Week 9 - Thing 23

Well this is it. My final blog for this course. I have truly enjoyed learning about the variety of information out there on the web. So many people are doing such exciting things. It is true that a number of copyright issues are being raised and appreciated the tutorial. I will be interested to watch the way in which the creative commons evolves. I know my husband, who works in a university library, is very interested in the creative commons and relates that it is a topic of great interest among academics.

Rather than filling out the survey, which I believe will go back to CSLA, I thought I would answer the questions here.

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises?
I really enjoyed exploring a number of sites and plan to revisit several of them when I have more time. Among the one's that I found most intriguing were RSS feeds, Rollyo,
Del.icio.us and LibraryThing. In particular, I am planning to catalog my personal library collection using LibraryThing. I will be interested in finding works that are similar to my favorites and sharing my thoughts about literary works.
2. How has the program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
The program has opened my eyes to the vast possibilities of collaborative learning. By reaching out to others and finding those with similar interests, new areas of investigation, cooperation and sharing open up.
3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I guess I was surprised by how enthusiastic I've been about web 2.o. I have mentioned it frequently in conversations I've had with colleagues. When I started this program, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I have, nor did I expect to find it so useful.
4. What could we do differently to improve on format or concept?
I thought both format and content were excellent. If I had one criticism, it would be the time element. I'm grateful that the completion date was extended since I would have found it difficult to finish within the nine week time frame. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do all that I want to do and exploring these various sites can be very time consuming especially if you become engrossed in the information you find.
5. If offered another, would you choose to participate?
Absolutely!
6. Describe in one word/sentence, your thoughts on this program.
Transformative

One last word: I obviously enjoyed this experience and learned a lot. I do have some concerns as the educator of adolescents. I guess my fear is that, despite the collegial nature of web 2.0, the anonymity of working on line may be a bit isolating. Some students may get so caught up in their web world that there might be a reluctance to reach out in real life to pursue friendships and acquire social skills. As with my initial reaction to web 2.0, my fears may be unfounded and may be a product of my age and the narrowness of my point of view. There is so much that is good about web 2.0 and it is our job to teach our students how to navigate it to ensure that they are obtaining the information they need and establishing the relationships they want. Our role as teachers of information literacy becomes more crucial than ever as we discuss such topics as bias, point of view, authority of sources and so much more. What a responsibility!

Week 9- Thing 22

I'm so glad to see that books and other materials now in the public domain are being made available through digitization. For free or for a slight fee, we now have access to many of the classics. I especially enjoyed looking at some of the free children's books that were available. I took the time to read a bit of A Little Princess by Francis Burnett and discovered some titles by Kate Douglas Wiggin that I had never seen before. What a treat to visit some of my old favorites!

Having these eBooks available, will help those of us in cash-strapped libraries (and who of us isn't right now) provide a bit more depth for our students by making some of these older titles available. With initiatives like Project Gutenberg and LibriVox, more and more of our cultural heritage is being made accessible. These are sources that I will revisit long after this course is over.

Week 9 - Thing 21

After looking at all of the podcast directories and fumbling around trying to navigate to the podcasts of interest, I realize how far I have come and how far I have to go. I did find some podcasts of interest particularly those that have news content and the book reviews, which I found particularly entertaining.

I tried all of the directories mentioned and felt that itunes was the most comprehensive. The others seemed to provide a more limited list.

Podcasts are excellent vehicles for engaging children in learning and for disseminating information. In the past one of my colleagues had students write poetry and create a podcast for other 3rd grade classes in the district that were linked with illustrations created by a buddy class from across town. The artists listened to the poems and then each child chose one to illustrate. She also had fourth graders create travelogues of the United States which they were able to share with friends and family, near and far, via their podcasts. I have created a podcast about the evaluation of web resources that can be accessed from our library's home page that, hopefully, will benefit our students and faculty.

http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/schools/SHS/MediaCenter/shsmain.htm

Week 9 -Thing 20

It was interesting to experience a bit of what YouTube has to offer. I hear the kids at school talking about YouTube so it was great having the opportunity to play with it a bit. It obviously offers a great variety of videos, some of which would be very valuable to teachers trying to describe a particular historical event or have them listen to an interview. I did some searches on historical topics that I know our students study to see what would be available to show as clips during a class to illustrate a particular issue or time period. By providing students with the opportunity to see and hear the actual events and people related to a particular incident, we are able to make history more relevant to our students. I do see problems with sites like YouTube where students can be exposed to some unsavory materials. There are issues of privacy as well that present some real concerns.

