Top Ten Things Teachers Should Know about Technology
1. You can do it! You’ll have to spend some time to learn new skills and technologies, but it’s worth the effort, both for student learning and your own efficiency and effectiveness.
2. Give yourself time to experiment and explore. You’ll have a better chance of mastering the new technology if you’re not panic-stricken.
3. Check out the website “The 21 Things: 21 Things for the 21st Century Educator: Technology Every Educator Should Know.” http://www.21things4teachers.net/17---research--reference-tools.html This website offers an organized approach for tackling the many resources and issues related to technology in education. Make a New Year’s Resolution to learn 21 Things this year!
4. Try to practice what you’ve learned in PD sessions SOON after you’ve learned it, and, of course, save the handouts for guidance.
5. Ask for help. Sometimes hours of confusion can be averted by getting the answer to one little question.
6. Explore the Cloud. For instance, save important links and bookmarks on a site like delicious or Google docs so that they are accessible to you from any computer. Use Picasa to store photos. You’ll have much more flexibility in accessing your information.
7. Learn with the students. Let them help you, and let them help each other.
8. Think of the purpose of your lesson and the outcome you’re hoping to achieve. Being clear on the outcome will help you determine the best use of technology for the lesson.
9. “Use technology only when it makes rich, real, and relevant curriculum richer, more real, and more relevant.” I liked this quote from the weblink since it reminds teachers that a technology-influenced lesson isn’t always necessary or even the best approach.
10. Make sure students understand that online research has to involve more than just cutting and pasting.
Final Thoughts
I kept my Top Ten list the same because it really covers the areas I want it to. For me the most important thing I would want to tell anyone about technology is that they can do it! Many of the points on my list are ideas on how to approach learning technology or little nudges toward really useful tools like Google Docs. It's important for me to include "The 21 Things: 21 Things for the 21st Century Educator: Technology Every Educator Should Know" on the list because I think people need to have a sense of what the essential tools are, so they're not completely overwhelmed. Of course, there are many other possible tools for teachers to learn, but these are very valuable in the classroom and are presented in a way that a teacher could learn them on his or her own.
I mentioned this in the discussion already, but learning all these new technologies has made me much more confident that I can master unfamiliar topics. I just keep trying and testing and trying again, and after a while I understand. I never approached technology this way before. In the past I would get discouraged and give up. Now I see other people panicking around computers, and I'm glad I don't feel that way anymore. Oh yeah, and I try to help them if I can!
I think I need to push a little further now to master certain technologies so that I can effectively teach them to other people. For instance, I have a general idea of how to put together a podcast, but I couldn't tell anyone else how to do it yet. I also plan to do some modelling of cool technologies on my library website. I plan to hook up a blog there, so teachers can see how it might work; I want to post some jings for using the catalog, both as lessons and to show teachers what a jing is. And I'm going to put up some Animotos of new books to showcase the books and to introduce the technology.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
I Like Destiny!
Administrative Needs
In my school system we use Follett’s Destiny system in all the libraries. For all my administrative needs, the program seems quite efficient. I can create barcode and spine labels, I can do quick cataloging changes (maybe even complicated cataloging if I keep my cataloging book handy!), and I can easily add titles through Follett’s listing of book records on TitlePeek. I can figure out library statistics, such as how many graphics were checked out in January or how many books have gone out since September—11,500! I can keep track of patrons, add them, delete them, see what books they have out; I can generate a list of overdues for a whole class to give to a teacher, or I can print up individual notices to pass out to students. Many of our older books still have cards in the pockets with students’ names written in and dates stamped, and I’m so happy not to have to worry about any of that.
Book Orders
At some point I downloaded my book catalog with Follett, so now if I order books from them, I can see if I already have a copy in my collection. When I do order books from Follett, it’s very easy to download the MARC records onto my system. I haven’t ordered from another book company, but I think the downloads would still be effortless—other librarians in my district order books from Permabound and other companies without any problems.
Technical Issues
When the system crashes, there’s an offline program, which I learned a while ago; I’ve never had to use it, but it seemed simple enough. I’ve always gotten technical support on the phone without any problem at all. I appreciate that the service people are always nice to me, even when I ask my completely clueless questions.
Student Users
As an online catalog, the Destiny system is easy for students to use. There’s a friendly interface called Destiny Quest, which, unfortunately, my library computers can’t handle. Destiny Quest seems very easy for young students to use, with lots of visuals like book covers and subject icons. Also, there are easily accessible resource lists and top ten lists; in addition, students can log in and create their own lists of books they’d like to check out. The non-Destiny Quest interface allows all these options for students but in a duller layout. Features like the resource lists are hard to find and so are unlikely to be used except by the most motivated students. But these limitations are school-based technology issues, not problems with Destiny itself. In general, book searching yields good results for students, and the system indicates whether or not the book is already checked. The librarian is able to set up searches to limit results by lexile numbers, which is helpful in guiding students to books at the right level.
Future Needs
I’m not sure if Destiny allows for cataloging websites. Because of time limitations, I would not be able to do this anyway, and due to limited computers students wouldn’t be able to do website research in the library. But I see that, for an additional fee, Destiny offers an interesting service called Webpath Express in which they link age-appropriate, educator-approved websites into the catalog. It’s nice to know that Follett offers this service because as students get more and more used to accessing the library catalog at home, they could get a huge educational benefit from having pre-selected, appropriate websites available to them. Though I would never be able to catalog websites myself, I don’t object to providing information to students in this way. Another service that Follett offers, again at an additional charge, links books and websites to Standards. Teachers would appreciate having this information available, especially since the Standards are set to change soon. A final note on costs—I don’t know how much Destiny costs because our district pays for it. I’ll try to find out.
