The Savvy Bronco

Week 9 The Last Thing!

2010-04-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

After many months and many starts and stops, I've finished School Library Learning 2.0. It has been a great journey and I've learned many useful things. I've already incoporated a blog into my lesson plans and also have started teaching my students about creative commons.
The one thing I've learned this year is that as a teacher and a school librarian I will be constantly learning and changing. The web will not be static and 3.0 and 4.0 are on their way. In one word, I'd say that my journey has been intense.

Week 9 Thing 22

2010-04-18T16:27:00.001-07:00

Both sites are great. I was disappointed that World e-books fair isn't until July and that they didn't post their institutional subscription prices on the web.

Week 9 Thing 21

2010-04-18T15:26:00.001-07:00

I found all the pod casts directories to be cumbersome to search and to use. In the end I chose a program that I already listen to: NPR's story corps. I feel that these podcasts relate history to real people & I'd love to do a lesson some day with students who do their own story corps project with the people in their lives.
The CSLA pod cast is an interesting mix of facts and stories. I will use it in my next school to become a better library media teacher.

Week 9 Thing 20

2010-04-18T14:25:00.001-07:00

An animoto slide show highlighting our 2009 district wide poetry contest:

Poetry at DPOL

Week 9 Thing 20

2010-04-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

I chose the Gotta Keep Reading video. It is inspirational and shows what enthusiastice librarians can do. I spent a lot of time on teacher tube & found many interesting videos. I wish their searches were easier to manage. All the video sites had great interactivity. That is what is most needed on school library web sites now.

Week 8 #18 & #19

2010-01-05T23:48:00.001-08:00

I'm still working on some Google documents, but I was really excited about Library Thing. What a great way to involve students in making their own book choices.

Week 7 #17

2010-01-05T15:05:00.000-08:00

Wikis & Sand box

Wikis are easy to use and easy to edit. They can be used to both gather and present information. For those teachers who don't require a research paper, they are a great tool for presentations.

Week 7 #16

2010-01-05T13:51:00.000-08:00

Wiki's

Wikis seem to be a great way to get students to learn about online cooperation and how to use the internet and networking sites professionally. The greatest lesson that students can learn is that they can't use the same text and word choices with professional wikis that they may use with their social networking sites. When I begin using wikis -- I will remind students about our school's acceptable use policy and the difference between social and professional networking.

Possible applications: subject guides, note-taking skills, essay writing and editing, reader's advisories, book clubs.

Week 6 #15

2009-12-18T11:06:00.000-08:00

After reading the Horizon Report on collective intelligence, collaborative websites, data mashups and social operating systems, I worry for our students. In this era of high stakes testing, where students are pushed more and more to memorize facts, where will students learn the skills necessary to be productive collaborators and judicious users of information?

Week 6 #14 Technorati

2009-12-02T11:30:00.000-08:00

My first thought when exploring Technorati was dismay at not seeing an education button. While exploring I was suprised at how important blogging has become in the business world. Blogging may be an important skill for our students, unless something new comes along before our freshmen graduate!

The advantages of tagging for me are that we can use words that students use. Part of the difficulty my students have when using OPAC is the fact that they don't know the exact subject word to use to find what they want. The biggest disadvantage of tagging is that a slight variation in the tag word could leave out important web sites.

Week 6 #13 Delicious

2009-12-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

Experimenting:

O.k. this is cool.
I see delicious as an interactive pathfinder. Where students can add links that they like and make comments on the links already provided. My biggest question is how do you separate the professional links in your account that would just confuse students with the educational links that you want them to use. I tried setting up a second account but that didn't go so well. Right now, I guess I'll just mark some web sites as private.

