Pattyjane’s Weblog

I visited two sites on Google and their links: Zeitgeist and googlenotebook. Both sites were very interesting. Once again, I didn’t know anything like that existed. In googlenotebook, I took the notebook tour and learned that I can access Google Notewook and all its functions without having to leave the web page I’m on. It’s very convenient. I love the fact that I can add clippings of web content (including images, text, and links) with my own text. My daughter and I plan to start our own cookbook of recipes collected from everywhere–but it will be our reference. I like that I can organize the notebook, so I’m trying to think of it like a binder with dividers. But, if I can’t find something, I can always find what I’ve put into the notebook with a search. An important feature, right in line with 21st century skills, is the ability to collaborate within the notebook. Friends (anyone I care to admit) can come into the notebook and edit/revise the content and add their own thoughts. The notebook can be shared with others by putting it out on a public web page with its own web address. I really wonder what will come of this new idea. Will it become as popular or even replace something like myspace? I can see how valuable this could be in education. Teachers could start notebooks in different curriculum areas or on topics concerning education and gather recent articles in one location. They could add text and additional references. It could become a personalized reference tool.

I also went to Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is something of a current information site (though it has some archival information, too) on trends. It’s a quick way of checking out what web sites/information people are going to. Paris Hilton still seems to hold some fascination for web surfers. So, if I want to know what are people checking out online I can go to Zeitgeist and find out things like the top news queries or 100 hot trends though I’m not sure why the Creature of the Black Lagoon is number one. It must be made into another movie or something. I found the links with graphs interesting. I compared the presidential candidates by quarterly months to see which ones were being checked out the most frequently online at google. I think I liked the link for Google around the world. It lists countries. I clicked on Afganistan and then went to the city of Kabul. While at the site I saw a beautiful recent picture of the city and I was amazed to find out that there’s a popular hostel there visitors can stay at. There was also recent information on the city as well as links to other sites, like wikipedia. I’ve heard Wikipedia might go bankrupt and will have to shut down–they don’t permit advertising–Google Zeitgeist may be another source if that happens. I see this site as may be the beginning of a bigger thing in terms of providing information on new trends. I wouldn’t be surprised if this site caught on with researchers and the information used in various ways. Some of the information could be accessed eventually by topic. So for educators, a question might be, what are the most frequently looked into sites concerning education.

In class Larry, Diana, and I set up a google doc and together got our feet wet with co-revising the document we wrote. I can see that this could be extremely valuable in many ways. I could see developing a lesson plan with another educator, for example.