Blogging to Learn

Implementation Plan

2009-08-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

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.

Week 9 Thing 23

2009-08-03T23:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Week 9 Thing 20

2009-08-02T23:52:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-02T23:42:00.001-07:00

Starfish an inspirational message for all teachers

Shared via AddThis

It worked

2009-08-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Wow Thanks! It worked!

Test

2009-08-02T19:06:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

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

Week 8 Thing 18

2009-08-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

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. :)

Week 7 Thing 16

2009-07-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them:

I was thinking about trying to set up a wiki for my family. It might b e a good thing to add to the family tree, everyone and anyone can join in. Libraries can use wikis to set up book reviews and collaborate with other librarians and school staff members about things needed and things that can be done throughout the school year. I also think this would be a great way for any teacher to set up something as a way to get other teachers opinions about certain text books that they want to use in the years to come. A lot can be done with wikis. This would be a great way for teachers and parents to communicate. Teachers could also always post homework assignments and future things that will be happening in their classroom. Here is the wiki that our school librarian Miss. Harris set up, I think she did a great job, check it out!
https://behs-library.wikispaces.com/

Week 6 Thing 15

2009-07-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Read some perspectives on web 2.0 future of libraries:

After reading a few articles I have had loads of thoughts going through my mind. The way that libraries offer their services is very important now and in the future to come. I totally agree with Michael Stephens when he says, "the Library is human." I also feel as if the library of a school is the temple of the school a place where all gather to converse, educate, and learn new and historical information about our world and its surroundings. There are so many things that I want to try at our library.....like the idea of a cyber cafe, I think that would go over real well at our school. Also collaborating with Amazon.com about downloading books. The more information we learn the more we can reach out and help others. Our school already has a wiki page and the kids seem to use it quite a bit from what I have noticed. Our librarian has done a wonderful job setting it up for the kids and staff.

Week 6 Thing 14

2009-07-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

Technorati and Tagging:

There really are a lot of blogs out there. I was surprised to find blogs on almost everything, there is probably a blog out there for every subject matter. I do not think that I will use this tool that often or even at all. I don't think that I could just sit there and read from the computer, but I did think about what the raven team said about using it to follow a campaign trail is a great way to use this tool. I tried to claim my blog, but got locked out when I typed in the wrong code. Oh, well, what to do what to do, you live and you learn.

Tagging is a wonderful way to organize items.

Week 6 Thing 13

2009-07-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

Discovering Del.icio.us:

I love the fact that I can bookmark all my sources and have them at my fingertips on any computer. I don't know though how often I'll use del.icio.us. I'm sure though that I'll use it later on down the road and when I do, I'll already know how to use it. :) Delicious can be useful for teachers to share information about certain subject matters. We as librarians can use this tool to bookmark certain sites for teachers or students that have big research projects coming up, such as for example bookmarking sites dealing with hereditary diseases for a biology class. This will and can be very beneficial to any faculty member or student.

Week 5 Thing 12

2009-07-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

Voicethreads:

Voicethreads is a great way for everyone to express themselves. I thought that it was wonderful that voicethread offered five different ways for people to communicate. The first thing that I thought that this could be used for is military troops that are deployed could read books to their children or show what they liked best about a picture or a drawing that their child or loved one has sent them. There is so much more anyone can do with this program. A teacher could use this program for a compare and contrast class, a debate class, anything imaginable. While I have been taking this class I find myself working and taking notes then going back to blog, guess I am still a little old schooled and still prefer the pen and paper. :)

Week 5 Thing 11

2009-07-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

Explore Web 2.0 award winning applications and Ning along with playing Travel IQ:

I really enjoyed playing with the sites. I played around so much with one site that I was up way past my bedtime. I love digital photography so I played around with www.picnik.com, the one tool that I loved the most about this program is that it allowed you to focus in on a particular focal point of your photo and it would be color. The rest of the photo will become black and white. A library might use this product by uploading a picture of a certain book amongst others and use the one book as the focal subject for say a book of the month club. Just a thought. I still prefer www.fotoflexer.com

The next product I messed with was geni, www.geni.com this product is used for people interested in genealogy. This is the one that I found all my time flying by, I just couldn't stop doing it. I was thinking it might be a neat idea to have a student make a family tree of a book's characters or do one of their own for history or another class. I am still using this tool.

