Week 9

I really did not have a least favorite thing. I enjoyed learning about them all. My only frustration was I wanted to know everything, which lead to spending too much time on one thing. Learning how to navigate some of the sights was challenging. I also still have trouble knowing how to import things and knowing the best way to do it. I know the only way to get better is to keep exploring and using the tools.


This journey has once again opened my eyes to the fast moving pace of technology and if I don’t at least try to keep up I will be LEFT BEHIND! Especially as a teacher/librarian it is imperative to keep up with technology to be able to teach, reach and keep up with this generation of children. So as teachers we must always keep exploring and learning. That is the best example we can demonstrate to our students. We don’t have to know it all we just need to be willing to learn and I feel that the students will be glad to help us. Wow! Isn’t that what we ask from them, it is a two way street isn’t it?

I am taking it all with me I have booked marked all of the sites. I like to keep a bank of resources so I can share them with others especially my teachers, students, and parents. I feel that is one of my responsibilities as an information specialist. It always makes me look good if I share tools with others particularly when they like it, helps with job security! My favorite take-a-way was the Google Lit Trips, I thought that was so cool. I can’t wait to use it and to share it with the social studies teachers I think they will just love it!

I hope to use my blog more as part of my instruction. I like my alien and want to use him to jump-start some lessons. I have always wanted to have centers for the different information resources such at atlas, dictionary, encyclopedia, and almanac. Since there are versions and different activities of all of these on line I’m thinking and adventure with each resource similar to the one we just completed. What do you think?

This experience in one word: VITAL
This experience in a sentence: The heartbeat of this generation is the 2.0 tools; therefore it is VITAL to maintain knowledge of them to stay connected.

I loved this online class and thought it was well organized and expectations were stated clearly. I always received help when I needed it and never felt dumb for asking. Michelle knew her stuff or always had the answer to my questions. I enjoyed doing it on my time and being able to decide how to manage that time. It was great to do it whenever you wanted to, I could work in the wee hours of the morning if I wanted to, and did. In a classroom setting that is not available you must go with the flow of the class. I would like to see more of these offered! LOVED IT!

Week 8

The tech integration project that I would like to implement next year with my students is "Tracking a Topic".  This project introduces Google Reader to the students to track information on a topic they are researching.

I feel this would be an added source to our data bases for information.  The problem might be setting up google accounts for the students, however the project suggests that you could set up a classroom account and so this might help.  I believe that we are not allowed to set up google accounts even as teachers so I need to look into this and explain my purpose.

I was excited about discovering Google Reader in this class so I am not that good at it yet.  Doing this project will make me learn more so I can share it with my students as well as the teachers.  How cool to find this project in Atomic Learning that will walk me through the whole process.  I feel that I can actually learn as my students are learning.  This will also be a collaboration tool with teachers in different subject areas.

Week 7

I enjoyed Read, Write, Think, I found a excellent lesson for making your own word journal incorporating online dictionaries. I hope to do this in collaboration with the language teachers. I will teach the initial lessons and then they can keep track of their journals and then we can meet in the computer lab to do the final presentations of thier words after they have had nine weeks to journal. I think I will certainly revisit this site for more ideas.

Kid Pix Delux I did not see much hear that I would use, however I learned more about how to use atomic learning in finding things by manipulating that website. I need to really spend time with that web site is seems very good and full of useful ideas and the tutorials that I have watched doing this class have been excellent.

Wordle, I have played with this in the past and it is a cool site. I have not used it with kids yet. We had to create one with words that described us. I could see it used to describe a main charater in a book as well.

Terra Clues this was a new website for me and I loved it.  Will definitely revisit this site I would like to make a hunt of my own.  I could see a social studies teacher going wild with this making hunts for places.

