ISTE 2011- A takeaway from a Vendor? Sweet... no... SweetSearch!

When I was at ISTE11 in Philly I did not spend much time in the vendor hall. I never feel comfortable talking to vendors since I have so little clout when it comes to what my district purchases. When I did go into the hall I was specifically looking for World Book to see what their new science module was all about. I was so focused on that mission that I almost missed the biggest library takeaway of them all. Mark Moran of SweetSearch lured me in to his booth with bookmarks, yes that was all it took, paper bookmarks (since I give out more than 400 book marks to students each week of the school year this was quite a prize). Anyway, the bookmarks give students tips for Internet Research. Mark who is the founder and CEO of Dulcinea Media, the parent company of SweetSearch, told me about this free search engine for students. It searches only credible web sites. The search engine part is free but there is so much more and it will have a pay component. I love how well researched this product is and I love that some of it is free in case the other librarians do not agree that this is as great as I think! I also just started following Mark Moran on Twitter. And a SweetSearch search came up with a webinar link that explains more about SweetSearch. The video below is what Mark was offering at ISTE11.



A YouTube search of SweetSearch came up with this tutorial from Anna Laura Brown the SocialNetworkingLibrarian.



What do I think of SweetSearch? I am ready to put the widget on my library home page!

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.

3-D Hamlet targets teens

I am not sure how I feel about this but I guess if it gets more kids and teens to see, hear, read, and/or watch a Shakespeare play than it can't be bad. And if some adults that have never read the classics are drawn in, all the better! The link to this article was first shared with me on Plurk through Skip Z, a member of my Personal Learning Network (PLN), an idea teachers have borrowed from the business sector. I learn a lot on Plurk and Twitter. I think all teachers need a PLN. That is why I do social networking and why I blog. Take a look at this. The 3-D 'Hamlet' targets teens.

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Presenting with text

I have been teaching 4th grade students how to use PowerPoint correctly during the last few years. I was wondering how I could show them that text and layout were important to the esthetics of their presentations and then I came across this presentation by Tudor Girba from the University of Bern in Switzerland. Check out his SlideShare Presentation:

Presenting with text

View more documents from Tudor Girba.

Educational Origami

Want to start a new technology integration project in your classroom? Want to use a cool new web application tool to do the project but don’t know how? Well, does Andrew Churches have the answer for you! Andrew is from Auckland, New Zealand. He is a computer curriculum manager and the organizer of a wiki called educational origami. Educational Origami is one of the best wikis I have seen for incorporating Blooms Taxonomy into lessons using technology. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License, Educational Origami allows teachers to use all the information in the wiki and remix it to fit their curriculums simply by giving Andrew credit.

But not only that, Andrew wants to make it easy for teachers to learn how to use Technology so he has created PDF files that he calls “Starter Sheets” that are just that, sheets that will help you get started with any product you choose. He also has a blog on which he posts videos similar to the “Starter Sheets” that instruct on the use of the most common Web2.0 Applications. This blog post is an instructional video on how to use Voicethread. The blog post even allows you to download the video so that you can share it during staff development time. It downloads as a QuickTime Movie and already has Andrew's name on the opening screen, so it already gives him credit. You also hear his incredible accent.

All in all I am very happy to have come across Andrew Churches wiki. It will be quite helpful to me when I freeze up and decide not to use something with my students because I am afraid I don’t know how. It will give me that little boost of confidence I need to use technology tools when I know it will be a boost to my curriculum. I am also following Andrew on twitter, his twiter name is achurches.

