Sep 08 2007
Interesting Things Part Two
I have had an evening of playing around on the computer and I have picked up a few more interesting sites.
Searching
Mahalo is a search engine that is written by human beings rather than machine compiled. Each returned entry is guaranteed to be of a high quality and spam free. There is stuff on education but most of it is written at a higher level than primary. What I did see looked really good and I have signed up to ge a writer on Mahalo where I get money for each entry I add. I will let you know if I get accepted! You can install a Firefox add-on that will display Mahalo search results next to your goodle results.
Search Radar is a search engine that helps you refine your searches. When you enter a search term, it gives you a tag cloud of related search terms to help you narrow your search. Under the tag cloud there is a list of sites for the search terms you used. Again you can install a Firefox extension that will show you a list of related search terms next to any Google search results (replacing the Google Ads!)
Powerpoint Type Applications - Slide Rocket
While SlideRocket is not yet launched (I have sent a request in to have an account), this looks very exciting. Many of the online office applications do not seem to prioritise good looking presentation applications and most seem pretty basic. SlideRocket promises to make great use of the potential that being a web based application affords it. It is planning to have links with services such as Flickr so that you can bring in images to you slides. The interface looks great - can’t wait to try this one out.
News From the Cluster
I haven’t really used this blog to share what is happening in our cluster the way that I envisioned I would when I set it up! That is something that I need to change. There is a webquest that a teacher called Hayley has set up at Wilford School that is well worth sharing. She has used a wiki to set up the webquest that is about Hauora (the Maori word for well-being) and looks at Food and Nutrition, Emotional Health, Environmental Issues and Physical Heath (exercise). This is a great resouce that anyone can tap into. The address of the webquest is http://hauora.pbwiki.com
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Thanks for your comment on my post - I see you have been busy overnight! I like the wiki example and will have to check back and see if the kids record their information on the wiki as well - or maybe is it just a tool to give them a starting point and guidance along the way.
The pbwiki teacher needs a medal. It is a great tool for independent learning.
Allanah K
Go Hayley!
What a great example of web 2.0 tools used creatively in the classroom in our Cluster!