My Life Just Got So Much More ExZITEing.

Wahahaha. I am totally blogged out for the night, but seeing as how I have mountains of I4Ed to do tonight, I will persevere, albeit a little deliriously. Trent is here, in the background, calling me a fatty because I chose to sit down and do my homework instead of pouring him a... Dr. Pepper. Dear reader, I feel as though you are quick enough to spot the irony of this situation all on your own.

Anyways, the cats are being their typical selves - Benni is chasing shadows, and Jax is judging her. I am eating a delicious bowl of honey-flavoured greek yogurt with crushed almonds and raspberry granola in it. House of Cards is playing in the background. Trent is now avoiding his homework by playing car racing games on his iPad. I am avoiding doing my homework (my blog post) by summarizing what is happening around me.

Today's topic is:

1. Zite

1. ZITE

John Evans came to our classroom on Thursday and introduced us to some really sweet ed-tech resources, one of which is an iPhone and iPad app called Zite. This app is absolutely perfect for me, since I definitely do not watch or read enough news, and I just don't know where to get started when searching for educationally relevant and compelling reading material. 

When one gets started with Zite, one chooses as many or as few topics of interest as one likes, and adds these topics to one's dashboard. The app gets this decision-making process started by providing its user with a list of popular interests and common categories. However, the user may type various, more specific categories into the custom search bar and add them to his/her own dashboard as well. 

Jeeze, is Kevin Spacey ever good at being a creepshow...

Anyways, once it's users' personal interests have been selected, Zite gathers articles from all over the web (from Facebook to CNN) and displays them on it's user's newsfeed, or dashboard. The user may then flip through countless articles custom-tailored to his/her interests.


Some of the things I have read about lately are Edublogging, the Flipped Classroom, A revolutionary Dutch dementia-focused care village called De Hogeweyk, and 10 simple lessons that make up a Writer's Bootcamp. I have been clipping these articles to my Evernote so that I am able to keep track of all of the great information I am finding. This has been working out really well; Because of this, I am finding myself really enjoying Evernote as well (I have had it for quite a while, but had not yet found a great use for it until now).

I have been addicted to this App, basically since I downloaded it on Thursday. And it is so easy to justify spending hours and hours on it, rather than doing my homework... because I am actually learning! It has re-introduced me to the joy of reading in a manageable capacity, since the articles it exposes me to are a lot shorter than the novels I enjoy reading through the summer.