In my school system we use Follett’s Destiny system in all the libraries. For all my administrative needs, the program seems quite efficient. I can create barcode and spine labels, I can do quick cataloging changes (maybe even complicated cataloging if I keep my cataloging book handy!), and I can easily add titles through Follett’s listing of book records on TitlePeek. I can figure out library statistics, such as how many graphics were checked out in January or how many books have gone out since September—11,500! I can keep track of patrons, add them, delete them, see what books they have out; I can generate a list of overdues for a whole class to give to a teacher, or I can print up individual notices to pass out to students. Many of our older books still have cards in the pockets with students’ names written in and dates stamped, and I’m so happy not to have to worry about any of that.
Book Orders
At some point I downloaded my book catalog with Follett, so now if I order books from them, I can see if I already have a copy in my collection. When I do order books from Follett, it’s very easy to download the MARC records onto my system. I haven’t ordered from another book company, but I think the downloads would still be effortless—other librarians in my district order books from Permabound and other companies without any problems.
Technical Issues
When the system crashes, there’s an offline program, which I learned a while ago; I’ve never had to use it, but it seemed simple enough. I’ve always gotten technical support on the phone without any problem at all. I appreciate that the service people are always nice to me, even when I ask my completely clueless questions.
Student Users
As an online catalog, the Destiny system is easy for students to use. There’s a friendly interface called Destiny Quest, which, unfortunately, my library computers can’t handle. Destiny Quest seems very easy for young students to use, with lots of visuals like book covers and subject icons. Also, there are easily accessible resource lists and top ten lists; in addition, students can log in and create their own lists of books they’d like to check out. The non-Destiny Quest interface allows all these options for students but in a duller layout. Features like the resource lists are hard to find and so are unlikely to be used except by the most motivated students. But these limitations are school-based technology issues, not problems with Destiny itself. In general, book searching yields good results for students, and the system indicates whether or not the book is already checked. The librarian is able to set up searches to limit results by lexile numbers, which is helpful in guiding students to books at the right level.
Future Needs
I’m not sure if Destiny allows for cataloging websites. Because of time limitations, I would not be able to do this anyway, and due to limited computers students wouldn’t be able to do website research in the library. But I see that, for an additional fee, Destiny offers an interesting service called Webpath Express in which they link age-appropriate, educator-approved websites into the catalog. It’s nice to know that Follett offers this service because as students get more and more used to accessing the library catalog at home, they could get a huge educational benefit from having pre-selected, appropriate websites available to them. Though I would never be able to catalog websites myself, I don’t object to providing information to students in this way. Another service that Follett offers, again at an additional charge, links books and websites to Standards. Teachers would appreciate having this information available, especially since the Standards are set to change soon. A final note on costs—I don’t know how much Destiny costs because our district pays for it. I’ll try to find out.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Internet Safety Bibliography
Collier, Anne. "A Better Safety Net: It's Time to Get Smart About Online Safety." School Library Journal. 1 Nov. 2009. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6703696.html>.
Collier suggests that the focus on Internet safety education for young people needs to move into a new phase—Version 3.0. Instead of focusing on dangers from online predators, schools and parents should emphasize the importance developing media literacy and digital citizenship.
"Cyberbullying." Mass.Gov. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=cagoterminal&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Community Safety&L2=Bullying and CyberBullying&sid=Cago&b=terminalcontent&f=community_cyberbullying&csid=Cago>.
This short but informative website offers suggestions for parents on how victims of cyberbullying can take action through private, school, or police interventions. Also, the site helps parents in understanding how to prevent their own children from becoming bullies.
Hoffman, Jan. "As Bullies Go Digital, Parents Play Catch-Up." The New York Times. 4 Dec. 2010. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/us/05bully.html?_r=1>.
This New York Times article stresses the role parents must play in teaching their children about safe use of the Internet and Facebook and also their responsibility in monitoring that use. The article cites several episodes of cyberbullying and the resolutions achieved. For many young people, understanding the hurt their online actions can cause is a difficult lesson to process.
"Internet Safety." The Official Website of the Berkshire District Attorney's Office. Berkshire District Attorney. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=berterminal&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Crime+Awareness+%26+Prevention&L2=Parents+%26+Youth&sid=Dber&b=terminalcontent&f=parents_youth_internet_safety&csid=Dber>
This Internet Safety section of the Official Website of the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office has detailed explanations of common applications parents should be familiar with, as well as related risks. Parents who are not very tech-savvy will appreciate the list of Real Life Rules, such as “Come right home after school,” and their online counterparts.
InternetSafety101.org: Home. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.internetsafety101.org/>.
This website is sponsored by a non-profit organization called Enough is Enough, which offers trainings and educational materials on Internet safety, with a heavy emphasis on stranger danger and online predators. The site includes a section with 101 video clips relating to online dangers with real life testimonials and statements by law enforcement officials.
Staff. "Online Safety Tips for Kids Heading Back to School." School Library Journal. 13 Aug. 2010. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/886317-312/online_safety_tips_for_kids.html.csp>.