Unfortunately, the opportunity to use YouTube at our school to show educational videos is not available. Our filter prevents us from accessing YouTube from any of our computers. It would be possible, I'm sure, if we had a particularly relevant clip, to have the filter disabled on one computer for a limited time. This does provide some access but does cut down on the ability to be spontaneous, i.e. to access a video on the spur of the moment as the need arises.

The clip that I'm highlighting is an interview with one of the leaders of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This clip would be an excellent way to open a discussion with students on the topic of Civil Rights in the 1960s.



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I'm having problems viewing my video on my MAC at school. It comes through on my PC at home. I don't know whether this is a problem with the MAC or whether, since YouTube is blocked at school, the video doesn't appear. I guess it points up the possibility of problems with incompatibility between platforms and the restrictions created by filters and firewalls.

Week 8 - Thing 19

I just finished entering my first eight books into Librarything and I love it! What an easy way to provide access to my family's book collection and at the same time connect with other bibliophiles who enjoy the same type of literature. By sharing with others who have the same book tastes, I will never run out of good reading materials in my subjects of choice. What makes this site even more enticing is the ability to communicate with other readers, have a book discussion or exchange ideas about our mutual favorites. I'm looking forward to entering more of my book collection and getting my husband to participate as well. It will even encourage me to evaluate my books and decide what I want to keep and what needs to be discarded. This is a site that I will share with others and will use on a regular basis.

If you want to check out my book collection check out:


www.librarything.com/catalog/cdonovan

Week 8 - Thing 18

Zoho has the potential to solve a number of problems in our media center. Lately, we have been having a number of issues with students who e-mail documents from home to the media center. When they attempt to print them, they find that because their computers have a newer operating system then the ones here, printing is impossible. We do explain that they can "save down" but that doesn't help when they need their essay for class immediately. Zoho would solve this problem. Zoho writer, Google Docs and the other productivity tools will make collaborating and communicating increasingly simple. Now, my only problem is getting the time to demonstrate the use of these tools to our staff and student body, not always easy in this time of standards based instruction!

Week 7 - Thing 16

I must admit that I approached wikis with some preconceived notions. I have never been a big proponent of the Wikipedia and, in fact, tend to steer my students aways from that source. I was impressed, however, with many of the Wikis that I looked at. The subject guides on the St. Joseph County Library System were great and very user friendly. Equally useful was the Library Sources website, which I saved as a favorite. I must admit, though, that I was most impressed by the teacher created Wikis that are being used to disseminate class information and to encourage collaboration among students. In fact, I e-mailed the English 10 Wiki to a couple of our English teachers and sent the APWH Wiki to our Social Studies director as an example of what we could do here for some of our classes. I have looked into establishing a Wiki and using it either with a subject teacher for one of our co-teaching experiences or as a portal into our media center. Each "thing" leaves me with so much to think about that it is hard to absorb it all!

Week 6 - Thing 15

I have read with interest four of the articles posted on-line for this exercise. I really enjoyed reading "Away from the ícebergs'". It made me rethink my collection development goals. In this time of decreased budgets and students who believe that everything they need to do research can be found on the web, the time has come to rethink what we do and how we meet the needs of our patrons. After having experienced a bit of what Web 2.0 has to offer, I have become increasingly aware that I need to spend more time developing my skills in the use of this amazing collection of connections. I need to find ways to make my students aware of how best to utilize the sheer volume of information that is available digitally. We may assume that students are "web savvy" but do they really know how to use the breadth and depth of the web to obtain the information they require from authoritative, reliable sources?
I also enjoyed reading "Into a new world of librarianship". The 5 descriptiors of the "Librarian 2.0" gave me pause and made me take a better look at myself as librarian. Am I equipped to be or to become a Librarian 2.0? By acknowledging the need to update my thinking and to become a proactive Web 2.0 user, I will become better at my profession and increase my ability to offer the best to the students and faculty that I serve. These articles gave me much food for thought!

