The weather outside is disgusting - rain, wind, grey and gloomy. So what's a girl to do but sit down with her trusty laptop and spend (waste) the day playing with what the web has to offer. I have been following and responding to tweets from Twitter, catching up with blog posts that need to be read, digested and responded to, exploring the networking option on de.licio.us, playing with iTunes and a cute little widget called Moody, setting up my personal book catalogue at LibraryThing (can't get a widget yet - have to wait 2 hours 'cause they're down for maintenance), updating Facebook and playing with Skitch. PHEW!!! I'm sure there are plenty of things I could ( read should) be doing, but sometimes I just like to take the time to be totally self indulgent and play.
Skitch looks like it could prove very useful (as well as being fun) and the little icon looks so cute in my dock. I've been having a play to see what you can do. Haven't tried a screen shot yet, just a drawing and using iCam to take a photo of the cat. Check out my experimentation...
I'll say one thing for it - Skitch makes uploading images to your blog a piece of cake! I 've just had a go at uploading a photo from my iPhoto library - it's rather a scary pic - what happens when you let your 11 year old photograph you when you are over tired - but you get the idea.
I can see a lot of possibilities here - I'll have to start thinking about uses for the classroom. This is always providing our filters and firewalls will let me use it at school. If not I'll just have to get creative.
On a more sensible and serious note - there really is soooo much available out there on the net, plus what your computer can do in terms of what it comes with etc. I have so many things I'd like to try out with my kids, but sensibly I realise that you can't do it all. It's my intention to sit down this weekend and map out my intentions, goals and where I would like to head with my class in terms of using and infusing ICT, to ensure that it is purposeful and will enhance their learning, rather than being a total play experience with no real purpose. Which doesn't mean that I don't think they should play - in fact I think play is the best way to learn just exactly what a tool can do. But in terms of a learning experience, at some point the play probably needs to move towards something a little more structured. Anyway, I shall ponder it a bit more and post back here when I'm done. Off to play some more...
Hello keemac. Thought I would visit you after your tweet on this posting. Skitch looks really good but I think it is only for macs although work is being done to get it ready for pc's. I think it also has great potential for the classroom.
ReplyDeleteAlso where did you get your projects by jen badge? I would like to embed that on my blog as well.
anyway thanks for sharing
murcha