Afternoon of the TeacherTrack at FOSSED 2007

The rest of the morning was stellar. We progressed through using blogs with students to using wikkis. I learned about 'camelcase,' a language used by some wikkis that creates separate pages when you list a name together like this: JoeSchmoe. This is a good shortcut for teachers.

After wikkis, we moved on to Google Apps. Google has any number of applications that lend themselves to classroom use. Check out these applications:
Google for Educators
Maps
Earth
GoogleEarth Lessons
SketchUp
Docs and Spreadsheets I use this for reviewing student teacher work and for colloborating with teams--grade level, Special Ed., curriculum work, etc.
Searching Tips

You've all heard of YouTube. Now, there is TeacherTube. It's a site where teachers upload their instructional videos for classroom use. It's very cool!

This afternoon we've had an informative presentation on FLOSS by Bryant Patten, the executive director of The National Center for Open Source and Education (NCOSE) . He compiled Free Software for Schools . This is an invaluable resource for teachers no matter what platform they use--Linux, Mac, or PC.

There is a new feature to this conference. It is scheduled labtime. There are great machines to work with, great technical support, and great conversationalists. All in all, it's a great addition to the conference!