Thing 15 - Libraries and games

Second Life is an amazing world and I think it does have a place in the world of education and in the world of libraries. I looked at few different YouTube videos in regard to Second Life and education. In terms of the world of education, second life is a wonderful opportunity for students to experience the world of periods from long ago. An example shown is where the person's avatar visits the Elizabethan Era. I think this would be an excellent learning tool with a different avenue in presenting history, literature, or science. I know that www.exploratorium.org uses Second Life to allow you to experience a solar eclipse from Turkey as well as other out of this world experiences!

Thing 14 - Library Thing

I think Library Thing is a wonderful tool to help students and teachers find books based on reviews, tags/subjects, ratings and other options. At this time, we provide suggestions based on personally read books as well as reading lists for particular classes. This tool offers insight to books that my assistants and I have not read, but others have. This tool offers suggestions to students who are reluctant readers as well as keeping students reading who have trouble finding books they like. This tool would be great to design a MHS teen list of books read and recommended by MHS students. What a great way to promote reading but by your own peers.

Thing 13 - Online Productivity Tools

Ok, I tried the flash countdown time generator, but it doesn't seem to work. I am missing something, but cannot seem to figure out what.

I like IGoogle's format and interface for a customized homepage along with widgets to choose from. My favorite is famous optical illusions:)

I prefer the online calendar I use from Outlook Express. I'd probably consider the google calendar if I didn't use the one from Outlook Express.

Remember the milk looks like a great tool for me! I love lists and carry a stickee note pad in my purse so I can remember things when I am on the go!

Wow! I can't wait to try Zamzar at school. Hopefully it will not be blocked by the filter. Frequently student send documents to themselves via an email account such as Yahoo! or Hotmail, but the file type at home is different than that at school and doesn't allow them to access the document. Fortunately many teachers are aware of this and have given students an extra day to turn in the assignment, but hopefully Zamzar could be a solution for this problem.

Thing 12 - Do You Digg it?

http://letsplaymath.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/happy-pi-day-2008/

I have to link this fantastic resource and celebration of Pi Day! I added my "two cents worth" to this article too. I actually learned about Pi Day from Science Friday on public radio. The next best thing I can offer since my school district filters block web 2.0 tools is to present articles or web sites on a weekly newsletter for the high school.

I will use these tools at home. After looking at the four listed (Mixx, Digg, Newsvine, Reddit), I prefer the presentation and organization of Newsvine or Mixx the best. I didn't like Reddit at all, it did not appeal to me. I also liked the format and presentation of StumbleUpon. The one reason I liked this format is that it isn't all written by "just anybody" but articles are also written by journalists, such as MSNBC.

Thing 11 - Tagging and del.icio.us

I can see how tagging helps to sort or organize things according to that tag or label. I also like the opportunities of del.icio.us to help research and keep organized the sites I find helpful or informative.

Unfortunately, we are not able to access del.icio.us because of filter restrictions. At this time, students do not have access to web 2.0 sites except in a couple of business classes the teachers teach using blogs.

Thing 10 - Learn about wikis

Wikis are another wonderful collaborative tool. I enjoyed looking at the pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system. I was fascinated to find information in the geneology area about my mom's family. She is originally from this area. I also found the The Blogging Libraries Wiki fascinating, especially Valley View Middle School's blogging wiki with all of the book reviews. This is a great idea for school media centers! Finally MN150 wiki is a great tool to share about Minnesota's history.

I completely understand why high school teachers ban Wikipedia from student research. Many students do not evaluate the information that they read on the internet. They are not really critical users of the internet. Students need to be introduced to reliable sources and learn how ti evaluate internet sites before using sources like Wikipedia which may or may not have accurate information for research.

I edited 23 things on a stick wiki.

Thing 9 - Collaboration

My school district currently only allows students to access to email accounts such as Yahoo or Hotmail. Students are constantly saving documents from home that are not able to be opened at school because of different versions of Word. Students also are often sharing computer passwords in order to work collaboratively on projects. I can see how Google Docs would be a great tool to alleviate these problems. I have tried both Zoho Writer and Google Docs, but do not have a preference at this time. I hope to play with both more to determine which one I feel is more user friendly.
The K-8 media specialist and I plan to revise the Media Center Policy and Procedure Manual next year. I can see how these collaborative tools would be great to work on this together as well as being a time saving tool to accomplish this task.

Sadie

Thing 8 Share your creations

Thing 8 is fun! This would be great to use personally but also at school to post photos from activities on the district web page. I can see using the eFolios both professionally and to help students prepare a "resume" via eFolio for careers classes or college applications.
I used PictureTrail and felt is was user friendly. I'd use it again and recommend it to others because they provide so many creative options for displaying photos in fun ways. I plan to further investigate databases at another time.

Thing 7 - Communication

1. Email-The 5 fast email productivity tips article is a great reminder. I hear teachers complain that they have too many emails to read or respond to and they wonder how we all survived before email was a part of lives in terms of communication. I think a reminder of how we can manage our email helps to harness email to a productive tool rather than a time consumer. In terms of how email is used in the MHS media center, I do contact teachers to send students with overdue materials to the media center, but I do not contact students since students do not have email access in our district.


2. Instant Messaging-
2a- The problem I see at this time for me using IM is the language. I am not up to speed on the "short-hand" aspect to instant messaging other than LOL or a few other common terms. I'm sure if I used IM frequently, I would learn fast. As for using it at school, I am not sure that our district is ready for IM at this time. Change is slow.
2b- The article IM Me presents a fascinating perspective to consider with reference services and IM. As mentioned above in 2a, I am not sure that my school district is ready for this yet. I am currently collecting data to determine a need for virtual reference.
2c-I am in the process of setting up an IM account at school. I'll write more when I've played with it for a while.


3. Text Messaging
At this time is not allowed in school. I do not see a need for this in the district yet because of the policies in place. Personally, I haven't gotten the hang of text messaging. This will be something else to try.


4. Web Conferencing
I have experienced web conferencing or webinars through Minitex and enjoyed what I've participated in. I think this is definitely another change or paradigm shift in professional development and learning for students. As more and more people turn to online learning, webinars or web conferencing is a wonderful tool. One webinar I participated in was the Gale virtual references webinar. I am not collecting data as to how often our reference materials are used to determine a year from now what reference materials I should weed and whether I can afford virtual references.

Read On

Thing 6 - Online Image Generator

I am having fun with these new tools! Lots of ideas for using this one such as teaching presentations using Powerpoints and announcements on Tiger TV through the local cable channel that is shown in school and throughout the community on the cable TV channels.

Thing 5 - More Flickr Fun

I think these creative tools would be awesome to use in schools and in the media center. Some great ideas for using the Mashup tools might include using them to promote the MHS reading incentive program, posters promoting Read Across America or I love to Read Month, and promoting new library books. These tools could also be used to promote other events or activities school wide.