Week 9 #23

Final comment:
What a great course and a whole lot of information! Although I couldn't possibly give it all the time that it deserves, I come away with lots of new knowledge about web 2.0 tools (in some cases just knowing what they are and how they work) and lots of ideas to get started with many of these tools.
I know that ravenabout is a blog that I will refer to time and time again. There are great links posted there, wonderful how-to's and lots of ideas from colleagues. Thank you for providing such a great site.
I loved the fact that everything was laid out for us, that we could choose what we looked at within a topic for example. For the most part, it was easy to do (not always - I couldn't always manipulate the new tools to do what I wanted them to do but that's just something I will have to spend more time on) and easy to follow and understand.
Time is always an issue with these things and I so wish I had more time...but that's the case with anything we do. A more rigid schedule may have helped me to stay on track and not leave it to the last minute to finish (certain things due on certain days, for example). More interaction between participants would have been great (again, a time thing)!
Thank you to the organizers and for this fantastic course and blog. I am now embarking on a new journey!

Implementation Plan

Students in Grade 4/5 will use a classroom blog to recommend a novel/chapter book that they have read to other students in the class.

The goals of this activity are:
1. recommendations for books from other students is a powerful way to get kids reading
2. students learn to express themselves (what do they like, dislike about a book)
3. practice using word documents
4. learn to form good questions
5. encourage writing (when answering questions)
6. introduction to a blog (with restrictions)

STANDARD C: A student should recognize that being an independent reader, listener, and viewer of material in print, non-print, and electronic formats will contribute to personal enjoyment and lifelong learning.

Benchmark 1: Read for pleasure and information
1. Shares with others the books in which they find pleasure
2. Explores a variety of genre
3. Explores a variety of reading materials

Students will choose a novel/chapter book of their reading ability and one in which they are interested in. Students will type a paragraph on word about their book (what is the book about, did you like it, why/why not, who was your favourite character and why, etc) and include a photo of the cover page.
Teacher-librarian will set up a blog through blogger and past the documents to the blog in the form of posts. Teacher will use comment moderations to control who may comment (only members of this blog, for example).
Students will read a number of posts and ask questions of their peers, as well as answer the questions about their own book (direction will be given to ensure all students have comments to respond to, as well as appropriate questions and abuse of the blog, etc).

Week 9 #21

I have found some podcasts that I am interested in and occasionally will download them. The great thing about podcasts is that I can listen to them when I am cooking for example (kill 2 birds with one stone). I didn't think at this point that I really wanted to get into making podcasts, but then when I was perusing some of the material and found the podcast tutorials, I thought that there come be some interesting uses for these. Making a podcast of the instructions for a classroom activity or lesson could be useful for our auditory learners who perhaps need instructions repeated (or if there were a serious of steps - referring back to the podcast to be able to complete them all) may be something I would try.

Textbook comments

I think one of the most important messages for me in the first chapter of the book was the author's point that in the "old way", information is delivered and tested and it is presentation driven. In the "new way", there is collaboration - information is shared, discussed, refined with others and understood deeply. Wow! When I truly reflect on these words, I can see the importance of tools such as web 2.0 and things like Google Docs which really I haven't to date seen how they would be used. I guess from here, I need to learn how to use them effectively. Now that I have had this course introducing me to the tools, I can now take this knowledge and learn to use it.

The issue of online safety is one that I deal with daily. At our school, we run an open computer lab in the library which can be used by any student in K-12 before and after school or at lunch time. Yikes! I feel sometimes that I am the computer police (did I do a Masters to become a computer police officer?) and so I am always in constant discussions with my colleagues and students about this topic.

As well, my colleagues in grade 4/5 and I are team teaching this year for research and library skills (so that what they learn is more pertinent to the classroom). We laugh when we tell the kids that our teachers never had to speak to us about cutting and pasting and copyright on computers (and how easy it is to do!). Many of them just don't know that what they're doing is wrong. The earlier we start teaching them about copyright and acceptable use, the better.

I got some good ideas from chapter 4 as to how teachers are using web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Some of the ones that I would like to try with my students are using wikis in literature circles, podcasts, as well as flickr for digital storytelling and imovie to demonstrate understanding of materials.

Week 9 #22

I had a look at the World Ebook site and then at Best Places to get free books and I have to say that I didn't find much on these websites that I really want to read. A lot of it seemed technical or old. I know the World Ebook site was offering a yearly membership for $8 or so, but after checking out the free books, I didn't want to part with my $8 if that too was going to be something I was not interested in.
I do like the ebooks that the Anchorage Public Library offers and they have many great up to date titles. I tell my students about them when I do talks about the public library.