This short article advocates for parents becoming well-informed about computers and about their children’s lives. Includes a list of questions to ask teachers and schools about filtering software, cyberbullying policies, social networking between students and teachers, and other technology-related concerns.
The Door That's Not Locked. Web. 29 Mar. 2011. <http://www.uneportegrandeouverte.ca/app/en/>.
This website from Canada covers the topics of privacy, predators, and, to a lesser extent, bullying, and has sections for Parents, Teachers, and Everyone Else. The site allows searching for information by age—5-7, 8-9, 10-12, and 13-15. The section I looked at—Years 10-12—discusses child development as a way of giving parents a broader understanding of how their child understands the world and other people at this point in his or her life. The site then offers suggestions to parents on how to talk to children this age about technology use.
Web Wise Kids. Web. 02 Apr. 2011. <http://www.webwisekids.org/about/>.
Web Wise Kids is a national non-profit devoted to increasing kids’ knowledge of internet safety. The resources on the website include Internet Safety Kits for K-3 and 4-6. The Internet Safety Kit for 4-6 includes a helpful chart of 9 safety rules. Each rule is expanded upon with a related activity, such as a maze going from a prize advertised online to a parent in the middle saying, “OK.” The Resources section has thorough guides on topics such as Twitter, Facebook, and cell phone use.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Jing
Oh, my goodness, I finally figured out jing, and I think it is pretty cool! I made a number of jing videos for my PD presentation, and, though I don't think I'm the best jingster out there--uh, um, oops--I can see that it's really a wonderful way to convey information and to explain things while showing real-life, online examples. Here's my jing video on making an Animoto:
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Kindle
My husband got a Kindle this past Christmas after a couple years of back and forth on whether or not to get one. He likes it, but my observations have revealed that he only uses it to play a scrambled word game! I hadn't really played with it for more than a couple of minutes until last night, and my verdict after about 45 minutes of looking through the how-to guide (well, I'm a digital immigrant!) and reading a chapter of Pride and Prejudice is----I like it. Because I am pre-bifocal but moving quickly toward the reality of needing bifocals, readability is my primary concern. I think the screen is too dim, but it seems like one of the attachable reading lights would take care of that problem. I really liked that the Kindle allows me to increase the text size. This is wonderful for my tired eyes! From taking online classes, I've gotten used to reading online, so my reading experience was comfortable. I didn't miss the actual experience of turning the pages, but I didn't like the placement of the page-turning buttons on the device. It seems to me that they should have figured out where people's thumbs would rest and place the forward button there, but instead that's where the reverse button is. I didn't get into learning how to highlight or any other fancy tricks, though I'm curious to learn more and see how adding notes to an ebook text compares to working with a paper text.
I have been looking forward to reading Jonathan Franzen's long and heavy book, Freedom, and I just might buy it for Kindle reading, if my husband is willing to share with me!
I have been looking forward to reading Jonathan Franzen's long and heavy book, Freedom, and I just might buy it for Kindle reading, if my husband is willing to share with me!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Module 2 Favorites
I really enjoyed exploring all these tech tools, some of them for the first time and some with more depth than I’d done before. It was hard to pick 5 favorites, so I fudged things a bit to include one or two extras.
Digital ID: 1260071. Mrs. Gus Wright, Farm Security Administration client with her canned goods, Oakland community, Greene County, Georgia, November 1941.. Delano, Jack -- Photographer. November 1941
Animoto
Blogs and Wikis
Blogs and wikis seem like the most important tools to me. Students, teachers, and others can use blogs and wikis to post or store information, and then those students, teachers, and others can comment and interact. Wikis, of course, allow for more interaction but blogs are also great as a place where folks can gather to discuss topics. In the classroom, use of blogs and wikis would encourage student writing, discussion, and thinking. They also offer a potential opportunity to get quieter students to participate more fully.
Social Bookmarking
Why wasn’t I using Diigo and Delicious before!? They’re amazing tools for keeping track of all the great resources I come across every day. I don’t know if teachers at my school are aware of these sites, but I think everyone would find them extremely useful for organizing the barrage of information that they want to hang onto, but don’t manage to.
Flickr and Flickr Commons
For student multimedia projects, Flickr seems like an essential resource. Not only can you organize your own photos, but you can also see other people’s images. If you search through the Creative Commons, you can find photos that are available for use in educational or personal projects. And Flickr Commons offers access to images and primary documents from dozens of museums, libraries, and historical societies. I loved making a personal scrapbook of favorite photos I found at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, and others. I loved this photo from NYPL.
Animoto
Animoto was just a blast. It was so easy to make a high quality video. I know students would LOVE using this tool and would feel very proud of their products. The directions were very simple—another plus for a tool that children will be using. People in class mentioned using Animoto for book reports, and I saw that someone else had recapped a classroom biography project in her Animoto—both great ideas. I keep saying this, but I plan to pay for the expanded service, so I can make longer videos for my personal use.
BigHugeLabs
BigHugeLabs was another site that children would be crazy about. There are many possible educational uses, most with the end result of helping students present their work in a polished and professional format. Maybe BigHugeLabs is more fluff than substance, but anything that gets students to be more excited and proud of their work seems like a valuable addition to an educator’s toolkit.