Week 6 - Thing 14

I'm just now getting around to playing with tags and looking at Technorati. I can certainly see why you would need a search engine specifically designed to access the millions of blogs out there. I do have some reservations about tagging. Potentially, you could create millions of tags and in some cases defeat the purpose by not being able to find what you need since you never hit upon the right tag or you could tag each entry with innumerable tags just to make your blog entries accessible. I imagine that as we construct our tags and use those of others that match the contents of each post that a lexicon will naturally develop so that we will build from one another and a certain amount of standarization will result. I can see both the beauty and the difficulty in deviating from the standard "subheading" based system.
I did find that I was able to access more blogs by going to the posts than by searching by the tag. Most helpful was going "search.technorati.com"

Week 6-Thing 13

I love del.icio.us! It is the function that I have been looking for. I do intend to set up an account and spend sometime entering all of my "favorites". The ability to tag and sort will be so helpful as I spend time both at school and at home looking for appropriate sites for my students. I'm particularly interested in great primary source sites and sites that are specific to certain disciplines. The del.icio.us site will enable me to do this as well as benefiting from the experience of others. I may be exposed to many great sites that I have missed or that I have overlooked. I'm anxious to spend some time setting up my account and getting started. Perhaps the only negative will be the time that it will take to actually organize all of the bookmarks that I currently use. However, since I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with their organization, this should provide me with the perfect opportunity to end the chaos! To really do an effective job, I may have to wait until I have time

Week 5- Thing 12

Today I worked on Rollyo. I have to admit that given the name I wondered what type of tool this could be. After exploring some of the existing rolls, I began to understand the potential of this site as a teaching/reference tool. I explored several of the existing rolls, including those about "quotes". Often when I am writing grants or just want to highlight a particular theme in my writing I look for appropriate quotes that will elucidate my ideas the rollyo quotes site is an excellent place to start in looking for an appropriate quote. It will also be a place where I will send my high school students when they are trying to track down a quote or if they are looking for one to highlight a particular issue.

When I return to school next week I intend to create a couple of rolls dealing with some of the subjects that we most often research. This may help my students with their research and save me time in the long run.

Week 5- Thing 11

Some of the sites from the Web 2.0 Award Winners were great! I particularly liked LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/). This is a site that allows you to create examples of your private "library" by posting a selection of your favorite books on-line. You can catalog on line, share your lists with other and connect with people who have similar reading tastes, a great place for bibliophiles! Regarding classroom/library use, I could imagine setting up something in LibraryThing that introduced students and others to reviews of newly acquired books and allowed them to comment.
Another site that I found useful for our health classes. The website is Medstory (http://www.medstory.com/) and it is a search engine for questions about health related issues. The researcher can find information about diseases, medications, diet, etc. I will use this search engine with my health teachers and their students. A great find!

Week 5- Thing 10

I just can't get over how many resources are out there! I've just spent some time looking over a variety of image generators. I can certainly see why our students might enjoy playing with them. They could also be very useful as advertising for clubs and other school related functions. They might also come in handy for students who might not possess artistic ability but were interested in creating a graphic novel for an English class or a political cartoon for social studies.

Of the generators I explored, I think my favorites were Image chef. and Comic strip generator

Week 4- Thing 9

I guess I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by all that I am learning. I'm realizing that I could spend hours and hours just exploring all of the interesting blogs out there. It amazes me how diligent some of the bloggers are. They keep abreast of lots of blogs and are so enthusiastic about the whole technology.

This time I looked at some of the Edublog award winners (maybe that's why I'm feeling so inadequate.) In particular I enjoyed reading "The tempered radical" and learning how some of our new teachers are feeling about their jobs. I well remember how I felt first as a new teacher and then as a new librarian. So much to learn, so much to do!!
The blog really gave the young teachers a chance to share and to realize that they are not alone. These teachers may branch out to form their own learning community of new educators who can share their triumphs and their fears.

