play

↓cmak2009 I am testing this. 3/30/2009 Wish I could test drive that.↓

Week 8 #18

I played with this program and enjoy the fact it is web based and I can work on my documents anywhere I am connected to the internet. I like some of the features. It was also fun to upload one of my son's favorite dream rides. I had some trouble formatting pictures. I wanted to decrease the size and move the picture around. I'll play some more. I think I did get the car slightly smaller. I was able to play with the font, style, size.

Personally, this is very fun to play around with. I can see using it between family. With word already on the computer, I may not get back to this as often. Also, I don't have a need to write large documents and share them at this time.

For school, it would be a good collaboration tool. I can see using this to set up sub plans. I can keep them on here and edit them if I am home sick then e-mail them off to our admin. assistant. With students, I think I might try a collaborative writing document. Perhaps, students could write add on stories with each other through this method. The speed impresses me. It updates so quickly. Currently, we share documents via e-mail and our public sites on the server. I don't mind this system but the students would love zoho writer much more.

Week 7 #17 sandbox wiki

Okay, that was fun. I liked adding my two cents on a wiki. I chose to talk about a podcast project I have done with a teacher for the last two years. It started out as a class assignment for me and we have decided to keep it up. The kids love this. Anything on the computer and they are game. I want to try trading cards on flickr and put them on a wiki now. How might that work? Will each student have to create their own flickr account? I'll have to add them all as authors in the wiki I guess. Am I able to make generic logins for both flickr and wikispaces? Will that allow more than one student to work on the account at the same time? I also have to think about permission to post on the web. We didn't post on the web in the past but used intranet. I'll have to see if I can do that again. It may seem like I have more questions than answers but I did answer some while playing. Wikis are not so scary as I once believed. The manager of the wiki has some control over who edits a wiki. Wikis encourage learning, thinking, problem solving and collaboration amongst the authors of each site.

Week 7 #16 wiki

This is one of the few web 2.0 resources I have heard about before this class. I'm glad to finally look at some. I have a couple of colleagues who use these frequently and have set some up for an educational group I am involved in. One teacher uses it to post our minutes from our weekly meetings. Another uses it for discussion between schools in the district about library developments. Unfortunately, I haven't been to either wiki to respond and collaborate. Now, I'll do that. I guess you must bookmark for easy access. I didn't see if the wiki alerts you if someone edits the page. I know once you are in the site it will. I like that all can edit this and be authors. If one realizes the information found on a wiki may be subjective, these may be helpful to use for school. I like the idea of students building a trading card, report, top 10 book list, continuing class discussions, editing work already on the wiki, etc. I like that you do have some control over who edits a wiki. It is also nice to see who edits what. I'd like to try building trading cards based on books and posting them on a wiki. I know youtube is filtered but these should be okay.

Week 6 #15

The articles/discussion sites for Library 2.0 were interesting. I read a few and enjoyed the blogs that followed some of the posts. I would like to focus on one article but realize so many are saying the same thing. One I read was 'Into a New World for Librarianship' . The library must keep up with current technology in order to provide the most current information and assist its patrons/users with their needs. When making decisions about software and other resources, libraries should make decisions responsibly and quickly as the web is moving at a rapid pace and some resources become outdated in brief amounts of time. Libraries shouldn't be designed with what is best for the library and its staff but how it can best serve those who frequent it. So a library's mission statement may need to be changed. Existing libraries should evolve with Web 2.0 and incorporate its resources into everyday library activities. The web can help libraries update information, quickly collaborate with other libraries, and keep in the loop of news that might impact future services. Librarians help users design their own personal content on blogs, wikis, mashups, etc. The library has to have the knowledge and software to help facilitation. Finally, each staff member and user should be able to provide input and allowed to play and learn.
I'd like to think we all know this. Change is difficult but in this instance libraries may become obscure if we don't. Though much of our population is aging, the younger generation is so plugged in, we need to set up library resources to accomodate and assist them as well as continue to provide traditional methods. For our libraries, I don't see any other choice but to keep current with all of the web technology. That is what the library 2.0 is about. Evolving to keep up with the patrons in our libraries and their needs.
For me, this means I have a lot of learning to do. This class is helping me experiment and explore a small amount of what is on the web. I need to know what the kids are using so I can converse with them as well as assist them. There is a lot more exploring to do. It has been fun sharing what I am learning with my own kids as well as collaborating with them on some mashups.
For my school and education in general, we need more professional development on the web. Many educators are interested but have little time and haven't signed up for classes like this to learn more. The students we have now learn differently than those I had 20 years ago. Laptops, internet, communication technology and the video gaming world were not as they are now. This is what so many students today use in their personal lives. They are comfortable with them and so we need to be as well.

