#17 Week 7

We’ve created a wiki for the eighth graders for their critical essay on the Thirteen Colonies.  The wiki allows students to work collaboratively, dividing up the data collection and preliminary analysis.  All the students contribute to the wiki, and then they all have access to the complete collection of information.  This approach is especially helpful to the students with learning disabilities, enabling them to include much more content in their essays.  Teachers found that discussions and student essays were much more detailed and thoughtful. 

It was helpful to see the wikis that Beach school has set up and to discuss how teachers and teacher librarians were using wikis for professional purposes.

Week 6, Thing 15

Well, after exploring Delicious, Technorati, etc. with my teacher librarian buddies, I think I would use Del.icio.us primarily to see what sites other people have tagged on topics, especialy for research units.  For sharing sites with our students, I still think creating pathfinders for specific units on our library site is a better approach.  I would probably share any “gems’ I come across with the Del.icio.us community.  Using grade levels as tags is helpful for retrieving curriculum related sites.

#8 (Week 4) RSS Feeds

Well, it took me an hour and a half, but I finally understand what an RSS Feed is and have successfully added the requisite five feeds to my Google Reader account.  I chose several NY Times sites, Science News, School Library Journal’s 5 and up feed and the Learning 2.0.   I liked that I could select a specific focus within a publication.  I hope the book review feed will keep me more up-to-date and reduce the guilt inflicted by stacks of print School Library Journals.  Now I need to figure out how to link the Google Reader to my Shortimer blog.   Apologies to my library colleagues for not getting to weeks 5 and 6 as assigned.

#7 (Week 3)

We have acquired flip video cameras for our middle school library.  We plan to use them for book promotion and curriculum research projects.  For example, our eighth grade students produce a weather news show for the culmination of their storm research.  With the flip video, they will be able to video live action (staged) dramatic weather events or to stand in front of streaming video of a blizzard on a white board or smart board.   Uploading and combining the video clips to our LAN is easy, and kids will be able to project their shows in their classrooms.  Now we just have to figure out how to dry the kids off after they simulate a torrential downpour!

Masters Swimming Start

Masters Swimming Start

Originally uploaded by Masters Swimming Team Virginia

Here I am diving into Web 2.0!   Looks like a belly flop!

Week 1, Thing 2: Goals & Challenges

In working through Web 2.0 this summer with my teacher librarian colleagues, my goal is to learn enough skills to collaborate with classroom teachers to create engaging, motivating, meaningful activities for students.  I also hope to grow a few brain cells.

The biggest challenge for me is having enough confidence to persevere and to believe that I can actually make strides in something technological.  I’m counting on the  support of my colleagues, and the fact that I’m very other directed, to keep me going.  I’m grateful to the other teacher librarians in my district for agreeing to meet several times this summer to participate in the Web 2.0 training.  Friendship and food are great motivators!

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