Halloween Read via ImageChef.com

2009-10-04T16:31:00.001-07:00

Week 5 - #10, #11 & #12

2009-10-04T16:13:00.000-07:00

#10 - I spent a lot of time working with the various online image generators. I found most of them confusing and not really easy to work with. However, I really enjoyed Image Chef. This site would be easy to use to make posters promoting various library activities. Also, it has great applications for classroom assignments. I especially liked the visual poetry and word mosaic applications. Both would work well for review assigments. I was also impressed with sketchpad.

#11 - I wanted to explore pb wiki, but was disappointed to learn that it isn't free. The site I liked the best was Donors Choose.org. What a great way to get things for your classroom. The hardest part of Donors Choose is getting the photos of the class. As a library teacher, I consider the whole school my "class", so what do I take a picture of?? I plan on adding a project to see what happens.

#12 - I haven't worked with Rollyo yet. I need to get back to school to get the lists of websites I want to add. I do see how Rollyo can replace with one link, the pages of pathfinders I have creadted over the years.

23 Things to Know about Web 2.0

2009-09-24T09:15:00.001-07:00

Week1 -Thing 2 Life-Long Learning
The hardest thing for me to do as a life-long learner is to find the time to learn. As a commuter, I spend about 1 1/2 hours each day on the road going back and forth to work. At work, I feel guilty about spending time on learning new things & at home I feel guilty about not giving my family my complete attention. I'm overcoming this obstacle by setting aside a set time every day to work on the 23 things. I know the knowledge I gain here will ultimately help my students and so I will not let myself feel guilty about spending 45 minutes a day learning.

Week2 - Things 2&3 - Blogging
So far, setting up the blog was easy. Getting ideas for posting may be harder, however I liked the idea from the Rancho Cucamonga T.L. about starting a school wide blog which includes news from all areas of the school, including the library. Adding the avatar was difficult. The Layout HTML section kept saying that I had a code error. So I finally uploaded it in my profile. Good enough.

Week3-Thing 7 - Anything Techy
I loved exploring Flickr. It offers so much content and it is a great space in which to organize and share your photos. The idea of creative commons is fascinating. This is definitey something that I need to include as part of my research lesson. When you can use others' creations and when you can't. Technology is changing the world so fast; it's a bit scary. Our whole mode of communication is changing & within my lifetime it will have evolved into something I won't even be able to understand. Just this week, I was helping a senior write up his annotated bibliography & I had to remind him when to use a capital letter. Like many in his class, he doesn't use caps alot when he texts and doesn't think to use them when he writes an English paper. Then, this morning at breakfast, my finance told me he had read a news story on the internet that said that many kindegartners and 1st graders aren't learning to print or write cursive, instead, they are learning to keyboard. As much as I love books, I think I see the beginning of the end for ink and paper, and I mourn.

Week 4-Thing 8 RSS Feeds
So far, figuring out RSS feeds has been the most difficult for me. I understand the basic principle but didn't know how to incorporate the information in one central location. I finally get it. The major advantage to RSS feeds is the ability it gives me to be current of advances and events in the library relm without spending a lot of time searching for it. I plan on using it as part of my own professional development. For students, I plan on adding a RSS component to the school's library page, so students can keep current on the things that interest them.

Week 4 - Thing 9 Finding Feeds
The best search web site was definitely Google Blog Search. When I put in search terms like "library", "grants", "education", and "technology", it returned sites that were on topic and informative. One site actually had a place where I could add their link as a widget. Way cool.
The other search sites were confusing and although they had a lot of general topics, had nothing specific to what I wanted. In fact, when I typed in "education" in the Topix.net site, I got back a posting about Kathy Ireland being kicked off Dancing with the Stars. What I've learned through this exercise is that there is just too much information out there. There's no way any one person can keep up with it all, so it's best to clearly choose your goals and focus on what you need.

Hispanic Heritage Month

2009-09-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hispanic Heritage Month began on Sept. 16th (Mexican Independence Day) and ends on Oct. 15th. The LRC is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by showcasing the work of Hispanic authors and artists. Come visit the LRC and try to answer the question of the day. If you get it right, we'll give you a prize!