Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Voicethread

Found this great idea to update our fourth grade fractured fairy tale project by moving it to Voicethread.com This is an example of a story written and performed by 2nd grade students.
Adventures of Baby Bob

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Thing 23

I've been trying to put into words all this class has meant to me, but the most important thing I learned is don't just say it, show it so I created this silly video with Windows Movie Maker.



My favorite discoveries: blogs and del.icio.us (remember, I'm a 1.0 gal just now learning to operate in a 2.0 world so I'm starting a little behind.)
My lifelong learning goals are exponentially increased since I now need to go back and develop all these new tools I've subscribed to, plus be alert to new trends.
The most surpising thing was how much I enjoyed what I thought I would dread, and how different today's student really is.
I think this program was exceptionally well-designed. Most of the work needs to be personal and hands-on anyway. The only thing I would change is to move the using your name discussion in thing 12 up to Thing 3 where we need it.
I would DEFINITELY choose to participate in the next stage of the journey. It's foolish to think I can navigate this new world without a guide and I know there's so much more to see, like Second Life and new mashups.
Empowering and stretching.
Thank you for the kick in the pants to get me going on my lifelong journey of discovery2.0.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Thing 22 - Nings

At first, I was confused about the differences between nings and wikis, but this project helped clear this up for me. The wiki is a collaborative group of web pages like an intranet,l not meant to be static. A ning is designed around a social networking purpose, and members upload a static version of what they want to share, while allowing discussion. The extent of collaboration by participants is different in nature because the purpose of the site is different. So you would use a wiki to produce maybe a story together, or to research a topic. But you would use a ning for a classroom to allow students to upload their completed videos, etc... to share with classmates for discussion. I did create a wiki, but not a ning yet until I check with my school IT. I won't create one unless I can use it with my school population. In theory, it could make my library web page function like an interactive, collaborative, library web page.

I am in an elementary school and saw an elementary group on teacher librarian ning (which I joined primarily for professional development), but not on the Texas school librarian ning, (which I also joined because I enjoy Shonda Brisco's postings on the different listservs and my 5th grade students are almost middle school and soon need to function in middle school).

Oh, and I had to open a facebook account -- finally. My two college sons have mixed feelings about it as you can imagine. :)

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Thing 21 - podcasts and photo story

This was a tough one for me. I had to go out and buy a mic and figure out the settings to make it record properly, download audacity, download the lame encoder from audacity, think of what to say, learn how to use the software, and me without even an ipod to my name! Now comes the hard part, exporting it to this blog post. Here goes... This will be used for a Texas trivia contest over the course of the year for our fourth graders. Book trailers, audio reminders for directory paths, student storytelling, lots of cool things...

The next task is easier for me as I have already explored Photo Story this summer for my twin boys' high school graduation retrospective. I had lots of fun playing with the music and old photos. I didn't have a mic at the time, and it would have been fun to add my comments to some of the pictures. Unfortunately, it is very long and would not load so I tried a shortened version below. I may have to play with the file size some more (still 2M) to get it to load. It was the highlight of the day for my family members. I can see this in place of biography reports, author studies, history events, U.S. state reports, almost anything ....

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Thing 20 - video

Youtube -- familiar territory at last! And I have also used Zamzar before to show a Youtube video at school. Blinkx is amazing, but I think Google Video has more search power which, as always, is both a blessing and a curse. The Portal to Texas History will be very helpful with fourth grade Texas history classes as well. I knew the website but the trailer is fun.

Teacher Tube is new to me and it probably is not blocked at my school. It has much less offensive material, but not nearly the choice in imho. I think it is fantastic for finding out what other schools are doing with video and I really think we'll be making a claymation video, or a storytelling video this coming school year. Here is one example I found.



I sure hope this works. I've always loved this Leo Lionni story.