Week 6 #14 Technorati

Wow! It is amazing the number of daily blogs. So many blogs to track and filter requires a pretty hefty site and software. I appreciate that someone else has designed the sites with tagging capabilities for us. I wouldn't even bother to spend too much time on the internet otherwise. We have so many sites tagged at our fingertips, we can peruse and determine which will suit our needs much more quickly.

While in Technorati, I typed in the keyword "School Library Learning 2.0", searched for blogs, tags, and the blog directory, and received different results for each. There were 19 blog posts, 27 tags, and 118 in the blog directory. I found this to be a little disappointing and somewhat confusing. It didn't seem as user friendly as flickr and delicious. I did notice many librarians and educators taking this class from CSLA had claimed their blogs.

I took a peek at some of the most popular sites according to Technorati. Boing boing (popular blog) was interesting but not too useful for younger students. I looked at book tags hoping to find some interesting children recommendations. Didn't find anything which I wanted to purchase right away.

Again, thank goodness for someone else designing this free software. As before, the advantages of collaboration with colleagues in developing useful tags of sites for educational purposes is priceless. I must say flickr was/is my favorite. Perhaps, it is because I explored it first. Maybe it is because I like pictures and would like to play with and manage my photos in a much more organized method. I have pictures on four different computers and would love to make some albums web based for family and/or educational viewing. The buttons right on my computer tool bar make del.icio.us so handy and useful. I don't see going to Technorati much at all with the other two options.

I wouldn't mind practicing the optional claiming your blog but don't understand the html and code thing yet.

Week 6 #13

Tagging seems like a tremendous time saver. Searching can take so much time. Now, I can check this account for popular sites. I work from several different computers using several different browsers. I may not have a bookmark on one computer but setting the tags on my new del.icio.us account, I'll be able to access them from anywhere. I like the idea of sharing the bookmarks with other teachers. It will be nice to have a community list of tagged sites. Since this is so new to many on staff, it will take time to share and bring teachers up to speed. I can see this being nice in the library. Frequently used sites related to research and education will be easily accessible. I can get students to sites much quicker as popular sites will be tagged in the system. I can see using this to tag sites for leveling books. I am always looking for more sites. It is nice tagging works for websites as well as posts, and photos.

Sydney Opera House

Week 5 #12 Voice Thread

I must say I was frustrated with this tool. It may have been my computer's internet speed switching from one site to another. SLOOOOW. I like the idea and did create an account. I picked up a random picture to upload and played around with it. The tutorials were good.
I can see several educational applications. The first would be mini tutorials for any subject. Just like voice thread tutorials, teachers could create these for their math, science, language arts lessons. I enjoyed listening to the art teacher who discussed elements of a picture. I liked her annotations. I didn't change the color as I annotated during my voice thread. I'll try that. I can also see this being a good way for students to do book reviews or to tell a story using their own pictures. Our school is using the Fairbanks art kits as well as designing their own. Either art teacher here or in Fairbanks could create one of these for their kits. Hmm The possibilities are endless. I could see one of our teachers using this for his pig dissection lessons.
I'll need to play around with this more as I can see teachers wanting to use this.

