Manage Your Digital Footprint

I did not have time to take part in The State of Tech PD in your PJ's Online Conference on June 16th. It was my birthday after all! But I love that some of the videos are still available. I am enjoying this one below on managing my digital footprint. I want to share it with my students. Hope it is something you want to share with your students as well. Post a comment and let me know what you are doing for PD this summer.

Discovery Education- Quizlet

Thank You Discovery Education for the year subscription to Quizlet. As part of teacher appreciation week, Discovery Education gave each Discovery Education Star a free year of Quizlet and I have already found one lesson to use with my students on the SMART Board. Take a look:
Dewey Decimal Classification System.
Can't wait to try it! Thanks DEN.

Goal of Research

My fellow Pennsylvania Elementaty Librarian, Susan Hefley, recently sent out a request on the Pennsylvania School Librarian's Association list-serve asking for us to tell her what research means to us, the goal of research to us. So, how would you define it or how would you explain it to your students? She took all of our answers and put them into the Wordle below. As you look at the beauty of the research process explained in the design below please note that the bigger the word the more times it was expressed as important to those that replied to the informal survey.
So what do you think? What does research mean to you? What is your goal when you do research?

Closing Thoughts- PSLA 2012

Reflections on the close of PSLA 2012- when I published my thoughts about librarians and librarianship the first morning of the PSLA 2012 Conference, I was praying that this would be the PSLA where change would happen.  And I totally agree with Karen Hornberger in her blog post on Saturday, I too "felt an energy this year that I have not previously felt at our conference which is VERY exciting!" Karen you are so totally right. This year was different.

Professionally and personally, I have never taken so much away from PSLA! And I know why, it was the conversations. People were talking to each other and asking questions and there was the kind of dialogue that usually only happens at an Educon or EdCamp like event.

I also agree with Karen, I love the PETE&C conference and this year PSLA felt more like PETE&C only with librarians!!! And that is the way it should be, librarians should be the technology leaders in their schools and districts. Maybe we are waking up or maybe it was just me sleeping and not realizing that over the past year my fellow librarians were doing wonderful techie things with their students!

In the past there was never any reason to follow Twitter during PSLA, usually I am the only one Plurking away (I Plurk rather than Tweet) adding a PSLA hashtag to an empty audience. Oh, I get responses from my Plurk PLN but not from anyone actually at PSLA. This year was different, Twitter was aflutter with #PSLA12 comments! There were dialogues happening via Twitter, even one of the librarians in my district took a Twitter workshop and texted me for my Twitter name and we’ve kept the conversation going all evening via Twitter!

I was thrilled to see so many of our younger librarians stepping out of their comfort zones and presenting much needed sessions and two hour technology integration workshops that were vital, vibrant, and viral! And others were feeling it too. Patrick Higgins (@pjhiggins) tweeted this from Pam Berger’s Becoming a Connected Librarian- Create a Personal Learning network session: “Interesting how many devices in this room: 95% of people on phone/laptop/tablet. Two yrs ago, you would not have seen that. #psla12.” What a difference two years makes.

Thank you so much PSLA. You made my weekend. I actually have ideas to take back with me on how to improve my library program. I even have a new PA librarian friend on Plurk that I have to start introducing to my PLN! Thank you PSLA12 Conference Committee, you deserve much applause! Because of your forward thinking I have many ideas on how to engage the iPad generation in my school!

Breakfast Thoughts PSLA 2012

Reflections after the first morning of my state library conference... Dear school librarians, please wake up.  We need to change. We all need to become powerlibrarians!  If we don't there is no need for us. What makes us think we can continue with library programs as usual when our students are using iPads before they come to school in Kindergarten? Why do we think we can continue with business as usual when our library classes are one of our student's least connected time of the day? Yes, we need to read to students but we also need to engage them with the media they do not know how to live without. Yes, I said they can not live without it because they never have known a reality where the world was not available in the palm of their hand. I am proud that we are having some technology sessions at PSLA 2012 but we need to do more. And despite the wonder that is Joyce Valenza who is my hero at the high school level, the change I am talking about has to now start with me at the elementary level! We who are on fixed library schedules and see students once a week need to start adding multimedia modalities into our curriculums and we have to do it now! We are behind the curve of our students! What can I do to start? It does not have to be a total shocking change, we have to get our feet wet fist and go in from there.  We can do it if we add one or two new mediums and modalities a year and before we know it we will have a vital, vibrant, viral library media center that is so integral to our school communities that there will be no way to cut us. Necessity is the mother of change. Right now it is necessary that we change!  Ask yourself the question I am asking myself, "What am I going to do in the library next week to engage the iPad generation?"

