I know that some of you could still not see the digital story - although you might be glad that you couldn't. It is a little boring....I tend to have a boring voice - ha - I should have let my daughter narrate it...she is VERY dramatic. Anyway, I have uploaded it to Youtube so you should be able to see it now. Thanks for letting me know. I have also linked my infographic on here so you can all see it as well. Good Luck to everyone this last week of class!!

Digital Story

Ok, I haven't posted in a while...haven't found much time. However, I am going to try to attach a link from my digital story assignment to this blog so you can hopefully see it here. I have been having many, many problems with Blackboard and uploading things to it. I was also thinking that maybe the reason some can not see it is because of the program I used. It is possible that if you do not have the program on your computer you may not be able to view it. I have also been trying to post a copy to Youtube but that doesn't seem to be working either. So much for technology :)

Week 2 Blogging - Wiki

During the reading this week I realized how important a Wiki can be used in the classroom. I did one previously and thought it might be a good idea to incorporate it but I never had a classroom to use it. Now that I have my own library and teach technology, I can see how beneficial creating and use a wiki can be. As educators we always need to be able to reach students. By creating a wiki I think it is definitely possible. I had viewed several wiki’s and blogs to look at for some ideas. The first wiki that I came across I really liked. It is very basic but really easy to maneuver around and find what you need. At http://mrsroncone.wikispaces.com/Ways+to+use+a+wiki+in+your+classroom Mrs. Roncone’s classroom wiki students can access a lot of information. She has classroom news, grades, language arts, grading scale, and rules. I liked looking through her information because I think parents could easily access it as well. If she kept up with it each week parents and students could know what was going on throughout the school year. I really liked the blog http://tomakeaprairie.wordpress.com/ by Emily Dickenson. She does a tremendous job breaking down some ideas about reading. She discusses Common Core and how it’s “designed by identifying the academic skills students would need to be ready for college and careers and then working back from there.” She also talks about a study where 85% of public school teachers feel they are engaging their students in inappropriate activities. This is something I do not understand but I am definitely going to look further into some of the studies. She makes some great statements on learning and reading throughout the blog. She also talks about a kind of stepping-backwards-to-step-forward approach. From what I could understand she is trying to help students get better prepared with reading and discussing what is occurring in the text. She had some really good ideas and insight so this is a blog I will continue to follow.

 

I was truly inspired while reading this. I don't think parents truly understand how much information their children lose over the summer. I really enjoyed reading this and the seven ideas you have shared. I had just read an article that was written by Valerie Strauss called "How to Prevent Summer Reading Loss" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-to-prevent-summer-reading-loss/2011/06/06/AGxmlgKH_blog.html ) and I was blown away at some of the information. This will definitely be a blog I will want to share with my parents. This is something teachers could print out and share with parents at the end of the year along with some other ideas on how they could work with each student.

 

 

  

Technology to Enhance Learning - EDET 573

I think literacy is used in forms of language and writing and can be determined many different ways. I don’t think it’s just reading and writing but the student’s comprehension. The dictionary states literacy as “the ability to read and write to a competent level” or “skill in a particular subject”. However, today, I believe the term computer literacy is used more than anything else. It’s the ability to use technology. That is our world – technology. I found a post called Computer Literacy in Schools which discuss how important it is for kids to learn about technology early in life. This is one of the many reasons I wanted to continue my education and obtain my Masters in Educational Technology. I want to be able to provide my students with the skills and knowledge they need for their future.

Twitter Chat

I participated in my first twitter chat on Tuesday night (2/19/13). This was the first ever teacher librarian chat (#tlelem) and I was so happy to be a part of it. Initially, I was so overwhelmed by how fast everything was coming in. However, another tweeted and said if I was using TweetChat (which I was) that I could pause it and catch up with some of the readings. What a great idea! This definitely helped me follow along!! The main discussion was “Web 2.0 and research projects in the library, what are some things you have done?”  There were so many wonderful ideas that I had to put some as my favorites so I wouldn’t forget any. There was a lot of talk about Pebble Go so that is definitely a resource worth checking out.  There was also a discussion regarding current books. One thing in particular that I enjoyed was the interaction between people and the amount of information that was shared. I  liked that all the tweets are archived and if anything was missed we could go to a specific site and review them. I will be there later - ha! I am following so many participants from last night. They all had such wonderful ideas and resources for librarians. This was a great experience and I will definitely do it again in the future.

