I wish that I had known about Furl from the start of my MAT experience. There have been so many good sites I have discovered along the way. I have added some to my favorites, but my husband and I currently share a laptop; so I did not want to put a bunch of stuff on it that he would have to wade through to find his favorites. If I had known it could be done to a website where it would be neatly tucked away, I would already have a vast library of reference sites. I also like the idea that it could be accessed from home or school on any computer. Another great feature is that when you save a page, you get a snapshot of the page to see forever, even if the page is taken down.
Also, I like the idea of a furl account for team teachers. All science teachers (for example) could have a shared Furl account where they post websites that have cool experiment ideas that relate to our curriculum). I learn best by doing and most students are the same way. So, the more hands on we can make science, the more fun it becomes, and more is retained by the students.
And for pure laziness sake, I love the feature that will automatically format a website into MLA (or other) format for use in a bibliography. That is an excellent use of technology, but I am sure that I am making English and future English teachers cringe. But hey, I have done it on my own until now, and couldn't we all use any extra time we can save?
3 comments:
Pure laziness is not so bad! You can count on students being lazy for the most part, and they really have no idea about citation/MLA, so the fact that it is done for them is great. There is merit in teaching the old fashioned way to look it up in the handbook, but this is more accurate and is exactly what they will use in high school and college.
I, too, love the idea that I can publish my favorites somewhere besides my own favorites list, which hasn't been cleaned out since I started using AOL about 8 years ago. I can see where this would be particularly helpful for you and your husband as well.
It is too bad that we have just now learned about this stuff, huh? I think EDTP 504 should be required in that summer semester before we do observations so that we can actually use this stuff in our student teaching semester. Luckily, you can still do that!
As a future English teacher, I am thrilled to find any resource that makes citing sources easier. And the fact that Furl.net can export all sources in MLA format makes me want to find as many classroom applications for it as possible. With the mass use of the internet, plagiarism has become easier for students. This is something that English teachers (but, really all teachers) frequently have to deal with. I have seen teachers sort through students’ work to find that almost all had plagiarized! What makes this so frustrating is that it can easily be prevented by merely adding a citation. So, if Furl.net can help students create citations and decrease plagiarism, then I bow to its magnificence.
I totally agree about wishing I had this info. prior to the MAT program. I have really struggled to keep all the incredible resources in one place....I have failed miserably.
But hopefully, I will have the discipline to start now.
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