As far as Ning goes I signed up and played a little I really couldn't believe that there are that many groups out there. People talk about everything and anything.

Travel IQ was a lot of fun. There is another site that others might want to try sometime. It builds up your vocabulary and feeds the hungry at the same time. Some of you should check this site out it will explain the feed the hungry part to you. The site is www.freerice.com

Week 5 Thing 10

2009-07-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

I played around with a few image generators I liked using http://www.imagechef.com/ I created a blog title banner then also created a support ribbon for my husband being that he's in the military. I found playing with this a lot of fun I can't wait to get more done. I will try more after dinner.

Week 4 Thing 9

2009-07-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

Locate a few useful school library related blogs and/or news feeds:

I actually did this last night not realizing it was going to be a thing to do. I looked at blogdigger last night and it seemed the easiest out of the rest of them to use. Although I must admit the one that I used the most was the Bloglines Search Engine, that was the most useful. I was able to get an rss feed on education weekly I broke it down into two part education weekly itself and then the special ed department.

Week 4 Thing 8

2009-07-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

RSS Feeds and setting up your own bloglines news reader account:

It wasn't hard to set up the RSS Feed. I like having all the information at my finger tips and not having to go back and search for things over and over. I was also impressed by the fact that the blogline staff had a list of feeds that you could choose from, that was nice. While looking at some feeds that I added myself I discovered that I really don't need a blogline account my husband is techno savvy that he told me they will save under my favorites too. Sure enough they did, I still set the account up though, just so I can blog about some of the information that I found that might help me with my two year old. If anyone knows of any sites that might help me in getting him to talk that would be great, he is very delayed in his speech. My other two were very verbal early on, has me a little worried. Anyway, I'll use the feeds to check on daily articles pertaining to him. My URL is as follows http://rpc.bloglines.com/blogroll?html=1&id=TMH

The above link didn't work I am going to try another one if this one doesn't work I am going to give up for the night. http://www.bloglines.com/public/TMH Lets try this now.

Yes!!! I got it to work, I feel good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was going to give up, but I kept challenging myself. I won! :)

Week Three Thing Seven

2009-07-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

Blog About Any Technology:

I personally think that itunes is the best thing ever. Being able to download what songs you want instead of purchasing an entire cd. Not to mention that an itunes gift card I have found is the best present ever to give a young teenager. We've come a long way since 8-track tapes, record players, and cassette tapes. It's hard to imagine that I lived through them all. It's funny to hear the youngsters ask about things that I grew up with. I wonder what's to come in the future.

Week Three Thing Six

2009-07-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

Flikr tools and 3rd parties

Well I dabbled in almost all of the tools and applications. The one that sparked my interest was flauntr.com. I wanted to try editing some pictures and such. I was having a little trouble with it when my son walked in and told me to try http://www.fotoflexer.com/. I did and it worked great, it was really user friendly. It was a free site and I was able to create this picture of my youngest son using the neon button and picking out the things that I wanted neon. They have tons of things that you can choose from, from beautifying to animating your photos.

Week Three Thing Five Continued

2009-07-12T21:10:00.001-07:00

Sunset at Ravenel Bridge
Originally uploaded by outsideshot

Sunset at Ravenel Bridge in Charleston, SC. This bridge replaced the older bridge. Although it is a lot higher, one might think it is scarier, but it's not and it doesn't creak when you drive across it. South Carolina is very beautiful.

Week Three Thing Five

2009-07-12T21:05:00.001-07:00

Grace Memorial Bridge Charleston, SC
Originally uploaded by smiely

Grace Memorial Bridge Charleston, SC

I can remeber driving over this bridge, it was so old and scary. The new bridge is much more prettier.