Week 5 #11

Exploring award winners was time consuming because I wanted to visit so many sites and had to limit myself. Several of the sites were more interesting, easier to navigate, and more applicable than others.
The first site I looked at was Youtube. I have not been to this site but it has been a topic of much conversation with our music teachers. The site was blocked last year in our district (perhaps still) and many of our teachers had been using this site in their lessons. I can see why. Given the right video, it can be very educational. I set up an account and now have some favorites in it. One I enjoyed was a video of whales net feeding. This video would be great for a science lesson on whales. Rather than telling a student about it, we can show them how whales feed in living color. Amazing.
Another site was Zango. This was supposed to be a sight with a lot of games. I was looking for sites easy to find parents could use to help their child practice basic math facts. I can't say as I found this site helpful. It took up a lot of downloading time. I don't think I even played a game when I was in the site.
A new favorite I'll use again is My Heritage . This was a nice site to set up the family tree. My uncle is always on sites like this and has printed pages for everyone in the family. With this, we can share the site with all the relatives and save a tree. I have set up an account and started adding family members.
With a good chunk of family in Oregon, we are planning to buy a home down there soon. I used Zillow and found quite a few properties in our area of interest. I didn't but should have set up an alert for any new listings in our price range. I could see this site used in math comparing house prices across the country.
I went to Ning and signed up. I invited family to join me. Now, I wait for their reply. Like the library sites.
Finally, I had a difficult time leaving the Traveler IQ. This was fun. Thanks for this site. I want to start a geography club next year. I am looking for potential sites to help with this. This may have some value for that. I myself could not stop playing the games and made it to several levels before I was booted out.

Week 5 #10

I played with image chef. Here is the link.

http://www.imagechef.com/

I can imagine using image chef a lot for creative writing. I have quite a few fun pictures saved on my computer. Too many to load here. I love the idea of adding text to a picture found on flickr or a personal one uploaded. With just a simple sentence to start, students can really jump into writing. I think they will enjoy the personalization. I have used something like this with some apple software to some degree of success. I'd start small with just one class. I am not sure how to manage all the writing. I guess put it in a blog.

I played with jigsaw maker. That is fun. I am a puzzler and would like to do that. It looks like it costs to order the puzzles. Also, using kids pictures would require permission.

Loved word mosaic and think those would make really nice ecards to friends and family. Will try that.

I have played around with photobooth on the mac computers. A small group of fifth grade students and I distorted some pictures and uploaded them into our school yearbook which is designed entirely online. We've made photo collages and changed the shapes of pictures from rectangular to circles, stars, and even hearts to name a few. The kids love this. I think this type of activity would qualify for image generator. After playing around with image chef, I have more tools to tweak some more pictures and upload them.

Week 4 #8 and 9

I like using the RSS feeds. I have set up one through bloglines and added some feeds of my own choice. In school, I haven't thought of the possibilities yet. At home, it will be nice to have my favorite site updates at one quick site. I could probably set up some RSS feeds for my library homepage which would benefit particular classes and their area of study. I'll have to play more. How do you retrieve updates you looked at, then left the site and returned to continue reading but the feed is gone? There must be some way. That was confusing. The easiest thing was to add a feed. I'm still adding. I already want to delete some feeds which aren't as appealing now.

Week 3 #7

Technology blog. I am so pleased our library catalog system is web based. I assist in a second library without this ability and everything takes so much longer. I love the speed of processing, circulation, availability knowledge, as well as easier access to other library collections. Kids love to use the system to look for books and information in both our library and other district libraries. The system is easy to use for most grades and has a lot of bells and whistles which attract the students.

Week 3 #6

My creation
Originally uploaded by cmak2009

This I loved. Quick and easy. Last year, I made trading cards with my older students using Newberry award winners. This would have been fun and a lot less messy (no paint). The students loved the old fashioned method too. I'd like to use this for a new school year as a way to introduce students. I would have to figure out the management of large numbers of pictures or maybe I would start with one grade only. Or I could set up a staff blog and use this as an introduction to staff.

Week 3 #5

Kookabura from Australia
Originally uploaded by cmak2009

Wow! I could be addicted to this. This picture is from a trip in 2004. I'd never seen a kookabura before then.
I think I'll use flickr with a group of students. I imagine I'll have to look into permission to publish. Students can upload a picture and post it on a class blog. Hmm

CMak

CMak
Originally uploaded by cmak2009

It took some time and I used a round about way but here we are!

Week 2 #3

This is fun. Wish I was that skinny. I made another avatar in another location but can't remember the site. This one will work.

Catching Up

So much to learn, so little time.