BigHugeLabs was another site that children would be crazy about. There are many possible educational uses, most with the end result of helping students present their work in a polished and professional format. Maybe BigHugeLabs is more fluff than substance, but anything that gets students to be more excited and proud of their work seems like a valuable addition to an educator’s toolkit.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Trying to Figure Out How to Post a PDF file on Blogger
I saw a nice tutorial on various uses of Google on the site Free Technology for Teachers (written by Richard Byrne). He allows posting of his tutorial on blogs, but it's in PDF format. I thought it might be useful to learn how to put a PDF into a blog, so I am making an attempt now....
Well, that didn't work. I tried to convert the PDF to an HTML file using Zamzar, but I get the feeling this is not the right approach. I thought I would end up with some HTML code to embed, but I don't really know what I have! It says .zip file. I googled the question, and they suggested using Scribd first to publish the PDF and then link. But when I tried to do this, I got the strong impression that I wasn't allowed to publish this work on Scribd because it didn't belong to me in the first place! So, I gave up, for now. But that nice tutorial is accessible, nonetheless, in the first line of this posting, and I think it will be handy to have it here so I can come back and study it now and again.
Well, that didn't work. I tried to convert the PDF to an HTML file using Zamzar, but I get the feeling this is not the right approach. I thought I would end up with some HTML code to embed, but I don't really know what I have! It says .zip file. I googled the question, and they suggested using Scribd first to publish the PDF and then link. But when I tried to do this, I got the strong impression that I wasn't allowed to publish this work on Scribd because it didn't belong to me in the first place! So, I gave up, for now. But that nice tutorial is accessible, nonetheless, in the first line of this posting, and I think it will be handy to have it here so I can come back and study it now and again.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Ning
In an attempt to discover what is so great about Ning, I googled this question, "What is so great about Ning?" and got some answers on the Metafilter website. Ning seems to allow users more ability to focus on a specific topic than Facebook does. One Ning that's mentioned is for zine writers, and the explanation for Why Ning? is that it makes possible a closed group of zine writers, whereas using Facebook would mean that family, and non-zine friends would need to see all this zine-related info that they're not interested in. Another commenter mentioned that a group of opinion piece writers uses a Ning to propose and work on opinion topics in a secure setting; the ideas won't leak out to anyone who shouldn't see them. This Metafilter comments page is from 2009; since then Ning has started charging money for its services, and so is probably much less appealing to many users.
I found some interesting Nings when I searched the topics libraries and school libraries, and I joined one called Library 2.0 This Ning has many members and looked promising, but on closer inspection doesn't seem to have much "action"--in other words, I don't see many recent postings. Could it be that the library world is saturated with opportunities to keep up to date professionally and doesn't really need this one? Right now I follow library news on my Google Reader, on the LM_NET listserv, through a library group on Diigo, etc. At some point a person has to say to herself, "I guess I'm up-to-date on library news!" Maybe that's why the Library 2.0 Ning doesn't have a lot of new news on it; everyone's already covered all the possible topics in other forums.
In our class discussion people wondered why anyone would choose Ning over a blog or wiki, and I am still trying to figure this out myself. The security is nice, but a wiki can be secure if only people with passwords can participate. I'm going to keep searching for answers!
I found some interesting Nings when I searched the topics libraries and school libraries, and I joined one called Library 2.0 This Ning has many members and looked promising, but on closer inspection doesn't seem to have much "action"--in other words, I don't see many recent postings. Could it be that the library world is saturated with opportunities to keep up to date professionally and doesn't really need this one? Right now I follow library news on my Google Reader, on the LM_NET listserv, through a library group on Diigo, etc. At some point a person has to say to herself, "I guess I'm up-to-date on library news!" Maybe that's why the Library 2.0 Ning doesn't have a lot of new news on it; everyone's already covered all the possible topics in other forums.
In our class discussion people wondered why anyone would choose Ning over a blog or wiki, and I am still trying to figure this out myself. The security is nice, but a wiki can be secure if only people with passwords can participate. I'm going to keep searching for answers!
Second Life
I'll be writing up my Second Life experiences in my paper, but I did want to mention that I appreciated having the option to write the position paper OR play Second Life. I think I would have been pretty annoyed if Second Life had been required because it was frustrating to me. But knowing that it was my own free choice to be there kept me from getting irritated about the assignment. I think there's a psychology lesson in there somewhere!
I was glad to learn about LinkedIn, which seems like a very powerful networking tool. LinkedIn seems like a nice option for people who want to keep their personal and professional online lives separate. Personal contacts live on Facebook and professional contacts stay safely on LinkedIn.
I have 5 connections so far, though 2 of them said that they almost never look at the site! And this article, LinkedIn launches social news product mentions that a "substantial majority of members don't visit the site on a monthly basis." If few people are going to the site, however, maybe not that much networking really goes on there.
