Thing 21: Wikis

Describe a wiki you found that inspires you to create one of your own. What hurdles might stand in the way of your using a wiki? What would it take to remove the hurdles? Is it worth the fight?
http://bear-den.wikispaces.com/
This is a teacher created wiki for Mr. Klingman's 8th grade social studies class. Our teacher's are required to use Front Page to create websites. Some are exploring Moodle, which also has a wiki feature. By comparison, wikispaces has more diverse features. The teacher imbedded a video from video streaming. There are documents for class assignments, pdf files, activity sheets, and more. It is an ambitious site. While learning to use a wiki seems less time consuming than Front Page, it still involves layout, preparing documents, deciding on activities and purpose. Only district sanctioned websites are linked to the school website. An advantage of a wiki for posting class assignments is that the teacher may create it anywhere. We are currently re-evaluating our guidelines to reflect newer technologies, such as wikis.

I created a moodle wiki for my technology team so that each role in the daily broadcast was defined. Each student was assigned one section of the wiki but could also comment on the others. I noticed that many student created wikis are not interactive, despite that feature being available. It seems to undervalue the purpose of a wiki.

http://cff-photostory.wikispaces.com/Copyright+Free+Materials
This is a very useful wiki that provides sources for copyright free materials to use with Photo Story 3.

Other wikis I am interested in:
http://libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page this is Library Success: a Best Practices Wiki

http://calcurriculum.pbwiki.com/ is the California Libary Association wiki for web 2.0.

Wordle

I came across Wordle in my blog travels. Wordle generates a "word cloud" from text that you provide from either a listing of words or a website, blog, or even your delicious account. There are other options, such as text and color. Once created, you may save the image (giving credit where credit is due) and/or share it with others on the Wordle site. The Wordle blog discusses educational application. Here is one I created using our "23things" blog. It is important to read the licensing rights when using this. Wordle.net by Jonathan Feinberg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To learn more about Creative Commons, go to my previous posting, Thing 18: Slideshare.

Thing 20: Searching for Podcasts

Include in your post the name of at least one podcast to which you subscribed. Describe your experience using the various search tools. Which do you prefer and why?
I subscribed to "A Way with Words: Public Radio's Lively Language Show" using itunes and following the directions from RESA's Searching for Podcasts. I selected this podcast because I used to listen to this show when I randomly listened to National Radio. I never took the time to find out when it was scheduled and appreciate that I may listen at my convenience.

I also searched for podcasts using Podcast Alley and the Educational Podcast Network. While I like indexes, I prefer searching using search terms. Of the three, I prefer itunes because I am already used to using other features of itunes and I like the visually graphic organizing aspect of it. I also enjoy reading the reviews before selecting to subscribe. Educational Podcast Network seems to have respect in the educational world, but I discovered that many of the student works listed were no longer active podcasts.

I also subscribed to TechTeacher Podcast, which I found under "Information Skills" in Educational Podcast Network. The website for the podcast had a link to subscribe to its podcast via itunes. I selected this podcast because it has timely topics related to web 2.0 tools.

Finally, I subscribed to "American History Before 1870: Gretchen Ann Reilly" which is a college level podcast. I found it on itunes and selected it because my minor is social science and I miss working with our social studies teachers when we participated in a national American History grant.

Thing 19: Podcasts

Which podcasts did you find interesting? Identify one or two podcasts and describe how you would use them in your teaching. (Be sure to include links in your blog entry to the podcasts mentioned.)
http://www.northville.k12.mi.us/hillside-imc/podcasts/2007-2008/reading-roundup/podcast3.htm
This teacher podcast is produced by Sue Spaniol at Hillside Middle School in Northville, Michigan. It was of interest to me because the podcast highlighted new mystery books in the middle school media center. In general, it is an opportunity for all students to hear a booktalk beyond the school walls. I was surprised to learn that these were books I did not yet have in my own media center.

http://mrmayo.typepad.com/podcasts/
These student podcasts were produced by Mr. Mayo's Class from Silver Springs International Middle School. I liked the layout of the blog so that the reader had an understanding about the podcasts. I listened to a few related to grammar and parts of speech, such as "Helping Verbs." I believe that other students would find these appealing because the voice is a student voice, not a teacher voice.

In general, podcasts add another dimension to teaching. Students have an opportunity to listen to new voices. Like other mediums, audio skills reinforce learning. In order to utilize podcasts effectively in teaching, I believe follow-up activities are important.

