Monday, July 28, 2008

Final entry - Thing 23

This was a great way to take a class. Self paced, but with a clear deadline. I like that I will be able to go back over many of the things I learned about this fall when I am back in school. I got lots of new ideas, learned about many tools available on the web and had some fun.

The idea that will stick with me will be that we have the power to use these tools to improve education if we are willing to jump in and try them. In addition, we have to take the lead in helping teachers use tools that will improve their instruction also.

I appreciated quick feedback on blog comments. I think the instructors did an awesome job of keeping up with all of us! Thanks.

Thing 22

ebooks and audiobooks.

I enjoyed exploring the sites and finding out what else is out there. I hadn't seen IMSLP before and was interested in how music teachers might be able to use music scores online that are part of the public domain. I also thought the classics on WPL would be useful for language arts students. Often students want to read book assignments at home and come to the library to check them out. We never have enough copies. It would be great to have links on the library webpage directly to the books being assigned. That way kiddos could read them at home!

there is another website worth noting and passing along called Bookshare.org. It is only for the disabled (primarily visually impaired) but offers a great service. They provide files that can be loaded into special tools that allow the reader to enlarge the print, interact with the text and write in comments and do some other things I haven't explored. They get around copyright issues by only being available for a specific population. If you want to use the site you have to have a referral from a special educator or a psychologist. It's worth checking out if you have a student in your program that might be able to use it. www.bookshare.org

Chapter 4

Years ago, when technology first hit the classrooms, the idea came about that educators would move from the front of the room to the "guide on the side". For the most part that didn't happen, and teachers continued to do most of their instruction in the same way they always have - teacher directed. Web 2.0 tools have the power to change that. ONe of the key components of Web 2.0 is that applications allow for far more interaction between teacher and student AND between students. Chapter 4 gave example after example of teachers using tools where students are actively involved in the process of learning. Wiki's, podcasts, blogs.... all of these are tools teachers are beginning to use in ways that require students to interact with the teacher and each other. This allows the teacher to get something started, provide framework and evaluation, but begin to be the "guide on the side" we dreamed of all those years ago. This represents a huge shift in how we teach. Good. It needs to happen. THe tools may change, but once we endorse this shift, we'll be able to adapt.

ONe of the things I really apprectiated about this chapter is the links to the teacher projects described.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Thing 21 (Week 9)

I don't think I've mastered the podcasts world yet. I have a PC without iTunes (for the moment) and ran into some glitches. I really wanted to look at the TechSavvyGirlz site, but I kept getting hung up with the Dell. I will try it on a MAC or a PC in better shape the next chance I get. I did manage to subscribe to the Library of Congress webcasts and there were some interesting stories. I also downloaded an aggregate called WinPodder and Subscribed to Coffee Break Spanish through that site. It's done by someone with an Irish accent - interesting.

If I had to give myself a grade on this thing _ I'd say a "C". I think I'll have to rely on my cohorts to direct me to some good podcasts. :)

Chapter 9

There were a lot of lofty ideas in this chapter, some of which won't happen because of funding, resistance from the masses of educators, and the status quo. On the other hand, the chapter points out something very important. The way we teach and the way kids learn are becoming more and more out of sync. Kids have grown up with visual imput, massive amounts of data and intereactive electonic enviroments and we're still asking them to copy down notes off the board.

I wish I knew the answer. It makes me think that this generation of home schooled children with parents who are utilizing online tools, are probably faring better than the masses. I looked in the front and Chapter 4 offers some hope with success stories. I'll be reading that one next.

Thing 20, Week 9

I've been playing with Youtube this summer quite a bit because we've been taking short videos and posting them for family to see. Here's one of Aunt Books (Suzanne M) sliding down Flattop earlier in the summer. (This one is added as a link - the next is embedded)

Here's another one I found about school libraries.

Teachertube was having trouble loading so I played on Youtube. It's addicting and fun. Kids LOVE it and I know it's blocked. Bandwidth and wasting time are both issues.

Things I love about both Teachertube and YOutube - excellent graphics, easy to find options (post, share, comment, etc) The coolest thing is that you can add comments. This makes them interactive (a key component of web 2.0 stuff) The viewer is active, not passive. All of these things would liven up our websites!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Chapter 7

Online Safety and Security - huge issues.

The more I learn about this issue, the more I can understand how some people want to just walk away from computers all together. All of our information is out there and the "bad guys" are figuring out what to do with it all. In otherwords, there are those out there who have way more information about all of us and are in the process of figuring out how to use it. Meanwhile, the "good guys" are trying to figure out how to prevent that. Just who the "bad" guys/gals and the "good" guys/gals are is also unclear. Does that give you confidence???? Of course not.

The bottom line is be aware what you put online. It's not really private, even when it says it is.

Look-both-ways.com Excellent resource for all of this.

An interesting comment in the chapter is about responsibility and children. Parents think schools are responsible for teaching this and schools think parents should be more responsible. The answer is, we all have to have a go at it. The more we can help parents, the more we help the kids.

I was also interested in the idea that we need to revisit our AUPs and to add a code of ethics. I found the suggested code to be wordy and lofty, but I like the idea.