I have 5 connections so far, though 2 of them said that they almost never look at the site! And this article, LinkedIn launches social news product mentions that a "substantial majority of members don't visit the site on a monthly basis." If few people are going to the site, however, maybe not that much networking really goes on there.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Online Media
For me the theme of this week was mini-frustrations and not enough time to go as deeply as I wanted to. I played with podcasting on Garageband. Eventually I figured things out, but for a long time, for no known reason, no sound would record. I consulted my teen son, and he didn't know why and then, again for no known reason, the recording worked. I didn't produce anything besides a few sentences, but still I think I've got the idea now. I read about VoiceThread but didn't really get to practice with it. I was a little frustrated with the Education Podcast Network because you couldn't easily search by topic, though I loved seeing (hearing) examples of student work, especially the programs that really were like radio shows, with several students working together, rather than one child just recording his/her voice alone. I was excited to explore youtube as an educational resource, and I found a number of podcasts on itunes that I'd like to listen to sometime. All in all, I'm going to need to come back and learn more about some of these resources when I've got a bit more time. I guess knowing what's available is the first step toward knowing how to use it.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Film Sites
Okay, I just loved this film Barcelona en tranvia on the Europa Film Treasures website. I think I watched it three times. The music, the people, the scenes of life in Spain in 1908—it was muy fabuloso! My husband and I also quite enjoyed The Love Nest, starring Buster Keaton. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of his films, and this one was pretty funny!
I was also glad to learn about Snagfilms , which I was not familiar with before. I hope to have time sometime to go back and watch some of the intriguing documentaries there.
I was also glad to learn about Snagfilms , which I was not familiar with before. I hope to have time sometime to go back and watch some of the intriguing documentaries there.
ipods in education
I had a chance to play with my nephew's ipod touch last week when he was visiting. It was fun, but I didn't really understand how it might be used in education. Then I learned that the speech therapist at my school uses an ipod touch frequently with her students. Today she was nice enough to show me some of the things she does with her students, and though many of the applications apply specifically to speech therapy, I really see what a valuable tool this is now!
The speech therapist uses the ipod mostly when she's working with one or two students at a time; she yearns for an ipad, since the screen is so much bigger and then she could use it more effectively with a larger group. (Of course, everyone yearns for an ipad, but only some are chosen!) For a group of 4 or 5, she'll hook the ipod up to speakers, and they listen to a podcast or do vocab activities.
She has nearly 100 episodes of Sesame Street, specifically the "Word on the Street" section which introduces vocabulary words. She uses voice-memo with a student who stutters. He records himself speaking or reading and then listens to himself to see where stuttering occurred. She has a Timed Reading app; Flocabulary, which was a vocabulary rap; isentence, where a student constructs a sentence from some choices. For instance a student would need to decided whether to begin a sentence with Them, They, or Him. I can see how some of our ELL and special needs students could benefit from this kind of activity. This app was also cute for its encouraging comments, such as "You deserve a doughnut!"
I love that the speech teacher uses episodes of Wallace and Grommit to teach "social thinking." She explained that social thinking is different than just social skills like saying please and thank you. An example of social thinking would be learning *why* you should look at someone's face when they're speaking--because you can learn how the other person is feeling or get clues about what he or she is thinking.
Though many of the uses mentioned are specific to speech therapy or one-on-one therapy or tutoring, the therapist suggested that a great use for the ipod touch would be to help students who have test-taking issues. Teachers could record the directions for a test onto an ipod and students with information processing problems could listen to the directions as many times as they needed to. The students could stay in the classroom with the rest of the class rather than being separated so that a para could read directions to them. This example really helped me see how great an ipod could be for accommodating students with different needs. The therapist noted that many of the ipod activities could be accomplished in other ways--using flashcards or worksheets, for instance--but that the students LOVE doing the activities with the ipod because it all seems more fun. I want one!
The speech therapist uses the ipod mostly when she's working with one or two students at a time; she yearns for an ipad, since the screen is so much bigger and then she could use it more effectively with a larger group. (Of course, everyone yearns for an ipad, but only some are chosen!) For a group of 4 or 5, she'll hook the ipod up to speakers, and they listen to a podcast or do vocab activities.
She has nearly 100 episodes of Sesame Street, specifically the "Word on the Street" section which introduces vocabulary words. She uses voice-memo with a student who stutters. He records himself speaking or reading and then listens to himself to see where stuttering occurred. She has a Timed Reading app; Flocabulary, which was a vocabulary rap; isentence, where a student constructs a sentence from some choices. For instance a student would need to decided whether to begin a sentence with Them, They, or Him. I can see how some of our ELL and special needs students could benefit from this kind of activity. This app was also cute for its encouraging comments, such as "You deserve a doughnut!"
I love that the speech teacher uses episodes of Wallace and Grommit to teach "social thinking." She explained that social thinking is different than just social skills like saying please and thank you. An example of social thinking would be learning *why* you should look at someone's face when they're speaking--because you can learn how the other person is feeling or get clues about what he or she is thinking.
Though many of the uses mentioned are specific to speech therapy or one-on-one therapy or tutoring, the therapist suggested that a great use for the ipod touch would be to help students who have test-taking issues. Teachers could record the directions for a test onto an ipod and students with information processing problems could listen to the directions as many times as they needed to. The students could stay in the classroom with the rest of the class rather than being separated so that a para could read directions to them. This example really helped me see how great an ipod could be for accommodating students with different needs. The therapist noted that many of the ipod activities could be accomplished in other ways--using flashcards or worksheets, for instance--but that the students LOVE doing the activities with the ipod because it all seems more fun. I want one!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
So Many Tools, So Little Time!
Wow! Look at all these fun tools I used this week!
