ITEC 2365-Chapter 10 Specific Tools

Wow, there is a lot to cover in this chapter so I will first talk about the tools I have used and then talk about the tools I will be using in the future.So in the past I have used or I am currently using Delicious, Google Earth, Google Forms & RSS feeds, Moodle, Skype, Webspirations and Wordle.

Delicious, Moodle and the Google one were all part of various classes I took while I was in grad school. I still use Delicious and Google Earth for personal use, in fact I was originally going to a Google Earth screen shot as part of my vodcast, but it ended up on the editing floor. I actually also used Webspiration when it was still Inspiration and not web based for concept maps that I also used for various classes. It was one of the first Web 2.0 tools I used and then introduced to my students and we used it for a variety of activities. One of my student who had autism pretty much created a concept map daily and really used it as a mean of communication with others.

Delicious and RSS feeds are the tools I use and recommend to my students most frequently, although I get many "why would I use that" faces when I try to give them an idea of how helpful they can be. I hope that when I encourage using Evernote I won't get the same response, since I think this will be a great tool  for college student as they work on their various research project over a semester.

The other two that I think might be beneficial for my students are Netvibes and WizIQ. For Netvibes the advantage of only checking one website will be invaluable not only for me who checks a dozen or so sites on a daily basis, but for students who do the same thing. Everyday I see student come in a check a handful of various site before they begin working on homework, so the time saving and time management aspects will be priceless for them to utilize. As for WizIQ  being able to meet with student who may miss the one-shot session in an asynchronous manner will hopefully be able to reach a larger group than trying to cover 50+ minutes of content in multiple one-on-one sessions.

It appears that many of these services are either free or very low cost and for teachers who have to use their own funds or have to make decisions on how the spend their allocated funds over a year and still utilize web 2.0 technologies. I am already working on a slide for Evernote as part of my research sessions and want to get it on all library computers as soon as tech services can do it. I have also created my Netvibes account using my facebook login so that they are already connected. I am excited to see how much time it saves me each morning.

ITEC 2365-Chapter 9 The Future of the Web-Where to Next?

So what does the future hold, none of us really know and with so many people just trying to stay even semi-current (like me and my family) are we really ready to move forward. The main thought as I read this chapter is we are really very close to Web 3.0. They may not have it ready for everyday users but a few months ago I watched as IBM put their WATSON computer up against two very smart men and win. WATSON specializes in analyzing natural human language and answering complex questions. In other words, it’s really good at Jeopardy or a "Semantic Web" (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/13/ibm-watson-takes-jeopardy-champs/)

So with this being the case we are not there when it come to a  personalized device but the technology is here. Even as I think how long we have been talking about Web 2.0,  which was only 3-5 years ago when that  was more like Web2.2 and now we are at Web 2.8 as far as what is being used on a daily basis in so many educational facilities. Just look at what we have utilized in this class with the mobile technologies and devices. They even spent a significant amount in this chapter talking about implementing these very tools. I loved the students comments on page 157 that showed a renewed enthusiasm for learning and isn't that what all teachers really want to see in their students.

It really goes back to the Shift Happens data, we can't just give them the content because it may be obsolete before they even enter the real world. So we must give them the 21st century skills that allow them to navigate through these content gliches so that they can have success in the future.

I think the final thought of the chapter will make us all happy; with the invention of all of these learning tools  just being a means to accomplish tasks and that teachers will remain the designers of curriculum and ultimately responsible for student learning. I think this is the main idea I have learned throughout my time in this class, I have new and advanced ways to teach students but I am still responsible for them learning to learn.

ITEC 2365-Chapter 8 Wikis

So a couple days ago I thought I would not learn anything from the chapter on social networking, but I was excited to learn more about wikis. Well this was the chapter I didn't get a lot out of. I have been using wikis for about 6-7 years now and I think I have participate in simillar examples to many given in the book.

I had them in almost every class in grad school as we developed various library policies and presentations. We currently use them in Hay Library for database statistics, collection development and policy and procedure development.I use them, I love them, I will continue to use them in the future.

Heck I am even a librarian who reccommends using Wikipedia in your intial researach , especially when you have little knowledge on the basics of any given subject. Even better use the provided links to lead you to the various "acceptable" resources and go on from there. I even attended a session at ACRL last April that was encouraing librarians to add links to their collections (especially unique and special collections). This not only increases trafffic to your library websites but allows an international audience to view and utilize your the publicly accessible parts of your collection from anywhere.

I think a maybe 1 or 2 writing faculty have used wikis for various writing assignments although I think each student must ultimately submit their own work as well as copies where other have made changes. I also liked that it cautioned users/teachers on the bottom of page 137 about just creating individual works and then piecing them together like a quilt. This occurred initially in a couple of groups while I was in grad school, I  definitely felt the difference in the final products. YEAH WIKIS!!!!!

ITEC 2365-chapter 7 Virtual Environments

So I have spent the past three hours trying to create my avatar in Second Life. At this point the launcher keeps crashing so I guess I will post and see if it works later this evening. Honestly I am in a bit of a quandary on the subject of virtual environments. I participate on Facebook with an avatar while I play Farmville and Treasure Hunt, as well as have one I have for when I play game on Pogo. I do change my appearance of my Pogo avatar to match the seasons, but in general I have kept it close to my own personal style and tastes. Hopefully I can create something in Second Life that I can use to participate in the various virtual librarian and teacher islands that exist there.