Be safe....

Thing 19.1 Digital Pipeline

I loved the Consumer Health Resources and how you can select what type of resource you want. Students love that, because they do reports in pieces. They do the text and then want specific pictures. The tool was easy to use and I was successful in finding what I wanted right away.

I hate to admit this, but I had never used the “folder” feature before. That is slick. I would love to show teachers and students how to use that. They can go out gathering articles and then go back and weed through them for the best of the best. I loved not being bogged down with looking through each article as I was searching.

The format and look of the databases is excellent. I love how it uses simple graphics to direct users to the tools they need. Novelist K-8 has a slick new look to it. So does Novelist, although I’m not sure I like that one. It looks more like the other databases, and therefore, more like a research tool and not an interesting site to mess around in.

Use in schools:
1. Demonstrate individual databases for specific projects. I find introducing them all at once is overwhelming. I especially think the Consumer Health database will be very useful at middle school.
2. Teach students to set up their own folders.
3. Show teachers the discussion guides for books in Novelist. It was probably there before, but I didn’t notice it.

It never hurts to go back through a tool you thought you knew to find out just how much you didn’t know!!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Thing 19, week 8

SLICK!

easy to use, love the graphics, useful for school..... slick.

Question - is there a way to alter the display to not be Amazon? I'd like to use Librarything on my webpage at school, but would rather not have the Amazon image pop up when students link to the book.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Thing 18, Week 8

Zoho is pretty cool. It will take me a bit to get used to, but I can see it would be a great tool for teachers to use with students. They could add comments easily, view papers online and communicate with students very easily without having to use email.

test1

This is a test of the Zoho writer.  It looks slick and seems to offer all the features I'm used to in Word.  I'll try to insert a photo and create a table. 

a

b

c

e


Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Thing 17, Week 7

I added my second idea to the 2.0 wiki. (under blogs) I loved reading the other ideas posted. It's kind of a bulletin board and webpage combined.

Thing 16, Week7

Wiki's are great and they are the one thing I actually knew about before this class. My webmaster for my library site at Hanshew is moving on to high school so I will need to take over again. I have been watching Faith's pages at East and decided that was the way to go.

As far as the pages I looked at for the purposes of this class, my fav. is the teacherlibrarianwiki (Joyce Valenza). What I like about it is it's simple front page without a ton of text that you have to search through before you feel welcome. I think the picture adds another element of comfort. Silly, isn't it? She's got all the information you need to add/edit a page. If you scroll down you get right to the meat of the wiki. I like it. The PBwiki site also looks very, very helpful. Oddly, the library best practice one was busy, the introduction was long and I was as excited about that one. I think visual appeal counts and ease of use. (I learned that in the last "thing" and I agree.

Thing 15, Week 6

I skimmed through the short articles and noticed the ones with a date on them were 2005 or 2006. They were optomistic about librarians being able to do all things for all people - nothing new there - just the tools are new. I did get the sense that there is a sense of urgency in learning the web 2.0 tools so that we can adapt how we have done things in the pass to meet the needs of the patron centered world where we need to be focused on application of the tools and finding ways to remove obstacles. One interesting fact that was pointed out is that we no longer have the time to "train" our patrons and many of the new tools out there that are being used are ones that are quite simple to learn and use.

I also skimmed through the Horizon Report and went back and printed it out. It's a 2008 copyright and proved to be very interesting. It pointed out 6 key areas of technological change that will impact educatation. Read it if you'd like to learn about all six - it's worth it. It ties all of these "things" together in a more sophisticated way than what we typically see being used by the general public. One point made in the report is that current social networking sites don't differentiate between shallow and deep information and connections between users. There is a huge amount of data gathering going on right now that isn't being utilized on a sophisticated level. That data could be useful, but do we really want all that data and who should have access? Who does have access? With all the collaboration, increased access, mashups and user interactions we are really becoming transparent. Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing?

hmmmmm.... I think it's time to head back to the garden and think about it.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Week 6, Thing 14

Tags, Technorati, etc.

I have to admit that this site overwhelmed me. I could look up ‘School Library Web 2.0 in posts, blogs and in the directory; each time getting different results. Although there was a ton of information there I am not sure how soon I will go back to this site. I realize that if I am trying to find something related to blogs, then this is the place to be but I felt like I had to sort through a ton of stuff just to find something interesting. Plus, I felt like I kept stumbling on blogs where I could barely understand what they were saying. Perhaps I’m just tired and need to give it another shot on another day. I did learn one thing pretty interesting. ALA was given $1,000,000 by Verizon for gaming and literacy. There is a feed started on that one so I’ll be interested in keeping up.

Tags are useful because they help locate stuff. The drawback to this free-for-all on tags is that you’ll miss stuff if you don’t have the right tag. There are way too many tags to list in one sport so you just have to keep trying if you are going to search that way. I suppose key word searching suffers the same problem. It’s a bit of a blur right now, so I’ll keep my eye on tags as we move through the other programs and see what I think.

Right now I have no interest in claiming by blog so that others can find it. I don't see that anyone outside of my class needs to see what I've written. (so far, anyway.)