Flickr
BigHugeLabs
Dumpr
Zoho
Google Docs
Zamzar
SurveyMonkey
Doodle
Stumbleupon
Rollyo.com
BubblUs
Voki
Jing
Animoto
BigHugeLabs and Dumpr were hugely appealing photos enhancement sites. I loved how they were easy, free, and fun. StumbleUpon was a very interesting time waster that I plan to visit again. I’m not sure how useful it would be for educational uses, but it was fun to play with and interesting to look at all the random sites. Rollyo, on the other hand, would be a great way for teachers to set up a “controlled” search engine, so students get the chance to really search but without ending up in inappropriate territory. It seems like Rollyo could be really effective in helping students avoid wasting time as they research. I don’t foresee using Zoho—seems too complicated and doesn’t offer anything that GoogleDocs or a wiki don’t already have. I had trouble loading Jing on my computer, but I like the possibilities it offers for real time communication between two computers. All in all, I had a great time exploring these online tools and look forward to sharing them with others.
I had looked at Flickr before but had never loaded any pictures. I was happy to see how simple it was to post photos. I enjoyed exploring the Creative Commons section. The Library of Congress section was so much easier to use than the actual Library of Congress site. Obviously there’s more on the regular site, but I hope they’ll be migrating more and more material to Flickr. I’ll be working with Flickr more next week to learn what other exciting features are there.
Flickr
BigHugeLabs
Dumpr
Zoho
Google Docs
Zamzar
SurveyMonkey
Doodle
Stumbleupon
Rollyo.com
BubblUs
Voki
Jing
Animoto
BigHugeLabs and Dumpr were hugely appealing photos enhancement sites. I loved how they were easy, free, and fun. StumbleUpon was a very interesting time waster that I plan to visit again. I’m not sure how useful it would be for educational uses, but it was fun to play with and interesting to look at all the random sites. Rollyo, on the other hand, would be a great way for teachers to set up a “controlled” search engine, so students get the chance to really search but without ending up in inappropriate territory. It seems like Rollyo could be really effective in helping students avoid wasting time as they research. I don’t foresee using Zoho—seems too complicated and doesn’t offer anything that GoogleDocs or a wiki don’t already have. I had trouble loading Jing on my computer, but I like the possibilities it offers for real time communication between two computers. All in all, I had a great time exploring these online tools and look forward to sharing them with others.
I had looked at Flickr before but had never loaded any pictures. I was happy to see how simple it was to post photos. I enjoyed exploring the Creative Commons section. The Library of Congress section was so much easier to use than the actual Library of Congress site. Obviously there’s more on the regular site, but I hope they’ll be migrating more and more material to Flickr. I’ll be working with Flickr more next week to learn what other exciting features are there.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Animoto
This was fun; I'll have to make a plan for my next movie!
I've always loved these pics of my sons and their cousins. I found them on my camera long after they posed for them
badboys first try
I've always loved these pics of my sons and their cousins. I found them on my camera long after they posed for them
badboys first try
Survey Monkey
I've taken surveys on Survey Monkey, but I've never made one. Here's my two-question practice survey:
Click here to take survey
Click here to take survey
Monday, February 14, 2011
Zamzar
I'll admit I don't really understand all the uses for Zamzar. But the blog says you can convert to ereader format, which would be nifty if someone needed to change a personal document into that format. Sorry, rambling, trying to get my head around this tool. I practiced converting the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner booklet from pdf to doc. This conversion allows me to edit the brochure--not that I have any suggestions to make! But I can imagine a scenario when I might want to work with a pdf and Zamzar makes it possible. Also, from the Zamzar blog, there seem to be conversions that would be useful for ipad users. I'll try to remember this resource when I'm stuck in the wrong format....
bubbl.us
I'm trying to embed my brainstorming map from bubbl.us here. Let's see how it goes!
Well, it worked, but you'll have to zoom in to see it!
Well, it worked, but you'll have to zoom in to see it!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
del.icio.us
I used del.icio.us for another class when I was getting overwhelmed with bookmarks. I liked the concept of it but then didn't really use it much for my next class or for personal uses. Why not? I don't know! It's really handy. I think I was a little confused when I set up my "Bookmark on Delicious" system in the first place; for some reason it seemed harder to do than it really was, and I ended up only using it on one computer, and etc. Now I am really ready to use this very amazing resource. I still need to work on understanding how I would begin looking at other people's bookmarks and how I could link up with other people at my school.
I'm going to ask around at my school and see if many teachers use delicious. Because teachers have to use many different computers during a school day, portable bookmarks could make life so much easier for them. I wonder if there would be a way to set up a "school" delicious account where any teacher could log in to the same account and post great bookmarks for everyone else to see. Probably just as easy for everyone to get his/her own account and then link up. I've got more to learn with this technology.
I'm going to ask around at my school and see if many teachers use delicious. Because teachers have to use many different computers during a school day, portable bookmarks could make life so much easier for them. I wonder if there would be a way to set up a "school" delicious account where any teacher could log in to the same account and post great bookmarks for everyone else to see. Probably just as easy for everyone to get his/her own account and then link up. I've got more to learn with this technology.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
goodreads
I had signed up for goodreads a while ago and then never looked at it again. But a few months ago I started writing down the books I’d read in a giant ledger book that I found at a book sale. (Actually, my husband and I are sharing it; I started from the front, and he began at the back. Since there are something like 500 pages, I don’t think we’ll run out!) Anyway, since I was already recording my books on paper, I was more interested in putting them on the computer, too. I entered a few recent reads and plan to keep up with both the paper and the goodreads listings from here on out. I’m sure I can keep up with both of them; when I looked back at my ledger, I was surprised to realize that I read fewer books than I think I do. Well, I’m a busy lady!