As for integrating virtual realitiies into my teaching this may be a technology that I pass on at the current time. I think I may be with the group mentioned early in the chapter who don't see a huge benefit to this technology, but I like that it was pointed out  on the top of page 120 that '...higher education loudly proclimed that the internet was of no practical use..." So far with all the other technologies I can see some practical learning application for me as I tech about using the library, even the Bee Bots are useful in this setting. The one point I will contend is it does allow for creativty and can give voice to people who may be often overlooked.

For some reason I keep coming back to the character in a young adult novel that I am reading, she has had the opportunity to move every six months so she has changed "personality" and even varied her name to go with that persona. This character has also befriend someone who although she may be outgoing has not been accepted  and just asking her to join her group of friend one day at lunch they have learned all of her cool abilities and experiences that have fit nicely with her new peer group.

The reason I mention these characters is one, I think this idea of changing ones "personality" to match new surrounding has become main stream with the inclusion of the characters that can be created in the various virtual realiaties. The other thought would be an idea how to possibly implement virtual realities into a class would be to have students create a character for a short story utilizing this technology.

I know my niece is very active in the Webkins site and even registered a couple of my daughters plush animals on the site, but I had never really identified it as a full virtual world. I also see many variations on the multiple children's channels so I know that they are heavily used especially for that tween age group, so I can see the need to integrate them in the future . Hopefully by then a smarter librarian than me can figure out a way to use this as part of their instruction, and share it with my second life me.

ITEC 2365-Chapter 3 Podcasts and Vodcasts

So like it said podcasts/vodcasts are the most utilized Web 2.0 tools and this is definitely something I have used and used often. As I was teaching students with special needs before I had not attempted to create one myself or with my students. This being said I was an avid supporter of vodcasts since a couple of  my students had hearing deficiencies, it was frustrating to find what I thought were vodcasts and discover that they were in essence podcasts but I became very resourceful at weeding them out quickly.

We used them to supplement our "NEWS 2 YOU" http://news2you.n2y.com/ curriculum so we were working with current events as the topic. They also had one or two pages news stories that they ran at various times during the week and this allowed us to find even more links to worldwide events. My students were then able to stay current with what was going on in the world but since the same format was used each week and they included things such math skills, punctuation, handwriting, etc which were predictable but, they were adapted to match the weekly topic. When I was looking for the link to share with you here I had forgotten because we did not use it, that an audio "podcast" was available for students as part of the program to have the paper read to them. Most of my students could read at very low levels so we encouraged them to read as much as possible. That is why that technology was not used, had I been teaching younger students that would have been a very useful tool.

Now as a librarian, I utilize podcasts/vodcasts more for professional development needs, specifically on the various databases as they continually upgrade their various services. I think if I was teaching more on a full-time basis and not just the one shot sessions I could see my self encouraging my students to create and develop their own podcasts/vodcasts. Which was why I really liked the figure in page 60 and the Five Easy Steps for Creating Podcasts on page 61. I also loved the example of having the teachers creating a podcast about their lives and what represents them. I followed the path given in the book to view Mrs. Britt's introduction. I am wondering what software she used since she had a pictorial slide show with music in the background and her giving audio highlights over that.

I would love to create something similar for my weekly technology assignment but would need a little direction in order to make it happen. So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I might be able to put together something using the interactive whiteboards when we work tomorrow but it I don't know if we  will have the time to create it during class and I might be in trouble. I am thinking that I may compile my slide show before class tomorrow and see what I can do then.

I find it very exciting that this would/could be a possibility since I really want to gain the skill in the various technologies that we are discussing in class not only as a librarian/educator but as a parent so that I can support my children as they learn using these invaluable resources and tools.

ITEC 2365 Chapter 2 microblogs-twitter summary

Wow, I had know idea so many educators were using Twitter in their classrooms or to connect with others. I knew that you could only us 140 characters, and I am glad they gave a bit of an explanation as to how people accomplish this,especially with links. What I didn't know was that there are other microblogs besides twitter, such as edmondo, posterous and plurk. Even more amazing was the Twitter4Teachers that connects teachers and allows you to join or create an online community of teachers.

I do have a twitter account that I created back in April while I was at a library conference, so that I could tweet about the conference,I have no idea even now if it worked. I tried back then to access any of the basic how-to guides the one that  I found most helpful was the Newbie's Guide to Twitter by Rafe Needleman http://news.cnet.com/newbies-guide-to-twitter/ but again I really had no idea if my tweets are getting out there.

Other than these couple of occasions I really have not followed through with learning to tweet which is why I really appreciated the inclusion of Laura Walker's Nine Reasons to Twitter. I especially liked that the lists
focus was teachers and it gave some ideas how to limit and/or expand my teaching community by using this tool. The two that I found most helpful were numbers 3-Self-awareness and Reflective Practice and 4-Ideas Workshop and Sounding Board. Here is a community that can support and challenge you and I love the idea that someone who you have never met and may never meet can give you advice and support your decisions with just a simple well constructed thought. Which was also why using the world-wide teaching community to workshop through any teaching and learning experiences appealed greatly to me.

