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.