The teacher resources with the latest version of Research Project Calculator are very valuable. I have showed several of them to teachers and they have been very useful.
I had not spent a lot of time previously looking at the MILI resources that are provided. There are some very valuable links there and I have noted many more that I have used before.
We don't use the Research Calculator a lot because it does not include all the databases that we have available for our students. I am hopeful that at some point we can download the application and customize it for our resources and our assignements.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thing 15 - Online Games and Libraries
Both Puzzle Pirates and Second LIfe are blocked in our district by the filter. I know that when we identify educational applications for games and virtual worlds that they would be unblocked.
I have spent some time lurking in Second Life. It has been interesting to see the ideas that people have had for use of the use of virtual worlds.
A student teachers recently asked if we have Oregon Trail available for students. Our teachers make use of many online game sites in math for student enrichment and practice - these are the games that have a drill and practice type focus.
I think that schools may have more concerns about the balance of administrative and instructional uses of their networks than may be a consideration in public libraries - grading, state reporting, attendance, online testing, etc. that require careful consideration of educational use of the games that are bandwidth intensive in an environment where we need to focus on our educational mission.
I understand the value of games for learners and am interested in watching interest develop for implementation of games as a learning tool at the secondary level for more that drill and practice - get to those higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy. A little difficult to imagine the implementation until teachers show an interest.
I have spent some time lurking in Second Life. It has been interesting to see the ideas that people have had for use of the use of virtual worlds.
A student teachers recently asked if we have Oregon Trail available for students. Our teachers make use of many online game sites in math for student enrichment and practice - these are the games that have a drill and practice type focus.
I think that schools may have more concerns about the balance of administrative and instructional uses of their networks than may be a consideration in public libraries - grading, state reporting, attendance, online testing, etc. that require careful consideration of educational use of the games that are bandwidth intensive in an environment where we need to focus on our educational mission.
I understand the value of games for learners and am interested in watching interest develop for implementation of games as a learning tool at the secondary level for more that drill and practice - get to those higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy. A little difficult to imagine the implementation until teachers show an interest.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Thing 14 - LibraryThing
I think this would be a great thing for library patrons who want to track the books they have read and the books that they want to read. I just returned a couple books that are due to be returned to their home libraries, but I did not get a chance to finish reading them. They are now on my "To Read" list.
My book club has read many books over the last few years. I'm going to make a list of all the titles - not sure who has an up-t-date list right now.
Easy to install the widget in the blog.
I have read that with LibraryThing - everyone can be a librarian - many people like the concept of tags and I think this would be a great personal organizational tool.
We use Destiny in our school libraries and we have liked using the Visual Search feature to display a list of books for students on a certain topic or for a class. I need to give some more thought to the use of categories which a lot of school media specialists have used successfully.
I skipped a few Things earlier so it is time to go back and fill in the blanks. It is nice that Blogger allows me to backdate my posts so that they will be in order.
My book club has read many books over the last few years. I'm going to make a list of all the titles - not sure who has an up-t-date list right now.
Easy to install the widget in the blog.
I have read that with LibraryThing - everyone can be a librarian - many people like the concept of tags and I think this would be a great personal organizational tool.
We use Destiny in our school libraries and we have liked using the Visual Search feature to display a list of books for students on a certain topic or for a class. I need to give some more thought to the use of categories which a lot of school media specialists have used successfully.
I skipped a few Things earlier so it is time to go back and fill in the blanks. It is nice that Blogger allows me to backdate my posts so that they will be in order.
Thing 13 - Online Productivity Tools
I installed a weather widget in the sidebar. Tried to get a countdown widget to display, but no luck. I like the problem-solving required of 23 Things. I know nothing about javascript, but I learned which widgets seem to have the correct coding to appear in Blogger. Some do, some don't. It is great that developers are putting some of their ideas out there even though it can sometimes be frustrating from the user perspective when things don't work. In the Web 2.0 world we learn from each other.
This activity encouraged me to look a little more at the features of our district administrative calendar system. I can create a personal to-do list and add URLs to the item descriptions, but cannot add photos and documents. We can see the calendars of others in the district and some people and not comfortable with that, but I find it a great tool for scheduling meetings - saves a lot of emails and phone calls. I liked the features of Backpack and Basecamp and I think an organization or group without a calendar system would benefit from either of these.
I use an iGoogle account that has tabs for personal and work items. I like exploring the gadgets. Lifehacker is in my del.icio.us list and I am anxious to check that regularly.
Zamzar has been a lifesaver for many of our students who bring in documents from home computers. We are almost always successful in doing a file transfer. I especially like their .pdf translator. I've been a hero more than a few times by using Zamzar.
