Thing #16

For the online productivitiy tools, I particularly liked Library Thing and Trailfire. Library thing allows you to create not only an up-to-date library collection, but connect with others that have similar tastes in literature or interest. It's like joining the world's biggest book club. You can find reviews of books, talk with others about the book, join a group forum, find local bookstores, libraries, festivals, author readings and/or signings in your local area, etc. It truly is a site for book lovers and book readers! Trailfire on the other hand keeps track of your web research on a particular topic. No longer do you have to remember each site visited or wonder "how you got there". Hence, you can continually add to the web links for a topic under study and keep them in a logical sequence to use in the classroom. There are some trails already published, like the unit on immigration. I even tried one of their links to look up an ancester of mine. I was hoping for more trails on other topics as well. Unfortunately the list already made is limited. Guess I'm just slightly greedy :-) All in all, I think they are both useful online productivity tools.