Here is another video discovered via the Cool Cat Teacher blog on a new way to teach at Woodland Parks High School in Colorado - lectures at home and homework done at school, a flipped classroom.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Thing 19 - Web2.0 awards

What a great awards list, full of many of my new friends like del.icio.us and flickr and google documents, and many more! I looked at several, including the color blender, which was fun to use to color coordinate a website or a room, but then I settled on twitter. I have been hearing so much about it lately that I knew I'd eventually have to open an account. The overview was good, including a great commoncraft video that explained how twitter differs from email and blogs. Basically it's for little sound bytes of what you are doing or thinking, no longer than 145 words per post, complete with a handy little counter that counts down to zero as you are posting. There are fan sites and twitter etiquette sites, and it even went to Mars and was one of the first places to find out that ice was discovered on the planet. Amazing phenomenon! This tool, more than any other is hard for me to get comfortable with and it should be so easy. I think it's because it is not a productivity tool, and doesn't seem "important" enough. I can't imagine why anyone would want to know if I mowed the lawn, ate soup, drank coffee, or wasn't up to anything, just hanging around. I know so many people that are completely sold on it. That in a nutshell defines the digital divide. I still relish my privacy too much to "share" all the time.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Thing 18 - google documents

I have explored the google documents through a "brand-new this summer"school google account. The tutorials were very helpful and incorporated hands-on practice which really made it easy to use. Basically, they can function as a wiki allowing changes by anyone you specify. That makes it useful for me to upload collaboration documents with my teachers that allow us all - the library, the computer teacher, the classroom teacher, and principal to collaborate on assignments for our students, then to upload them to a safe, accessible location for our students. I am so much more used to the Microsoft products that I still really need to think before using them on new documents. Of course, for all the work already created on Microsoft products, it is easy to upload existing documents as well or link to them which helps. You can even conference live time to see who is working on the document or set up a time to review them for everyone without meeting in person if there is noone to cover the library at a specified time. That helps me multitask and get needed tasks accomplished during the day. The documents move so easily from one google product to another with just a click of the button which makes it a time saver that helps compensate for the learning curve to produce the documents. You can work on documents offline for times when the internet is down by adding a gadget. Still exploring all the ramifications, but I think I'll be making the adjustment. Plus, I'm sure we'll get school-based training in August when we get back which will be frosting on the cake.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Thing 17 - Rollyo

Today I checked out Rollyo and really see the use of it for teaching students. I compared it with Google's custom search on sites collected for our 5th grade report on United States Presidents. Both worked very well, but I especially liked seeing all the options on the rollyo site that were already created by other users. I felt like I wasn't having to reinvent the wheel but had a expert go ahead of me and prepare the way. I was unable to add the button to my toolbar, even after I unlocked the tool bar and checked the settings. I don't understand because Del.icio.us button uploaded just fine. Still trying to get it to show, but for now have the page starred as a favorite on the tool bar and on del.icio.us.

On the other hand, My original searches are conducted on google advanced so I'm already there. Also, once the searches are created, and in many cases I already have lists of weblinks prepared from previous years, it is easy to put them into google as well. And I have link created on my igoogle page so that makes it just as easy for me, more familiar for the students, and easily uploaded to my other google tools for students, so I will probably end up using both.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Thing 16 - wikis

Wiki's have eenormous potential, especially for today's student who wants high tech, high touch learning. It is something I am seriously going to try to implement in the library this year. I never really took off with my web page the way I wanted to, and Edline is too restrictive, so I am going all out for a wiki through pb wiki. Ad free is the real selling point with me and with parents at our private school. I'll try to remember to add a link here when I have my page set up. I hope it will generate a database of student book reviews, give access to my calendar for all parents to see and teachers to update as necessary, allow student research log-type feedback, in short, do everything I wanted my web page to do, but interactively.

I think it will be an important tool for our younger students as well, those who typically do not have email. Here is a way to contribute to the discussion on any computer, with just a user name and password. I think it will make parents feel safer and allow more access by the students. I saw a cute 4th grade classroom wiki at Edington House School via a link from Vicki Davis' blog A Library by any Other Name.

