The past two weeks have been slow, as I can’t wait to move onward. I really enjoy learning the new 2.0 technologies. I spend a lot of time on the computer at home, not so much at work (a plus, though it is super handy to have when wanting to look something up) and growing up computers were in all my classrooms. Early in school I remember using the computer mainly for typing, math or best of all playing games. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?was the best game ever on a Commodore 64! or Jumpman that was quite exciting too!
In highschool, the internet became huge especially chat rooms and instant messaging like ICQ (what happened to that? Is it still as popular?) or MSN Messenger. It is interesting to see what was once popular, what has survived and compare it to where the internet is moving today. There are still similarities of early IM and chat rooms to what has grown into social networks. Computers and technology are not new to me and I really need to strain my brain for a time that I hadn’t had a computer available somewhere (before Grade 3? What year was that?).
Anyways back to Learning 2.0. Reading Renu’s blog, I was intrigued by the e-learning site Mindpicnic. Fantastic idea! A great way for anyone to learn different subjects or get extra help for school. Maybe I can finally learn Spanish! Web 2.0 is only the beginning and it is nice to see that libraries and schools are realizing the need and potential of adapting and “accepting” what the Web can offer. The students of today live on and through the computer and that so far is not going to change.
which after a vigorous test on the majority of the features in my opinion has come out on top. The feature that I really enjoyed was the ability to change the editor format to the new easy point and click editor. When I first made my pbwiki I didn’t have this feature (or I didn’t realize that you could change the mode) and I found it tricky to remember the codes to change font size, format etc. Prior to this change, I did like the preview button while in editing mode, but I notice that the new point and click editor doesn’t have this handy feature! To my disappointment! I also like the fact that you can change the templates to personalize your wiki, however, because this is one account, I found that the template chosen acts as the template for all pages made instead of just individual pages, which is a bit of a pain. I did notice in the comments left on pbwiki was that people were having problems adding their page to the sidebar. I did not find this, just add the text as long as you remember the exact title of your page. Another handy feature was the highlighting of broken links allowing you to see if your linking worked. Adding links and images was also easy and I had no problems.
