Google Sites

Google Sites is a great place to create an online portfolio. My portfolio address is sites.google.com/coachchristophermellor. I will definitely use this online service to create, update and share my on line portfolio as needed. I also recommend this technology to anyone interested in creating an online portfolio.

Pros and Cons of Professional Portfolios.

I recently did some exploring of online hosting sites for professional portfolios. I explored www.linkedin.com and www.plaxo.com. Both sites are very user friendly and both sites offer a social and professional avenue to an online portfolio. LinkedIn seem to appear like it catered to professionals while Plaxo had a more modern appearance that appeared to cater both to a professional and a social audience. I personally still like a personal web page. With a personal web page I have the ability to customize it any way I see fit. With all the on line tools and applications A personal web page has the potential to be very professional.

Image Generators

Had a great time at www.imagegenerator.org . That website provides users with hundreds of links to differnt kinds of image generators. I had a chance to explored several image generator sites. I played around with several pictures. My family joined me and we had a great time together playing on this site. It is amazing what you can do on the computer nowadays. I had fun manipulating words and images. My kid's got a kick out of putting our faces on another persons body. Cool web site

Library Thing

I enjoyed Librarything. This is a great place to search, organize and maintain an online catalog of books that you may be interested in. I started organizing and tgging some football books. Librarything is a great place to see what other people interested in the samesubject matter are reading. I thought this site was pretty cool. My link to my Librarything account is www.librarything.com/catalog/coachchris. Check out some of my books and feel free to make any suggestions.

Podcast Directories

I enjoyed browsing through two different podcast directories, www.podcast.com and www.podcastalley.com. These two sites are user friendly and offer countless podcast to search from. I searched for a variety of topics and found an abundance of information to research and explore. I attached several strength and speed podcast to my blog page. This was very easy to do and I will definately use this feature with future post's.

YOU TUBE & BLOGS

I think YouTube is a great tool for the whole world. From educational settings to recreational use. I found YouTube to work in harmony with my blog. Being able to have a quick easy video at one's fingertips to back up a thought is a great addition to any blog. I use You Tube on a regular basis and I highly recommend it to anyone surfing the web. I attached a few guitar lesson videos from YouTube that i have been following for a while now.
Take Care

TECHNORATI

This was a very interesting site. You can find blogs about everything and anything at technorati.com.I can see this site really good for a person that likes to read other peoples opinion's. Information junkies probably would be in heaven on this site as well. I found myself exploring Technorati for about an hour before I got a little tired of it. I have had a major dose of current technology over the past few weeks and it's begining to get a little bit like alphabet soup. The exposure is good, it's nice to have a heads up on what's going on out there.

YouTube in Education

I believe "YouTube" is a gread media for education. There are millions of interesting things to learn from this site. I realize that not everything on there is accredited or approved by associations , however there is an abundance of knowledge that is being shared on the YouTube web site. Personally I have not had a chance yet to use YouTube for school but I have used it for education. I have watched and followed guitar leesons, I learned how to remove my check engine light from my car along with a variety of other things I have researched. It is great for children because of the visuall effects. My three kids are always looking and figuring something out with YouTube to help them. I support YouTube for education, I think the educational opportunities are endless.

Social Bookmarking "Del.icio.us"

I got a chance to explore del.icio.us a social bookmarking site. I found the site fairly user friendly. I think it's a neat idea to be able to bookmark a site then have access to it from anywhere there is internet access. I potentially see myself using this site. I'm not always on my personal computer and it would be great to have access to my bookmarks. You can also use this site to "tag" sites, links, phots, etc. This is great when you want tio see what others with similiar interest or task are looking at as well.

Web 2.0

I explored the Web 2.0 sight and found it very intriguing. It was nice to have all these top tier sites bunched up in one place. I browsed through most of the first and second place catagories. They all seem like pretty cool sites. being a big sports guy naturally I gravitated toward "Istats". This web site was pretty neat allowing a user the ability to document, track and share pogress with others. "Team-Snaps" wasa great site that really piqued my interest. This site is a one stop shop to on-line team mangement. I need something like this for my football program. I am going to sign up for the free trial and see how it goes. I will report my findings in a later blog. If anyone has any experience with this site. please share your thoughts with me.

