Inspiration, PLNs, and Social Bookmarking

Inspiration

I would most likely purchase Inspiration for the classroom, it is very beneficial in many ways.
How I could incorporate it into my classroom..
-Concept maps can be used for students to organize their thoughts when writing a story

-Can be used in science to show what certain things are made up of

-Can be used in mathematics to show ways to solve a problem

-Foreign languages can also benefit because teachers could use concept maps to show the different forms of verbs

- The picture tool in Inspiration can help younger kids learn new vocabulary
- Teachers can use concept maps to help break down instructions for kids that have a hard time understanding

- Diagrams can also be made by the students so they can help keep track of their thoughts

-There are many different diagrams to choose from, depending on what subject you need

-  Students can use concept maps to make a story web about particular stories they are reading in class

- When having to make a concept map for anything, I will never again spend hours in word trying to create the lines and circles!

Personal Learning Networks

     I tend to ask my other elementary education peers for their input on questions that I seem to be struggling with. Sometimes I even ask my professors for answers that I am not sure about. I also look a lot of information up online. For example,  I am always looking up new lesson plan ideas. While online I always search in Google for the information I need. I have just recently became a huge fan of Pinterst.com. I am finding tons of education ideas on this website. I think I will start using this website more often to look up education ideas (and many other ideas for that matter).

Social Bookmarking

       I believe social bookmarking does indeed have an application in my classroom. Social bookmarking can effect me and my students in many ways. Social bookmarking allows you to bookmark sites and then use the handy tool of tagging, so you can later find a website relating to a certain topic. This could also benefit children. If children were to have their on social bookmarking account then they could also bookmark and tag their favorite websites. As  a teacher, tagging websites dramatically cuts down on the amount of time you would spend searching for particular websites in your favorites. Often times, people add 'important' websites to their favorites and forget they even exist, but with social bookmarking websites can be added and then later searched for by the tag description. Another fantastic thing about social bookmarking is that it is portable, no matter what computer you are at, or where you are at, you can always access your bookmarked websites.
   As a student, social bookmarking can and will help me. I can now find lesson plans and save them under certain tags and then later search for them.Websites will no longer just be put into one folder under my favorites. They will now have multiple tags, so when I go to search a topic I will have many things to choose from.