PBworks - Final Blog

Since Posterous is closing, I didn’t want to get to involved searching for material. However, I did like how it was set up and thought it was pretty easy to navigate. I wanted to get more information on PBworks. I have never heard of it before so I wanted to find more collaborative information on this tool. It was easy and free to sign up…although I did have some trouble finding a name that wasn’t already taken. I thought the PBworks user manual was very helpful. From what I gather, it gives workspaces that have its own users and holds student content. The administrator (teacher) would be the only one able to change anything but each student would have the availability to use the workspace. I think this could be used to post information regarding the library such as library orientation, rules, check-out procedures, and curriculum. This could also be used to provide links to other sites with valuable information. While reviewing this I found several areas interesting. If you go into the pages and files tab it brings up different areas where you can have your resources/materials for class. It has the course, assignments, activity, and syllabus. This is a great way for students to see everything that is expected in class along with activities that may be going on. This would also be a good site to use for a class wiki.

I was actually surprised to find so many resources and lessons that already use PBworks. Here are a few that I liked.   -http://hoorayforbooks.pbworks.com/w/page/45038736/Common%20Core%20Lesson%20Plans.

http://helpforlibrarians.pbworks.com/w/page/44676070/Lesson%20Plans

 

I am a little familiar with Wikispaces but could learn more. I like the idea of Wiki’s being used for classroom lessons and interaction. I signed up for the free 30 day trial to get more of an understanding of how this can be used. So far, I am enjoying the information.

METC 2013

I was very excited to get to the METC conference. I was looking forward to one session in particular…”Visual Storytelling” that was at 1:00. However, I didn’t make it because I had a sick kid at school. Ugh!!! By the way, it has spread in our house and it has not been pretty these last few days L

Once I arrived and picked up my facilitator packets I was ready to get started. Prior to attending my first session, I walked around at viewed the booths that were set up. For me, the most interesting was the Mackin Booth. This couldn’t possibly be because I’m a librarian at heart J The first session I attended was “Planning & Implementing a BYOD: Panel Discussion”. The session was hosted by Mariano Marin-Gomez from Lindberg School District, Jason Rooks, and Tom Swoboda, both from Parkway School District. There were approximately 35-50 people in the class and most of them were technicians of their district. There were a few administrators and teachers as well. I think the main purpose of this session was discussing transitions from a building centric tech to a student centric tech. They also discussed the “BYOD (bring your own device)” and how it has encouraged students. I think that just like every other district the technological access used to be from “somewhere” to now being “everywhere”. Initially before these districts started the “BYOD” parents/teachers were worried that it would distract students from their everyday learning. However, data has shown it to be beneficial in students’ learning. I also learned about the four step foundational concept; (1) Professional Development, (2) Infrastructure, (3) Educational Purpose, and (4) Community Involvement. We could not have a sound foundation without these four components. I do have to say that I was somewhat lost in the mix of some ideas they were discussing. Because so many others were techs, Tom Swoboda discussed a lot of infrastructure and wiring. It was confusing for me but I know it made perfect sense to most who attended. I liked one idea they used in classrooms to let students know if the technological device could be used that particular day. They used a stop light. If it was on red when the students entered the room, devices could not be out or used. If it was on yellow, the students could use when teacher felt it was necessary. If it was on green, they knew they could have devices out and ready to use. I enjoyed the session and the information it provided. I have viewed a few sites they discussed and really liked them so I thought I would share.

www.todaysmeet.com

www.evernote.com

www.polleverwhere.com – Student surveys

www.socrative.com – Student Assessments

The second session I attended was also very informative. It was “Experience the 21^st Century Co-Learning & Co-Teaching Classroom presented by Basiyr Rodney and Roy Tamashiro from Webster University. This was designed around ISTE NETS creative thinking, collaborative learning, and authentic (real-world app). Their focus points were to solve, think, and inform using technology. They also showed a lot of word clouds and how to inquire and create things together in the classroom. A site we used in the session was called tinyurl.com/metc21co. It was a neat site that used word clouds to help brainstorm information. The cool thing about this was that you could then click on one of the words provided it would bring up pictures or definitions. It has a built in thesaurus. It also allows you to pull pictures off and use them for topic. From the information I gathered, this type of information is for brainstorming with the class and then having them have a variety of topics to choose from. This would be a great tool to use in the classroom and to keep students involved. Another tool they discussed was Taxido (another word cloud). One main idea that I pulled away from this session was that we want to go beyond our regular teaching approaches but we want to make sure that it’s not too far off from our curriculum. I really enjoyed this session and received some valuable information from it was well.

www.taxido.com

www.wordsift.com

www.tinyurl.com

 

 

Social Networks - Facebook/Pinterest - (Week 5)

I am already a part of the social networks Facebook and Pinterest. I am addicted to Pinterest. I have gotten so many good ideas and recipes off this networking site. I have also learned many valuable library lessons that I cannot wait to try in my library. There are so many valuable tips on parenting and parents as teacher’s resources. Because my daughter is in the gifted program in the Union School District (P.C.), I have been following “Gifted Kids” and “Gifted Education” through Pinterest. These sites allow me to give my daughter the extra push she needs from time to time. I also follow “the imagination tree”, “little family fun”, “teachers with love and laughter”, many, many more. If there is something I am searching for, I just type it in the search box and it brings up a ton of sites I can view.

