Apparently it started with Larry Ferlazzo’s “Best of the Year Lists“ but I was inspired to post by Langwitches and Dean Shareski’s recent posts about Top Stuff of 2007. It’s important for me to stress that there are so many apps, tools and various web2.0 resources out there that continue to amaze and delight me and make my role as an educator/motivator more exciting, more exhausting and definitely more rewarding than I could ever hope to put in one list!!

I wish I was as creative as Silvia and Dean when it comes to graphics but thank goodness I have myskitch!

1. VoiceThread – Love the simplicity, love the connectivity, love the interactiveness, love it, love it, love it!

2. Skitch.com This webservice works hand in hand with the Mac application Skitch to give you 1-click uploading of images for fast and fun image sharing (embedding codes provided). What really makes this app awesome is the ease at which you can capture an image, add writing, arrows, etc and embed it just as quickly on your blog/wiki etc.

3. Technospud Online Projects 4 Teachers – I am sure that I would not have forged such amazing online friendships, and been involved in fantastic Collaborative projects if it were not for Jen Wagner and the amazing work that she does for educators of all levels. Now there’s a technospudprojects ning too!

4. Wikispaces – Wikispaces rock! ‘Nuff said!

5. Edublogs / Learnerblogs – I love blogging and truely believe that the value of blogging in the classroom is worth the trials and tribulations of getting students blogging in the classroom. I could not have done it without Edublogs!

What’s your list of 5 favourites for 2007?

Recently Jen Wagner posted some of her thoughts about iGoogle after having John Pederson on the WOW2.0 Show. In that post Jen asks “Do you use iGoogle? How?” As I was pondering how I use iGoogle, up popped this post from Sylvia (Langwitches) about
iGoogle – Really Personalized

So thanks to Skitch, I am able to share with you my personalised iGoogle page. It’s my hub-home-page! It makes my internet life much more manageable, therefore much more organised and I love it!

Uploaded with Skitch! Click on image to see larger version

What do you use?

Uploaded with Skitch!

So there it is. My first entry into Second Life.

I’m sitting (fully clothed and not in the fire – that’s another story) in the Blogger’s Cafe. People are very helpful in SL and it was hilarious at times as you try to “act normal”, well as normal as an avatar can.  At one stage there were three NZ bloggers in the cafe (kinda like a ULearn Blogger’s Cafe reunion!)  I would like to be in SL when there’s a lecture going on, or conference etc, just to see the full potential of SL. I became quite frustrated with the frozen screen after a while, wondering what was wrong with my internet connection, considering I am paying top dollar for an unlimited broadband connection. I tried to go back into SL a number of times, met a very helpful man at help island and met up with Manda Morales a few times and even managed to learn a couple of new tricks too. I can see how easy it would be to lose track of RL time in this place. Many, many thanks to Jen Wagner for encouraging me and helping me to come into the Blogger’s Cafe and to have a go at Second Life for the first time. Thanks to Manda Morales for teaching me how to caramel dance. I was laughing so hard my kids told me to be quiet!

If you are wanting to give it a try, my advice?  Make sure someone is in there to meet you or otherwise take the orientation tour at the start.  You’ll get a lot of clues as to what to do and how to do it and it’s a laugh.  Not sure if I’d be wanting to do it all the time but I’d go in there every now and again for a purpose.