Northwinds Notes

Thing 23. Final Thoughts

2010-05-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

Yeah! It's finished!

I think the main way in which participating in this project has affected me is that it has opened my eyes to new uses of the web. It has changed the status quo for me so that I'm looking for other ways to deliver instruction and for new and better ways to reach my students in the 21st century. It has broken down a little bit of the apprehensiveness that I may feel as I delve into new technology horizons. I greatly appreciate this state-wide program that encourages librarians of public libraries and school library-media centers to stretch themselves while learning about technology.

Thing 22. What Did I Learn Today?

2010-05-31T11:36:00.000-07:00

I think the biggest thing I've learned is that there is so much opportunity on the web for me to grow as a teacher and for me to incorporate into my lessons as I try to teach my scope and sequence. I'm not necessarily talking about adding additional topics into my scope and sequence as much as I am thinking about how can I use the tools I've learned to improve my choice of delivery so ultimately, I am preparing my students to be learners of tomorrow? So, I need to continue to learn as a professional and I need to continue to see what works for me to incorporate into my lessons to help my students. They kind of go together. If I am learning, then I will be better prepared to help my students learn.

Places for me to visit on a regular basis:
http://www.alatechsource.org/blog
http://librarybytes.com/
http://mn.webjunction.org/1

Thing 21. Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

2010-05-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

Gather - an outlet for a debate format on mostly single issues, MPRG is involved in this for its listeners.

Webjunction:

Webjunction: Webjunction looks great as a place to grow professionally. Maybe I'll use this as my next CQEP? It is an online community for library staff which helps staff incorporate technology into their media centers. Webjunction Minnesota is specific to us!

Ning : It looks like Ning is made for specific groups and needs to be more customized. There's one for Library 2.0. Also - I just found one for a teacher Librarian Ning which might be better for what I'm looking for. The Library 2.0 is so generic for public libraries and higher education libraries that a lot of the information doesn't pertain to my situation. When I visited the Teacher Librarian site, they have a webinar posting for June 7 about virtual authors which would be interesting to be a part of since we just did that at Northwinds on May 21st.

#20 Libraries and Social Networks

2010-05-31T11:08:00.000-07:00

Facebook is one of the social networks mentioned in Thing 20.

Name: Librarians and Facebook
Category: Organizations - Academic Organizations
Description: Discussion of how librarians are using Facebook to communicate with students, censorship issues, privacy issues, etc.
Privacy Type: Open: All content is public.

I can see where this might be useful to me but right now, I don't want to spend lots of time networking with others. I know my extended family is involved so if I want to see pictures of great nieces and nephews, I might have to succumb. I'm just afraid I'll be obsessive with the time it will take.

I viewed the short intro video and I guess I knew all that stuff already. I know libraries use Facebook too so they can reach their younger clientele.

I'm definetly not interested in My Space. If I were to do it all, I'd do Facebook.

#19 Podcasts

2010-05-31T10:48:00.000-07:00

I have also used Podcasts with success last year when I could do it fairly easily with our biweekly newscasts. Now, with our new website, I have to go through the school secretary which just makes it more cumbersome since I have to hook up a computer to our newscast, save it, log in on that computer to my email (which I already use on a different computer), email it as an attachment to the secretary and in the meantime, I'm teaching. I decided it's too much work and not necessary to my objectives so I had to give it up. Maybe I will find another use for podcasting. The point is, I know how it works and what to do with it. I'm just frustrated at the hoops our district puts on us to achieve it. I might try my google site to see if that's more amenable and quicker for what I want to do.

#18 You Tube and Other Online Video

2010-05-31T10:18:00.000-07:00

You Tube! What fun! I have used this quite a bit to illustrate a point I'm teaching. When teaching illustrations, I have found examples of painting, since I can't actually do that in person. I found a segment on kite flying to introduce my theme for the year. This year, it was on stars.
Here is a You Tube video on reading.

#17 ELM Productivity Tools

2010-05-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

I have used the ELM site quite a bit with my students in grades K-5 so I was interested to see what I've missed! I've created a link from my school's web page and have also shown the students how to use these resources from the public library links.

Turns out, I haven't missed much. They talked a lot about using the RSS feed but I won't be using that at my level. I have used all the different resources available and really appreciate that the state of Minnesota pays for these resources.

There is a web composer from EBSCO but I won't be using that since I have my Google Site page and my page through school.

