Wikis, Blogs, Social Bookmarking, and Tapped In

Paragraph 1:  I would like to hear from you how and when you will using wikis and blogs with your students. Provide an example. 

I plan on being an elementary teacher so I would create a wiki book that students would collaborate on to be used as a good resource for the classroom such as a book of definitions and students could add new words to the book as new words are learned. I also would use wikis with my students a week or so before field trips to get some background knowledge about the place we'd be visiting. As a class, we'd gather information and write brief comments about the place to be visited. Blogs would be a great way for students to report about their experience on the field trip and would give them a chance to state what they had learned.

Paragraph 2: What do you think about Socialbookmarking? Would it be useful for you and your students? How? Explain. Are you interested in creating a VoiceThread? Why/why not?
I think socialbookmarking would be useful for students because it allows them to bookmark a page so it can be easily accessed. There wouldn't be a hassle over trying to find a webpage and so forth. Students would be able to share their bookmarked pages with other students. I would feel that social bookmark sites are quite handy since they provide a user with links to a topic that other users have found helpful. Personally, I'm not too interested in creating a voice thread primarily because I'm a visual learner and because of that I feel that I would have trouble deciphering meanings by only hearing them and wouldn't want my students to go through that.
Paragraph 3: When talking about learning communities, what do you think about Tapped In? Have you explored it? If you have, do you think it's useful for you as a teacher? If you have not, what do you learn from the textbook?

I haven't explored Tapped In but the textbook mentions quite a a few good qualities about it. Educators are able to grow professionally and extend their development with online tools. I like that Tapped In has neat features virtual buildings with public, group, and personal rooms. Communication includes text based chat, threaded discussions,

References:

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R.M., & Crismond, D. (2008). Community building with technologies. In D. Prybella (Ed.), Meaningful learning with technology (pp. 100-135). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.