Now that I’m back on goodreads I wish that more of my reading friends were on the site. I’m most interested to see what people I know are reading right now.
As far as educational uses are concerned, I think students in 4th and 5th grade—especially the avid readers—would enjoy recording their books and seeing what their friends and classmates are reading. If they wrote reviews, that would obviously be a wonderful writing opportunity. Goodreads doesn’t seem like an activity that teachers would spend time on during school. The most reasonable use in elementary schools would probably be to introduce students to the site during a library lesson, and those readers who were interested could (and likely would) continue to visit the site on their own time.
Now that I’m back on goodreads I wish that more of my reading friends were on the site. I’m most interested to see what people I know are reading right now.
As far as educational uses are concerned, I think students in 4th and 5th grade—especially the avid readers—would enjoy recording their books and seeing what their friends and classmates are reading. If they wrote reviews, that would obviously be a wonderful writing opportunity. Goodreads doesn’t seem like an activity that teachers would spend time on during school. The most reasonable use in elementary schools would probably be to introduce students to the site during a library lesson, and those readers who were interested could (and likely would) continue to visit the site on their own time.
Website Challenges
I’ve been hard at work on my school website. It’s not part of our week’s assignment, of course, but it has been interesting to compare the school site to blogger. Blogger seems much easier to use and is much more intuitive. Working on the school site made me want to tear out my hair because nothing was self-explanatory, and I had to keep referring to some hard-to-understand instructions from IT. Eventually I realized that I was working on two websites simultaneously, one with my name and one called Library. I couldn’t understand why the changes I had just made weren’t showing up—well, they were, just on a different webpage! With that mystery solved, I’m able to move on to create my website. I’m thinking of ways to link wikis to the webpage. I’ve felt remiss not having a school webpage up, so I'm glad to get this project done despite the frustrations.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Google Reader
I spent a while this morning learning Google Reader. I had subscribed to this a while ago but never used it. I realized that it’s best (for me, at least!) for tracking blogs and sites that are only updated occasionally. For instance, in my earlier foray into Google Reader, I had subscribed to BBC Portado Mundo, which is a site with news in Spanish. I thought this would be a great way for me to remember to practice Spanish—and it would be, except that they send about 50 articles a day. For a news site, I think it makes more sense to go directly to the site when I have some time and select the 2 or 3 articles that interest me. (I had the same realization about Twitter; I subscribed to the NY Times and ended up with a million postings.)
I like to read blogs about saving money, so I put a few of those in. I subscribed to some of the Kid Lit blogs in the Elizabeth Bird article, SLJ, Joyce Valenza. These will be fun to look at, but the subscription that makes me happiest is to a food blog called Orangette. Since this blogs posts infrequently, it can be disappointing to check for new posts. Now I'll know when she's written something new.
No doubt there are many ways of fine-tuning my use of Google Reader to make it more effective, but I haven’t explored that deeply yet. I did at least organize some of the subscriptions into folders, and I starred some articles I’d like to go back to.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Wiki World
My wiki is in business! http://hmlslibrary.wikispaces.com/ (Barbara, you should receive an email inviting you to join.) For another class last year I made a wiki on pbwiki, so I thought I’d try wikispaces to see if I liked it better. My final verdict….they both seemed fine. I made a library wiki because I’ve wanted to figure out a way that students at my school could have online discussions about the Massachusetts Children’s Book Award books. I’m still not sure a wiki is the best way to approach this project. The need for accounts seems cumbersome, and I’d bet many students would forget their passwords when the time came that they actually were going to use the wiki. For students in a classroom, I think a wiki could work wonderfully to allow collaboration on writing assignments and projects, and students would have the teacher right there to remind them of passwords and of how to work the wiki.
Nonetheless, I learned a number of useful skills as I created my hmlslibrary wiki. For my homepage, I made a Voki cat, and embedded it. This took a few tries of pasting the code in, but eventually it worked fine. I think children visiting the wiki would have fun with my library cat! I also made a Volunteer Page, because I dream a lot about library volunteers this year. (Last year I had a work study student who put books away for 25 hours a week (I miss you, Stephanie!), but this year there are no work studies.) Mostly I made the Volunteer Page to see how tricky it would be to embed a Google Calendar. It was easy!
The other accomplishment I’m proud of is my neat and tidy MCBA page. At first I was trying to make one page listing all the MCBA books, each including the book jacket art and a discussion section. By the time I had three books listed, the page was a confusing mess, and the Navigation section was becoming overwhelmed with book titles. I decided to make a separate page for each of the MCBA books (well, I did about 10 of the 25 titles), and then I linked them all to the MCBA page. This format allows a student to click on a link and quickly go to the page he or she wants without being distracted by other pictures, comments, and clutter. I also learned how to edit the Navigation section to hide the book titles.
For formatting and the designing the wiki, I was grateful for people’s comments on the discussion board. Their tips on using the “T” on the formatting bar saved me some time. Also, I did much better once I watched the site’s tutorials.
I love how the wiki can absorb so many different kinds of media—audio, video, calendars, Vokis, etc. And wikis are obviously very powerful in enabling collaboration between people. But I still need to find a way to allow easy access to students while also keeping them safe from possible inappropriate comments if the wiki is open to anyone.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Snow Day #2, p.m.
