Friday, October 24, 2008

Using Cool Tools

First, let me say that its been a crazy week at work because of a new email server that we have set up.  Our old server and software was old.  The software was about 8 years old and while it gave us a great service it just wasn't cutting it anymore.  So we opted to upgrade and have been busy touching every machine in the district to get it working correctly.  Its been a long week!

For me the cool tool that I use the most is Mindomo.  Its a great mind mapping program and it can be shared with other people over the web.  If I was teaching, I would most likely be using xtimeline.com, this is a great way to build time lines for class projects.

I've found several cool tools that are just fun to play around with like Wordle.  Building word clouds and just goofing off on the web.  


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Roman,

Glad you are back! We were worried about you!

I really like the timeline tools as well. I'm sure I would use those in the classroom, and I'll probably try to incorporated a timeline activity into my 6200 project. I was not familiar with the timeline tools until I took this course.

I like Mindomo, too. It's a good alternative to some of the other flowchart-type applications that are available. I think it would be useful to me in the classroom (teaching) as well as in some of the courses I am taking at UGA.

Hope things settle down for you soon at work!

Lenrose :)

Mark Caponigro said...

Roman-

I understand those busy weeks at work. Being in education, they seem to happen all too often! Anyway, I agree with you on the "coolness factor" of the three tools you mentioned. Like Lenrose mentioned, Mindomo sounds like an applicable tool for the classroom. Of course, Wordle is a lot of fun, and the xtimeline program would work well with many of the GPS we cover. Well, on to more blog entries!

Mark

Unknown said...

I plan to checkout Mindomo to see how it compares with Bubblus. It's wonderful to have access to these types of tools on the web!

I just checked out xtimeline too. I loved that you can change views to one that provides more information in an easy to see sequence. This looks very useful for students. I wonder if there is an ad free version for educators.

Wordle is fun, but it can also be educational. Try typing in a speech or famous document and you will see the most important topics of these items.