Task 9 Virtual Worlds

Yes there are some very clever and creative people out there who can come up with these ideas. These virtual worlds certainly reach a huge audience. I would say that these sites could become very addictive very quickly as you become more and more involved the the "virtual" world with the characters you create. I also think it could be dangerous not just for young people but adults as well who want to "escape" reality and would rather live in the virtual world.

Being a visual person myself I can see its uses educationally, the 3D aspect of the software could make learning more appealing rather than just text or video. Having said that I am not interested and dont have the time to "play" in the virtual world.

Task #8 iGoogle

Loved creating my own homepage. This I will use at home for all my personal selections eg weather in New Plymouth New Zealand where my parents live etc. At work however I will stick with using the Staff Intranet as it has all my "work related" sites that I need and use.
I still have along way to go with creating and altering my igoogle homepage but I am much more confident than before.

Task #7 Google Books

Wish I knew about this while trying to help my daughter with a uni presentation. I enjoyed searching for books both fiction and non fiction. Great to see that they included the ISBN numbers and where to buy the books. This is a tool that I will certainly explore further and use more now that I know alot more about it. What I really liked was alot of the books included previews, for those books that didnt have previews (I found this to be the books that I looked up that are "Standing Order" books still had a bit of a blurb in some cases they were more indepth than the back cover of the actually book.

Google Maps Task #6

I must confess I have used google maps before. I really like the visual as if I am not familiar with a street or area that I am driving to its great to get an idea what the street or area looks like particularly when going there at night time. Sometimes I find the directions seem to take you the long route so with google maps and the good old refidex I am happy and usually dont end up getting lost.. usually.

Google Docs Task #5

I really liked creating my own document. I can see it has a multitude of uses and of course you dont fill up the inbox of your e-mail account. Of course like anything the more you use it the easier it is. Looking forward to experimenting more with this.