Digital Professional Portfolios

After working with livetext for the last 2 years I do not believe there is any better program available for creating a teaching portfolio. Now that I have re-created my portfolio with Google sites, I believe it has some advantages because of the web-based, public access to my information. With livetext, a potential employer would have to subscribe to the software in order to view its content, and livetext needs to be repurchased after 5 years and Google sites is free.

Sites such as linkedin and plaxo do a good job of keeping all of your email contacts organized, which can be difficult for people with multiple email accounts. Other than this feature I do not see a huge benefit to subscribing to either linkedin or plaxo.

Here is a link to my Google sites portfolio.
http://sites.google.com/site/sopsprofessionalportfolio/home

Library Thing

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/tsop55

The link is to my librarything catalog. I have a bunch of football or sports books I have read and one book about MLB umpires I want to read. I highly recommend Junction Boys by Jim Dent.

Generators Con't

Here's another one.

www.letterjames.com

Image Generators

What a fun toy. I created an image of myself on a cheap romance novel cover from a photo on my pictures. You can change size, shape, and skin tone, along with a whole bunch of other tricks. Here is an example from the site: http://romancenovelyourself.com/

Podcasts Online

I found a great podcast produced by a father/daughter duo about lifelong fitness and wellness; it is now linked to my Bloglines account. The podcast finder provided by Prof. Sailor was very in depth with a ton of podcasts to choose from. There is a lot of good information out there.

YouTube Blog Post

I have used YouTube in my classroom on several occasions. The amount of information posted on this site is incredible, and a lot of the educational videos are posted by students. One of the drawbacks is YouTube only allows users to post videos shorter than 10 minutes. As a football coach, one of my jobs is to create hi-light films of my players for college coaches to view; using YouTube as the medium allows any and all coaches to view the film so the student athlete doesn't have to send each school a file or DVD. I've provided a couple of examples on a previous post. If you are teaching in a classroom or school without internet service or the internet is down, you can convert and save YouTube videos for viewing anytime without internet access using a free program called "any video converter". In a weight training class a teacher can show video on proper form and technique, and students can post videos on their own performances and personal records. The possibilities are endless.

Technorati

I just finished exploring technorati and was quite disappointed. I could not find any blog posts, blogs, or tags using the keyword "Kinesiology." When I looked up educational blogs, only 2 came up from the directory. However, when I checked the tags feature, several blogs were tagged as educational, but there were no Kinesiology tags available. The tags feature did allow for an easier and more in depth search.

Del.icio.us is Deliciuos

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that allows users to bookmark and tag all of their favorite and most viewed sites on the web. It's like having your personal laptop even when you are on the road or at work using a different computer. My personal CPU has bookmarks at the top of the browser which makes navigation quicker and easier. However, when I am not home Del.icio.us makes anyone's computer feel like my own. The tagging feature allows you to organize your sites into categories such as education, email (if you have multiple emails), sports, or web 2.0. One way it could it be beneficial in the classroom is to have students bookmark research sites that pertain to a project they may be doing, or a blog they might following. The site also allows students to follow other users' bookmarks if they are of a common theme; this can save time when doing research and help students get a quicker and more efficient start. Del.icio.us is truly delicious.

YouTube Video Posts

The following are a couple links to YouTube videos featuring high school football high lights. The 1st is from PJ Nelson from St. Pat's High (my old school) and the 2nd is from Zak Beible from Lake Forest High School (my new school).