Hollie Keesee, Eric Starr, Kelli Hudnall

CI 350: 12:30 - 1:45

Professor Harold Blanco

12/10/2013

Yahoo! Tutorial

Introduction:

Yahoo! is a Web 2.0 website that teachers can use to interact with their students in real time by utilizing the various resources Yahoo! has to offer. This website can be used to post questions on ‘Answers’ to connect with others around the world. This site also offers a variety of tools such as ‘Groups’ students could utilize to participate in assignments and stay in contact with teachers. It also has resources for teachers, such as ‘Voices’ This website is considered a Web 2.0 site because it is free and available to everyone, it contains real time components, and students and teachers can collaborate together.

How can this be Useful in Education? Yahoo! contains a variety of different applications teachers can use to interact with her students, as well as facilitate learning experiences for students. Teachers can keep their students updated on assignments, share videos, websites, and other useful information. Teachers can also research topics to discuss by using Yahoo! Voices to view other people’s ideas and topics concerning education, as well as participate in them.

Pros and Cons of Yahoo!

Pros Cons

Capable of sharing, assigning, and submitting assignments online

Teacher and student interaction needs to be monitored.

Can stay in constant contact with each other May contain some privacy concerns.

Can make Groups privateTeachers can collaborate and gain ideas from others.

Can be difficult/confusing to use if you have never used Yahoo! before.

Well-known: A lot of users already know how to use the basics.

Contains easily accessible outside sources (I.E News)

Create and Customize your Account

Step One: When first entering the Yahoo! Wepage, you will see the sidebars that contain all of what Yahoo has to offer its users, as well as a “Trending Now” topic that has the latest “Hot” news. When creating your account for the first time, you want to hover your mouse over the “Sign In” tab, and a drop down menu will appear. There will be an option that says: “New here? Sign up” Click on “Sign Up” hyperlink provided.

Step Two: The hyperlink will bring you to this page. This is where you fill out all of your personal information, and you choose a username and password of your choice. When finished, click the “Create Account” button.

Step Three: You will then be brought to this page. Here you can choose to either set up your public profile, or you can skip it. For the sake of this tutorial we will set up a public profile so you can see an example!

Step Four: This is the screen you are taken to when you choose to set up your public profile. On this screen, you can change the name of your page, change the cover image, or set a location. Furthermore, in the upper left hand corner of the page, you can customize your page further. We will explore these according to bubble color.

Step Five: When clicking on the bubble circled in blue, you are brought to this screen. Here you can let others know what you’re all about and your interests, as well as your basic information and contact information!

Step 6: When clicking on the bubble circled in red, you are redirected to the settings page. Here you can edit your account information, set your privacy setting, manage your contact preferences and connect your Yahoo! Account to other accounts.

Now your profile is successfully set up, you can begin your Yahoo! experience. Below, we will discuss a couple of the applications Yahoo offers that can be used in a classroom!

How to Use Yahoo Groups

What is it?

Yahoo! groups is an online discussion board. This could be used in education to either keep students updated on tasks, discuss classroom activities, and so on. Some services provided by Yahoo! Groups include; a homepage, message archive, polls, calendar announcements, capability to upload files, photos, database functions, link directories, and bookmarks.

Step One: To access Yahoo Groups, go to the home page. On the Tool bar, click the ‘Groups’ Tab.

Step Two: Click ‘start a new group

Step Three: Fill out the information about your group. You can decide what kind of privacy settings for your group you would want. You can also pick a category and subcategory to file it under. After selecting next, you will have to accept the terms and agreements on the next page.

You can now begin interacting with your group! Next, we will go over one helpful group tool. This tool works sort of like a discussion board, below will be an example.

Step One: Click on New topic

Step Two: Create your topic of choice

Step Three: Now users can respond and interact!

Another tool that can be utilized by teachers is Yahoo! Voices. Yahoo! voices has millions of articles, videos, and slideshows on all kinds of topics! One of the topics residing on Yahoo! voices is education. Here, teachers can get all kinds of information in regards to education from fellow educators, not just the ‘professionals.’ This feature ranges from giving advice to “How to survive as a substitute teacher” to free printables to use in the classroom, to lesson plans, activities, to issues in education and so much more!

To access Yahoo! voices, go to:

Once here, you want to hover your mouse over the ‘lifestyle’ tab, and select the option for education.

You are then brought to the education section of Yahoo! voices and you can begin learning and interacting with other teachers! you can even start posting your own material!

Answers is a good way to find out something from other people in the Yahoo community. Access Yahoo! Answers by going to the home screen and selecting the tab “Answers”

Now you can begin asking questions in the toolbar of Yahoo! Answers! If you have a question like “HOW DO I TURN OFF CAPSLOCK?” you can see that it has already been asked numerous times already. If you find that your question has already been asked, you can click which one best suits you.

Be warned that not all of the answers might be helpful. Some people don’t take Yahoo Answers seriously, therefore you might have to search through many responses to actually find real help.