Implementing 2010 Technology

I probably am the biggest resistor of technology. I am the definition of a classic laggard. Last week i decided to commit to creating a Facebook page for my football team. I made it a requirement for all players, coaches and parents to sign up. I post daily at 6:00 am the news for the day. Every fan of the page is supposed to check in and receive my important updates. I see this as a fast way to get the word out, also I have a way to prove that information was dispursed should ever the need arise. I commited to this project and I wil see it through this season. At the end of the season I can make a judgement to continue using this technology or not. So far so good though.

This master's program has exposed me to a lot of new concepts, ideas and technologies. I do not seek the need to be cutting edge. However I do see a need for growth and exposure is needed to evolve into a better leader/coach. I realize also an open mind allows opportunities to flourish.

"Google Docs"

Along with being a football coach I also run my own business. I currently use Google Docs and this application has been great so far. What like about Google Docs the most is the ability to see important paperwork any where there is acces to the Internet. With my IPhone I can virtuall see my docs from virtually anywhere in the world. It requires a little work scanning your documents , however the potential to access your paperwork from anywhere is worth it. Trust me this application comes in very handy.

For my football team we have whats called a "RISK" form that everyone signs releasing the school of any risk liability relating to football. Along with a release the athlete's information is there, parental and medical. I casrry about 75 sheets with me to each game just incase an athlete gets hurt. I might try and Google Doc this paperwork this upcoming season. It can eliminate some paperwork and I will have one less thing to worry about. From my IPhone I can get the info I need instantly. As long as my phone has juice. Having juice on your phone is a whole different can of worms.

Online News Readers

I would appreciate a one stop site to go and get all the information I seek. RSS feeds seem to provide this opportunity. I definately see how a great deal of time could be saved from this technology. I discovered not all web site have RSS feeds but most of the larger ones do. I was able to add most of the ones I like.

I created two different online readers with Bloglines and Google Reader. It was fairly simple to create these accounts and fairly simple to navigate through each site. I added 10 newsfeeds to each eader and I am going to continue exploring this technology.

UNBELIEVABLE

I struggled for about three days trying to create and publish a podcast. After much frustration I found this app on my iphone called "Tubulous 2" I ceated and published a podcast from my phone to my blog on less than 3 minutes. if anyone wants to know how I did this shoot me an email @ ctm1@fpu.edu.

"KIN710 Podcast"

"KIN710 Podcast"

Football Video Technology

I am interested in a program where I can upload my recorded games to, then break the games down by individual plays, label them, then group them. I would break the plays down and teach off of them. For example one group would be called 13 veer correct, then another group would be called 13 veer incorrect. Once I did the initial leg work it would be stored and I could go back to it forever. Anyone out there have any video technology to share with me. I'm interested in some feedback.

2010 Get With It, Or Get Left Behind

The more reading and research I do the more I'm realizing how much the world is changing at such a rapid pace. I wasn't quit sure how I felt about social networking. I was kind a resitor to the technology. However I am learning that this new technology is really easy to use and it helps get information out in a timely and efficiently manner.

In the article SOCIAL NETWORKING by Alfred C Weaver and Benjamin B. Morrison from the University of West Virginia, I appreciated the summaries and descriptions of various types of networking media. After reading this article I had a little bit better grasp of what Facebook, My Space, and You Tube were all about. I recommend this article to anyone that feels a little overwhelmed with social networking.

The article: Utilizing Social Networking Media To Support "Always On" Learning Styles, gave me a look into how social networking can affect variety of different learning styles. There are educational tools using a variety of social media applications for anyone and everyone . The learning opportunities are endless.

After reading, "Emerging Technologies Changing Public Library Service Delivery Models" by Mary Ann Kajewski article I felt like the library as I once knew it, was on it's way to being extinct before too long. This enormous world wide growth in social networking that is occuring is actually an opportunity for the library to come back to life and become more popular again.

Microbloggin-Let The Journey Begin

My technology class has me exploring some really interesting stuff throughout the "microbloggin world". It has been quit interesting being exposed to the latest technology. Rejection was my intial sentiment towards microbloggin, however I am beginning to see a place for it in my program.

"Flickr"

This is a real cool photo sharing site. I created an account and uploaded a few photos to share with my class. One of them is a picture looking out my backdoor. This picture was taken January 19, 2010.

BUY IN

For any athletic program to have continued success. Everyone from top to bottom needs to unconditionally "buy in" to the programs core principals and philosophies. One person not on board has the potential to be catastrophic.

I am the head coach of a high school varsity football team. We begin our off-season work out program this week. Some of my coach's think it is to early to start. I'm a firm believer in today's competitive world that any high school football championship journey begins in January.