Thing 23 The Journey Continues...

What does it all mean?

It means the world is changing at a rate that is hard to comprehend. What I do know is that this class was one of the best classes I've taken in a very long time..

How has your thinking changed between Thing 1 and Thing 23?

When I first started this class I had a pretty good idea or so I thought, of what web 2.0 applications meant. What I have learned is that what I knew just scratched the surface of this truly amazing network of very generous and incredibly diverse folks out there world wide who freely give their time, energy, ideas and creativity with the goal of sharing, trading and collaborating with others.

Has this program changed how you view the Internet or how view education in the digital world? What plans have you made for using these tools in and out of the classroom?

One of the great things about this class is the way it consolidated so many examples of how educators are using technology and it is really inspirational. This program gave me many ideas on how I could use wikis, (committee work, collaborative student writing projects, as an organizational tool), it has inspired me to get back to work on my library blogs, and I have learned it's not that intimidating to add RSS feeds, videos, podcasts (though I still need to learn more about creating them). One of the challenges of course will be to figure out how to get around the district filtering system.

How will you continue to learn about Web 2.0 tools? What are your big "take aways" from this experience?

I hope I can keep up with at least some of the blogs and podcasts I subscribed to. I have volunteered to be on the tech team at both my schools. We will be participating in a train the trainer program called Michigan Champions. It should be interesting and it's a good way to force myself to continue to use what I learned and continue to grow. Often we learn things in workshops and in-services but if you don't use it you loose it.

My take away from this experience is that the range and depth of educational resources made available through the web 2.0 network is very much worth the effort. Thanks Jacki and Carol!

Thing 22 Create a Wiki

Post the link to your wiki.
http://dearbornpeacejam.wikispaces.com/
I started this wiki just to try out a few things such as embedding video, pictures, and links but hope to refine it to be used by a group of teachers who will be using the PeaceJam program with students in Dearborn.

Discuss your feelings about using a wiki.
The wikis we were directed to were really wonderful - thanks. They gave me a lot of ideas about how wikis can be used as did the 23 Things wiki with the list of ways they can be used in education. I love the idea of using it to have students create a collaborative book. That would be a fun challenge. I really loved the way the wiki Bookleads was laid out. I'd like to learn how to do that.
http://bookleads.wikispaces.com/
I learned that wikis can be used as a powerful tool for collaboration between teachers and in the classroom.
How does a wiki differ from a blog? When is one more appropriate to use than the other?
I see a blog as directed by one person in terms of how it is set up, the content, and so forth. It is interactive in that others can post responses, and could work really well for creating discussion groups for instance.
The purpose of a wiki is definitely more collaborative. It is meant to be used for a group project of some sort.

Thing 21 Wikis

Describe a wiki you found that inspires you to create one of your own.

The Hanalee Book Wiki done by
5th graders studying the novel, Turn Homeward, Hannalee
http://wiki.woodward.edu/hannalee/doku.php?id=hannalee
It really shows the potential use of a wiki well. It incorporates podcasts of readers theater performances and a civil war song, slideshows of illustrated idioms and objects of items discussed in the novel, and timelines, maps and glossaries.

What hurdles might stand in the way of your using a wiki?

Well, for me a hurdle in using a Wiki like the one mentioned would be to find a teacher to collaborate with in using this technology. This is a great example though, and it sells itself pretty well.

What would it take to remove the hurdles?
Would it be worth it?
It would take time to slog through learning to incorporate the things I learned in this class, but yeah, I think it would be worth it for the experience of doing a collaborative work like this. The nice thing is that as a media teacher who is split between two buildings, I could participate and offer technical assistance and resources on an ongoing basis without physically being in the classroom all the time. The work can take place in the classroom, computer lab and library or even at home.

Thing 20 Finding and Subscribing to Podcasts

Include in your post the name of at least one podcast to which you subscribed.

I subscribed to some NPR programming shows I like but don't get to listen to much because they air during the day. They include This American Life which is wonderful story telling and Fresh Air which has interviews with a broad range of people, Wait, Wait, don't Tell Me a very funny news and entertainment show, and NPR Technology reports.

Describe your experience using the various search tools.
As someone who is new to podcasting, I found the search tools EPN and PostcastAlley to be a little frustrating and overwhelming. I wished they had a way of ranking by popularity or recommendations so I didn't have to search through, click on the title to get the little description, then actually have to download something to see if it was interesting. A quick preview was all I was really looking for at this point to see if it would be something I'd like to subscribe to. There were so many podcasts to explore (and so little time...).

I liked Postcast Alley, and subscribed to the Storynory podcast and Just One More Book.

Which do you prefer and why?

