Within the site itself, I have incorporated Google’s calendar feature (shown here).  The Google calendar is embeddable, so I was able to incorporate it into the existing design of my website.  The calendar will be used to list daily assignments as well as list upcoming tests/quizzes.  The great thing is that I can update the calendar from Google rather than having to use my web page editing program (which isn’t always available, depending on which computer I may be using).

Because I created a website, it didn’t quite make sense to incorporate Delicious (since I would have the links listed already).  However, on the Study Tools page of my site, I have included a couple of links found on Kathy Schrock’s Educational Picks site.

On the Videos page of my site, I provided links to a few examples of both YouTube and TeacherTube videos pertaining to Calculus lessons.  I explain on that page that there are a wide variety of video lessons available (some better than others), and I encourage students to use my provided links as a simple jumping-off point.

Finally, I have incorporated my new Edublog into the course itself.  At the beginning of each week, I will post a question.  The class will then have one week to respond via a comment.  I will withhold all comments from posting until after the due date, at which time I will then post MY response along with theirs.  One of the goals of the AP Calculus course is to develop students’ ability to communicate Calculus verbally, so asking students to process concepts via this medium is perfect for that goal.

Videos such as these might be very useful to students who are absent, particularly on our break-neck-speed block schedule.  By watching the video, they can follow a visual lesson to catch them back up in class.

While I would not use these as part of the initial instruction, I could definitely see myself linking to these videos as a way of offering absent students a way to catch up.

The first one was titled How to Study, a 1917 publication discussing the importance of developing good study habits. Interestingly, it seems to target higher-level students, who usually don’t have any real sense of how to study. While the text is a bit formal due to its age, it contains some great suggestions. Generally speaking, students in AP Calculus would have the reading level necessary AND would be able to get something out of the information.

The second book I looked at is called Algebra I Is Easy! So Easy! The most useful part of this book is that it contains several multiple choice tests in the back, which could provide some good additional practice for students.

• Useless Knowledge
• Yo Mamma joke of the day (because I’m low-brow like that)
• Hulu TV
• Google Calendar
• Weather
• Email
• NY Times headlines

Another feature of Google (not listed on the “You Can Do That” site) is Google calendars.  This would be extremely handy for teachers to post daily assignments and share the calendar with students.  You can set up different calendars and share them in different ways as desired.  Parents would also be able to access the calendar, which would make it easy for parents to track whether or not their child has homework for that particular class.

However, once I recognized that the links on the left are the various pages within the wiki, it was clear where to go.

Rather than creating a separate math page, I appended the existing one that Kirk set up. Editing an existing page was surprisingly simple and intuitive (assuming you spot the “EDIT” link in the upper-right corner of the page). The interface of the editor was a basic word processing layout, so it was intuitive how to edit.

For me personally, I feel like Facebook already gives a similar ability.  I can post links to interesting articles, ridiculous videos, etc. and my friends can see them immediately.  If I ever want to go back and see them again, I can look at my post history.

However, academically I can see that it might be useful for a class.  I can imagine bookmarking a variety of links to articles for which students must choose one or two to read and comment on.

In my experiences with Twitter, I’ve seen it used as anything ranging from minute-by-minute updates of people’s lives to daily trivia to historical political updates (such as the protests in Iran).

I can actually see using Tweets with a class in a couple ways. First, tweets could be used to publish daily assignments. In general, this should be easy to do within 140 characters, but if there are special instructions, that might require splitting up the assignment and information into two tweets.  It’s possible that in such cases, students may only see the assignment but not the information following.

Secondly, like the trivia twitter folks, it could be used to pose a quick daily question for students to answer. Now, in math this may prove to be more difficult due to the lack of formatting necessary for much of math.  However, the questions could, for example, have to do with summarizing what was learned in class that day.

By the way, you can see my tweets in the box on the right side of this page: MrYeeSHS.