Each teacher makes their own lesson plans regarding the computer and mobils labs.  Yes, I have used both labs for teacher library lessons and collaborating lessons with teachers. I plan on sharing these websites with all of my teachers and then if they need to know more we can teach other. It is good as a librarian to try and stay abreast of who is knowlegeable at certain website and programs then you have a good resource for help that you can share with others. We all can't be good at everything, even though I know we try! :)

Week 6

I had fun exploring the sites, however my favorite was googlelittrips. That is just so cool! I could see using this in the library on a book club book. Also I feel that my social studies teachers will love this I can't wait to share! I would like to explore scrible maps more to get a little more comfortable with it however I can see using this as another tool when studying maps and atlas as research tools. I have bookmarked all of them and plan on sharing math manipulative with the math teachers.  Sift will be fun to have the kids play with and I know the language teachers will love it.
The site that I have used in the library http://bighugelabs.com/deck.php  for making trading cards.  The kids loved making cards about themselves. This year I hope to have them make cards on a favorite book.  I think this would be a great way to book talk a book. It also has easy acess to flicker to find pictures.  You can see the card I made in an earlier blog from another class I took on 2.0 tools.

Week 5

Wikis are a cool tool for full collaboration. They would be great for a librarian/teacher collaboration on a student project that required research skills to accomplish their goal.  The librarian and teacher could set a timeline of lessons that need to be taught and also a schedule for use of materials and technology. What would make a wiki appropriate for this is easy revisions, as we all know when you are teaching you are consinstly learning and discovering things that you thought would work or happen but don't always do.  I would much rather meet at my house or complete school commitee tasks via a wiki verses in person meetings.  I feel this way it would make everyone accountable to at least participate with a published comment.

A blog is two way as far as people making comments however unlike a wiki you don't want them messing with your stuff.

I plan on getting with a social studies teacher who is excited about collaborating with me ( YEHAA!) and see if we can do it with the use of a wiki to help us make a plan, stay on task as well as keeping us accountable.

Week 4

Made my video with Animoto and it was way easier than I expected.  Found video on YouTube and TeacherTube and was able to embed them into my blog with no problems! YAHOO! I thought YouTube was more user friendly that TeacherTube. I was just able to get better searches. I know the kids will love Animoto and probably already use it.  Great avenue for booktalks!

TeacherTube Videos - Dewey Decimal Rap

TeacherTube Videos - Dewey Decimal Rap

What is Web 2.0

Myspace Tutorial: What is Web 2.0?

Week 3

I did set up an igoogle page and played with the gadgets and found a few that I liked.  I found a SLJ gadget that keeps you updated on articles and thought that was cool especially since it is FREE.  I also found one that keeps track of the bestselling childrens books.  There was also a countdown gadget that was cool which counts the days down till an event such as the: end of school, till christmas, till school starts, and etc.

Google Earth was amazing.  I can certainly turn the kids on to this when I am talking about the atlas.  I think this will help the kids alot especially in a research game that we play. I just found myself spending too much time with it right now however I will go back and try become proficient in certain areas of it.

This was my first time to really see any of the atomic learning and I was very impresssed with the tutorials for Google Earth.  I found them to be really helpful.

I did not really know what Google Reader was, but now I know it is a manager for your blogs. If I get into other blogs besides our library blogs, it would be very handy to access them all in one place, and to be able to organize them by catagories. Also I see that you can search for blogs of interest.  I could see this as another research tool for kids if you set up a list on a subject for them to use.

Week Two

Yea, I finally figured out the Voki!  Just keep clicking, thats my motto. I had trouble discoving how to get it into my blog.  However once I did it, it made perfect sense, silly me.  I think the kids will get a kick out of our friendly alien.  I think he is cute!  :)

Week One

I feel that it is essential that I learn and use web 2.0 tools in order to be an effective teacher with my students especially as a librarian. As a librarian I feel responsible to be knowledgeable about these tools to be able to help the teachers and students on my campus as well as just to keep up with the rest of the world. I must say it has been challenging for me. I used to consider myself pretty good with technology but things are going so fast and I am not keeping up, however with classes such as this I am not completely sinking yet.