I'm glad I know about the other search tools now and will probably use them when looking for something very specific to libraries or education, but iTunes was easier and I'm a visual person, so I kind of like to see the pictures. That sounds kind of dumb, like judging a book by it's cover, but I find it appealing. It's more interesting than looking at long lists of titles of podcasts. One of the things Apple does so well is to make it's applications user friendly and visually appealing. It's also convenient to keep all the podcasts in one place.

Thing 19 Podcasting

Which podcasts did you find interesting?
(Be sure to include links in your blog entry to the podcasts mentioned.)

Just One More Book
http://feeds.feedburner.com/JustOneMoreBook
Storynory
http://storynory.com/


Identify one or two podcasts and describe how you would use them in your work.

Just One More Book is a fun source for book reviews that is searchable by topic, audience,(age group), discussions, format (picture book, chapter book, etc.), illustrations, and even values (i.e. acceptance, forgiveness, honesty etc.). This would be useful for keeping up on new publications, and also as a resource for questions from teachers about book recommendations. If they were looking for a book for a reading prompt on Honesty, for instance, I could check this site for ideas.

Storynory is a free site for audio stories for kids. I could show this site to students and teachers to use in class, at home, or to supplement the literacy program. It would also be useful for genre studies.

Thing 18 Slideshare

What did you like about the presentation you embedded?

This is a decent library advocacy slideshow that would be good to use as inspiration to create one for our district. It discusses the current state of access to certified Media Specialists (Teacher/Librarians) in PA, where the situation is a bit worse than in our district (for the moment), but it could provide a vision of what it would be like if such a valuable resource was cut.

How might Slideshare be useful in the classroom? out of the classroom?
I could see it being useful. Hopefully I can find some work related slideshows that I could use in my library class. Just poking around I found some good examples to show when teaching kids how to create PowerPoints. The nice thing about this site is that there are lots of very slick and professional looking slideshows available. As a PowerPoint creator I know how time consuming they can be. I'm always looking for ways to avoid re-inventing the wheel.

School Libraries & Equity: An Advocacy Presentation

View more presentations from joycevalenza.

23 Things Links to application sites

23 Things Links to application sites

A useful link provided by Hagrid23 - thanks!

Thing 17 Online Productivity

Give a review of the tool you explored - what worked, what didn't work, how might it be used in your personal or professional life?

I explored and joined Library Thing. What a fun site. It had a Book Talk section, an Author Chat, Early book Reviews, special interest groups to join such as Librarians who Library Thing that had over 6500 members. As a librarian, being in contact with online communities like this enhance both my personal and professional life. It great to have a place to share ideas and information that's interactive. It's another resource to help keep me up on what is current, what others are thinking and reading.

Thing 16 Google Docs

How might you use this tool in your personal and professional life?

This would be very useful for committee work as follow up to a meeting or in place of one. I could also see using this with other media specialists to share information. I would work great for instance in creating collaborative book lists, suggested reading lists by grade etc.

What issues come to mind about using this tool with students (ie, they need email addresses to log-in)?
I think it would be great to use this with students but as you point out, having email accounts is a problem with elementary. However, I noted your comment about the work around for this using a teacher generated email which they could access. I'll have to look into this in our district.

Thing 15 RSS Revisited

Is RSS becoming easier to understand?
I'm getting there.
Do you recognize new benefits of using this tool?
I think as I start using it more often, I will see the benefits.
Do you remember to check your feeds regularly?
Not yet. It's a good idea to have "rss revisited " as part of the course. I went through my feeds today and they were very interesting.
Has it become a habit (or obsession!) yet?
No. I think this is part of the challenge of becoming web 2.0 literate. We must get in the habit of truly incorporating these tools in our every day lives.

Thing 14 Delicious

Include your Delicious username in this blog post so that others can view the bookmarks that you have chosen to share.

My username is lemenum.

Reflect on how you think social bookmarking can be used in your teaching.

I'm anxious to see if I can access delicious from our school network. I have a feeling it might be blocked. Anything with the potential for something inappropriate to slip through is blocked. it's frustrating that even the teachers are blocked from using these wonderful social networking tools. Well, that's my rant for the day... maybe I'll go back to school and find this one is available.
Anyway, if we look at it at home, the potential for sharing resources within a building, the district and of course beyond are really great. It's just a matter of organizing and training teachers to use it.

Does Delicious seem to be a tool that can enhance your productivity?

It could certainly be a time saver. I have lost so many good bookmarks when the district has come in over the summer and whipped our computers to "start clean" or load new operating systems. I used to email myself links and put them into folders in order have access to them at home and at work. This is much easier, and with multiple tags, I should be able to retrieve sites more quickly.