Week 9 # 20

Tonight I looked at Teacher Tube and although I am somewhat familiar with You Tube, I had never looked at T.T. I liked it somewhat. It was easy to do searches and get lists of videos. Of course, the work came when I had to sift through them all and find what interests me or what is appropriate for my lessons. Again, putting in keywords could send me loads of videos and I don't have time to sit down and watch 4 minute videos looking for the right one.
In saying that, I think it is something I would definitely use with my classes as kids love videos - so even if it's something as simple as the one I watched with a teacher giving hints on reliable sources for research, sometimes it's just a lot more fun if they are watching someone else say it instead of me talking all the time. I will definitely spend some time looking for pertinent T.T. videos. It's great when someone shares a good one they have found - saves time for us all!

Week 8 # 19.1

I do use Digital Pipeline with many of the kids in my school already, but I did take this opportunity to investigate Novelist as I’ve never really looked at it, other that for cataloguing purposes. I like this site and would recommend it to students who were looking for books similar to the ones they had just finished reading. I also like the recommended reads section and the fact that it gives the kids lots of information such as reading level, subject, who it may interest, other similar books and a synopsis of the book. I will definitely add this to my library webpage and introduce it to the students in my classes.

Week 8 # 19

I loved using Library Thing and that is definitely a site I would use – both for personal use and also for recommendations for student reading. I thought it was easy to use and navigate, easy to add tags and see at a glance which books were popular, had many reviews, etc.
I was pleased to see that one of my books, Mother of the Believers, only had 25 other members having read it. It’s neat to read a book that not many others have. I love the fact that I could get further recommendations based on the books that I have already read.

Week 8 # 18

I found Zoho easy to use, easy to create new documents and save. I wanted to save my document to my blog but I was having problems accessing my blog (away from home, unable to access password, etc.). The only thing is that I was unsure what I would use it for at this point – maybe if I was doing work that I was going to present to staff. That I would have to think about.

Week 7 # 16

I really liked the St Joseph County Public Library Subject Guides. Wow! It listed topics, definitions found under this topic, information pages, what can be found in the library under this topic, links to other sources. I would love to do something like this for our library (for the popular curriculum topics for example). It would be great to get the students to help (find websites, books in the library,etc.).
I also liked the book lover’s wiki. With its book reviews and recommendations, it’s just a great way to get book suggestions for students and personal reading. This definitely could be linked to the school library website.
I think that teacherlibrarianwiki.pbworks.com is one that I could use right now. There were lots of topics that related to my job, I could get lots of information and suggestions from here and it would be extremely helpful to me.

Week 16 #15

I read some of the comments about web 2.0 libraries with interest. Rick Anderson made some poignant comments about these libraries that made me sit up and take note. The first point he made that I felt needed thought on my part was the one about libraries needing to eliminate barriers between patrons and the information they need.
I think that most of the most frustrating parts to this course is learning to use these tools so that I can indeed find what I need and find it fast and efficiently. Knowing that I have these frustrations makes me realize that my students do too and so what can I do to ensure that they don’t. I have set up a library website to help them find their search tools easier – nettrekker, worldbook online, Alaska digital pipeline, webcat, etc; however, I know I need to do more. I have just spent a considerable amount of time showing my grade 5 students how to navigate and use nettrekker. Perhaps brainstorming with other librarians on this topic is a good idea.
His second point was about how are we bringing these services to our patrons instead of making them come to us. Again, I provide lists of search sources available and how students and their families can access them from home. It’s a slow process getting people to switch and see the relevance of these teachings (especially the parents).
I loved Michael Stephens comment about the importance of the librarian asking what technology and materials users need. That’s pretty well how I buy books right now with the limited money I receive. I ask the kids/teachers what they want to read/what they need to support their curriculum. I don’t have money to waste putting books in the library that are not going to be read/used for research.
I also love his comment about librarians must not impede access to the library. Yes, how many of us do that with our rules and regulations?

Week 6 #14

Well I spent lots of time on the weekend researching these next few things and then couldn't get into my blog, so I'm now going to download all the comments from my computer on to my blog. Ah, don't you love technology?!!

I tried Technorati and I have to admit that I didn’t like it all that much, nor did I find that I would have any use for it in my library life. I thought it was crowded and confusing. I did not find it easy to use and couldn’t figure out where to do tag searches. I could only find the one search site with the option of either searching blogs or posts. When I searched School Library Learning 2.0, I found no blogs and several unrelated posts. I had to scroll through them to see if there any I was interested in. I’m just not sure how I would use this in my library at all. I don’t really have any interest in checking the top posts, blogs, etc.

Week 6 #13

I love delicious!! It was easy to open and then I just pressed a button and it brought over all the sites I had been bookmarking in Firefox (and of course there was no organization to them at all). Now I just have to change the tags on them all (which is so easy to do). I love this because I'll be able to bring organization to everything that I want to save for myself. In addition, I will be able to save things for students and teachers and have them all organized. I love it! I wish I would have discovered this tool a long time ago. I can't wait to start using it. I do want to figure out how to share my delicious tags with others (students or teachers, for example), but I will work on that after I have more organization with my own bookmarks.

Week 5 #12

I really love voice thread and would like to try it with our K/1 classes. In the library, they could use it to talk about a book that they liked. I tried to make my own but unfortunately, was unable to get any sound (I had this same problem before). I'm not sure what to do. When I hit record, it seems to be recording, but when I hit playback, nothing comes back to me. I'll have to try it on the school computers to see if it works there.

