Thing 12-Adding Widgets

Very interesting afternoon of Widget mania.

I enjoyed navigating all the various widget possibilities out there in the Internet. Adding Widgets is sort of like having a RSS streaming to your personal blog rather than going to bloglines. Widgets give you smaller bits of "real-time" information. The only complication that I had was figuring out that widgets are added to your actual blog page rather than being added to an individual post. Once I got around that confusion, I had fun.

After today, embedding has become much easier. As with any new learning that occurs the key is to practice, practice, practice. I selected three widgets to try out various sites. I chose a clock from Miniclock to add some color and time management monitoring on my blog. I found the quote of the day and the special education tips at Widget Box. I assist with the morning announcements at one of my schools and I am always looking for applicable quotes to share with students and staff. The special education tips widget looked interesting in providing new ideas to use with some of my students or to share with staff when we are brainstorming. I might also find something to assist me in my speech therapy practices.

At present I am not in any other on-line communities. I have been alittle hesitant about going on Myspace, Facebook and other sites. I guess I feel that I would rather have face to face interactions with friends and colleagues rather than engaging with others via the Internet. In the past, using the Internet to communicate has lacked the emotions and visual cues (i.e., the suprasegmentals that accompany speech) which has resulted in my limited use of email as a form of regular communication with others. I know that the younger generations are very computer savvy and engage with all electronic media for entertainment and interactions with others.

My social interacts that have resulted from this course have definitely opened up my views and shown me that you can develop relations with other people that you have never met face to face. Blogging definitely does facilitate meeting others that have your same interests and helps find others that are willing to engage with you.

I look forward to using my new skills and contacts to enrich what I do in the future both with Web 2.0 and my practices in my schools. Have a nice day, Gregory Jacoby