A Youtube lament

I am again lamenting the fact that Youtube is blocked in my school. OK so I am whining. I know there are ways around it but if we want teachers to use technology in their classrooms why are we making it harder for them to do so? I found this wonderful video that I want to use with my 2nd grade students who are having a hard time figuring out what a pulley does. I found this video on another website but the link goes to Youtube so if I tried to open it I would get a nice blank spot on the monitor. I know it will get their attention because it is from NASA but now I am going to have to spend an hour of my Sunday downloading it another way to use it in the library tomorrow. Before Youtube was blocked I could have embedded it here or on my library wiki and used it in the lesson, easy as pie. But now I have to jump through hoops to be able to use it. I have been told that I may use such Youtube videos in my lessons and that I can get the content any way I know how, did anyone offer to show me how? No, so it is a good thing I am a PowerLibrarian. But then I start thinking, Youtube is providing content that is made to stream over their network, am I violating copyright by downloading or ripping their content? I know it is fair use because I am going to show it in the classroom but there is a deeper issue here. Blocking Youtube is a form of censorship that feel violates my First Amendment Rights to Free Speech. And don't tell me to use TeacherTube. Been there and this video is not there! There should be understanding technology people in school districts that unblock content on teacher computers, or on a case by case basis, but I feel like I am chasing the wind. Anyway, if you are in a place where you can view this video, enjoy. If you are not, join me in my lament as I spend my Sunday morning downloading this 3 plus minute video.

Week 9, #21

I have been looking for and listening to podcasts for a couple of years now.  Some that I listen to regularly are: Cranky Geeks, Geek Brief TV, and Jumping Monkeys (I also like TWIT but have been focusing on Jumping Monkeys because it is more relevant to elementary aged children).  I also like Tekzilla.  David Warlick has a podcast but he does not produce shows on a regular basis.  His last episode was #103 and was posted in mid  December.  My new favorite podcast to recommend to teachers is CultureGrams Training.  Our district purchased CultureGrams but there has been limited training.  The podcast helps learn to use the program and offers curriculum guides.  Booktalks Quick and Simple is Nancy Keane’s daily booktalk for books for grades K-12.  I listen to podcast through iTunes but sometimes I like to go directly to the websites because often there are show notes with clickable links.  I have blogged about  Jumping Monkeys before when they did a show on the Baby Name Wizard.

Sandra Day O'Connor makes Video Games?

When I was an undergrad at Syracuse University, my mentor, Bill Coplin taught me that it was not enough to get a good job, get married, and go on vacation. He instilled in me that I had to do more; give something back, I had to “do good.” He even wrote a book on the subject called, "How You Can Help," but I digress. Today, I read about someone much more important than I, who has already made a mark in history and has done a lot of good, doing even more. Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is continually thinking how to improve our democracy but I never thought I would hear her say the way to do that would be to play video games! Yep, according to a New York Times article in the Arts section, “Former Justice Promotes Web-Based Civics Lessons,” O’Connor is working with Syracuse’s number one nemesis Georgetown University and Arizona State University on a SecondLife type interface game called: Our Courts. The website is already up and is expected to go live this fall. I wonder if students get to choose or better yet, make their own avatar? Of course as a librarian, this game fits right into my goal of promoting lifelong learning and creating a well informed electorate. In the article O’Connor says, “The better educated our citizens are, the better equipped they will be to preserve the system of government we have. And we have to start with the education of our nation’s young people. Knowledge about our government is not handed down through the gene pool. Every generation has to learn it, and we have some work to do.” O’Connor went on to complain that a side effect of No Child Left Behind has been to squeeze out civics education leaving a big gap in our educated electorate. “…we can’t forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America has always been to help produce citizens who have the knowledge and the skills and the values to sustain our republic as a nation, our democratic form of government.” What better way to reach our young people than through the video games they love so well? I am already thinking of ways to introduce this website into my Constitution Day Celebration in September! I love technology and using it in my library as a tool has made a difference in the way students think of libraries. O’Connor agrees that technology and interactive media is the way to preserve our democracy, “interactive education can in some ways be more effective than traditional methods.” All I have to say is that I hope I have her energy to do good when I am her age. Maybe I will have to wait for my mentor to retire and get Syracuse University in the act and start making an interactive video game on The Constitution! How about it Bill?

PowerPoint

I recently took an online workshop on how to use PowerPoint. It lasted for about six weeks and there were a lot of different online articles to read and "how to" presentations to watch. I am not saying I am wonderful at it now, I am just saying that my students are not as glassy-eyed now when I present a new author to them using PowerPoint! :-)

Recharging my Digital Batteries...

