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Name of the Website/Tool: Shelfari
The Tags you used to narrow your search: Book
The purpose of the tool: Shelfari allows you to share book recommendations. It also allows you to create a virtual bookshelf of books you have read, are reading, and want to read.
Your experience using it and how it could be useful: I had never heard of Shelfari prior to this assignment. Creating a virtual bookshelf seemed like something that would be beneficial, so I went ahead and chose Shelfari as my second Web 2.0 tool. To create your virtual bookshelf you simply type the author or title of the book into the search bar. When the book comes up you can check off that you have read it, are reading it, or are wanting to read it. It then asks you if you'd like to provide a review of the book. After that option, you can then select tags that go with a book. For instance, I tagged To Kill a Mockingbird with the tags, "racism and should be read in school." A primary goal of schools is to get students interested in reading. By creating a virtual bookshelf, parents would know what their kids want to read. Reading is always more enjoyable when reading about something that you are genuinely interested in. Having students type a review of a book is a great way to check for understanding while engaging the students in technology.
Anything a user would need to know when signing up for the tool: Signup is extremely easy. Just go to Shlefari.com and click the green register button. You will have to create a username and password. You can also sign up for Shelfari using an Amazon.com account, which I what I did. Your Shelfari account can also be linked to social media such as facebook and twitter and you can share your virtual bookshelf with your friends. You can also join groups on Shelfari and network with other members who have the same interests as you.

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<a href="http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/geRQtDbDpt0r/Voicethread---voicethreadcom">Voicethread - voicethread.com</a>
Jog the Web would be a great way for students to catalog information. As a student finds an internet source they could catalog it using Jog the Web. They could enter the title of the source, the URL where the source was found, and a breif description as to what the source is about or where it fits into the students research paper. This would be a great way to organize information for any research paper whether it be English, social studies, science, or even math. Jog the Web could also be great for teacher use. A teacher could put together a jog with websites that pertatin to a particular topic. The students could do the jog and learn about the topic that the teacher is presenting.

http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/geRQtDbDpt0r/Voicethread---voicethreadcom<a href="http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/geRQtDbDpt0r/Voicethread---voicethreadcom">Voicethread - voicethread.com</a>

http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/geRQtDbDpt0r/Voicethread---voicethreadcom

I think PowToon could be used by both students and teachers alike. I believe PowToon is really a presentation builder. Students could use PowToon to present projects or reports and teachers could use PowToon to present new material to students. I found PowToon to be very user friendly. Putting myself in my students' desks, I would like to receive information from PowToon. Simply stated, PowToon is a presentation tool that would be appropriate for students in the upper elementary all the way through all levels of high school.

By Rocky5758 | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon
I think this tool would be great for student use. However, I do not think this would be great in a math classroom. Talking to my wife, who will be teaching 3rd or 6th grade next school year, we thought that this would be a great tool for reading comprehension. At those ages, it is so important for students to be able to pick out and identify the plot summary of a story. ToonDoos would be a great way to test their comprehension. Students could make a three or four slide ToonDoo to summarize the story in their own words. This would be a great way to check students' comprehension while exposing them to technology in a fun and enjoyable way.

Prezi has become the new standard for presentations. One dimensional presentations are becoming a thing of the past and the three dimensional, twisting, and turning style of Prezi is becoming the new standard. In the classroom, Prezi can simply be used anytime a student is asked to do a presentation. I always do a project where students have to research a historical, mathematical person. This is a cross-curricular project with the freshman English teacher. Prezi could certainly be used as the students' means of presentation. I also do another project where students are required to gather and analyze real-life data. Students can gather data from anywhere they want. The students have to find the mean, median, mode, lower quartile, upper quartile, inter-quartile range, and range. They are required to construct a box-and-whisker plot and present their findings to the class. Once again, Prezi would be a great way for the students to present.