Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Implementation Plan

I guess I did forget to blog about my implementation plan. I plan on creating some podcasts with some kids and co- workers dealing with book reviews. When we are finished creating the podcasts we plan to incorporate them into the library wiki that my co-worker has created. Another thing that I am going to do is take your class to the English department to see if they might use it for their new multi media class as a curriculum. I think it would be wise for them to use it at the beginning of their class. Lastly, if our library holds Manga Club this year, I plan on introducing the kids to FD Toys so they can create their own character trading cards, by using their imagination.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Week 9 Thing 23

Copyright, Creative Commons, and Congratulations:

The copyright movie was not only educational, but entertaining the way they took the clips from all the Disney movies and incorporated them into a visual piece of art that they want people to comprehend. I think that movie summed it up on the copyright law.
Creative Commons is a tool that I will share with others on how to protect their creativity. Especially with the younger generation and their creations, there are some talented kids out there!
Finally the end.......
Throughout the Web 2.0 journey I have found amazing things to share with students, staff, and family members on how much we can better express ourselves in this technology savvy world that we live in today. We as educators need to continue learning learning the new tools that keep entering the technological world to better prepare our students for the real world. A world of ways to express themselves. Why not stay on top of technology and allow them to express themselves in ways that they already do in their world. Lets let them teach us the way they use Web 2.0 tools.
Changes for the class:
* For someone never taking an online class before I would give instructions on how to and where to go to get started. ( I really appreciated the help Ann!)
* I would check the links out before hand to make sure they work.
*I would maybe assign or have people pair up as teams to bounce ideas off of one another on how things can be incorporated into the classroom or home life.
*Lastly, I would offer this class to jr./Sr. High Students to offer them a chance to give ideas or input. I think you might get a lot of responses.
Although I am finished with this class, I will never finish using Web 2.0 tools. I was already Internet savvy, but this class has lead me to a new adventure in the way to use technology. I really enjoyed this class and will recommend it to everyone and anyone that wants to learn!

Week 8 Thing 19.1

Alaska Digital Pipeline:
I almost forgot about this one after looking over everything that I've done. oops!

I have heard of this resource but have never checked it out. I was completely amazed at everything that they have to offer people, from students to teachers to even parents. i found that they offer more resources for middle and high school students then they do elementary. Elementary it seems to be more game like based which is a good thing. I found my favorite Alaska Outdoors resource. The three things that I found that I would share are www.teenink.com, www.highschoolers.com, and www.shykids.com. I would either add the links to our school wiki page or just add the entire Alaska digital pipeline link to the page to inform them about the information available to everyone. It might also be a good idea to add that site as part of a library orientation.

Week 9 Thing 22

Ebooks and Audio ebooks:

I would agree that kids in Special Ed. benefit from ebooks or audio books, I have seen that first hand. It helps them to follow along and to better understand the book. I have not been an avid e or audio book user, I prefer to read things myself. I tend to get into the characters a little more. Which leads me into thinking about volunteering to read for Librivox. I checked out the site and I know some people can handle others reading, but unfortunately the few books that I took a listen to the voices seemed very ....well sorry for saying this boring. I need to listen to someone with energy and upbeat and into what they are reading. People love listening to me read, they get into whatever novel or piece of literature I am reading aloud. I do not think that I could listen to an e-book or audio book on a commute unless it was really entertaining. Last year I was blessed to work with a visually impaired student, that student would always tell me that I should be a reader for audio books. Maybe I'll look into that for a second career, I'll have to research that option. :)

Week 9 Thing 21

Podcasts:

Podcasts are something that truly amazes me. I find myself watching my 12 year old making podcasts on a weekly bases. It's amazing what he can come up with during the time that he is creating. I think if podcasting was used more in schools as a way to do a book report among other things kids would be more excited about school and want to do more and put more into their work. With today's society everyone wants to be a star, why not let them and encourage them to go beyond what they have done. Let them teach us what they can do with a podcast, as long as they can stay in the school guidelines. I downloaded two rss feeds to my bloglines account.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Week 9 Thing 20

With school getting ready to start I thought all of us needed to take the time to remember this. I found this really inspirational. I find this video to be true and I live by it.

Anyway Teacher Tube was great! There are a lot of things that a person might have to filter through, but that is like everything else in life in general. I found it amusing sifting through things.

Starfish an inspirational message for all teachers

Starfish an inspirational message for all teachers

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It worked

Wow Thanks! It worked!

Test

Hello everyone I am creating this new document to see if I can embed it into my blog.  Yesterday I used Zoho spread sheet and I didn't see a share button.  I tried everything that I culd think of to embed it into my blog, but no such luck.  I have decided today to give it another try using just the document form.  We will see if this works.  If it does, I want to send my thanks to Misty's Mysteries for commenting on my blog.  I did not however see a share button on the sreadsheet version.  Thanks

Week 8 Thing 19

Check Out Library Thing:

I found Library Thing amazing. Most of the books that I placed in Library Thing were pretty popular. I really enjoyed reading all the other reviews about the books that I have read, when I get time I'll have to write my own reviews. I also thought it was nice that when Library Thing gives you recommendations of reading material it is geared towards your genera that you like to read. I definitely give that two thumbs up. It would be great for libraries to use the tool for children to write reviews. I think it would get other children's interest sparked for reading if they see that one of their peers has read a particular book and wrote something about it. The link to my Library Catalog is as follows: http://www.librarything.com/home/holmanrtraj

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Week 8 Thing 18

Take a look at online productivity tools (word processing, spreadsheets, and more):

Wow, What an amazing tool! This is great! I found that this program is a lot like microsoft and excel. It was so easy to use, really user friendly. This is wonderful for students who want to use this type of program, but don't have the funds to go out and get it. I created two documents and placed one in this blog. It really wasn't that hard to do. Although I had trouble trying to embed it into the blog itself. I am going to tell everyone about this program. I am wondering though if you could create documents on here then transfer them to file. I'll have to try that and see if I can get it to work.

http://sheet.zoho.com/public/holmanrtraj/important-family-dates?mode=html

Week 7 thing 17

Add an entry to "Sandbox" Wiki:

Who would have thought that wikis are so easy to make and edit. I loved exploring this tool, there are so many things that one could use wikis for. I might just have to make a few of them myself, one for home and one for work. Wikis would be great to use to plan a family or class reunion. It would also be nice to have kids in a high school put together a digital yearbook, but designed on a wiki. The video was very resourceful. I added a curriculum to the "Sandbox," I thought it would be fun for students to make a family tree for a particular character out of a piece of literature.....think of Hamlet's family tree, wouldn't that catch some one's eye. I only added one curriculum note. Although I have so many more ideas like making character trading cards, blogging book reviews maybe incorporated into wikis. :)