#16 Minnesota Library 2.0

2010-05-31T09:49:00.000-07:00

The University of Minnesota Assignment Calculator is a free tool to use to budget your time when completing an assignment. I put in an assignment due in a month for education and it laid it all out for me, with a printer friendly version. At the elementary level, we do this for the students but I can see where it would be invaluable to students who need a little more structure at higher levels of learning. The Research Project Calculator is very similar but with a more specific focus.

Thing 15 Online Games and Libraries

2010-05-31T09:20:00.000-07:00

I approach gaming with a fairly sizable sense of apprehension so it was with interest that I read the online article "8 Games About Video Games Debunked". As I read the article, authored by Henry Jenkins, the director of comparative studies at MIT, I found myself agreeing with some points and disagreeing with others. As a teacher of elementary students, I have seen first hand what happens when some kids are let loose on this level. The author points out that family involvement is imperative to balancing virtual life with real life and I agree with this. I would however ague, that without proper family balancing, the video games take on a higher level of influence for at-risk students. He also points out that while younger students may use these, most of the games are targeted for adults and again, a family's job is to monitor what kids are playing online.

I also took a look at Ohio University's short video about its presence in Second Life. Interesting! Colleges are continually changing to reflect the needs of their learners and it just amazes me how some universities are reaching out in this new form of delivery. I also read the article about its inception/creation and how people all over the world have contributed. Interesting!

#14 Library Thing

2010-05-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

The Library Thing looks really cool. In fact, I had just created a list of new books to read at school using Excel but using this would have made it much easier this summer to access from anywhere! I like to read the new books I've purchased, especially the chapter books so I really know my collection.

The Library Thing links you with other lists and it's an "easy Library-Quality Catalog". If you have less than 200 books, it's for free. Otherwise, it's $10 for a year or $25 for a lifetime. I'm going to have to see how much I use it.

I am going to explore this more for our church library.

Thing 13 On-Line Productivity Tools

2010-05-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

Number 13 offers many useful online tools. The first one is called a flash countdown timer generator and it will let you customize the information. It's fairly easy since you can just paste the link into your website. I checked out the five calendar selections that you allow you to include a personal calendar of events into it. I am not at this point where I would use it however. I really depend on my lesson plan book which I carry around with me all day and it travels with me from home to school and back. This also has my class lists with me, my seating charts, etc. I am not at the point of replacing it!

The ta-da list looks really interesting when you can share it with others for planning an event. Right now we email lists back in forth or save them to a server at school but I can see this as something usable when coordinating events with my colleagues or even my spread-out family.

Backpack looked really cool but I don't think we're ready to integrate it into my particular education setting. You can do a lot of the ta-da list things along with a whole bunch of other things and pictures to plan an event. Pretty fancy but not for us.

Zamzar and the PDF converter will be handy to use as they convert many things, like Word to a PDF or images, videos, music, etc. to be able to be used on your computer. I'm going to remember this! It would have come in handy a couple of times already.

Thing 12 Do you DIGG?

2009-05-31T19:11:00.001-07:00

So, my last entry for this year with Thing 12. I was doing well, keeping on top of things but unfortunately, caught the virus that's going around school - (that's the germ-virus - nothing technological!) so I've been under the weather for about a week and yes, I'm doing my last entry the night before this is due!

Anyway, I went to digg and dug in (pardon the pun). Interesting! You can see what others are reading and share articles yourself. I read a couple of articles, one on the Archie comics, which I read as a kid, but this article was on Archie comics with a distictly Christian story line. Interesting! The reviewer was obviously not a fan of either the faith or the comics. That led me to think about who posts the articles/blogs and then who writes comments? hmmm . . .

The other article was about a swan and a deer in Great Britain. It had 302 diggs and 39 comments and was "made popular" about 1 hour 12 minutes ago. This just illustrates the global world of 2.0

Then I went to Readit but our school has it blocked from view so I went on to Newsvine. They say this on the web site: Newsvine is an instant reflection of what the world is talking about at any given moment. I read an article posted today about the last survivor of the Titanic who passed away today in England.

There's just so much to see on the web. I'm continually amazed. We still get the daily paper but I wonder . . . .

Thing 11. Tagging and Del.icio.us

2009-03-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

After playing so much with Flickr and doing the tagging, I felt I had already learned about tagging but as always, there was more to learn! I just added some tags to my Flickr blog. I really hadn't paid too much attention to the labels option at the bottom.

Now the Del.icio.us site really sounds appealing for me since I do some of my work at home on a Windows machine, a lot of my work in my office at school and then again, I have the teacher workstation in the lab and the computer that runs my SMART Board. Sometimes I have found a cool web site and then had to try to find it again since I was on another computer. I think I'm going to like this!

