The PA Curriculum Connection wiki is pretty nice and there are some good links. I particularly liked the Dewey Browse site, and a cool article on whiteboards. It would be great if more could be added. I couldn't figure out the invite key. I'm sure it was somewhere, but I just could not get it. Oh well, I wasn't sure what I would have added at this point.
I also had a little trouble with getting some of the links to work but I just copy and pasted them in the address bar instead.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Week 7, Thing 16a: Sandbox Wki
There were a lot of great ideas in the California 2.0 Curriculum Connections Wiki. There are a few I'm going to use and several I'm going to share with my teachers. Some of my favorites include creating avatars to represent a characters from a book; creating cloud bundles in del.icio.us for faster, more effective, searching; creating an online book club; and using a wiki for our CFF teachers to post project ideas, what has worked and not worked, basically to provide a forum for discussion of technology in the classroom.
Our CFF coach has already created a wiki for our teachers as well as ones for various technology camps we held over the summer. At this point, they provide teachers with links and training materials but I know she'd love the idea of a more interactive wiki. One full of ideas, encouragement, and a sharing of resources. As it is, we rarely have time to meet for trainings, let alone informal share time. It would be an incredible collaborative effort.
As we near the end of our discussion of wikis, I want to share another useful outcome of wiki use. One of our teachers observed an interesting benefit of wikis in the classroom. Last year, we had some very bright, very chatty seniors. They were great kids and livened up any classroom discussion but some students couldn't get a word in edgewise. When one of their teachers had them working with wikis, she found that some of the quieter students really had an opportunity to shine because they found their "voice" could be heard online. The amazing thing is, it didn't stop there. A few of these quieter students started to become more vocal in class once their confidence grew.
Our CFF coach has already created a wiki for our teachers as well as ones for various technology camps we held over the summer. At this point, they provide teachers with links and training materials but I know she'd love the idea of a more interactive wiki. One full of ideas, encouragement, and a sharing of resources. As it is, we rarely have time to meet for trainings, let alone informal share time. It would be an incredible collaborative effort.
As we near the end of our discussion of wikis, I want to share another useful outcome of wiki use. One of our teachers observed an interesting benefit of wikis in the classroom. Last year, we had some very bright, very chatty seniors. They were great kids and livened up any classroom discussion but some students couldn't get a word in edgewise. When one of their teachers had them working with wikis, she found that some of the quieter students really had an opportunity to shine because they found their "voice" could be heard online. The amazing thing is, it didn't stop there. A few of these quieter students started to become more vocal in class once their confidence grew.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Week 7, Thing 16 Wikis
I liked this assignment because it helped me become a little more at ease with wikis. I'm more comfortable with a blog than a wiki because it's similar to standard writing - someone writes, I read it, if I like it, I can choose to respond if I care to. A wiki sets that standard on it's ear and many people can get into the act so it's the loss of control that probably freaks me out.
That being said, wikis are an awesome tool for school. One of our science teachers teaches almost exclusively with wikis, with incredible results. When asking one of her students about how he liked doing assignments on the wiki, he told me he really liked it but, "you actually have to read the stuff, I can't fake it like I used to." Edutopia has an online article about her entitled "Wiki Woman". She posts in her blog "Hurricanemaine", this year, she decided not to pass out a textbook and is using the web and her class wiki for all her teaching and learning.
As for me, I plan to get it in gear and make use of the wiki space I created last year and set it up for students to post book reviews and series title lists. Collaboration and the ability to edit postings are some the best things about wikis.
My favorite wikis from this assignment are Library Success: a best practices wiki, - they have a really cool page called "Library 2.0 in 15 minutes" and the teacherlibrarianwiki,because I love anything to do with Joyce Valenza
That being said, wikis are an awesome tool for school. One of our science teachers teaches almost exclusively with wikis, with incredible results. When asking one of her students about how he liked doing assignments on the wiki, he told me he really liked it but, "you actually have to read the stuff, I can't fake it like I used to." Edutopia has an online article about her entitled "Wiki Woman". She posts in her blog "Hurricanemaine", this year, she decided not to pass out a textbook and is using the web and her class wiki for all her teaching and learning.
As for me, I plan to get it in gear and make use of the wiki space I created last year and set it up for students to post book reviews and series title lists. Collaboration and the ability to edit postings are some the best things about wikis.
