In The Clouds

Kerpoof is a multimedia scholastic web site created and owned by Walt Disney.  This site allows teachers to create lesson plans, gather new classroomideas and provide a place for students to draw, make movies, work on math, science and other subjects in a fun creative online atmosphere. Kerpoof makes their website fun for kids but also takes education seriously by adhering to National Education Standards.  Kerpoof ws attractive enough that I had a tough time researching it because my four year old daughter kept climbing on my lap wanting to "play" on the web site. 

Learnboost was another site I checked out.  I'm not a teacher so I don't use a grade book but someone I know recommended this site.  After reviewing this it seems like a very user-friendly site that will allow teachers to post grades, create lesson plans, communicate with parents and more.  The best part about this site is that it claims to be free.  I have added this site to my favorites and will explore it first hand throughout this semester. 

Google Docs for Educators is a great way for students to be able to create word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations without the expense of having to purchase Microsoft Office. Once the dcuments are created, they can be posted in googles cloud and anyone with the proper credentials may log in and access anything that is being shared with them.   Google Docs requires an internet connection and that's it.     

Prior to this assignment, I was not very familiar with any of these sites.  I am not an educator so I don't use any of these for educational purposes.  I do have to sell against Google Docs & Apps from time to time which is a tough sell.  Try selling an Exchange server to someone when they can get just about the same functionality for very little cost using GMail through Google Apps.  The Cloud has become my number one competitor.  I work for a very small local I.T. company that sells support for network systems.  Oftern times when clients move to the cloud, therre is only a need on the clients end to have an internet connection and that's it.  Hardware expenses have gone way down and the need for high processing PC's isn't nearly as prominent.  Plus typically if there is any software support needed, it'srovided by the cloud host, like Google ot Kerpoof.  This means my company doesn't get nearly as many support cals as a result.  Our answer is to shift our support structure to also offer cloud based solutions as a reseller, however, this isn't nearly as profitable and brings in less business.  Whiles schools and businesses shift to a cloud computing model, it does save on I.T. expenses, the problem I have is that means less money for me.

Blogging and Twittering

The purpose of this blog site will be to provide a forum for local area soccer coaches to discuss topics related to youth soccer.  The purpose of this specific post is to fullfill a requirement for my EPTP 5550 class and discuss the value of blogging and twittering.  I felt as if I needed to create a blog I wanted to create something that could be useful in my life outside of our classroom.  This blog will allow me and other coaches to provide advice for each other, share notes, and help each other work through similar challenges.

Blogging with other professionals in your field give people the capability to share knowledge with each other and communicate ideas and information.  Being the administrator for this blog allows me to control the topic of discussion and monitor the comments that are posted to ensure posts are appropriate and beneficial for all memebers.  I'm also able to control who is a member and who is not a member so that way people who post comments that are derrogatory or slanderish, can be removed easily. The value of the blog is tht it gives people on online interface where members can provide valuable feedback and then can refer to that information by just going online at any time they need to access it.  Through creating my own blog, I am also able to link to other bloggers sites and work together to pass on information exponentially as links to other blogs and social networks grow.  Having a blog is like having your own personal news station that you can broadcast whatever information you want.  The key is to keep the information relevant and interesting so members stay interested and visit often. 

Twitter is also a form of social networking that has erupted over the past few years.  As a coach, I use Twitter to communicate to my followers when practices or games are cancelled due to weather.  This allows me to broadcast information to multiple people within seconds.  When we are going to have a fundraiser, I am able to communicate details and links via Twitter to all of my followers.  In addition, I am able to connect my Twitter to Facebook.  That way when I send out a Tweet, I am also posting to my facebook wall.  This just provides one more layer of communication for those people to see what the latest news is that I'm sharing.  As a soccer coach, when a game was cancelled we used to have a phone tree.  I would call my manager, my manager would call the captain of the team, the captain would call the first player on the roster and that player would call the next and so on.... This method was unreliable and often resulted in parents showing up to games because they never got the message.  With Twitter, now I send out one Tweet, it goes to all of my players and it take less than 1 minute.  The only issue I continue to have is that so many people are still unwilling to sign up or use Twitter.  So to accomodate those parents, I do three things to communicate cancellations.  I post it on oour home page on our website.  I email it to everyone on the team and I Tweet it.  Between the three methods, there is no reason the parent's should not have received the necessary information on time.  If they didn't get it the fault lies on them.  The best part of this is that I don't have to make a signle phone call.  Calling parents to cancel practices often gave parents an opportunity to discuss their beef with the team.  While I don't mind having those conversations, it was not efficient to have those conversations with 15 other phone calls to make. 

I am following the USMNT, the U.S. Men's National Team.  This allow me to keep up to date with the U.S. Team's lastest scores, highlights and news.  Staying in the loop at the National level is important.  As the USMNT hands down info, I can then pass that on to my followers if the information is relevant and helpful to our cause.