Found a new wiki entry to star as a favortie NECClibrarians08 seminar. It's almost like being there!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Thing 15 - Library 2.0 and beyond

Many new discoveries in this exercise. One exciting find was a wiki WebTools4u2use, as well as a wonderful list of blogs broken down by categories that specifically deal with Library 2.0 called socialnetworking4teachers. So, of course, I had to add a few of those to my Google Reader. Since those finds were wickis, I am sure I'll be visiting them again in future blog postings. I did see one project for elementary school students on the list called The Flat World 1001 Tales which may bear looking into.

In terms of ideas about using Web2.0 as a teacher I have a long way to go and I need to see how much of this will be allowed by our tech department and/or school administration. Encouraging elementary school students to have their say on blogs and wickis involves many more people than the traditional library services and certainly involves more advance planning. This goes beyond lesson plans and teacher collaboration to include IT cooperation, parental permissions, registering for accounts, technical reliabilities, comfort on my part, etc... I think we'll be able to do this through our school's secure Edline account, but I think parents are the only ones with logins at the moment. I'm ready to tackle it this year, but it wasn't fair of Dr. Wendy Schultz to be talking about Library 3.0 and Library 4.0 already when I'm still getting my mind wrapped around the potential of 2.0!

Monday, June 30, 2008

Thing 14 - Technorati blog search

I have been very curious about Technorati since it has been referenced many times in this 23 1/2 things adventure. I explored keyword searching which helped me get to the right area, and then tag searching to follow out specific themes such as "library_love" to watch the latest video submissions on You-Tube. I am quite sold on tags. I also did some research on solar energy blogs on Technorati and on Google Blog Search. Both pointed me to excellent sites, although different ones on the top 10, so I think searching in tandem is the key -- not sticking to just one site.

It wasn't really surprising to me to see that the most popular blogs at the moment are technology-related (with the exception of The Huffington Post probably because it's an election year). I think things change so quickly in technology that blogs are the only way to keep up with things. Educationally speaking, I think this site is more geared for older students and professional development. I did see some interesting videos promoting the library which gave me some ideas for creating one for our elementary library this year. I found so many more blogs of interest to me on Edublogger.

While I explored the widgets I chose not to join Technorati because I feel I'm getting spread too thin. If I get too many things going, I won't develop the habits I need in any depth. At least I know what the site is if I need it again. There were no tutorials for using the site either which makes me feel that the site is really for techies, not so much for educators.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Thing 13 - del.icio.us and tagging

del.icio.us is delightful and i don't know how I managed with my ikeepbookmarks account which I found very slow to load sometimes crashed on me. Having the buttons on my browser made all the difference and I am smitten with tags. Now I understand what all the chatter has been about replacing sears and Dewey categories with tags. You can create your own categories that make sense to you. I appreciated the simplicity of the embedded Commoncraft video. Here is my fledgling list.

For professional development, seeing what everyone else is reading is so important. Finding helpful websites, vetted by other librarians is so easy with this site. Organizing flexibility and specifically remembering what I liked about a site, will be so helpful.

For students, keeping track of all their sites to go back to fix citations and check facts would be helpful. Finding sites preselected by the teacher without having to type them , even from home, will be very beneficial. Teaching students to evaluate websites for instance by looking at the difference between a popular and unpopular site with the same information.

Only thing I don't like about del.icio.us is the name! The word Furl is easier to type but I didn't care for it as much aesthetically, and there weren't as many results as I would have liked on ma.gnolia,.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

June Authors' & Illustrators' Birthday Calendar

June Authors' & Illustrators' Birthday Calendar

Thing 12 - commenting

This Thing really made me realize the differences between generations. While I see the need to contribute, I am on a steep learning curve and I find it exhausting to be in these types of learning communities online and sitting at my desk communicating so much. I still prefer face-to-face, showing my age I guess. The other comment I would like to make is the using your name discussion should have been part of Thing 3 as I was creating my avatar and setting up accounts. I probably would have made different decisions.

