Week 9 Thing 23

Attribution on the site: Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program created by Helene Blowers. Content and style for School Library Learning 2.0 and Classroom Learning 2.0 have been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.

Summary of Thoughts:
1. What I liked best - I loved the music resources that I found and the Flickr mashups. I'm hooked on Pandora and I plan to start using Flickr with friends across the country.

2. The program has made me more proactive about searching out new tools that I can use with my students. I ended up accepting a request to join a progressive technology group to help create and drive the technology initiatives in my district in the hopes that I can share what I've learned and can continue to stay with or ahead of the curve with technological advances that I can use in my classroom.

3. I was surprised at just how much was out there that I didn't know about. There are so many new tools that I was completely oblivious to; tools that I would probably have never found on my own.

4. I liked the format of the course. One suggestion would be to require students to follow the blogs of a few others taking the course at the same time, just to expand on what they are learning on their own.

5. I would absolutely participate in another program like this!

6. Awww, come on! One word or one sentence to sum up that many weeks of work? Seriously? I'm not that concise. Expansive. Experiential. Creative. Mind-boggling. Educational. I could go on and on.

Week 9 Thing 22

I hadn't seen the World eBook Fair before. Interesting concept. I'll have to remember to go back to visit the site this summer when the next fair starts. I have used Project Gutenberg to find ebooks before, and I love being able to get some of the classics online. The last time I looked at the site, I don't remember seeing the audio books. While a lot of the books that are available aren't ones that we use in our curriculum, I'm going to pass the information along to our HS librarian. There are plenty of students who would benefit from having the audio book available for some of the classics. We're just starting to use ebooks at school, and I think they will be far more common in the years to come.

Week 9 Thing 21

I've used iTunes for podcasts before, but don't currently have the software installed on my computer and didn't want to download it. So I headed to podcast alley and found a podcast about grammar (below). I have totally forgotten everything I ever learned about grammar in high school (I should probably apologize to my HS English teachers - it's not their fault), so having a little podcast that reminds me of the rules is helpful. I plan to add a few feeds to my library moodle page (as I don't think our library website can handle them) about books.

Week 9 Thing 20

I'm not in love with You Tube. Yes, every once in a while I get a funny video, but I just don't have the time to spend looking for stuff on there. I was able to find library-related videos easily and embedding the video on the blog was simple (see Cookie Monster, below). Since it's blocked from school the kids couldn't use it, but I know that there are school-friendly sites that are similar. It would be fun to be able to post videos of our students giving book talks or other presentations - I'm sure the students would love to see themselves online.

Week 8, Thing 19

Love Library Thing! I have so many books at home, and I'm always forgetting what's there. This is a great way to catalog what I've got. And I adore the recommendations section. I tend to just re-read stuff I've liked in the past rather than move on to new stuff, so to get suggestions for books I might enjoy based on what I've already read is so helpful. Side note - why is it that I'm completely capable of recommending books to students based on what they've enjoyed but can't do that for myself? I digress. The books I entered off the top of my head got a varying number of stars. Some people love them, some hate them. Not surprising considering I put all four of the Twilight books on my list. I'm adding the widget for my library onto the blog.

Week 8, Thing 18

Can't do this one right now as - wait for the shock of your life - the sites I need (Zoho, Google Docs) are blocked. Will do when I have access.

Week 7, Thing 16A

Another thought on how I could use a wiki. We have professional development meetings on a monthly basis. And department meetings on an at least monthly basis. Why not take some of that information that we spend hours discussing and create a wiki with it? That way, the information is there for everyone to see and refer to later, and perhaps we could cut down on the length or frequency of the meetings? It would also be great for the new teachers - here's all the stuff we've covered and hashed over in the past, spelled out for you on one easy page.

Week 7, Thing 16

I love the idea of using a wiki to create subject pathfinders. I've used traditional pathfinders with students before, but having them create their own and allowing others to add to them would be a great collaborative activity. It would also be interesting to try using them between faculty members in the same department or between schools. For example, our social studies department could work together virtually to pool their resources for the Civil War unit that's coming up in the spring.

I'm also interested in using a wiki format for our Reading Olympics team. As students read the books, they can revise/edit the book summaries, add questions, etc. Much easier than trying to get them to meet after school!