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