I also enjoy using Facebook because I have a lot of family that lives far away. I enjoy seeing pictures and staying “caught up”. I do use Facebook and Pinterest probably the most for my social networking. I probably log on to both about once a day. However, I am still old fashioned and most of the time I like a good ole’ face-to-face conversation.

I joined the social network edWeb.net. I am excited to find others in my district that belongs to this network. I am also looking forward to finding other teachers/librarians out there. The only disadvantage to this is now I have another social networking site that I need to follow along with. These are definitely going to keep me busy. I have joined several communities that I know will be beneficial to my librarian future. Two I have joined are called, “LMC @ The Forefront: A Collaborative Community for Library/Media Professionals” and “K12 Library Media Specialist”. I have also started following edWeb on Twitter.

I have never heard the term “ning” before. Naturally, I had to google it to see what it was. At www.ning.com it states that a ning is “The World's Largest Platform for Creating Social Websites”. I liked the elementary tech teachers ning at   http://elementarytechteachers.ning.com/ . It had a lot of great resources available. The only downside to having something like this is the cost. I probably would not pay for something like this.

 

There is one problem that I have with social networking. It keeps our kiddos from actually having a face-to-face conversation. I know this our tech world now, but by having so much of this our students are forgetting how to naturally carry on a normal conversation.

 

 

 

Networked Classrooms

Networked Classrooms

 I think that there are many advantages to having a networked classroom. I believe that the students get more involved in the class and with each other. There are so many students that won’t speak out in class but feel comfortable being able to respond through social media. Most students are already part of some sort of social media so they are familiar with how to use it. This is also a way for the teacher to have communication with not only the students but parents as well. I like the idea of being able to see students in other countries and chat with them. I think that students can get a sense of other cultures through a networked classroom.

 Cyberbulling is so popular now that I believe this would be a disadvantage to a networked classroom. However, with the teacher being involved as well, this might help stop some of that. I live in a low-economic community. There are a lot of students/parents that do not access to the Internet at home. This would be a disadvantage to having networked classrooms only if the teachers have the students using it at home as well.

 I don’t think it would be difficult to get started but you have to have everyone on the same page. I think the first step would be to discuss it with your building principal or district. I also believe that to make this work everyone has to be involved including teachers (staff), students, and parents. I also believe that the teacher needs to be very familiar with how to handle a networked classroom and be current in technology. I don’t think he/she could teach a class using it if they are not familiar themselves. This is like everything else. You need to have the knowledge yourself to provide the information to others.

 

Oh, and my Twitter name is shellprewitt02 (https://twitter.com/shellprewitt02)

Twitter - Whew!!

Wow, this has been a busy week trying to keep caught up on classes and work. I really never wanted to use Twitter. I didn't think it would be beneficial to me and honestly I didn't have extra time to do use this. I didn't think it was hard setting it up but trying to find everyone seemed difficult. I am sure it's just me :) I think with a little time on it I will become accustomed to using it. I see now how beneficial it can be...although I still think it will be time consuming. I am still trying to figure out Tweet Deck. I'll get it soon as well. While doing some searches for people I can add to my Twitter, I was surprised at all the other things I could follow. I am sure there is going to be so much useful information I can get off here.

Ok, so on to me now - ha! Like I said earlier, this has been a very busy weekend. My daughter has been at a dance convention and competition all weekend while our son was at wrestling. He took 1st place at his tournament. Can you tell I'm a proud mamma!

Chapter 2 Reading (Week 2 f/u)

While doing the Chapter 2 reading, I realized how far behind I am in the technology world. All of this is so new to me and I am STILL trying to figure it all out. I still have not figured out how to make a post (comment) on someone else's page. I also have not figured out how I can get into the blogs without typing each one in. So if you have any suggestions or answers I would love to hear them. One important point I read was you don't need to only build your network around the subject you teach. This is a great way to touch up on other subjects as well. The five online tools that could help us in our learning network is a great and effective way for sharing networks. The book states that "while the mai goals for these tools are to share, interact, collaborae, an collect, please remember that your own use should be guided by theto undeniable realities fo Internet participation." There are rules that we all need to abide by while using the Internet. This is also something we need to make sure we are teaching our students. I have never used or thought I would start blogging or using Twitter. I guess I'm just going to have to jump in and get started.

So, all this blogging stuff is very new to me. I guess I can start out by saying I am currently a Parent Educator for the Union School District and I love the flexibility it provides. I would love a librarian position because my passion is books and keeping children interested in them. With the ever changing technology world kiddos don't want to hold a book in their hands. They want to be able to read them off Kindle's, Nooks, IPad's and so on. I am old fashioned I guess because I would choose to hold a book in my hand. However, anything that will keep a child reading is good enough for me!