Spartans Read!

Wikis ~ Week7#16&17

2009-04-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

It took me a while to decide how to authentically explore the idea of wikis. I didn't want to create a fake wiki and have it hanging out in cyberspace like a delinquent teen whose parents have lost interest. So when my juniors were reading George Orwell's 1984, it was the perfect opportunity for me to experiment with this social networking format while teaching students the advantages (anyone can edit the content) and drawbacks (anyone can edit the content) of such a tool. First, I posted an idea and asked students to define and comment on it. Students enjoyed experimenting with the social aspect of the assignment, but only a few took the actual assignment seriously. Since this was their first encounter with contributing to a wiki, I felt students learned a lot about the process but not much about the intended content lesson.
The next time students edited the 184 wiki, they were asked to view a video and read articles relating to personal privacy and join two discussion threads. This structure seemed to work better in the confines of a class period spent in the computer lab. Students were less infatuated with the idea of chatting with their neighbors and adhered to the assignment.
For the final wiki-related assignment, students were given 4 days to access the wiki which offered two questions which they were to answer and using the notification feature of the site send their responses to me. Because of the previous in-class trainings, all students were able to access the questions on wiki and electronically send the answer to me.
The experience taught me a lot about the potential for use of the wikis in the classroom. My hope was that students would appreciate the digital format that allowed them to experiment with a new type of technology tool that they will definitely encounter beyond high school.
The address of the wiki is http://1984rbhs.wikispaces.com/.

The Future of Libraries ~ Week6#15

2008-07-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

These articles give great perspectives on the future of libraries in relation to technology while updating definitions and revising paradigms. When Rick Anderson talks about the "just in case" collection it reminded me of a conversation I had with a social studies teacher who suggested that the majority of the school library's budget be spent to buy fiction to support the English department's SSR program and let the internet support non-fiction needs. Anderson's comments validated this idea as students want access to all materials and not only those in print. Many older teachers still have their students choose a certain number of print sources, but tech savvy students go to Amazon, copy the bibliographical information for a book to meet the requirement without ever purchasing, checking out, opening or touching the book.

Last year the library moved to a newly renovated library media center and it was the perfect opportunity to change its image. In addition to 70 computers, we have a mulimedia classroom that is used by school and community groups. But the biggest realization wasn't the stuff that was in the new building, but the resources (me) that always said yes to a project and pursued a way to get it done, never said no to a group who wanted to use the facility and juggled schedules to get it to work (most of the time), and time spent researching new technology (often through this Web 2.0 exploration) to help teachers and students get the most out of the "stuff" we had.

This year I proposed to my principal that our teachers work through the 23 things on our minimum day Monday inservice days. So I will start by showing the video "A Vision of K-12 Students Today" http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d1296214afd7cc367045 to inspire my teachers to want to become more technoliterate to facilitate learning in their 21st century classrooms. Even as we are in the midst of Library 2.o, we need to prepare our students for the "experience" of Library 4.0 as previewed by Dr. Wendy Schultz in her article.

Technorati ~ Week6#14

2008-07-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

Technorati is a way to create an index of for your favorite blogs through tagging, help other users find your blog through tagging, or search blogs by tags. Many of the sites used for this exploration are blocked by our school's firewall. This realization is a step in the process of revising the view of the Internet as a world wide socializing tool and not a nifty new typewriter that makes white out obsolete, a dictionary that is never outdated and weighs less, or a quicker way to send photos and messages to friends and family that doesn't require licking a postage stamp.

Del.icio.us ~ Week6#13

2008-07-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

Del.icio.us is a great way for students to organize their research resources. As a pre-research activity, students can preview resources and tag them for future use by themselves or others. This activity in itself would help students categorize information and improve their search skills by broadening their vocabulary of likely related tags. Because it is like creating an index in a reference book, students would more clearly understand the purpose of this highly underused resource. Students will sometimes look to the table of contents, most often flip through the pages, but seldom search the index for key words or names. This would be the first step in annotating resources which is a necessary skill in becoming information literate.

Rollyo ~ Week5#12

2008-07-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

Rollyo would be a useful tool when teachers/librarians want to narrow the sites students search for research. Teachers and/or librarians could choose specific sites for students to search rather than opening up the Google world. Students could create their own Rollyos as a type of annotated bibliography of useful, reliable sources.

Applications & Ning ~ Week5#11

2008-07-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

The more I know, the more I want to know. I started by looking at VuFind http://www.vufind.org/ and found a great resource for cataloging and finding information relating to books. This is a great source for comparing records (MARC records are available too) to the ones provided by Destiny. From there I went to http://www.hairmixer.com/ and had some fun trying hairstyles on all my friends and then e-mailing them the results. Too funny!

Next, I looked at Ning and set up a group for members of my book club and other friends who enjoy reading but don't want to commit to a "club". That was really fun. I downloaded my avatar to use as my photo and am hoping that one of the friends I invited wants to know how I did it so I can share my new knowledge.

Image Generators ~ Week5#10

2008-07-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

How fun! Our school newspaper publishes an issue every two weeks and for the past three years each issue has featured a teacher and his/her favorite reading materials. The spot shows a photo of the teacher and a list of types of reading (books, magazines, newspapers) and their favorite genres within those categories. I display a picture of the latest featured teacher with a collection of their favorite books, magazines, and newspapers. The students really enjoy this peek into the personal lives of their teachers. I took this picture of our newspaper advisor and "Warholized" it at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/warholizer.php.

School Library Blogs ~ Week4#9

2008-07-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

While scouting around, I found (again) WebTools4U2Use and its Why Web Tools page. It has some great video links about the use of technology in our students' world. I think it delivers a strong message to teachers about how to teach 21st century learners. I will use one or all of them next school year as I lead my teachers through Classroom 2.0 on our minimum day Monday inservice sessions.

RSS Feeds ~ Week4#8

2008-07-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

RSS feeds seem like a good way to keep track of that news and information I'm going to look at "later" when there's not so much on my to do list. Just a nice little reminder that new information is available all the time.

Flickr Tools ~ Week3#5

2008-06-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

I checked out (or tried to check out) some of the Flickr tools, but I didn't have much luck. Montagr wouldn't load and the animation application didn't do what I thought it would. Having access to all of these graphics is cool, so I will continue to explore.

Colourful books ~ Week3#5

2008-06-16T18:20:00.001-07:00

Colourful books, originally uploaded by hugovk.

I love the uniformity of the sizes, colors, and titles on these books. What a boring (but pretty) job I would have if all books were color-coded. Dewey who?

Welcome to Spartans Read!

2008-05-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first installment of Spartans Read! where you can check out what other Red Bluff High students and staff are reading and share your insights about books. Recommend a good book or slam a bad one. Just tell us what you think. Want to start an anime book club? Let's discuss it. Does the library need more mysteries? Suggest it. Let's talk about books and reading.