Week 5 #11

I had a quick look at del-ic-ious and I'm very interested in opening an account (I think that we may do that later on in this course. I love the fact that I can bookmark all the sites that I am interested in and keep them all in some sort of order. I think the fact that they can be tagged would make it much easier to re-find something later on. A possible downfall is that I can't relocate the site I want later, but in order to discover whether that is actually the case, I will have to open an account and try it out.

I would find this very useful in the library as there are so many different items that I try and save just in case I need them for something and there just doesn't seem to be any way to organize them. This web 2.0 tool could help me get organized!

I also had a quick look at Lulu the book site and even though I wouldn't necessarily use it at school (because of the cost), I would love to use it personally - to publish books that I make for the grandparents - or to publish books that I write for my son about his family. I love this and can't wait to try it!

Week 5 #10

First, I made a map showing all the countries I visited in the world, but I could not post it to the blog and I'm really not sure why. I just didn't know what to open so that I could post it somewhere. So then I made this comic and just saved it to my documents and then I was able to attach it to this post. That was much easier!

I like this making the comics site. I think the students at school would really like it and I could use it when I send out newsletters, reminders, etc. Comics certainly capture their attention right now.

Week 4 #8 (again)

Has anyone figured out how to make the bloglines (RSS feeds) public? I tried adding it here to my blog but it keeps telling me that it's an invalid username when I try to link through to it?

Week 4 #8

Am I understanding this correctly: I have just opened an account on bloglines and have subscribed to several sites using the RSS feed button. So in order to read these RSS feeds, I now have to go to my bloglines account to do this? Or does it automatically come to my email address? I'm not sure I quite understand.

Week 3 #7

I have a couple of challenges when using technology and thought maybe someone may have suggestions as to how to deal with them. The first is that whenever I set up any of these web 2.0 tools, I use them so seldom that by the time I come to use them again, I have forgotten how to load a photo from flickr to my blog, for example. Any thoughts on how I can avoid this? And no, I really don't want to be using these things all the time. I just want to remember how to use them when I use them the next month.
Along with that, I always seem to forget the passwords, usernames, etc that I set up. Anyone have any tips?
I have found that once I got over my fear of pressing buttons and links, I discovered that you can't really do too much damage. And so now, I just press buttons until I press the right one (isn't that what our students do and look how competent many of them are (or appear to be))! Then of course, I often don't remember how I did it to repeat the process. My the learning curve is high!

Week 3 #6

I have looked at the mashups and have determined that there must be many people out there with lots of time on their hands. Who creates these things and who has time to try them all?

I really liked the mappr that I explored and this is one that I could see potential for using. I travel lots and think that how much more meaningful maps could be for our students if they were able to attach photos to the map so they could see what it actually looks like in that location. In fact, my colleague and I are doing maps with a class and having them research historical sites along their highway. I wonder if we could get photos of the historical sites and have them attach them to a map. I'll have to look more closely at this site and see if I can find any instructions for doing this.

I also liked the colour pickr and montagr. I'm wondering if the colour pickr could be used in an art class with students.

Week 3 #5

Well, I guess it was easier than I thought to add another photo. I still find that I have to click on a few things before I find the one I want. At least that has taught me that I can't destroy anything or erase things by just clicking on them.

DSCF3258

DSCF3258
Originally uploaded by canadian gal library

Here are the parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada.

Week 3 #5

Well it took me a little while and a lot of pressing different links and things to get this photo up here. It seems to me that whenever I read the instructions, they seem straightforward until I try to do it myself and then the links they suggest we click on never seem to be there. Does anyone else have this problem? The interesting thing is, I'm not sure that I could repeat this process again. So saying that, I'm going to try and load another photo so that I'm sure I do know how to do it.

DSCF3178

DSCF3178
Originally uploaded by canadian gal library

I visited this beautiful city in May!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Week #2 Number 4

I have registered my blog address though now I am curious as to where it will show up so that all my classmates can access it. I'm sure I'll find out!

Week #2 Number 3

I was able to set up a blog no problem (as I have done it before). I couldn't design an avatar until I upgraded my firefox window as the Avatar site kept telling me that I didn't have the capacity to use that site. Fixed that!

Then I was able to export my avatar by following the directions on the site, but when I went to put my avatar on the blog page, I ended up with two of her. I tried in vain to erase one of them but she wouldn't go away, so I erased the whole thing from my set up page and then went back to the avatar site and started again.

This time, my avatar ended up in a location I didn't want her and it took me a minute or two to figure out how to move her around the page. I now have her where I want her.

7 1/2 Habits video

The one habit that I definitely need to work on is viewing problems as challenges. I do admit that I tend to view them as problems that slow me down and get in the way of my success and speed in completing an assignment. The more positive outlook would be to use the word "challenge" and I'm going to keep that in mind this term while working on this course.