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Last Friday in class we discussed GOOGLE Docs and what it has to offer to educators.  Before class, I had heard of GOOGLE Docs but really have not explored it further than created word documents.   I have had classes here at the university where professors have used them before but not to the extent in this class.  After going over every single way to use GOOGLE Docs in class I was amazed with how easy it was to do.  Word and PowerPoint were easy because they  are very similar to Microsoft's program.  The only upgrade I see with using GOOGLE Docs is the form template.  With this template educators can create test or surveys that can embedded into blogs.  This is really awesome because most of the students are tech savy.  However, the only drawback to using this in the classroom is that school sometimes do not have classroom sets of computers.  In this case a computer lab is required for completion.  The best feature of this educational tool would be that it saves documents automatically and it allows for collaboration projects.  For instance and student can take notes on a certain topic, save it, then share it with their partners so that person can complete the rest of the notes.  If have not check out GOOGLE Docs please do and it only requires a GMAIL account.  It will change your mind about any other word processing suite.

 
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Twitter is somewhat a new technology that many might feel hesitant to switch to from Facebook or any other social media program.  After being on Twitter for about a week, I can conclude that it is great social media program for anyone.  One might be thinking how can Twitter be used in education?  Well for instance it can be used to follow other educators in the same content area or even educators that deal strictly with promoting technology in the classroom.  I think the awesome characteristic of Twitter is that when a hashtag (#) is used it goes to everyone in that group.  The only drawback I see with Twitter is that when tweeting it only allows up to 140 characters which really limits to what someone has to say.  One rule of thumb is when using Twitter it is best to used a third party program like TweetDeck because it provides a three column organization for groups that you have created.
Video conferencing might be another educational tool that could be useful in any classroom.  There are many free programs like meetings.io, skype, and google hangouts that provide video conferencing.  However with Google Hangouts it requires a GMAIL account to access the software.  You might be thinking cool students can have conferences with each other but the real advantage of using this software would be having a person in any field of education have a conference with the students.  For instance, a Social Studies teacher could have expert in the field of the French Revolution or any other topic teaching the class let say from Europe or half way across the world.  To me that it crazy because it can actually benefit everyone in the class.  Students will learn from the best expert in their field because sometimes teachers do not know everything about their field

 
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All I can say is wow what a great tool that can be used for a secondary educator.  I know some early childhood educators might be a little hesitant about using new technology but Diigo is a tool that might changes educators minds.  This tools allows educators to actually go in a take websites and highlight certain paragraphs.  To compliment this one can add a sticky note with a questions that pertains to the certain topic of the paragraph.  Sticky notes will allow groups of students to have discussions right on the web page.  Another great feature of this tool is that educators can create groups.  Groups can be the content areas that are taught.  It makes everything well organized so students can go into their class periods  or groups to make comments. Being a  Social Studies teacher this is a tool that I will use in my student teaching and beyond.  If there is any confusion here is a video explaining how to use Diigo.

There are countless search engines out there for educators.  However, which ones are appropriate to use for the difference in cognitive abilities for students.  Take a look at instaGrok.  This search engine is great for visual learners because it creates a web diagram about a certain topic.  The great thing about this website is that facts, websites, videos, images and quizzes are all present on the right hand side of the website.  After taking a in depth look at instaGrok it can be a lot of  at first but after you sift through the huge amounts of information then everything seems understandable.  WolframAlpha is another search engine that was specifically made for math educators.  However, this should not deter other content areas away because being a Social Studies teacher this website provides great facts about certain topics like the U.S. Constitution.  Spezify is a decent but it does lack some things for a image search engine.  The results for a Social Studies image search really did not come up with great images that Google might have found.  However, for someone that is new too education technology it might be something to look at.  Sweet Search and ipl2 are two more search engines dedicated to the educator and the students.  Sweet Search should be used by students because every website is evaluated by their experts.  What is convenient for history educators is that there is a separate Sweet Search dedicated for all content related to Social Studies.  Just like Sweet Search ipl2 is a website dedicated to educators and their students however this website provides more options like newspapers and magazine articles.    Google is a great search engine but a lot of features are overlooked like the advanced search feature.  This feature allows any one to change the reading levels needed.  Basic, intermediate and advanced are the three reading levels that come up which helps to find specific reading content for all the grades.  For instance, a elementary teacher would look for content labeled "basic".  In the advanced feature it allows anyone to find any type of document needed as well.  For instance, here is search for a PowerPoint on the U.S. Constitution.  Below is a slideshow of all the search engines discussed and I hope every educator gives them a overviews to see if they are usable in your classroom.
 
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Technology is important in the classroom because students learning capabilities are different.  New and current technology will make life easier to learn.  Because of this teachers need to be aware of changes in technology and imply them to pedagogy.  Most of the educators might feel hesitant by technology because it can be a difficult concept to grasp.  It should not be feared but embraced. 
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    My name is Jonathan McClure and I'm a history buff who also loves sports.

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