GeoGreeting

Just heard about this website that sends greetings to your family and friends with pictures taken all over the world. It is called GeoGreeting. Here is a testing out greeting I created. Click the link below and try it out.
http://www.geogreeting.com/view.html?yDBIsxqUyEDUqoyqBooDsxqa

Not sure how I would use this with students in the library but it may be a fun geography lesson.

Looking at the Earth and Stars in a New Way...

Adam Mann a Wired Science contributor added this time lapse video to the Wired Science blog yesterday. It is just too beautiful not to share! My students are learning about famous American women in the library and this week we are reading an e-book biography about Sally Ride. I am also sharing this video which offers a glimpse of the earth in a way few every get to see. This video actually gives you the feeling of the Earth being a big ball out in space with stars all around. It is a way of looking at Earth in space that I have never seen before. I hope my students are as impressed with this video as I am! Thanks to my Plurk buddy Ken for sharing the video on Plurk and if you are not part of Plurk please consider joining us! My Plurk PLN Rocks!

WonderSay

I tried out a new (to me) web tool today. It is called WonderSay and what is created is called a WonderSaid. Below is what I WonderSaid:


made on Wondersay - Animate text with style
Not sure how to use this tool with students yet but it is fun.

Don't Be This Person...

Do you have autistic students in your school?  More and more special area teachers are providing differentiated instruction for special needs students with autism.  Notice, I did not use the new term flying around education today for library, art, gym, health, and music classes... encore. I do not like the term encore. Encore teachers in my mind are dispensable, because they are after all encore. And you can have a concert or run a school without an encore. But I digress.
I came across this video while exploring my new obsession, Pinterest. It led me to a little closer look at my bias toward my autistic students and I do not want to be like the person in the video below. I am continually examining my pedagogy and my content to make sure I am not over stimulating my autistic students. This video makes me wonder what else I can do to make a difference.

Don't be that person.

Personal vs. Differentiated Instruction

My friend Ken Young on Plurk sent me this link to view a wonderful blog post and chart from another Plurk buddy Barbara Bray. In her Blog Re-Thinking Learning she wrote a post about the differences between differentiation and individualization. It stirred so much controversy that she decided to do more research the result of her research became this chart.

Personalized Learning Chart

View more documents from Barbara Bray

So now the question is should we be personalizing, differentiating, or individualizing our instruction?

Cost of NCLB

Here is a picture I found by way of my Plurk buddy Dean Mantz that shows the cost of NCLB. He got the link via Kelly Tenkley of ilearntechnology.com and ipadcurriculum.com.   

Snowflake Bentley

Next week I am reading Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin to my kindergarten students. The only problem is that they can not see any of his wonderful photographs. The three pictures in the book are so tiny that the beauty in the snowflakes is lost.  I am planning to include the video below so they can see how beautiful snowflakes can be. Enjoy!

Dr. Seuss Relief!

I just could not resist this lovely picture that I found on Pinterest.  Pinterest is new to me, I don't even have an account! But I will be looking into it more to see if it could be used at the elementary level. For now enjoy this great photo!

Source: vandalog.tumblr.com via Kelly on Pinterest

BubCap 2

Found this video of a toddler trying to press the home key on an iPad after a BubCap has been installed. While an adult can still press the button, a child is not strong enough to press it once the BupCap is installed. Where was this when I was trying to use the iPad with my special education kindergarten class? Can't wait to get it and try it with my special ed population. I know my first and second grade students are stronger than this toddler but I got the extra strength ones so I am hoping they will work and the students will be able to use the iPad with the educational games I select for them!

BubCaps

Are you like me? Do you share your iPad or iPhone with a toddler? Or do you share your iPad with a special education class? Then you may be just as amazed as I was to find this wonderfully simple product called BupCap. Check out this CNet video:


 I just ordered a set and I will let you know how I like them.