But, OHHHH!, there are gems in all the digging. YouTube - We Think was one result of searching Drapes Takes today. I find it amazing that one simple 2 minute video can change many of my long-established understanding of the teaching process and am glad he posted it from YouTube where I'm afraid to go directly anymore because too many hours go by. I've subscribed to Drake's feed too because it seems very thoughtful and uses big, new words like adhocracy in his posts.

I was able to comment on the Library2Play blogs, but had much more difficulty commenting on "expert sites". I don't feel qualifed except to lurk at this point. But I finally found a very welcoming post on the Library Tweeter blog titled "Is Anybody Out There" which gave me confidence to post as I had already read the Bluebonnet Books. Then I found a great article on Information Overload when I searched google blogs. Needless to say I had some newfound expertise in that area!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Thing 11 - Library Thing

This was an easy one. IT was a piece of cake to add titles to my catalog. I like having the widget to pop right from my blog to my catalog on Library Thing. In the Thingology blog I read an interesting comment on mashtags perhaps taking the place of traditional catalog entries one day, or at least bridging the gap. I'm going to try to put more care into tagging here, and in my catalog on Library Thing. I also read about the possibilities of using Library Thing for Readers Advisory Services. That really looks promising down the road as more titles are put in. Right now I just have the five books on my desk in there so I'll need to put in a few more to find a "kindred spirit" to share titles with. The Zeitgeist tab brought up some interesting data, but I think the figures just apply to the actual users of the site in terms of book and author popularity.

I would use the site more if they had a separate section for children's books, though.


An update: It's official. Library Thing is now officially trying to create a new catalog based on tags and is looking for volunteers to head up the endeavor.

Thing 10 - images

I created the stop making excuses sign on sidebar using Imagechef. It's my little reminder that I CAN DO THIS! I am a lifelong learner. I found it very easy to use and to upload photos for home use. For school purposes, it would be a great idea to create fun new signs for the kindergarten community sign unit, to have kids create motivational buttons, to introduce authors.



After about 1 hour of playing around with all the different possibilities, I felt like this from Comic Strip Generator.

The site was friendly and I'm sure students could use it to introduce creative writing assignments, write thank you notes to speakers, and just for fun practice typing.

For most flexibility, I still prefer the BigHugeLab site we explored in thing 7 which has losts of cool project templates and is the easiest by far to use.

Thing 9 - library blogs

I really like Edublog as a tool. The first thing I saw when I clicked in was Best Librarian Blog Awards. I followed out to the first place winner Hey Jude and read about glogster for the first time. Amazing! One of the posters was an Internet scavenger hunt theme and the librarian radar clicked in - Scavenger hunt?! we do scavenger hunts in the library. This would be more fun than the ones we do.

Technorati also yielded many interesting results, in all different formats, but with 1500 blogs tagged libraries I still feel overwhelmed, even with the descriptor attached. I can see that, as always, precision is key so got better results (for me) when I typed in elementary school librarian. The tutorial wasn't really worth the trip, especially since it loaded in Dutch the first time! I have used the free lesson accelerators before with Atomic Learning and one or two of the free tutorials, so that was like finding a friend in a crowd of strangers.

I am getting lost as I move from place to place and need a better system for keeping track which I hope to find in future lessons. Now that I can open several tabs on the browser, I can get even more lost than I was before! Where do all the hours go?

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Thing 8 - RSS feeds.

Some of my favorite feed articles are linked in the side bar. I access them easily on my igoogle page's Google Reader gadget. I think RSS feeds are a great professional development time saver, plus I feel more likely to "stumble upon" the things I need to know to do my job. I will still rely heavily on my LM-Net Listserv friends for good ideas and practical tips, but the sites I chose are good for thinking and building a vision about what the library is becoming.