My favorite wikis from this assignment are Library Success: a best practices wiki, - they have a really cool page called "Library 2.0 in 15 minutes" and the teacherlibrarianwiki,because I love anything to do with Joyce Valenza
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Week 6 Thing 15: Library 2.0
The articles on Library 2.0 were very thought provoking. Their viewpoint concerned public libraries where the experience can be very different from school libraries. For those of us who are ready, willing, and excited to be embracing new technologies, Library 2.0 sounds great and is a great thing to give our patrons. My family members and friends are no strangers to computers and work with them on a daily basis. When I visited my sister and her husband, there were once a total of four computers in the living room and the TV was on, causing our father to shake his head and walk out in frustration. Yet, if they went to their library and found too many Library 2.0 type services instead of a straight "search and find a book" environment, I'm not sure how they would react. They might embrace it, or they might be on the phone to me to see what kind of library nonsense was going on and did I know how to use it. I know my dad would walk out in frustration and wait for me to come home. That's what he did when they put OPACs in. (Although I think he did figure it out himself, he's pretty adaptable.) The point of this is that not all patrons will embrace Library 2.0 so it's probably something to ease into. If a library has a budget like the one my town, it won't even matter. They're just lucky to have books.
In the schools, it's a bit different. My students could teach me as much about Web 2.0 applications as I could teach them about library skills. Therefore, I have to keep up to keep my students engaged. I have a large group of students who love to read and keep my circulation numbers up. I also know I have to compete with so many different technologies - computer games, texting, TV, video games, etc. I have to show them that the library, the information in it and accessed from it is relevant to them. I have del.icio.us sites and I finally have a web page. I plan to develop a wiki so that students can write reviews of books I also hope to have students create a del.icio.us site of the best reference sites to share with others in the school. As a CFF school, we have access to so much technology, it's becoming second nature to us. The most important thing is not to loose the message in the medium.
The irony of Library 2.0 being easier to implement in a school setting is that schools use filtering systems and many of the Web 2.0 aps don't always get through. We have a two tiered system now that allows teachers access to YouTube, flickr, and blogs but I don't know how many of them get through on the students' computers. We have a forward thinking administration that usually opens things up for us but it's not always the case in many districts.
Web 2.0 applications are getting more and more common, so it is inevitable that they are filtering into the library setting. Library 2.0 is here and it's up to us to make sure it impacts our library in the best and most productive ways possible. It would be foolish to use applications just to flaunt them but instead, we need to implement them wisely to enhance our programs and better serve our patrons.
In the schools, it's a bit different. My students could teach me as much about Web 2.0 applications as I could teach them about library skills. Therefore, I have to keep up to keep my students engaged. I have a large group of students who love to read and keep my circulation numbers up. I also know I have to compete with so many different technologies - computer games, texting, TV, video games, etc. I have to show them that the library, the information in it and accessed from it is relevant to them. I have del.icio.us sites and I finally have a web page. I plan to develop a wiki so that students can write reviews of books I also hope to have students create a del.icio.us site of the best reference sites to share with others in the school. As a CFF school, we have access to so much technology, it's becoming second nature to us. The most important thing is not to loose the message in the medium.
The irony of Library 2.0 being easier to implement in a school setting is that schools use filtering systems and many of the Web 2.0 aps don't always get through. We have a two tiered system now that allows teachers access to YouTube, flickr, and blogs but I don't know how many of them get through on the students' computers. We have a forward thinking administration that usually opens things up for us but it's not always the case in many districts.
Web 2.0 applications are getting more and more common, so it is inevitable that they are filtering into the library setting. Library 2.0 is here and it's up to us to make sure it impacts our library in the best and most productive ways possible. It would be foolish to use applications just to flaunt them but instead, we need to implement them wisely to enhance our programs and better serve our patrons.
Week 6 Thing 14: Technorati
OK, so I was prepared to be a little overwhelmed by this assignment. Technorati is a little overwhelming but once I got the hang of it, I really enjoyed putting in some cool search terms, or tags, and finding some interesting blogs. It was incredibly easy to put them onto my Google Reader site too. (Side note - I switched from Bloglines because I get interrupted too often and with Bloglines you have to save unread blogs or they disappear, with GR, they don't go away until you mark them as read.) I probably have too many to keep up with now, but I'll give it a try because the ones I've selected have some really great information on them. I liked all the different ways blogs can be found too - Top 100, most popular, different topics, top searches. It's a blogging dream. There's probably someone who reads it all and blogs about blogging.
As far as tagging goes, it's pretty much what we as librarians have been doing all along, we just call it cataloging. Back in the days when I did my cataloging "by hand", my main concern was "if I want my students to find this book, what are the best subject headings to use?" Then, I would get frustrated when Sears wouldn't have the exact term I wanted. That's a great thing about tagging - you put in whatever will make you remember the photo/site/blog. The biggest drawback with tagging is the beauty of cataloging - authority control. Even with my Delicious site I've used a couple different tags and it drives me nuts when I see that I have 7 sites under blog and 14 under blogs.