This activity encouraged me to look a little more at the features of our district administrative calendar system. I can create a personal to-do list and add URLs to the item descriptions, but cannot add photos and documents. We can see the calendars of others in the district and some people and not comfortable with that, but I find it a great tool for scheduling meetings - saves a lot of emails and phone calls. I liked the features of Backpack and Basecamp and I think an organization or group without a calendar system would benefit from either of these.
I use an iGoogle account that has tabs for personal and work items. I like exploring the gadgets. Lifehacker is in my del.icio.us list and I am anxious to check that regularly.
Zamzar has been a lifesaver for many of our students who bring in documents from home computers. We are almost always successful in doing a file transfer. I especially like their .pdf translator. I've been a hero more than a few times by using Zamzar.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thing 12 - News Readers
We've come a long way from the old days of subscribing to news readers in a separate application - I can't even remember what they were called.
I viewed all the services in the list that aggregate news stories and NewsVine has a very pleasing visual interface and very easy to use the tabs for different sections. It automatically tracked my IP address and provided local a local news tab to the Fargo-Valley City area. Some of the news is a bit dated, but we are a smaller community compared to the Washington Post.
I was able to easily add a Washington Post story to Newsvine.
I would direct students to this site if they were searching for latest news on a topic - possibly more often for some of the sub-topics such as health or science. I like that it brings together coverage from many sources.
I use a Google Alert for daily email updates on news stories of interest, but I"m going to try to set up a link at the side of this blog to see the latest stories.
I think it would be great for courses that follow current events to have their students follow a topic in the news over a period of time and then report on it.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Thing 11 - Tagging and del.icio.us
I have used del.icio.us for a couple years and could not work without it. My tagging scheme needs a bit of work so I clean it up every couple months. Link to my del.icio.us account.
When I make presentations at conferences I create a tagged list and share that URL with attendees so they can refer to my list at their leisure. It is easy to add sites to the list as I find new items of interest.
One of my favorite tags is "daily." These are sites that I want to view regularly and I can get to them quickly with this tag. I also use the del.icio.us buttons in my browser bar so I can add sites quickly. I understand that in some schools teachers cannot add these buttons to their browser due to firewalls or filter.
Best feature is that I can access this list anywhere that I have Internet access. I also like subscriptions. I have a subscription set up for "knitting." Anytime someone adds this tag to a site it appears in my subscriptions and I can choose to add it to my list of tagged sites.
I work with grade 12 students on their senior research paper and I would really like to try using an electronic means to save links to their sources. I think we have a teacher who is willing to give some of the 2.0 tools a try and this may be one that would be useful.
The CommonCraft video on YouTube has a good expanation of social bookmarking.
I set up an account in PageKeeper and will monitor that resource over the next few weeks. Did not have librarian as a choice when I registered so I need to contact them and ask if they would consider adding librarian as a teacher type.
I wish that PageKeeper allowed me to import some of the sites that I can export from del.icio.us.
I'm enthusiastic about tagging. It is a great way to share sites.
When I make presentations at conferences I create a tagged list and share that URL with attendees so they can refer to my list at their leisure. It is easy to add sites to the list as I find new items of interest.
One of my favorite tags is "daily." These are sites that I want to view regularly and I can get to them quickly with this tag. I also use the del.icio.us buttons in my browser bar so I can add sites quickly. I understand that in some schools teachers cannot add these buttons to their browser due to firewalls or filter.
Best feature is that I can access this list anywhere that I have Internet access. I also like subscriptions. I have a subscription set up for "knitting." Anytime someone adds this tag to a site it appears in my subscriptions and I can choose to add it to my list of tagged sites.
I work with grade 12 students on their senior research paper and I would really like to try using an electronic means to save links to their sources. I think we have a teacher who is willing to give some of the 2.0 tools a try and this may be one that would be useful.
The CommonCraft video on YouTube has a good expanation of social bookmarking.
I set up an account in PageKeeper and will monitor that resource over the next few weeks. Did not have librarian as a choice when I registered so I need to contact them and ask if they would consider adding librarian as a teacher type.
I wish that PageKeeper allowed me to import some of the sites that I can export from del.icio.us.
I'm enthusiastic about tagging. It is a great way to share sites.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Thing 10 -Wikis
I've used wikis in our district to post meeting notes and related links. It is difficult to convince others that they can edit also. I found myself in the same frame of mind when told to edit the 23 things wiki.
It is so easy to add and delete info that I find it a good way to communicate. Groups of teachers in our school are working on common knowledge and common assessment, but no one has wanted to work with a wiki.
I like PBWiki for schools. They have improved access since we first started working with them and it is possible to password protect the content.
On Wikipedia - I tell students that it is a fine place to get foundational knowledge. Also is interesting to see how a topic has been organized - subtopics and outlines etc., but it is not acceptable to list it in a reference list or to quote in a research paper. Most students seem OK with that and seem to understand.
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