Plaxo & Linkedln

Truthfully, I don't really think these are sites I will really utilize or . I just dont feel comfortable with either one of the sites. I would imagine that I will eliminate the accounts once the class has concluded. I just know what I like to use (personal web pages/facebook) and what I do not. This type of net-working site is just not something I think I can see myself using much of in the future.

Library Thing

This was a really cool site. I liked looking at all the different titles and comments that others make regarding the books. I also thought it was good that the site allows you to rate the books, leave comments, or just remain anonymous. It is another helpful site on the Internet that allows for users to control information they are or are not looking for. I like these sites best seems it always feels more useful when you can look for what you want to rather then the "suggestions" from a site operator.

Images

It is pretty cool tht you can use online tools to make just about anything. I made this poster and thought it was pretty cool. I would reccommend this to any classroom teacher/parent/coach out there it was super easy. I just had to link it to my Flickr account and the rest was simple.

Podcasts

The site Podcast.com was really easy to navigate. I am liking these more and more. I am finding myself thinking of more and more uses for them. Actually got to thinking and even discussed with our head coach that instead of scouting reports on paper maybe we could include and video and audio of our weekly opponents on a podcast. It has us looking into it, it would save our football program roughly $2,200.00 per season in printing costs. It would also allow us to generate the reports much earlier in the week allowing our athletes more time to listen & see the upcoming opponent.

One of my 2010 Recruits

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YouTube

This is one of the most useful sites out there. I specifically use it with recruits. Myself or any staff member can get to a computer regardless of where we are and discuss a potential film while separated from the office. I always request that recruits upload game film or highlights to the site. This prevents excess expense or timing issues on a recruits end. For me, it gives me almost no turnaround time to evaluate film and gives me an idea of whether or not that young man can play at the collegiate level. I am a huge huge fan of this site and rally utilize it almost daily.

Technorati

This was a little more interesting than DELICIOUS. As the class has detailed there are a tremendous amount of blogs out on the net. This is a way to effectively search through numerous sites using keys. I can see how useful this would be especially when trying to locate specific information or even videos. I know that I could use this in some of my health classes to allow for students to locate information contained in various blogs regarding topics in class. This was a cool site and I see the potential in it.

Delicious

This is an interesting tool. I think for me individually, I would not use this ever. I think that there are a lot of professions where this could be very useful especially in sales.

However, I fail to see the benefits as a football coach. This is overkill to me. I know what sites I use frequently and which ones I do not. I do not want even more shared websites. I am not a huge fan of these to begin with. I travel with my laptop so much that simply having my laptop allows me to use the traditional "favorites" feature in Windows Explorer. If for some reason I was unable to bring my laptop I could always write out a specific url if I knew I needed it. Sorry, just not sold on the usefulness of this 2.0 application.

Future Use

There are so many applications for the amount of things we have been exposed to in such a short time. I know I am not really into the "net" culture of my generation. To be honest up until this course began I felt like the majority of it was a waste of time. I have always felt this way. At 33 plenty of other things can occupy my time before I think of the net.

As this class has unfolded, I have begun to realize I was being narrow minded. Most of these sites/functions of the net are actually things that can simplify my life. As I touched on earlier these various sites/features can be used to my advantage. I think there are always so many changes and it happens so quickly that I will never fully be able to implement all of these things or stay fully current. I know that I can hang my hat on a few of them and learn their full features. A perfect example would be while I was away, I had began to type these postings in word and then pasted them into the individual blogs. This let me conduct the assignments needed under the guidelines of time.

I hope to not be one of those people who are afraid to embrace the "net" culture, but I do not ever see myself as someone who will be fully immersed. I just don't fully desire to make my life so public & tied to the net. I don't say that as a slam, just have always been a really private person. Email/text messages as archaic as they are have been the two things I rely on most still in my career.

2.0

Pretty cool that there is something to simplify the what can be so overwhelming. The amount of various information on the net can bog you down. This site gives not only rankings and categories but allows you go to one site to search out what you are looking for as far as apps/sites/etc. I think that sites similar to these will eventually become the only way to filter through things with much more speed and find what is reliable and useful.