So, I am finally getting to blog about this thanks to a two hour delayed school opening. I took a personal day on Monday and paid to go to one day of my state’s technology conference. Why you ask. Well, simply because the best technology journalist in the country was the keynote speaker on Monday and I got to meet him. Am I gushing? Come on, he's from the NY Times! I used to be a reporter and now I am a librarian. I know how tough it can be out there establishing contacts to get the best stories. And, this guys has the contacts, gets the best stories, and gets them right. I could not wait for my fellow educators to hear his view of technology.

I have been a big fan of David Pogue for a while and now thanks to Pogue’s inspiring keynote so is the technology coordinator in my school. In fact, my tech coordinator took this picture of me with David. I am such a technology geek. But you know how it is, you read someone’s blog, read their column, and listen to him or her on various podcasts for so long and you feel you know them. (Sounds like what used to be said about television.) And, David Pogue gets it. He knows people know him from the web and he’s OK with that. He is friendly and besides, he appeared on Cali Lewis’ podcast, he actually met Cali! And, if Cali gets her mobile home and travels around the country like she and Neil are planning, she may get somewhere close enough for me to meet her too, podcasting from the road, it doesn’t get much better than that! Anyway, back to David Pogue’s keynote… it was enlightening as well as entertaining. He changed the words of “My Way” and sang about the iPhone and really nailed it about the cool factor. It is cool to have an iPhone! But more than that, he told this group of educators what the future looks like.

He called his presentation, “The Digital Generation Grows Up.” The first two things he says will mark the future are Internet phones and wireless everywhere. First, he sees landline telephones going away as more and more people use voice over IP or the Internet as a phone. T-Mobile was the first to introduce wireless cell plans that include free calling when in a wireless Internet hot spot. This goes hand in hand with his second biggie, he foresees wireless Internet everywhere and more collaboration on a worldwide stage because of it. And, of course all-wireless Internet phones like the much hyped currently vapor-ware Google Phone. He pointed out that just those using VOIP now have driven down the cost of landline calls by 30 percent.

The next thing he anticipates is a greater expansion of Web 2.0 but not without challenges, as more and more people supply content to the Web. He wanted teachers to tell their students that once things are online, they are there forever and they don’t stay where you put them. He also put a plug in for copyright because a college survey showed him students think everything on the Web is free and out there just for them to download. He realizes the question of legitimate sources is a real one and he’d like to see a code of ethics for bloggers. So, David Pogue gets it, he knows what librarians are saying is true. Our new library standards include ethics and bias. So maybe the best thing we can teach our students is to judge for themselves (Is that not what we are doing when we give them an Internet evaluation form?) what is worth reading and a little discernment.

Del.icio.us

The del.icio.us social bookmarking experience is something different! I am currently using del.icio.us to bookmark some sites for use in a project on Internet2 that I am working on with a group of students in my class at St. Joe’s. I tend to get lost in clouds, so I am using just the tagging feature for my bookmarks. I must admit my tags are a mess. I have not gotten the hang of it yet. I have multiple tags that stand for the same thing. How do I choose a tagging format? I want to use the tag information literacy but I can’t because del.icio.us won’t let me put a space in my tags. So I have multiple tags for information literacy: information, information-literacy, and Information_Literacy, all because I can’t remember what tag I used last time. Tagging should be simple but for me it’s not. I think most librarians have this problem because we are used to having things tagged for us. I am determined to start a new del.icio.us site and have all the tags conform to Library of Congress Subject Headings. I also bookmarked the link on my Congerjan del.icio.us.
Anyway, I have been using del.icio.us for about a year but I must admit that all I was doing was saving bookmarks. I never even shared my links or took advantage of the social aspect until recently. I turned on the sharing feature during class as others were joining del.icio.us. I joined Will Richardson’s network almost immediately. I also added the links from my favorite podcaster, Brian Dvorak who does the EDTech101 podcast. I also have two more people on my del.icio.us network now. It is interesting to see what other technology integrators are saving to their del.icio.us accounts. I hope that some of my fellow librarians and my friends in my St. Joe class will try this social aspect and we can add each other to our networks.