1.+Technology+Toolbox

For the technology toolbox assignment, I decided to critique the Web 2.0 toos based on the following criteria. All five categories are on a scale of 1-5.
 * 1 || Cost || 1=large fee thru 5=free ||
 * 2 || Instructional value to student learning || 1=no value thru 5=all instructional ||
 * 3 || User friendly for the teacher || 1=hard to use thru 5=easy to use ||
 * 4 || Download || 1=must download thru 5=no download required ||
 * 5 || Join || 1=must join to use thru 5=no membership required ||

Value** || **User Friendly** || **Download** || **Join** || **Comments** ||
 * **Name of Web 2.0 Tool** || **Cost** || **Instructional
 * Bloglines || 5 || 4 || 4 || 5 || 1 || easy to use, not the normal feeds, free, no download, but you do have to join ||
 * Del.icio.us || 5 || 3 || 2 || 1 || 1 || just something else to maintain, could be a good resource for students, if I had time to set up right ||
 * Squidoo || 5 || 1 || 3 || 5 || 1 || confusing--I cannot tell if it is trying to be a search engine or a web page design program. Also, appears to have no verification of information, too focused on sales ||
 * Pageflakes || 5 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 1 || limited, looks like preformulated junk...you have to downloade another program to modify the page ||
 * Edublogs || 5 || 3 || 3 || 5 || 1 || easy to get started, but too much stuff and not much direction to be meaningful quickly. Blogger was much easier to use and user friendly; but I discovered it later. ||
 * Pbwiki || 3 || 5 || 4 || 5 || 1 || similar to wikispaces, different look and feel, pretty user friendly... there is a cost involved, but there is a free option ||
 * Zoho Writer || 5 || 5 || 5 || 5 || 1 || great if students do not have a word processor, just like writing an email, can share, import to blog ||
 * Glypho || 5 || 4 || 3 || 5 || 1 || authorship question if you wanted to be published...I have no use for a program for creative writing...it would be good if you need to get students thinking ||
 * Google Docs & Spreadsheet || 5 || 5 || 5 || 5 || 1 || good storage, very similar to Zoho writer....very functional and combines many common uses into one program ||
 * SurveyMonkey || 3 || 5 || 4 || 5 || 1 || easy to use, the free version doesn't give you many options, not a lot of choice for customization ||
 * Audacity || 5 || 5 || 5 || 1 || 5 || excellent tool to record audio, very easy to use, allows for novice and advanced users to create audio files, creates compatible formats for different media players ||
 * YouTube || 5 || 3 || 5 || 5 || 5 || you can find just about anything, lots of instructional material, but the file could be gone in a heartbeat ||
 * Tux Paint || 5 || 4 || 5 || 1 || 5 || great if you teach small children or had a need for a paint program, pretty user friendly and kids could use it ||
 * Allmydata || 2 || 2 || 4 || 1 || 1 || 30-day trial, but otherwise $99.99/a year...worry about it going away, since so many others have ||
 * zWebquest || 5 || 5 || 3 || 5 || 3 || great if a web quest is already built, but time consuming if not...contributions from around the globe ||
 * SlideShare || 5 || 4 || 4 || 5 || 1 || useful if students don't have PowerPoint, but it is similar to other software with more features, it is just another source to maintain ||