Week Two Thing Four

2009-07-12T16:39:00.000-07:00

Register My Blog:

Well I am about to get ready to e-mail the Raven team my blog to finally get registered, hopefully it'll work. I'm going to try e-mailing it to myself also. Here goes nothing.......

It worked......moving on to week three! :)

Week Two Thing Three

2009-07-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

Setting Up a Blog and Designing an Avatar:

I really enjoyed setting up a blog. I didn't realize that it could be so easy, I guess I should've asked my 12 year old for help. He could've helped me, he's a whiz at the web 2.0 tools. That is one of my goals by taking this course, to become a better whiz than he is.

Designing the avatar was a lot of fun, it was kind of like playing with paper dolls in a new techno time. It is unbelievable the different backgrounds, people, and apparel one can choose from. It's funny it was hard for me to determine if I wanted to look like myself or someone else. Then when I noticed you could pick plus size, I was like this is great! I could be myself in a sexy cartoon way. She pretty much looks like me, especially when she smiles and has no eyes, that is totally me. OMG, my son just said he doesn't know the blogspot web site......I'm moving up in the world. :)

Week One Thing Two

2009-07-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

7 and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners:

The easiest step for me would be PLAY. I learn and teach best through play. I find that the kids that I work with like my silly attitude, but know when it's time to get busy. The hardest thing on the list for me would be to VIEW PROBLEMS AS A CHALLENGE. Although I can do this some of the time I find myself wishing I can do it most of the time. I think that is something that I will work on this year. I promise myself from this day forward that I will accept each problem that comes my way as a challenge and conquer it, victory will be mine!

Week One Thing One

2009-07-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

Reflections:

Let me start off by saying YAHOOO!!!!! I finally made it here. I feel as if I am a big success just being able to sit here and blog. Thanks Ms. Morgester for the helpful chat.

While I was reading the chapters I started reminiscing about when I was young and a library was just a library and now my children call it a Media Center. It amazes me on how much information we can obtain from libraries now and not to mention how we can collaborate and distribute information on the web.

The way that people can express themselves through the internet is wonderful and I fully agree that our students should be allowed to express themselves to a big audience of people. In some cases it might motivate some students to do better. Some children tend to work better when they know that they are going to have their material reviewed by an abundance of people. They will want to succeed and strive to do better to have a star like quality about themselves. The children now come from an era where technology is the now and is what they now. They change when it changes so why not educate them with the tools that they will need in the future. Like the quote in the book says, "In the future , how we educate our children may prove to be more important than how much we educate them."

If we educate our children in a way to which they know there is no telling what we can accomplish with them. Educate them on protecting others work and their own by creating and reviewing the

Five Steps to Avoid Copyright Problems: ( pg 139, Web 2.0 new tools, new schools)

Create and implement a technology policy that includes a code of ethics and set of procedures.
Review the entire policy with your educational community, students, teachers, and parents.
Appoint a technology manager to conduct audits and maintain a log licenses and registration material.
Teach ethical and legal behavior for technology use.
Thank employees and students for supporting these steps.

Along with teaching about Copyright the other most important issue is the security and safety of the students. Teaching not only the students about internets security, but their parents and the community itself. It is so true with all the socializing done today on the web that nobody really knows who they are talking to on line. Having a contract in hand for parents and children to sign for security issues is a great idea. At least I personally think so.

After reading chapter 9 I started thinking that wouldn't it be great for every student to be able to turn their computer on at home and continue to work. I know carrying text books home for my son is a big deal. I also pondered the thought about children being able to take classes at any high school. I think that would be great to have an institution, such as a school, where children could get together, but if they say are not interested in a certain science class, but another high school offers one that they are interested in they could take that course on line. The entire country could use the same amount of graduation credits system. Something to ponder about.

Lastly, I chose to read Chapter 4. I can't wait to get started using some of the things that I read about. The thought crossed my mind that some high school kids might like to take this course. Any thoughts?