Monday, January 19, 2009
Week #8 exploration of zoho.com
Hey it worked. I created a document in zoho.com and was able to publish it as a post to my blog.
Explorations of Zoho.com
The Journey to Web 2.0 Literacy
There is a such an abundance of information out on the web that you need a purpose to go and get it. I was fortunate to see a post on my library listserv on the Web 2.0 training that was offered. This gave me an incentive and a road map to got through many of the technologies that I had experimented with over the last couple of years. This gave me a deeper look and a time table for accountability. I learned many things, discovered many useful sites and tools and will continue to try to grow my library offerings, my class lesson plans and my life in the Web 2.0 directions.
This week we are exploring online productivity tools. This is a favorite of mine in that it offers the student who does not have Microsoft Office at home to complete assignments at home. We have not had an opportunity to use it to collaborate on a document. We use the wiki for that purpose. I am a big fan of the leelefever CommonCraft Explanations in Plain Engish videos on YouTube. They are easy to understand and simply the explanations tremendously. If you haven't watched one try "wikis in plain english". I think that is the one that got me started.
I am going to try to publish this to my blog so here goes.
Week #7 Wikis
Now this is an area in which I have had interest in for a while. Last year we set up a professional wiki for our elementary librarians. I learned a much better way to organize this by looking at the examples provided. We use it to centralize forms, share lessons and talk about ongoing issues. It took some pushing to get some to use it and this year I think I would have to push again. I noticed that the Princeton wiki that was used by a summer book club has moved to have the reviews right where partrons are accessing the books. I think that is the way we are moving. The wiki will still have some uses since it is available from home. We also have an intranet we could use but it is only available to us in school.
I have also used wikis for my resume which also contains my favorite sites. I am able to access it from most places to get to those sites. I subscribe to the TeacherLibrarian ning that Joyce Valenza set up. I go to it occasionally but have bookmarked her website which has a lot of good information. I have a wiki set up for my school on which to put student audio booktalks but will probably not use it since I now have access to a webpage that will be linked in to the district. I will be learning about sharepoint this week and how I will update the page and keep the content current. I have been working with students on podcasts and ensuring that they know only to use their first names for safety purposes. In 4th they podcast poetry and add sound effects and music. In 5th they write up a script for a booktalk and then podcast it. They also add bumper music and intros and closes which makes it fun. I had planned to put them on the wiki to make them accessible to all students but will now probably put them on the library website.
I have also used wikis for my resume which also contains my favorite sites. I am able to access it from most places to get to those sites. I subscribe to the TeacherLibrarian ning that Joyce Valenza set up. I go to it occasionally but have bookmarked her website which has a lot of good information. I have a wiki set up for my school on which to put student audio booktalks but will probably not use it since I now have access to a webpage that will be linked in to the district. I will be learning about sharepoint this week and how I will update the page and keep the content current. I have been working with students on podcasts and ensuring that they know only to use their first names for safety purposes. In 4th they podcast poetry and add sound effects and music. In 5th they write up a script for a booktalk and then podcast it. They also add bumper music and intros and closes which makes it fun. I had planned to put them on the wiki to make them accessible to all students but will now probably put them on the library website.
Week #6 Thing 15 the future of libraries
After reading over several of the articles on the subject of the future of libraries I thought about a few different things.
1. It has been true for several years that we need to push out more to the place where the students are using the technology if we want input in how it is done. Being in an elementary school I have the opportunity through my classes to impact every student and how they use the resources we make available but as much as possible I want input into how the students use the resources everywhere they use them and with whomever they use them. This is an ongoing challenge.
2. We still need to filter at the elementary level to ensure that the content our students are exposed to is age appropriate. That is why targeted searches and limited web use has been used extensively in elementary. But we need to have many of the technologies available so that students are ready to move to the next level and understand how to determine if a website is good for research or is better for personal uses so we don't want the searches to be too restricted. I also think that the library even at the elementary level needs to be available to the families 24x7 and that a library webpage would be a good vehicle of communication and accessibility.
The discussion of the future of libraries seems to be a multi-threaded discussion because of the different requirements of public libraries, elementary school libraries and middle or high school libraries. I am sure Universities and special libraries also have unique requirements that would change the discussion somewhat. But it is an important topic. One that we need to talk continuously about and actively search for ways to add Web 2.0 capabilities to our libraries.