Thing 13 Social Bookmarking

Share your thoughts about tagging. Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why?
Tagging is very useful of course for finding resources again. It's nice because it's a keyword search and there are so many possibilities in the way you can categorize them.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages?
The fact that there are so many different terms people can use to categorize is both an advantage and a disadvantage. You never know what terms other people might use to classify a topic. I guess that's where multiple tags comes in.

What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?
I think you want to make sure to use multiple tags so it can be useful as a social networking tool and go beyond using labels only you might think about.

One of the things that interests me the most about all the web 2.0 applications we have learned about so far is the generous nature of all the contributors to freely share ideas and information with each other. It's pretty amazing.

One or two more...

Thing 12 widgets

Review the widget you selected.

I like both the google widgets. They were very easy to embed and it's handy to have a quote of the day and vocabulary word to check or post on the whiteboard daily.
I included the others so I would remember some of the variety of widgets available. The finger spelling widget is pretty cool. I work at a school that includes several deaf and hard of hearing students who use sign. This could be very useful. The Voki widget is just pure fun. I'm sure my students would enjoy this one.

Are you getting comfortable with embedding code?

yes, it's pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

Do you belong to other online communities?

I also belong to Facebook. It's been amazing how many old friends have found me. It's fun even if I don't do a lot of posts, I can look in now and then at what others post. My daughter light heartedly calls it cyber-stalking...

Are relationships formed online as meaningful as face-to-face relationships?

It's hard for me to see it being any where near as meaningful, but perhaps that is just because I am new at using social networks and the practice is not an integral part of my life. I think for avid users, it could be quite meaningful. It's just another way to communicate with others.

Why do you think MySpace and other social networking sites are so popular with kids today?

Using technology to communicate is something that is totally normal to them, since many of them are growing up with it. I sometimes marvel at the need many have to communicate the minutia of their lives and the apparent need to be in contact 24-7.











The definition of the day and quote of the day are google widgets.





Get a Voki now!

Thing 11 : Community

What do you like / dislike about leaving comments?

When you leave a comment on blogs it does help you to feel connected to other people because it opens the possibility for a conversation. It is an interactive form of reading. That makes it fun.

How did you feel when you received your first comment?

It was nice to know that someone out there was actually reading what I was writing.

Why do you think commenting is so important in online communities?

Because it provides an opportunity to share ideas and we become less isolated because of it.

What might this mean for students who share their writing online?

I think if they know others will read what they write they might put a little more effort into it. In this case, peer pressure is a good thing.

The links below would be good to share with students. I think guidelines like these are helpful.

Lifehacker's Guide to Weblog Comments

How to Write Intelligent Comments on Blogs

Thing 10 - Embed and download video

This video is called Self Portraits by Philip Scott Johnson [500 Years of Male Self Portraits in Western Art]
It's a wonderful piece of art history and a very good example of a well done morph. It was super easy to embed this video on my blog. Too bad I still won't be able to access it on the district network.



This video shows balloon sculptures done by Jason Hackenwerth. I met him up in Traverse City last week at the Traverse City Film Festival. His pieces were truly amazing!

I was able to download videos using Keepvid with no problem. I'm still a bit unclear about the difference between embedding a video and uploading one onto my blog in terms of fair use practices.

Thing 9 : You Tube

What do you like or dislike about YouTube? Did you find videos that would be useful for teaching and learning? Is YouTube restricted in your building?

Thanks for showing me the variety of things available on you tube. I knew there is a wealth of instructional videos but I hadn't realized what an archive it was for historical TV and film clips . I really loved the Women in Art morph. Lovely. As with Flickr, I really wish we could access it freely in our school district. It is such a tremendous resource. Of course I'm aware of the vast array of material on it that is not appropriate, but I wish teachers could at least access it. In Dearborn, we can upload you tube videos onto our district's video site, but it has to be done from home, and it is kind of cumbersome.

Thing 8 Fun with images in Flickr

In the same post in which you placed your creation, briefly describe your experience completing Thing 8. Which of these tools intrigues you and why? Was it easy, frustrating, time-consuming, fun? Share some of your ideas for using the images you can create.

All the photo tools I tried were fun, I like the trading cards. I think this would be a fun project to use with my students creating trading cards of their favorite books and writing mini reviews of them to trade with others in the class. It was pretty easy to do as long as the picture was already turned the right way - at first I used one that needed to be rotated, and the editing capabilities are limited (including size of font and layout).





The pop art option was very easy and so was the ID card. I had trouble uploading the fake magazine cover. I got an error message that said the picture was corrupt. I'll have to play around with that one more another time.