Thing 8: Screencasts

I chose to do more reading on screencasting before I began and found this interesting blog post by Jon Udell on O'Reilly Digitalmedia, which gives more tips to help prepare for your first screencast. It helped me build confidence to start.

Then I worked with GoView to create a screencast for my second grade students showing them how to use GoogleImages to find a photo for their animal project. Here it is:


or here is a link to the project:
http://goview.com/?id=aaa8b22a-e657-460d-bef5-804b657f945c

It did require a download, but I found it extremely easy to use, cut out sections, and add titles. I really like the 3-2-1 countdown to help me prepare mentally. I would definitely do this again, at school, with tutorials for databases, Accelerated Reader, using the library catalog, and other software I have on school computers. It could be a huge timesaver.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.