One area in education that Web 2.0 has a big impact with is authentic audiences. It is so much easier to share student work with other students. When students know that they will have a real audience they put more effort into the delivery because it seems so much more relevant to them.
1. It has been true for several years that we need to push out more to the place where the students are using the technology if we want input in how it is done. Being in an elementary school I have the opportunity through my classes to impact every student and how they use the resources we make available but as much as possible I want input into how the students use the resources everywhere they use them and with whomever they use them. This is an ongoing challenge.
2. We still need to filter at the elementary level to ensure that the content our students are exposed to is age appropriate. That is why targeted searches and limited web use has been used extensively in elementary. But we need to have many of the technologies available so that students are ready to move to the next level and understand how to determine if a website is good for research or is better for personal uses so we don't want the searches to be too restricted. I also think that the library even at the elementary level needs to be available to the families 24x7 and that a library webpage would be a good vehicle of communication and accessibility.
The discussion of the future of libraries seems to be a multi-threaded discussion because of the different requirements of public libraries, elementary school libraries and middle or high school libraries. I am sure Universities and special libraries also have unique requirements that would change the discussion somewhat. But it is an important topic. One that we need to talk continuously about and actively search for ways to add Web 2.0 capabilities to our libraries.
One area in education that Web 2.0 has a big impact with is authentic audiences. It is so much easier to share student work with other students. When students know that they will have a real audience they put more effort into the delivery because it seems so much more relevant to them.
Week #6 Technorati and Del.icio.us
I spent a long time last night and today exploring Technorati. I found a good site with Daniel Pink's comments on what students are learning and how Web 2.0 helps them toward that goal. The pluses of Technorati seem to me to be the ability to sift through large amounts of data using tags and keyword searches. One comment that resonated with me in the Daniel Pink post is that the model has always been to publish then filter. I agree with the author that the time has come to filter and then publish. There is an abundance of sites and information out there but in order to get to the good stuff you often have to go through a lot of irrelevant information. This can eat up a lot of time that most working professionals with families don't have. In order to maximize my efficiency I use the social aspect of Del.icio.us by accessing my friends and colleagues sites to see what they have found recently that might enhance my classroom. I think at the moment that is a more efficient use of my limited time. I do go to the Web for new information and Technorati would probably speed that acquisition of new data. I will continue to explore with it and see if another application springs to mind.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Week #5 Things 10,11,12
Okay, so I might have gotten carried away when playing with the FD Toys and creating the Warholizer image. But it was fun. It took me a while to find a picture that would work. The other times I tried it I could not recognize myself. As far as the Web 2.0 winners, I am already a member and fan of Del.icio.us. I used it more when I worked in a high school but may eventually find that I use it on a much more regular basis in my new position. We will see. I also am a fan of Library Thing which got an honorable mention. I belong to it but use it more to get suggestions and read what other people think than for posting my own books. I use Shelfari at the moment for that. I also like that Shelfari sends me emails when one of my friends adds something to their shelves. It reminds me to go and look at when they are looking at. I set up a Rollyo for explorers and plan to compare it to the targeted searches that my colleagues use on Google. I can see that it would be useful for me to search on Rollyo and then put the specific websites that I want my students to have access to in an e-notes so that I know they won't see all of the sites I do not want them to use in research.
Week#4 RSS feeds, Bloglines
I ended up setting up an account on google reader and began looking for RSS feeds that I would like to subscribe to. So far I have found some useful things but nothing I would like to hear again and again. I have found useful podcasts on iTunes and have kept several. My favorite is Joyce Valenza and Ken Rodoff : Information Fluency Meets Web 2.0. I have listened to this one several times because it has so many useful things in it. I guess looking back at the time stamp it is relatively old since I first listened to it in July of 07. But I still think it applies. There are a couple of other podcasts I found at Conference Connections brought to you by Apple learning. There are a few on digital storytelling. www.digitales.us Bernajean Porter's website. I am going to subscribe to the Cool Tools for Library 2.0 since that seems to have short explanations of various tools for photo editing among other things. I have previously subscribed to other podcasts but if I don't get back to my iTunes to monitor these they seemed to add up geometrically so I ended up unsubscribing and just looking for them as I needed them. On iTunes there were a lot of interesting podcasts such as Iste's Podcast, Teach with Video, Technology Enhanced Classroom, etc. I actually liked the Screencasts better than the podcasts which can get boring if the person creating puts in a lot of beginning info before getting to the crux of the information. I also found Tech Chicks. So it was a productive Web 2.0 day.
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