In continuation of the announcement last Tuesday at the Upper Division assembly, Horace Mann has a YouTube channel. To visit the site, either go to www.youtube.com/horacemannschool or search for Horace Mann School in YouTube channels.
Last Friday, the Republican presidential nominee John McCain named former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska and self-proclaimed “hockey mom” Sarah Palin his vice presidential candidate. Many in the media are calling McCain this selection “bold” and “daring”; some, such as the first female vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, have even written that this will be it for McCain in his attempt to become the first president to serve at least three terms since Franklin Delanor Roosevelt.
Now, some may add it this selection to the impressive resume of the Maverick. I, on the other hand, call it a failure to understand technology. For months, the McCain campaign lived in the world of Web 0.0. The Senator himself has even admitted to NOT using email. His selection of Sarah Palin is just one more to show how out of touch he truly is with today’s society.
Sarah Palin lacks just a few of the qualifications for being the JustInCaseSomethingBadHappens-President, although one Fox News columnist wrote that her being a professional mom with five children is reason alone why she would make a great president. Now based upon McCain’s age (72), his years of enduring torture (5), and the number of times he has survived cancer (4), and thus how old McCain’s body probably is (106), the chances that Palin becomes the first lady (insert McCain cheating on wife joke here) to be the first honcho is a fairly likely scenario.
But very few people, even the igloo-livers on the border of Russia, know much about Sarah Palin. So, what is the first thing we do? We google Sarah Palin. And what do you think is the first site that is listed? Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia page. Well from this page we learn a few gems, including that the Republican Vice Presidential candidate is also a runner-up in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant.
And this is why John McCain cannot continue to be the president of this country. Because he simply does not understand that once a beauty-pageant contestant, always a beauty-pageant contestant and Sarah Palin will be inexplicable linked to her runner-up status.
Now, although it may reflect poorly on the interests of this country, when according to Google Trends, more people searched for “sarah palin beauty queen“, “miss alaska 1984“, and “sarah palin miss alaska” than “sarah palin voting record” or even ” sarah palin under investigation” on August 29th.
The American voting public, one that thanks to Google, YouTube and Blogs, have become much more intelligent since 2004, will continue to view her as Miss Congeniality rather than as Miss Vice President. And that is why John McCain will have something in common with the Runner-Up in the 1984 Miss Alaska Beauty Pageant.
I just stumbled across the site, TagCrowd.com. What a brilliant and awesome site. Think of the possibilities. You can take a web site, upload a document, or just copy and paste text (up to 3 MB) and create your own cloud. It spits out an HTML code of the cloud that you can put into a Web site, blog, or wiki and you can customize it so the links take you to another site. Here is an example below, where I made a Tag Cloud of Barack Obama’s speech, “A More Perfect Union.”
I just re-discovered Box.net. This was a page I used years ago back in the day when there was no such thing as Web 2.0. Box was a place to upload (and backup) your files. However, you had to pay for an account and navigation within the site was cumbersome. However, Box has left the dark ages and become a full-blown Web 2.0 site. You know have can 1 GB of backup space free or you can upgrade to a pay-account, which isn’t bad at all (5 GB for $8 monthly, 15 GB for $20 monthly). Plus, there are now options to share and collaborate on Box accounts, including adding a widget to Box on your blog, wiki, or Moodle page. They are also connected to a number of services, such as Scribd, Thinkfree, and Zoho where you do some great things with your files.
So we are up and running at courses.horacemann.org. I still haven’t gotten the lingo down yet. Do I moodle a page? When you create your moodle? Is the word “Moodle” going to become part of our vernacular the way “Google” has?
We are trying to set up the blocks for course pages which will enable teachers to add widgets and RSS feeds to course pages. Perhaps we can even embed videos into the blocks and stickies.
Update 7/30: Great success! Adding widgets and RSS feeds is not only something you can do on your Moodle page, but it is fairly easy. A few extra mouse clicks then adding a resource, but something that I believe most people can do.
So I decided to give this a second chance, inspired by a story I saw on NBC Nightly News. The story was about Bill Marriott, and yes, his last name does have something to do with the hotel. Bill is the Chaiman & CEO of Marriott International.
Bill is blogging for Marriott at the site: http://www.blogs.marriott.com/. He also claims to be a self-describe “techno-phobe” and blogs by handwriting his posts and then typing in his blog (or having his administrative assistant do it for him). Well, if Bill The Hotel can blog, so can I. And I am going to try this daily, and see where we will go.
Now you can do your internet searching while being energy-conscious. “Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.”
Try Blackle here and take a look at some of the other interesting Web sites Heap Media has created.
Google Maps Street View expanded into the following cities today: Boston, Providence, Dallas, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Detroit, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. You can check out Street View by clicking on the above link.
Click on Street View and you will see all the cities that you can zoom into for the Street View. Enjoy!
Welcome to LIOnBlog! Here you will find updates on useful websites and tips that may be relevant in your classroom or curriculum, as well as simply interesting YouTube videos, podcats, and other blogs. Feel free to post any questions you may have or email me directly at liontech@horacemann.org or check out the LIonTech Institute.
