchase private party items. http://www.oodle.com/