I saved the Eagles Read site so that I can build one like it for my own students. I hope they are as excited about talking about Bluebonnet books, research question troubleshooting, new books, and keywords as I am.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Thing 7 - Google earth

This posting has taken the longest time thus far because every time I opened a link to a different Google tool I lost track of time playing with it. I signed up for everything I think but I still feel as though I've just scratched the surface. The tool I played with the most was Google Earth which I downloaded for the first time today. I've set my home as a begin from here location and I've added different fly to locations, the seismic layer, and have everything just right except it doesn't open from the little icon and I need to use updater to try to reload every time. Fortunately it saves everything even when I delete and add the software as I've tried twice. It has something to do with my graphics card apparently. I guess it's time for a new computer. The uses are mindboggling and the students will be so impressed. Enrichment for geography, of course, astronomy lessons, world missions for Bible classes, writing prompts, story settings, biographies for social studies, current events. Great fun.

I have also customized my igoogle page to the hilt. Went so crazy I had to take many things off to keep it cleaner but kept 1000 places to visit, sticky note, weather, calculator, translator, notebook, reader, dictionary, news feed and moon phases. I also added a game tab with Sodoku, NY Times Crossword, MahJongh for fun. I may move all of the google tools to a new tab.
See it
here.

Thing 6 - mashups



I created a stamp in Big Huge Labs using the framer tool and a photo we took in Hawaii. I plan to have our 3rd grade students create stamps for their state reports. There are so many tools that would be useful to me professionally and personally. This is the site I've been looking for! Our kids don't have access to professional photo editing tools and they are too young to use most of the ones I've looked at. If I can do it they can too. Posters for teachers to make, badges for our bookfair volunteers, biography trading cards, science fair demos, staff trading cards, scavenger hunt type trading cards, writing prompt photos -- too many things to count. Thank you 23 1/2 things!




Sunday, June 22, 2008

Thing 4 - registration step

I have officially registered, but well past the deadline of June 10th. Even if I don't get continuing ed professional credit for the work I'm doing this summer, I am learning so much that it really doesn't matter. I was too overwhelmed to tackle 2.0 without a plan, and just having the framework in place is all the help I need to get started and take those baby steps. I obviously have alot to learn because I keep forgetting that posts are made most recent on top so my Thing numbers are very new math, I'm afraid.

I can't wait to get back to school and start implementing these ideas. I wish I had seen this a year ago!

Thing 5 - photos


This photo was taken by Darren Hesten and found on the Flickr site in the Creative Commons/Attributions section. I liked it because it is the perfect "apple for the teacher" picture with a twist - the colors seem to be the reverse of the stereotypical red apple. The flickr site looks very useful, especially the creative commons section. I especially like the link to the Creative Commons photos from the Library of Congress which will come in handy when we need to have primary source photos in history, art, science, etc... I can also see accessing the pictures for 5th grade world geography projects, 2nd grade animal reports, signs unit in Kindergarten, really too many places to count. But really interesting to me since we are FINALLY getting class sets of digital cameras and this will help us manage.

Thing 2 - 7 1/2 habits

I read Covey's book 7 Habits books several years ago and it made quite an impact on me, but I had never thought of the habits in the context of information literacy. Great "mash up", is that the word? As was the case in the past, despite actively working to improve this area, my main issues are with seeing problems as crises to manage instead of challenges to learn from. Intellectually I know that the most creative work comes from having to think outside the box to deal with a perceived challenge or problem, but in real life I still struggle to flex and bend in a new direction. The easiest for me is to accept responsibility for my learning. That's why this old dog is still trying to learn new tricks.

Thing 3 - avatar and personal blog

I am slightly intimidated looking at some of the blogs thus far. I feel like a foreigner to this new world.' but the Chinese proverb comes to mind: "Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." Here is my first baby step into Web 2.0. Setting up the accounts turned out to be the hardest part of the assignment. None of my email addresses were accepted by blogger until I opened a gmail account, but things went well after that. Another account opened at yahoo, but working with the avatar was fun. I chose an explorer because I really do feel like one. Might be that the most difficult part of this assignment will be keeping track of all the passwords and user names! Very much looking forward to the next step and am so grateful for this structured program to help me in my explorations. Thank you Dr. Bishop and Spring Branch ISD.