Here’s what I learned on my snow day: Sesame Street is now promoting 21st Century skills with an old friend/new superhero, Super Grover 2.0. In these segments, Super Grover 2.0 introduces kids to concepts like observation, investigation, and questioning. Sure, numbers and the alphabet are important, but it’s wonderful to see that Sesame Street is trying to grow and change along with the rest of the educational world.
My other shoutout for the day is to Superheroine Joyce Valenza, who tirelessly (or so it seems) instructs and guides her fellow librarians through the avalanche (it is a snow day!) of online educational and technological resources.
Snow Day #2, a.m.
In my wiki exploration, I started with http://edublogawards.com/2010awards/best-educational-wiki-2010/ and choose the Educational Origami blog because I liked the name. There I found a very helpful section called Starter Sheets. Starter Sheets are handouts that introduce tools and technologies that could be used in the classroom. I like handouts that hold my hand, taking me through a new technology (Diigo, Animoto, Twitter, etc.) step by step, and I plan to refer to these as I work my way through various tools and technologies. I also linked to wikimania here and waded around in the wikimedia world—a place I didn’t realize existed. I could see putting links to ebooks like Alice in Wonderland on my library website using resources from wikisource. Many of the books have audio included, so a child could listen and read along. I know these public domain books are available in other places on the web but not necessarily with an audio component.
I could definitely lose a few hours looking around at wikimedia commons, a huge database of freely usable media files. For instance, if you ever need harmonica music for a presentation, the commons has many to choose from!
Next I took a look at kidpedia, a wiki encyclopedia written by fifth graders. Kidpedia had terms you wouldn’t find in many other encyclopedias, such as: smoothies, “So You Think You Can Dance,” Eminem, and Frosted Flakes. It wasn’t fancy but was nonetheless a nice example of how young students could collaborate and create a product that was meaningful to them.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
First Post
Here goes!
I'm writing this blog for LBS 850, and I'm excited to get a little push into life as a blogger. This is a long day of homework, as I spent some time this morning on the discussion board, then "messed around" with blog exploration, and finally created my blog. I like to write, so I think I'll enjoy this project!
For my blog exploration today, I started with the link http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+Bloggers. (Well, well, I see I already have something to learn; the links I wrote in Word are showing up as active links, while this one that I'm composing on Blogger isn't. What to do? I'll ignore the problem for now.)
Anyway, I browsed some blogs, got a sense of the different categories of educational blogging, looked at the How to Start tab, where this informative article by Vicki Davis, author of Cool Cat Teacher Blog, caught my eye: “Ten Habits of Bloggers that Win.”
I'm writing this blog for LBS 850, and I'm excited to get a little push into life as a blogger. This is a long day of homework, as I spent some time this morning on the discussion board, then "messed around" with blog exploration, and finally created my blog. I like to write, so I think I'll enjoy this project!
For my blog exploration today, I started with the link http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+Bloggers. (Well, well, I see I already have something to learn; the links I wrote in Word are showing up as active links, while this one that I'm composing on Blogger isn't. What to do? I'll ignore the problem for now.)
Anyway, I browsed some blogs, got a sense of the different categories of educational blogging, looked at the How to Start tab, where this informative article by Vicki Davis, author of Cool Cat Teacher Blog, caught my eye: “Ten Habits of Bloggers that Win.”
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/03/ten-habits-of-bloggers-that-win.html I noticed that she won the Edublog Best Teacher Blog in 2008, so I decided to follow her on Twitter.
I looked at Bernajean Porter’s A Digital Storytelling Blog because I recognized her name from another LBS class. There was a sweet little video about the life of a Granny Smith apple made by third graders that was featured as the Story of the Month. http://web.mac.com/bernajeanporter/Site/About_Me.html
I looked at a blog called DE Tools of the Trade http://www.detools.ca/ which I would follow if I were Joyce Valenza, but for now I think I’ll let her sort through the wealth of free tools and wait to see which ones she likes best!
By now I have spent about an hour looking two blogs, and I’m starting to get the idea that blogging and looking at blogs could consume my whole life! Also, I notice that a lot of blogs go into a collapse after an enthusiastic start. Of course, people get busy, but I also wonder if blogging starts to feel like shouting into the void?
The Edublog award winners were also very interesting. I looked at the Best Educational Wiki (I know, wiki not blog) winner, Greetings from the World.
http://greetingsfromtheworld.wikispaces.com/ This wiki is a really neat idea in which students and teachers from many different countries share geography Glogs they’ve made. The examples here helped me understand what an exciting technology glogs can be—I didn’t really “get” them before. I love that people from around the world are collaborating to share ideas in this way. I especially liked the Flamenco glog.
And I looked at the Best Resource Sharing blog:
Free Technology for Teachers
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/01/good-list-of-google-search-tricks.html where I found a list of 100 Google search tricks that I will peruse at greater depth sometime.
Setting up my own blog was easy, except that I had forgotten my Google password and had to get help in setting a new one. I'm always positive I'll remember my passwords, and then I don't. I was curious to see the guidelines for blogs on Blogger; I'm glad they won't allow illegal activities, hate speech, threats, and other nasty things. I'm still working on the design of my blog...I thought I had selected a nice background, but, instead, the default picture shows up.
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