Thing 18: Slideshare

What did you like about the presentation you embedded? How might Slideshare be useful in the classroom? out of the classroom?
I just attended a workshop on Fair Use and Copyright, but the presenter did not provide an online version of her .ppt presentation. I conducted a search using the term "fair use."The presentation I downloaded was created for a 7th grade class, which is also my audience. Slideshare is useful because it saves time in creating the presentation myself if I find a topic similar enough to one I wish to teach. I'm a firm believer in sharing resources. However, like everything else on the web, evaluation of information is necessary. The howto presentations may be useful both for classroom and home use. I conducted a search using "howto moodle" and found one relating to creating quizzes on moodle. We recently held a workshop on this topic, so I emailed the link to one of the presenters.

Copyright, Fair Use, And Creative Commons

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: creative_commons fair_use)

Thing 17: Online Productivity Tools

Give a review of the tool you explored - what worked, what didn't work, how might it be used either in or out of the classroom?
I was glad to see LibraryThing featured here as it provided me with the opportunity to revisit the site. LibraryThing is very much like delicious for books. It is a book lover's dream to social bookmark. You create an account, enter book titles from your collection, tag them, review and discuss, and network with others either individually or in groups. It has a local feature to learn about book-related events by entering your zipcode or address. For home-use, visit the store to purchase your own $15 barcode scanner. There's even a wiki. I'll revisit it when we get to that topic. Want to know more? Here's what others are saying.

I set up an account in 2006, added one book, and never got back to it. Now that I have bloglines going smoothly, I've learned that an excellent way to keep up with web 2.0 tools is to subscribe to their blogs. I've added librarythings AND thingology blogs to stay informed. I've observed many, many upgrades to this tool and I'm so impressed. For example, one feature is book reviews, which may be added to outside libraries. We already have this feature using Follett's Destiny, but for a small, budget-conscious library, this would be excellent. I also appreciate the community involvement aspect. The blog invited members to physically meet to have a non-profit library cataloging party. What a great idea! As a media specialist, I'm appreciative of the statistics to the site. Regardless that I have a widget from shelfari on this blog, and a widget from Visual Bookshelf on Facebook, I was curious to visualize the LibraryThings version.

In a school or classroom setting, students would have a forum for communicating about the books they are reading and to see what others who share their interests read. This would extend book club time. Statistics about students book choice states that the primary reason for selecting a book is peer review.

Thing 16: Google Docs

How might you use this tool in your personal and professional life? What issues come to mind about using this tool with students (ie, they need email addresses to log-in)?
This tool would be useful to me professionally when I am collaborating on projects with classroom teachers. We rarely have the opportunity to meet in person, so creating our teaching documents online together would be beneficial. Often we begin school improvement brainstorming during half day inservices and wait months to continue. Google docs would provide an opportunity to continue brainstorming. Our media specialist group will be working on updating curriculum based on new AASL standards. This would be a useful method to share lesson plans and update curriculum.

In my personal life, my son who is in graduate school has sent me papers to review and this seems a more efficient way to edit and share, rather than saving a word doc and then editing it in red and emailing it back.

Currently, our district does not allow email. However, if we at least teach students about this tool, they may collaborate on projects at home. As usual, students will need to respect others and follow district guidelines. Moodle e-classroom also has similar tools. The interface on Moodle is not as user friendly as google docs. The other problem with moodle is that students who are teaming on projects are at a disadvantage when work has been saved under one student's name and that student is absent. Google docs would have the document available to all users at any time.

This is an addendum: I just came across a new feature of google called google sites. With this feature, collaborative projects may be coordinated on one site using google docs, blogs, and other google features. Here is a video about it. If you cannot view this video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_KnC2EIS5w

Thing 15: RSS Revisited

Is RSS becoming easier to understand? Do you recognize new benefits of using this tool? Do you remember to check your feeds regularly? Has it become a habit (or obsession!) yet?
It's a good thing we revisited Bloglines since I haven't been back there lately. Initially, it was overwhelming. Each visit brings an added comfort level. There are still many features left to explore. It would never have occurred to me to integrate delicious with bloglines. I choose "23things" as my tag to track on bloglines. Will it become an obsession? Everything I've learned from 23things will become an obsession. I can't stay away from delicious . Today I learned how to add other people's bookmarks as part of my network. I've added booktalker, who is Nancy Keane, a well-known presenter in the library world. From booktalker's list, I learned about visuwords, an amazing visual dictionary tool.