O.K. Now I've created my own Del.icio.us account. I've added all my bookmarks from home. Now I just need to get all the ones from school. I have always had my bookmarks in folders so I don't have to look through them all so the tagging thing is new to me. I kept on looking for how to organize them but I guess if I tag them well, that will do it. I did the easy import - big mistake because I ended up getting a whole bunch of my family's bookmarks as well and had to delete a whole bunch from my Del.icio.us account.

#10 Wikis

2009-03-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

The Wiki is a great tool to have kids share. As I was reading the article, I was trying to see how the application could be used for staff as well. I went to the 23 Things on a Stick Wiki but had to request access so I'm waiting to hear back so that I can edit as well. The PB Wiki sounds like the way to go - easy and free! I really appreciate the video clip. I am such a visual learner that it really helps to see some visual and I hope to use that clip with my students yet this year when we're talking about Wikis! I also found out that Wiki is a Hawaiian word for "fast".

#9 On-line Collaboration Tools

2009-03-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

I am finally getting to the Zoho documents. I emailed to be invited to edit the Declaration of Independence during winter break and after receiving word that I was invited to edit, I left this whole project while teaching took precedence. Don't you hate when that happens? Anyway, it's spring break right now and I'm finally getting back to the process. I love the idea of having multiple kids working collaboratively on a document. I think this has direct implications for teaching even at the elementary level. We are exploring Open Office for our elementary and also have had Google Docs mentioned so Zoho was another cool option to hear about. The actual editing posed some problems as I didn't get in to edit. I could see the document and the link from the email took me directly there but . . . couldn't change anything. I saw how to sign up but thought from the outline that I didn't need to sign in if I was invited. Anyway, I understand the concepts of both and I think this would be a really cool way of helping kids edit.

#8 Share Your Creations

2009-01-03T18:22:00.000-08:00

So, I'm marching on to new technology! This has been an eye-opener. So many opportunities are out on the web but with this, my focus is much more narrow so it saves me a lot of time to have the tasks geared to 23 things. Now, on with sharing on the web. The first group led me to see how presentations can be created - very similar to Power Point - and then shared on the network. I really looked into the Zoho Show. This one even had a chat bar so that you could be interacting with the audience or group while you are presenting. I thought this had interesting applications for education - especially through on-line learning or say for extra credit when kids tune in at night. Just brainstorming! I looked at Picture Trail also. Since I had spent so much time with Flickr, I didn't spend as much time with this one. I just explored the site and looked at some of the intro video and information. I could see a lot of uses for this one as well. The LazyBase was interesting because I've really only used Excel and here is something that's free on the web and more easily shared. I think it's cool how you can so easily share your work with others on the web. Also, efolio Minnesota was cool too but seemed more for secondary or higher ed or for professionals. Again, for an elementary media center, I'm not too sure about the application but I'm willing to be open to suggestions that would contribute to student learning and promote the scope and sequence.

#7 Web 2.0 Communication Tools

2009-01-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2009
I'm still hard at work on this 23 Things on a Stick. So far, the communication tools are review. I've used email quite a lot at school and we have another account at home. It's great professionally when I want to communicate the same thing to many people and it leaves a trail so that I can trace who I've told. I've also used IM through our school communication software. Easy and quick. With teenagers in the family (three boys), text messaging is sometimes the favored tool to let the parents know information without it really seen that a teen is talking to the parent. Very unobtrusive as long as they're not in class! As far as the examples go, they mostly seem geared for secondary or higher education. I have used email with my 4th and 5th graders on a limited basis so I can't say that texting and IM will never have a place in an elementary media center but at this point in time, I'm having a hard time seeing the relevance for students - parents and colleagues - yes! The one thing I learned was that text messaging could be linked to a computer so that staff could communicate a text with a keyboard. I didn't know that could be done and it sounded very slick for someone like me who has the typing thing pretty well down pat.

Web Conference: I went online to OPAL and registered and then I was able to listen to an archived webinar through MINITEX about Library 2.0 by Carla Steinberg Pfahl. I think there are lots of possibilities for staff development personally for me.

I've heard a lot about Twitter so it was great to read about it and watch the introductory video that 23 things directed me to. 140 words is the max so no great literary events happen here! I watched both David Free's and David Lee King's intro videos. Twitter (and all the cool "fluff" that I just witnessed) is a world that is evolving and eye-opening for me!

