Week 9-Reflections

I think that Atomic Learning will be the biggest winner of this whole experience as far as being able to get more faculty on board for using 21st century web aps at school. I also know that wikis are more efficient than passing around emails. I will never be a blogger extraordinaire because I just don't make the time, but I think they are excellent tools. And someday, in a land far, far away, I will figure out why my videos never embed. And until then, I'll use all the great ones other people have done.

Happy landings, shipmates and see you back on the dock!

Week 8 Atomic Learning Pretest and project

I have taken the pre-test and from the four project AL suggested would benefit me, I pick door number 2--Extra!Extra! because I have no real experience with publishing software and teachers often assign publications rather than research papers. My second choice would be Affecting Earth.

I was amazed that using databases for reference was never an option and I hope all of you are pushing them as hard as you can including the new, very simplified citation format.

Week 7 Projects for the Classroom

• I love Read-Write -Think's lesson plan idea to use wikis to catalog and comment on protest songs and then relate the commonality of the songs to a character in literature who has been a social activist. This could work for TKAMB, Tale of Two Cities, many characters in American novels. Plus it could be cross-related to history class. I've already sent this link to school. This is a treasure trove.


• Wordle in addition to making a great notebook cover for each class, this could be used as a study aid, to jazz up a cloud of vocab words in any subject, or to make a ppt. of wordles and use it as a quiz. It could also take the place of one of the pro-forma poems that kids often have to write. I'd love to be able to use them for screen savers on the library computers. I did one on taxonomy, above. I like the way the cloud effect demonstrates the inter-connectedness of life on earth.
• TerraClues This was fun and I think it would be better to start with this then progress to Google Earth 5. Having to do extra effort to locate the clue and to relate images to searching are good mental activities. We have teachers who do small projects on countries--culture, foods, currency etc. This would be a great use for TerraClues. Another move away from just ppt. or brochures.
• KidPix These lessons plans could be adapted for any subject, but I'm thinking chemistry or anatomy.

The situation at my campus-- I don't do lessons plans for the computer labs, however I do co-teach research with various teachers on several topics: mythology, Dickens era, genetic disorders, speech topics etc. I think these applications would be great for both short and in-depth research products. There would still have to be conventional writing, but for class presentations, these would be so much more engaging. I would use or suggest anything to get our students excited about learning and thinking, not just responding. I also really believe that having teachers of two or more subjects team up to show kids how inter-related history, ELA, science etc are can only make for better students.

Week 6 Classroom Aids

This was fun and made me wish we had more computers, but at least we now have two mobile labs. This is what I'd do with these fun programs:
MM-I'd finally have a reason to tempt my math teachers to come to the library for a hands-on learning session. Then they'd jump to get the mobile labs in their own classrooms. This is a fun way to learn and practice the various h.s. math components and not something they get to do much online. This is my favorite of all of these.
Kidz Zone-I would like to see the parts that enable two different subject areas to collaborate. I also liked the links to new educational materials that would be just for the teachers.
Google Lit and History- creating and publishing one of these trips including the links to add in-depth information about either a historical event for the history classes, or one of the novels or plays for ELA would be a major coup for any of our classes. Additionally, adding a "what if...?" dimension would really address the quadrant D thinking we are supposed to be reaching. This would be another opportunity to engage in multi-class cooperation and learning.
Word Sift- I like this, but I think you'd have to really guard against too many field trips to the images. I do think it would be a fun way to get students to get immediate feedback and prompting on better writing.

Week 5 Wikis/Blogs

I have a secondary school librarian wiki that I started after a library in-service last year. [ http://mrs-mental.wikispaces.com ] I never did much with it once it was set up.

So, I am bringing it back to try to plan for a pet project to be done later this summer. It's an effort to examine what research skills we librarians can vertically integrate from middle school through mid-high school. I was inspired by a TLA session "My Freshmen Are Your Seniors." I like a wiki for this because it's a limited topic and everyone involved should be able to have input. We can all be on the same page in every sense of the word. :)

I also like wikis as a way for students to plan a group project. If the teacher is (as she should be) part of the allowed group, it's a great way to check up on how planning is going, to implement a good technology lesson and to add another skill set to our students.

The biggest problem I have with blogs or wikis is remembering to use them. I like wikis as a workhorse because they are mostly limited to the elements you need to get your task done. Blogs are like a decorator showcase. Same with i-google, fun but takes way too long to load if you put in all the things you like to browse. I love to see other peoples' blogs and creativity. When I have time.
Cheers!