Thing 16

Teach Digital

Wow.  I found both of these videos to be "eye opening".  We must all take responsibility for how we relate to our students.  But why is it that our young teachers quickly move into this old fashioned way of teaching when they have so recently been a part of the new way thinking and learning in the digital age?  At what point has their creativity been squelched.  We all know that people who become teachers are already a certain type of learner.  Perhaps the creative types don't follow in the teacher path as they feel removed from us.  Not only do we need to teach into the digital learning style, we need to work with teachers in college to foster their development more fully.  I'm wondering how many future Shakespears have roamed the halls of my middle school and were taught to give up their dreams and majored in business instead.  What a sad thought.

Thing 15

Podcasting - Part 2

I think the best place to start is using podcasts that are already out there.  Kids love their MP3 players and IPods.  We can't keep them in their lockers or hidden in their pockets.  What is it that they say?  "If you can't beat them, join them"!  We should embrace this technology instead of making these devices illegal.  So, it's a matter of finding just one teacher in the school to start having the kids listen in on a podcast.  Soon enough, our teachers will start to create classroom podcasts and everyone will be a winner.  I have a science teacher who does a weather report with her classes.  The kids video tape a weather forecast and we show it to the whole school.  Perhaps a weather podcast would be an easy place to start.  I'm going to work on this.

Thing 14

Podcasting
Wow, I like podcasting! I've never created one before but I would like to. First, I looked at Nancy Keane's quick and simple booktalks. http://nancykeane.com/booktalks/podcast_list.htm. This is a great site. Very thorough and each one is quick and simple. All kids would take a listen and choose a book based on her plot detail.  I do a lot of book talking at my school and I find that kids always choose the titles that I talk about.  It takes the scariness out of choosing a book especially when you have to read a genre that is not in your comfort zone.

I also looked at Hopkinton HS book talks.  http://www.hopkintonschools.org/hhs/library/podcast.html.  This was very professional and much more detailed about each book.

I'm going to spend more time looking at these and perhaps I could start my own book talk podcast!

Thing 13

I loved slide.com. I couldn't get into Thumbstacks but I did check out the other three and settled on slide because of the glitz. I had a little trouble following Slide's directions to add into my blog but Ron helped me by pointing out I needed to click Edit html. Maybe someone else will have that problem so use that as a guide. There are so many options out there for really cool presentations that the kids will love.

Thing 12

Productivity anywhere you have a browser

I looked through several of the Web 2.0 tools.  As soon as I saw Library Thing, I joined and started a book list.  Way cool.  I'm embarrassed to say that I keep an old fashioned book journal that I bought at the public library to record what books I read.  This is a neat tool to keep track of what I read.  I can rate the books, see the book cover and get a review.  You can catalog your own collection, too.  I'm a librarian so it's really up my alley!  It says that you can add your list to your blog so I tried to do that but I couldn't find a widget button on Blogger.  I know I have widgets on a word press blog that we're making at school so maybe I'll just put a book list on that blog.

I could use this tool at school, too, by making a list of new titles.

I also checked out Knowtes which makes up flash cards.  I'm a Spanish major so I thought that would be really cool for a language teacher.  Kids would love it and they'd be learning new vocabulary while having fun.

Thanks for the big web 2.0 tool list as I'll be checking more of them out as time goes on.

Thing 11

Online Productivity Applications

Google docs rock!  We had a collaborative meeting at school today - no kids!  The four Media Specialists sat down, opened google docs and created a document that was shared among us without any cumbersome emails.  It really worked and it was easy.  This a great tool for educators.  For example, the SI team is comprised of one person from each department.  Everyone has a different planning hour so meeting all together is a rarity.  If they created their documents on google docs they would be much more efficient.  The possibilities are quite endless.  

By the way, Lee LaFever's video tutorials are super.  I wish I worked with him.  He makes it all look so easy!

Thing 10

Wiki

I started out on Wikispaces and read through many of the tutorials.  I then decided to check out pbwiki.  I liked that one better.  It seemed easier to set up so I guess I have two out there now.  I can see the value of a wiki in the classroom but I need to play around with it quite a bit more to really get a handle on this.  I have hopes of using wikis with the English teachers to start so we'll see.