Colette Cassinelli’s edtech VISION

Inspired by David Letterman, here are the top ten reasons you should consider using Gmail for your web-based email program:

10.  You shouldn’t be using your school email account for personal business.  Consider having all personal email forwarded to a Gmail account.  Remember, if  you signed up for your Google account with a different email address – you don’t have a Gmail account – but if you have a Gmail account – then you already have a Google account.

9.  With Gmail you aren’t tied to one computer to retrieve your email.  You can access your Gmail account from any computer that has Internet access – and even your mobile phone!  Just go to http://mail.google.com.

8.  Take advantage of Keyboard Shortcuts in Gmail to get through your email even faster.  To turn these case-sensitive shortcuts on or off, click Settings, and then pick an option next to Keyboard shortcuts.

7.  Themes allow you to customize the look and feel of your Gmail account.  Get creative and choose one of the colored or artistic THEMES for your Gmail page. In the upper right hand side of your Gmail page choose Settings / Themes and pick the one that suits you.

6.  Gmail uses labels to help you organize with more flexibility. A conversation can have several labels, so you’re not forced to choose one particular folder for messages. You can also create filters to automatically manage incoming mail. Starring messages is another way you can organize your inbox.

5. You can use Google SEARCH within Gmail to find the exact message you want – no matter when it was sent or received.  Don’t sort your mail – SEARCH!

4. You get TONS of space with Gmail.  Instead of wasting time deleting old messages – you can ARCHIVE email – which frees up space but is still searchable if you need it sometime.

3.  You don’t waste time with junk mail and unwanted messages.  If an unwanted message slips through to your inbox, just click on the SPAM button and the spam filters will catch any further incoming mail from the sender BEFORE it ever reaches your inbox.

2.  You can organize your replies into conversations.  Within Gmail, each message you SEND is grouped with all the responses you RECEIVE.  As you receive more responses, the threaded conversation grows and keeps track of it all in chronological order.

… and the #1 reason why you should use Gmail …

1. Its FREE!!! Learn more …

Archive of Tech Tip Tuesday located at http://sites.google.com/site/techtipstuesday/

The smart folks at Google have done it again – video chat right from Gmail.

• Chat more ways than ever from within Gmail
• Look and sound your best with high quality audio and video
• Get started easily — all you need is a webcam

Once you installed the add-in you need to go to your chat settings in Gmail to configure your webcam – but that’s all.  Just might give Skype a run for their money.

Guess you get to see me without makeup and cuddled up in my flannel jammies.

Colette’s (updated) Top 10 Tools

1. Gmail. I love this web based email system and the fact that I can access it from any computer. Not only do you get tons of storage but I like the way it keeps the threaded conversations together. Gmail chat is also nifty.
2. Google Docs. Google docs are great for collaborating and sharing information with others. You must invite friends to participate in your documents but it’s so easy to edit ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!.
3. iGoogle Ok, ok, so I love of all the of the Google products – but I do use them and find them easy to use. iGoogle is a personalized page (which I make as my own homepage) that you can customize with all kinds of widgets like: weather, calendar, CNN news, Google Reader (RSS), Gmail notifier, jokes, etc…
4. del.icio.us. I can’t believe how much I depend on this social bookmarking tool to remember sites I have visited but also for sharing cool sites with my friends. Now I don’t need to be that annoying friend who always sends emails recommending websites (I can’t help myself) – if I find a site and know my friend’s del.icio.us name I can tag the site as: for:ccassinelli and then when that user goes to their del.icio.us account they can add my favorite to theirs. This is very helpful for group projects!
5. flickr. This web-based photo sharing site is awesome for uploading photos to share with friends. I like how you can create different albums and tag photos for easy sorting. I also love snooping through my friend’s albums too!
6. My first RSS aggregator was Bloglinesand I still use it today. I like how I can create folders for all of the ed tech blogs I read. Here are my folders: personal, ed tech bloggers, under consideration and last chance. When I stumble across a blog I might be interested in I add the feed in the under consideration folder. When I find that I enjoy the blog and read it often it moved up in rank to the ed tech bloggers folder while some of those are demoted to last chance before I decide to do away with the feed.
7. Audacity. This easy to use FREE audio editing software is easy to use for podcasting and editing audio files. You will need the LAME Mp3 encoder if you want to export your audio files at MP3 instead of WAV – but it’s easy to download and install.
8. Wikispaces. I’ve already mentioned my love of wikis in my blog but for collaboration and easy editing – wikis are the way to go. I also love the fact that Wikispaces gives FREE wikis to teachers. Thanks for the support!
9. Voicethread – A great tool for encouraging collaboration in your classroom. Upload photos and add text, audio or voice comments with a web cam. My new personal favorite way to get students to share comments with each other.
10. Moodle. I started using Moodle this last year with a few of my computer classes but will use this open-source course management system with all my classes this year. It’s easy to use, has built in blogging and modules (quizzes, journals, docs) that make it easy to keep all class documents in one area.

TOP 100 TOOLS FOR LEARNING – SPRING 2008
as collected by Jane Hart

2007 Top Ten Tools: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/colettecassinelli.html (my current list is pretty similar to the 2007 list. Hey – I like what I like!)

Photo Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/cayusa/2221656599/