I also enjoyed looking at Technotuesday"" and A library by any other name" both of these blogs appear to be authored by very savvy web 2.0 users. They gave lots of ideas and referred to other technologies and other influential bloggers. It was after viewing these blogs that I began to feel that I have soo much to learn.

One concern I do have is the sheer amount of time that could be devoted to the blog quest. I guess when you find a "jewel" it's worth it but you may have to slog through a lot of dross before you ever find it.

Oh well, on to my next challenge. Until next time....

Week 4 - Thing 8

I have really enjoyed learning about RSS feeds and can see how valuable this resource might be. In this world of information overload, it is so hard to filter the wheat from the chaff but with the help of RSS feeds you can customize your access to information. As one of my feeds, I now have immediate access to any new postings on my son's literary blog. This will enable me to converse more intelligently with him about his endeavors.

In terms of my using this technology in our library, an RSS feed would be a great way of disseminating information from a library blog or our website. Patrons could subscribe to learn more about the services we provide, get tips on information access, or learn about new materials (if we ever get any since our budget is so severely limited!)

It was great discovering RSS feeds and will be a technology that I will use.

Week 3 -Thing 7

Unfortunately, it's been a while since my last post. Life has been busy!
I have been thinking about technology and specifically the use of Flickr. Coincidentally, as I was scanning the newspaper, I saw an interesting article about the use of Flickr by the Library of Congress. This is an example of something called "crowd sourcing", a term introduced in 2006 by Jeff Howe of Wired magazine. Essentially crowd sourcing refers to a process of getting large numbers of people involved in a project, in this case electronically. As regards the Library of Congress, they have downloaded 3000 images onto the Flickr database and have asked ordinary citizens to add to the metadata to make the images more accessible to the general public. To view the images (and provide your input) go to flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress. The original article from which I got my information appeared in the January 27 edition of the Boston Globe, Brainiac or on-line at boston.com/ideas/brainiac.

Week 3- Thing 6

I just spent some time exploring the suggested mashups. It is amazing the variety of new applications that crop up once an application like flickr comes our way! I can see where many of these could provide exciting opportunities for creative teachers working with librarians to use technology in the classroom. Students could do research on the United States and create their own maps, trading cards could be used in with a large cross section of the students we see from those in special ed. to the gifted student. It's rather exciting to experience what is out there and begin to think of ways that this new interactive community can contribute to our mission.

Week 3- Thing 5

It's been fun exploring flickr. What a great tool for photographers and those voyeurs who love beautiful pictures. By enabling you to upload your own pictures, share them and interact with others doing similar work, definitely creates a wonderful community of artists. Actually, my husband, who has aspirations of becoming an amateur photographer, is now using this site for inspiration. We have actually been hoping to spend some time on the Cape experimenting with nature photography and we now have a great place to go to get advice. In fact, in one group, they actually share their favorite places. What a find! I'm including the url of a beautiful photograph of a Cape scene. Makes me long for summer.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mychatham/413053384/

Week 2- Thing 4

Avatar Adventure

After initial confusion over how to paste my avatar in the proper place, I have finally accomplished by goal. Now that I'm over the frustration, I can enjoy the adventure! Next step e-mailing my blog address and then I am done for the day!

Week 2 - Thing 2 & 3

My first post

Thing 2:

Now that I have done all the preliminary work it is time to reflect on my goals for this course. I guess my main goal is to become more familiar with 2.0 technologies so that I will be better able to understand where my students are "coming from" and to be better able to guide them to the best the web has to offer. Some of the obstacles to achieving my goal and to participating in this course will be over-scheduling (I have a tendency to say yes to too many committees and other school related activities.) and my own tendency to procrastinate. Hopefully, these won't inhibit my participation and my enjoyment of this opportunity to learn something new.

Week 2 - Thing 3:

Í've finally taken the step to start my blog. I'm very anxious to participate in all that web 2.0 has to offer. There is an element of nervousness as you take the risk to try something new but it should provide a new dimension to my learning and my interactions.


Next step the Avatar!