I mentioned in my post on blogging that I came from a very collaborative model, and was supported in a multitude of ways, but when I became a full-time librarian in a small academic library with only one additional professional librarian for support I have felt lonely at times. I have used facebook to stay in contact with others who I went through my library program with but all of them had been working as librarians for most of their professional lives, I was a true newbie. I could have connected with either people who were moving out of public education into higher ed or other really new librarians who were having similar experiences to mine.

In addition to the personal support twitter my offer I can also be an additional support to my students as they become frustrated with the research process. By using Twitter they can have access to my feed without really invading my personal space (like having my home number) and still get the assistance they need although I may not be at the reference desk at that exact moment.

The two main reasons my husband and I were not on twitter was first we thought it could only be done on cellphones (which we didn't have until 2 months ago) and the issue of the GPS tracking using the tweets. Problem one is now resolved, and I waffle a little bit on the being able to locate my whereabouts using my mobile devices. I see both sides of this as a mom I like it, having the ability to know the location of my family members and them mine, BUT (yes it is a big but) I like my anonymity which was why we went so long without mobile devices in the first place. Just like my sister-in-law and I were discussing last week with two small children having a little time to your self can be an impossibility, and when people are following or you are following them with this technology that time can become even more nonexistent. This jury is still out, maybe if I can get better at using the microblog/twitter technology some of my fears will be eliminated, but until that time I may wait to integrate this technology into my professional life.

ITEC 2365-Chapter 1 Blog Summary

So I figured since we want as much hands-on experience as possible for this class, why not create a blog and then summarize what I learned in the chapter.  So for this summary I want to discuss  three things that really got me thinking in this chapter.

FYI the book is Web 2.0 How-to for Educators written by Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum to purchase from Amazon see here...
http://www.amazon.com/Web-2-0-How-Gwen-Solomon/dp/156484272X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1307386395&sr=1-1

1.I love the collaboration idea for students to be able to comment on each other creative writing prompts.

2.I also liked that rules were given as well as a grading assessment for teachers using blogs

3.The Quote on page 26-"Blogs are a 21st-century method of communication. When students know they are writing for an audience wider than just their teacher, they tend to be more thoughtful about their writing. In addition, we felt it was important for our students to learn and recognize the difference between a social blog and a professional blog. Students were encouraged to use academic writing and part of their grade depended on the use of correct grammar and spelling."

So first I hated writing prompts when I was in school and I never felt like much time was given to them by the teacher, but by creating blogs and doing essentially the same thing you giving the opportunity for even greater feedback. It has the real world applications and when given the opportunity to blog, knowing that peers and others will be viewing your posts, I think there becomes a greater intuitive need to watch things such as grammar and spelling, because we know what peers thinks often has a greater impact than what your teachers think.

With that being said any I believe that any opportunity for student to collaborate in any form is a wonderful learning tool. When I taught in middle school we were on a collaborative model, which meant on Wednesdays the student got out of school early and we were expected to meet in various assigned groups. So one week you may meet with those teachers in the same discipline and then those teaching the same grade. We also had interdisciplinary teams who coordinated when and what was being taught across all subjects. I truly loved this experience, not only did I see the benefits for the students but having a first-year teacher working with a 30-year veteran teacher you saw collegiality at it's finest. I also saw this modeled for students and that is a skill that they can take into the workforce and personal live now and in their futures. So the simple idea of using collaborative feedback in many disciplines give them a life-long skill that will make them even more prepared for the 21st century.

On to item number two, we have all experienced as teachers that frustration of figuring out how we want and need to grade assignments, and giving the example on page 30 on how to assess a students blog was priceless. It give the basics of what to look for not only on the students writing ability but how well they are understanding the content as well. As part of my 50-minute one shot session on library research I use Bloom's taxonomy and give them a handout containing the verb or actions that many be given as part of an assignment or test question. Ironically "blogging" fall into three of the categories, on the lower order thinking end it falls under comprehension/understanding, which is the level where most bloggers work but, it can and should fall under the higher order thinking skills of Evaluate/Evaluating and even higher Synthesizing/Creating. If would could have students really evaluating thing and then create at this higher levels of thinking we are giving then a skill that they can use in everything they do and everything they can become.

Finally the amazing quote which was originally from Fern Entrekin who is the Learning Technologies Coordinator for the Milton Hershey School in August 2009. Blogs really have become a great method of communication in the 21st century, and giving students the opportunity to work with this format they may acquire a skill that gets them a job over someone who hasn't had this experience.

My final thought throughout the discussion and reading today was how much time do we devote to learning older technologies that have become obsolete. I remember my 90+ year old aunt telling me about the hours she had to spend working on her penmanship in school. Mine is not too bad my husbands is horrible, but he has a good point, anything that is of importance will be typed anyway. If we really want to have our students be successful in the 21st century we have to give them the tools that will make them successful in the 21st century.