Thing 14: Delicious

Reflect on how you think social bookmarking can be used in your teaching. Does Delicious seem to be a tool that can enhance your productivity?
Delicious is a powerful, under-utilized tool for our teaching. Media Specialists do lots of co-teaching. This would be useful for planning a lesson, sharing ideas and professional reading with colleagues, especially other media specialists. As a group, we meet infrequently. This is a way to bridge that gap. foxtamar- user name on delicious

Thing 13: Tagging/Social Bookmarking

Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages? What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?
This was a useful reminder to me that most of my delicious websites were never tagged. I was excited to simply import my bookmarks so that I had access to my at-work bookmarks at home. Tagging is definitely useful for organization. I've been enjoying the concept of tagging in Facebook, when we tag photos. Tagging in delicious adds a whole new dimension to saving websites or blogs. It is also dangerous, in the sense that one can be so intrigued by the interconnections of social bookmarking that we lose track of time. I remember that when I first learned about tagging, media specialists were a bit worried that it would eliminate the need for information specialists. This is not the case. We know that it is very important to use universal tags so that others will connect to them.

Thing 12: Part II

A Book Widget!
I originally saw this style widget on another media specialist's blog earlier this week and loved the technology behind it. Now I know that it is available on Lookybook.com. It is a great way to introduce a concept or preview a book. The one I selected would appeal to our 6th graders who are studying China this year. Enjoy! Hint: If you click the little eyeballs, you will be able to zoom in/zoom out.

Thing 12: Adding Gadgets

Review the widget you selected. Are you getting comfortable with embedding code? Do you belong to other online communities? Are relationships formed online as meaningful as face-to-face relationships? Why do you think MySpace and other social networking sites are so popular with kids today?

Please take a moment to participate in my poll "Which genre do you prefer reading?" located on the bottom right side of my blog. I'm curious about reading habits. I also invite you to become a follower on my blog. Knowing who might be reading my blog on a regular basis may alter what I choose to write about. I also added a newsfeed gadget. I thought this might be handy for some people who might stumble across my blog.

I belong to delicous, facebook, igoogle and one for keeping track of books. I realize now that they only are interesting when the participants keep adding new information. If they are stagnant, we stop going to the site. The more interactive, the better. On Facebook, I add photos, play wordscraper with other members, and comment on other people's photos. My son and his fiance have a countdown clock on Facebook for their upcoming wedding, plus a list of the wedding party, all of whom are members of Facebook. Some of the gadgets seem more useful for a igoogle page, rather than a blog. I thought about adding one with newspaper covers, but I don't see how this is really interactive, just informative. It may be useful just to show others what's out there if they have never looked at widgets or gadgets.

BTW, I added gadgets to this blog that were easily accessible using the blogger technology. In the next entry, I will experiment with widgets and embed one using the html code. I am very comfortable with both technologies. I wanted to add something on the bottom of the blog page that would fit more horizontally, rather than vertically. I haven't been successful so far. Any suggestions?

Thing 11: Building Community/Comments

What do you like / dislike about leaving comments? How did you feel when you received your first comment? Why do you think commenting is so important in online communities? What might this mean for students who share their writing online?
Comments bring the blog to life and provide feedback regarding the information being shared. Without comments, the blog becomes a journal, which would not need to be public. Comments may also change the direction that the blog is taking. I've read blogs for the past year, but had never left comments before. Once I started to receive comments on my blog, I realized the power of this form of communication. I especially like the features of blogger: becoming a follower of a blog and then going into the profile area and being alerted to new entries. While Bloglines does the same thing, it means taking time to log onto Bloglines. I am now following other media specialists' blogs.

The two articles provided helpful tips to keep in mind when considering adding comments. They will also be useful in creating a tip sheet for students. Students need opportunities to learn in school how to both share writing online and also communicate online. We are doing them a great disservice by not allowing email communication. We do have access to Moodle e-classroom, which includes a forum or discussion thread feature. I hope to utilize it in the near future. Students would benefit from sharing ideas online. It would extend the classroom experience into non-school hours when students might wish to reflect on a topic discussed earlier. Communicating online may provide a voice for quiet students in classrooms.