On-line Image Generator

2009-01-01T15:01:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2009
I had fun playing around making a trading card of my son from a photo taken during his team's state tournament appearance in 2007. I made it twice actually. The first time I tried to save it and then because I didn't sign in (register) I lost it. The second time I tried to create a link which is another choice and then it prompted me to register again and since I didn't, I lost it again. I just feel that I've got enough memberships, even though they are free, floating around that I didn't need to subscribe to another. Having said that, I do have the link posted below because it was way cool! I'm sure I'll make use of it in the future.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php

How will I use this in the future? Sometimes things like this need to be in my head for a while until I figure out how they will contribute to student learning. It's nice to have another tool in my back pocket to pull out when I need it. This was really easy too!

I went back in to show my son and then ended up clicking on Flickr which let me put the picture into Flickr without signing up anything additionally. Cool!

O.K. So, again, I had trouble uploading to this blog from Flickr. Everything works perfectly but then it doesn't show up. I'm going to try to save the picture to my computer and then upload from there.

More Flickr Fun!

2009-01-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2009

There is so much to learn! Now I'm having more fun! click on this to see a slide show that I made using splashr.com web site. It found my photos and then put them into a slide show on a postcard format. Here it is! I tried to embed it into my blog but I kept getting an error message. Yuck~ I just spent way too much time trying to figure it out. I'm moving on! :)
Try this link!
http://splashr.com/show/postcard/33841342@N07/25/

I tried out Clockr, Flickr Color Pickr, making Puzzles and you saw the splashr! Lots of fun!

More Flickr!

2009-01-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

January 2, 2009

I searched for my home town and came up with a beautiful picture taken by Lisa Nolan at the lake I used to life guard. I had trouble with the upload. I don't know what I did wrong but I guess the URL wasn't quite right because it wouldn't show the picture, just the link. Then I saved it and uploaded with the browse and . . . here it is! Here's the link for it too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanolan/555272148/

I checked a little more into the groups part of Flickr. The 23 things blog spot had this link.

This one is a group for libraries:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22503437@N05/

This one is the 23 things Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=libraries

Here is one for the Library of Congress:
http://flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/

Flickr!

2009-01-01T12:42:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2009
Flickr!
As a camera enthusiast, this might be my favorite new thing I've learned so far. I signed in, I uploaded some of my digital photos and then I even tagged them. I placed a couple of them on the map to show Wright County so that was cool too.

I tried to do a search for them but eventually found out it might take a couple of days for them to show up. I'm going to try to search for them tomorrow. It's so wonderful to have a little bit of extra time so that I can try these things out. Three hours went by before I knew it!

http://www.flickr.com/

RSS: A New World

2008-12-30T18:49:00.000-08:00

December 30, 2008

I'm finally getting back to my 23 Things after a busy start to the school year. My summer postings seem a long ways behind me! Today I started my RSS feed. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be. My only problem is that I don't follow a lot of blogs so I had to come up with a few. That seemed to take more time than actually compiling the RSS feeds. I don't think it will be too hard to remember how to do this. All the little things on the Google account just took you right through the steps! Thanks to Google and Blogger it's not too hard. Yeah!

Library 2.0

2008-07-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a week since I started reading up on and watching some internet video on Library 2.0 (or Web 2.0) and I am finally getting to write some responses on what I learned or had affirmed. I know that Mr. Abram says if we believe something is important, we'll make time but I know for myself, sometimes working in a media center with six 50-minute scheduled classes a day, I do a little bit of triage. That is, what exactly do I need for tomorrow? And learning for the future usually falls a little bit below the necessities for my classes the next day. So, I'm glad I'm doing this during the summer. Reading last week was amazing in that before I knew it, I had visited more websites, (directed by the ones I was on) and I found that over two hours had gone by! I ended up viewing a couple of David Wesch (sp? - now I'm a little fuzzy on the name) videos on using technology with today's college kids. While I am in the elementary media center, I still found it interesting to see an actual application on how technology can be integrated into curriculum and how it can make the curriculum more collaborative.

I'm looking forward to expanding my horizons and learning more about how technology can be integrated into my classroom/media center.

A Beginning

2008-07-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

I'm just venturing out on this 23 things on a Stick challenge and I'm excited to try some new things and expand my knowledge of the technological world. My goal is to get as much done as possible while it's summer because I know that once the school year hits, I'll have trouble keeping up!

I'm also reading my last Maud Hart Lovelace nominee for the 08-09 school year. I love to see what the choices are and which ones are my personal favorites. Sometimes I read them so fast, they are a blur! Here's the website if you're curious what MHL is all about.
http://www.maudhartlovelace.org/