Wordle is in Trouble 2

It looks like Wordle is back up and running normally right now. Just read an article on Tech Crunch and I am so excited because Tech Crunch is taking notice of this little web app that teachers love. If Tech Crunch loves it maybe teachers will have more clout to get this thing resolved quickly! It looks like I will be able to use Wordle with my students tomorrow after all. Phewwwww!

Wordle is in Trouble

Are you a trademark lawyer or intelectual property lawyer who believes in free web apps? If so please considering helping Wordle, one of the favorite apps of my students. The Wordle Site is now shut down and the founder and creator of Wordle, Jonathan Feinberg is asking for some pro bono legal help! I was planning on using Wordle with my students on Monday, so if you can help please contact him!

Wordle of Obama's Speech to School Children

President Obama is speaking to school children on what is the first day of school for many tomorrow. His remarks have been posted and while they seem quite genuine, he will not be speaking to the children in my school district. Not live anyway. Our assistant superintendent sent an e-mail to staff last week insisting that the speech be previewed before it is shared with students. My principal went one step further and said it should not be shared with elementary students in our building. Why is this so controversial? I offered to have the speech on in the library for whoever wanted to watch it but that is not going to happen now. Some high school students in the mid west are quietly protesting their school district’s decision to keep them from watching the president. They are simply taking their laptops outside at noon and will return to class when the speech is over. I am proud of them for exercising their rights. This is America and with Constitution Day coming up next week we should be celebrating Free Speech, not squelching it. Of course this is a militant radical librarian talking and not a classroom teacher. Maybe it would be considered political posturing if a teacher forced his/her class to listen to a speech. But in the library it is free speech for all and all opinions are welcome. Here is a Wordle of the president’s speech that someone in my PLN on Plurk created. Enjoy!

Wordle Fun

I love Wordle. So, this morning I decided to check out what my Plurk posts look like in Wordle. The results are here to the right. Plurk is so much fun and so is Wordle. There are so many applications in the classroom. Some teachers use it for vocabulary words. I had a great idea for using it when I have to teach the Dewey Decimal System. I am going to have the students browse and list the names of books and types of catagories in each section and then create their own wordle of that Dewey Class. I may even pass out a kids guide to Dewey for those that need more help. It is all about differentiated instruction!

By the way, there was a new post on the Wordle Blog on how to make Wordle safer for students. Check out what Jonathan Feinberg who made Wordle has to say about blocking only specific parts of the Wordle site. Personally I feel the threat is not as great when I just make the Wordle create page a favorite and have the students go directly there, by-passing the front page gallery all together.

F.I.N.E.

Someone in my Personal Learning Network (PLN) was complaining the other day because in response to a perfectly reasonable request his or her teenager got angry, slammed bedroom door and said, “Fine.” If you have ever heard a teenager use that word in that tone, you know that they are not using the word fine the same way you do when someone asks you how are things going and you say, “fine.” Totally different! And, leave it to the British component of my PLN to explain it the way her mother would! Not even sure which British friend it was but she said her mother defines fine as: “F.I.N.E.: fed up, insecure, “k” nackered, and emotional. And that my friend totally explains the attitude and tone of the word when it is spit in your direction! I now admit that I had no idea what “k” nackered meant, so I had to look it up myself and learned from Wiktionary that it means extremely tired or exhausted. So, now you know too. When your teen, student, child, or spouse says they are “fine.” They could mean something totally different than the word implies!

Week 7, #’s 16 & 17

I enjoy using wikis. I have used wikis to collaborate in graduate classes and I have set up a wiki for my library.  Arrowhead Library Wiki is yet another way I can help my students focus on information that is useful and worthwhile. I have not set up a wiki for students to edit yet.  That is something I have been trying to do in collaboration with teachers in my building.  I would like to see the next research project become a wiki.  I started researching Internet Safety and Cyberbullying in the hopes that I could get it to become part of the library curriculum.  I have not kept up the wiki but plan to use it during my district’s strategic planning to help technology committee members collaborate on Cyber-safety for our children.  Conference wikis like the one started by CSLA are fun whether you are able to attend the conference or not.  So much information is shared on the wiki that it can help you learn from the conference attendants and speakers without attending the conference.   I am a member of or have started 25 wikis on wikispaces alone.  I like wikispaces better than other wikis but if I am going to be able to use wikis with students it will probably be one like pbwiki because my superiors believe it is safer and offers less exposure for students.  I did check out the educators pbwiki.  It is filled with helpful information and links.  I can see using this wiki for my own professional development. 

I have several favorite wikis that I use as part of my own professional development.  One of my favorite two wikis on the net are the LM_Net wiki where LM_Net list serve members can post documents since the list serve can not handle attachments. 

The other wiki that I frequent often is Eduwiki.us.  It is so filled with resources that I can spend all afternoon exploring and never hit the same  website twice. 

I went to the California 2.0 Curriculum Connections Wiki on pbwiki and took a look at the 65 ideas listed for using a wiki for collaboration towards a common goal.  I love idea #5 where students become responsible for creating pathfinder lists of links to reference information.  By putting the links on the wiki all students in the group or class have access to the information.  As a librarian I love that the wiki models proper citation of sources and a bibliography at the bottom of the site.  I have to give more thought to starting a book talk wiki for my students to add their opinions about the books they have read.  Collaborative book reviews can also be posted to our Destiny library catalog.  I also added idea # 11 about Wordle to the Online application and Tools page.