Google Docs

As I read the features of this program I thought of how I wish I had this over the weekend. I was in Burlingame over the weekend for the Nor-Cal Coaches Clinic. I was speaking on quick pass. During the clinic I had some issues during one of my presentations as I was attempting to access a remote server from our video editing software that was down. If I had backed up the files on Google Docs, I could have not had to improvise on the fly. It would have been something that would have assisted me tremendously.

The only concern I have would be whether or not people who access the information and copy or use it as their own? How do you protect the documents that you choose to file with them?

RSS

I had never really even understood these types of icons. In the last few years I had begun to see them more and more but really did not know what they were for. I thought that when it was explained as the "reader" is a home and we reverse the feed to come to us with new information it cleared it up. It eliminates having to do what I had been doing which was click on each individual site. The subscribe copy & paste feature makes it extremely simple to add many sites.

Changes

On Monday I resigned from position at Reedley College and accepted an Asst. Head Coach position at Merced College. I am super excited and I loved my time under Coach White, but I can't wait to begin something new. All this in the middle of recruiting mania, and the start of FPU.

Shamu Rocks!

Shamu Rocks!
Originally uploaded by Sërch

When I was a kid I used to love going to Sea World. I saw this picture when I was checking out Flickr and had to post it. Pretty amazing how an animal that large can be so graceful.

Media Articles

(1) Project MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Repository for Learning and On-line Teaching)

Found this article to be pretty interesting. I have often wondered how they validate or attempt to validate all of the information that floats about in cyber space. I know that I sometimes feel overwhelmed when doing even a basic search for information to help me in my class lectures. I have also read things on "educational" sights that I knew was inaccurate. Thankfully it was before I tried to incorporate it into my power-point. It must be getting extremely difficult to try and monitor all of the information that floats around as to what is fact vs. fiction. I question whether or not a program could be created to do such an ominous task. Imagine the difficulty in attempting to filter all the different ways and means people have to get information out into the public that might be nothing more than opinion.

(2) Always On
Was not my favorite article but one thing that I thought about when I read this is my Wife's little brother. He is 14 and a HS freshman. I started thinking about he has this whole "on-line" life. He is on X-Box Live, online gaming networks, tweets with friends, and even updates his myspace from his new "droid" phone. It is unbelievable how much that he as a 14 year old uses so many devices so frequently.

Over the Christmas break when he was visiting us we got to talking and he told me he was checking his grades. I was shocked to find out that using his phone he was able to access a school site that posted his grades. He told me how the school no longer even sends grades home but parents get emails and calls when students grades are posted with an access code. In addition, that any discipline issues the school will notify his parents via text message rather than disrupt them at work. It was really interesting to think about. I also think it is a good demonstration of how education can utilize these new technologies in so many ways.

(3) Social Software
I agree with many of the other students that there are some serious concerns about how these sites are used. I remember that I got a call one day from the Tech department because kids in my class were using a site that let them circumvent the firewall and access myspace. Obviously they were not "working" on anything. Also, last year I know that we had an incident with a player that was recorded and put on the web that was later used in the investigation against him and implemented two others because they sent text messages and multi-media messages to others.

It is a lot of work to keep up with all of the new ways that kids try and access and distribute this information and as teachers and coaches we have to have some sort of base understanding not to act as preventionists but more so guardians against our students using poor judgement or being taken advantage of.

Recruiting

I just talked to some of my friends who attended the AFCA Convention in Orlando and I was surprised to see how just in the last 4-5 years recruiting is going almost total digital.

No longer are athletes/schools exchanging vcr tapes & dvd's. Instead you see more and more digital media being exchanged. It is awesome but I wonder how it will affect those schools that can't afford the services.

The other question I have is with so many Coaches"old school" I wonder how many of them are afraid or unfamiliar with these services.

Finally, I think this will be an interesting topic over the next few years. Especially to monitor how the NCAA will address these sights as far as regulating contact.

Welcome

Hello, this is a chance to discuss football in a modern forum. I am hopeful that this will be an interesting and fun experience.