As far as claiming my blog and creating tags for it, I'm not ready for that yet. When I'm ready to blog about more than this class, that will be the time to do it but I'm glad I know how to get read. It's hard to write when you think no one is reading. Some of our CFF teachers are putting together a tech blog for the other CFF teachers and I'll be able to get that out there for others. I think the most intimidating thing is the HTML code but I will not let it beat me! They have a very good Technorati blog directory page.
As far as tagging goes, it's pretty much what we as librarians have been doing all along, we just call it cataloging. Back in the days when I did my cataloging "by hand", my main concern was "if I want my students to find this book, what are the best subject headings to use?" Then, I would get frustrated when Sears wouldn't have the exact term I wanted. That's a great thing about tagging - you put in whatever will make you remember the photo/site/blog. The biggest drawback with tagging is the beauty of cataloging - authority control. Even with my Delicious site I've used a couple different tags and it drives me nuts when I see that I have 7 sites under blog and 14 under blogs.
As far as claiming my blog and creating tags for it, I'm not ready for that yet. When I'm ready to blog about more than this class, that will be the time to do it but I'm glad I know how to get read. It's hard to write when you think no one is reading. Some of our CFF teachers are putting together a tech blog for the other CFF teachers and I'll be able to get that out there for others. I think the most intimidating thing is the HTML code but I will not let it beat me! They have a very good Technorati blog directory page.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Week 6 Thing 13 Del.icio.us!
I love del.icio.us! I first found out about it in early 2007. We had just found out we were to be one of the first Classrooms for the Future schools to get up and running. My coach was counting on me help her with great web sites and I wanted to create an iWeb site for the CFF teachers to go to find them. I was going just a little nuts trying to keep track of all the sites I found considering I was on one of four different computers at any given time - two at home, (my laptop or the kid's computer) and two at school (one in my office, one at the circulation desk). Add to that configuration a Mac installed in my workroom for the iWeb project and I was at my wits' end. My system of consolidating websites consisted of scraps of paper and emails to myself with "cool sites" in the subject line.
Then came a SLJ article in January 2007, that would change everything. In the "All together now" column, Donna DesRoches wrote about social bookmarking and how it could work in classrooms and libraries. I started my first del.icio.us site that day. I showed to our CFF coach and with all that was happening with trainings, etc., we scrapped the iWeb project and concentrated on building a del.icio.us site that all the CFF teachers could access. Both she and I contribute to it and the teachers can if they want to. Not only do our teachers use it, but they have their students access it too.
I have three del.icio.us sites now, one for CFF, one for my library sites, and one for my sites. It's such a great way to share sites with others and doesn't take that much time or effort. I was lucky enough to do the inservice for our librarians last week and was very excited to show them del.icio.us. With their teaching schedules and, in the case of the elementary librarians, their traveling schedules, they don't have time to easily create and maintain a website. When showing them del.icio.us, I stressed how easy it is to create a site for their teachers. They already have great sites bookmarked and they come across more sites all the time. All they have to do is install the "post to del.icio.us" link on their toolbar, tag the sites, and send out a notice to their teachers about the great resources they've gathered for them. They look like heroines when all they did was surf the net.
My del.icio.us sites:
del.icio.us/debsherry
del.icio.us/debsherrylib
del.icio.us/debsherrymine
Then came a SLJ article in January 2007, that would change everything. In the "All together now" column, Donna DesRoches wrote about social bookmarking and how it could work in classrooms and libraries. I started my first del.icio.us site that day. I showed to our CFF coach and with all that was happening with trainings, etc., we scrapped the iWeb project and concentrated on building a del.icio.us site that all the CFF teachers could access. Both she and I contribute to it and the teachers can if they want to. Not only do our teachers use it, but they have their students access it too.
I have three del.icio.us sites now, one for CFF, one for my library sites, and one for my sites. It's such a great way to share sites with others and doesn't take that much time or effort. I was lucky enough to do the inservice for our librarians last week and was very excited to show them del.icio.us. With their teaching schedules and, in the case of the elementary librarians, their traveling schedules, they don't have time to easily create and maintain a website. When showing them del.icio.us, I stressed how easy it is to create a site for their teachers. They already have great sites bookmarked and they come across more sites all the time. All they have to do is install the "post to del.icio.us" link on their toolbar, tag the sites, and send out a notice to their teachers about the great resources they've gathered for them. They look like heroines when all they did was surf the net.
My del.icio.us sites:
del.icio.us/debsherry
del.icio.us/debsherrylib
del.icio.us/debsherrymine
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