Thing 2 - Wordsift

I am already familiar with Wordle. It's fun and easy for students to use to find the main idea. So this time I explored Wordsift and I really love its potential. It does everything wordle does, (without all the creative, colorful options) and much, much more. I especially like the links to definitions in the visual thesaurus, the links to other sites, and less so the clip art. It does have images that are inappropriate for younger students who can use Wordle comfortably most of the time unless an inappropriate wordle is featured on the home page. I chose to wordsift my first posting on Thing 1. It came up with some fun connections and youtube sites that were helpful. I think students will especially benefit from the visual dictionary which will help them identify key words for searching. Besides the occasional clip art issues and lack of creative freedom, I'm also not fond of the fact that you can't remove common words like you can in wordle.

Thing 2 - Glogster

Here is my first attempt at Glogster. I think it will be fun to create lesson links for students, but I don't think it is intuitive or easy enough for elementary students.


From a teaching standpoint, though, it's much more interesting than a pathfinder in word!

Thing 2 - Voki

Thing 1 2009

After watching the Networked Student my first reaction was "Hey, that's me -- thanks to 23 1/2 things!" I've not continued active blogging on this blog, but my PLN is intact, my wiki works, and my connections are so much richer than this time last year. So, I started asking all the college students I know about their PLN's and, guess what... they don't have one, at least not for learning, just for social networking. Their MP3's have only music. Their twitters are for fun. Their youtube use is voracious, but the sillier the better.

So I think there is still a great need for librarians and teachers to help them exploit the full potential of their tools. Personally, I am in an elementary library, so I will just keep teaching the tech basics, showing what's out there on the net, explaining intellectual property and promoting literacy of many kinds to try to get them ready. Another important role is to encourage my teachers to keep learning, to get their PLN's going, and to see what's out there to help them in their job of teaching in the classroom.

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

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.

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. :)