Tumblr and Google Notebook

Today was double-shot of technology day. My students had posted their Othello links to Tumblr for homework last night, and today I showed them how they could use Google Notebook to read and take notes on their on-line sources. Their enthusiasm about Tumblr remains to be seen. I hope they like the idea of having everyone's sources at hand, but I think the way I arranged the assignment made them not use what others had posted as much. They all had to post (maybe part of the problem ...), but I told them they could post a site someone else had found and posted -- they would just need to explain why they liked it too. But it is not easily clear in the postings when someone is doing this, so it just looks like lots and lots of sites. I will refine for next time, but in the meantime, they do have everyone's site to work from tonight as they start their research.

Google Notebook however was an immediate hit. They loved how it helped them take notes and recorded for them both the highlighted quote as well as the source. I really think they will use this, even though I am not asking them to. The only IF is that right now the sending a note to Google Notebook for them is not working, so it really doesn't do much. I am trying to learn why they can't get it to work like I can so that I can rekindle their enthusiam, but this technology wall stopped our momentum. My students would have read sources on Othello and taken notes on them to the very end of class if they only could have through the Notebook. Ah, next time ...