Thing # 21

Oh my gosh! Downloading this video was easy! Too bad YouTube wasn't this easy, maybe I wouldn't have gotten so frustrated. I made two videos. The first one was made from pictures I took off the internet for a class project and it turned out terrible. The pictures were fuzzy and it was hard to tell what they were. This one did much better. I didn't put anything fancy on it like music or anything. That's a skill to learn later.

I can see using this to do reports. Much better than the student standing in front of the class reciting "Hi my name is _________ and I am going to tell you about___________." And much better than teachers having to listen to it 20 times. It will also be fun to make videos of field trips, or students working on projects, or just snapshots of students to place on a class wiki for parents to see.

I really liked this one!

Thing # 20

I had a blast looking through YouTube and TeacherTube. I didn't spend a whole lot of time here, but it was fun while it lasted.

It would take a long time to find the videos you wanted to use in your classroom, but once you found them it could really enhance your lessons.

I found two videos that I wanted to share with you, but I can't get them to download. One is about a bug who goes to the library (a PSA about summer reading). The other is about a Super Librarian. I keep getting a message that there is an error on the page. I'll have to e-mail someone for help. Meanwhile, on to the last three things.

Thing # 19

Wow! This will definently save time as opposed to wading through Google search returns.

I explored Geni, a family tree maker. It would be great, except that you can’t list very many siblings. I have five siblings and it wouldn’t put them in order and it threw one of them over to my husband’s side. He has 4 siblings; I wonder what it would do when it ran out of room there. Do they still do family trees in school? With so many stepparents and half-siblings and a sprinkling of unknown fathers, how do you handle that?

I noticed that LibraryThing only got an honorable mention. What’s with that?

Not quite sure how I would use it yet. I'll have to think on that one and check out some other blogs to see their suggestions.

Thing # 18

I looked at the tutorial for OpenOffice, but I didn’t want to download another thing to my computer.

I liked Google Docs better. There are not as many options for fonts and font sizes. This would be wonderful for students – they don’t have as many options to play with when they are supposed to be typing. I also liked the idea of having access to the documents from anywhere without having to keep up with a jump drive.

Thing # 17

http://rollyo.com/editroll.html?sid=431038

I hope I got this right. This is a link to the search roll I did for butterflies. This is a great tool to keep kids off the unrelated pages of Google while doing research.

Thing # 16

I have used a wiki before so this wasn’t entirely new to me, but setting up my own will be a different story. Besides using wikis for educational purposes, I thought that it would be a great way to organize class parties and field trips. Parents could get on and sign up for what they will send and who will attend. It would also be great for our PTA to set up one to help organize the carnival we do every year. They could also set up one for the popcorn sales.

Thing # 15

Libraries should have always been 2.0, but whether or not they have been is probably as varied as the librarians themselves. I feel that the library I work in is pretty close. At our school, we have taken suggestions from students about books to buy. The teachers and staff are welcome to give suggestions about what they need to implement their lessons. If the teachers will let her know what they are studying, our librarian will find ways to reinforce their lessons. She is always looking for ways to implement technology in a meaningful way. So, yeah, I feel like we are 2.0.

I really liked what Michael Stephens said about Technolust. He cautioned against having technology just because it is cool or because of the status of having it. He feels that the technology should “…meet the needs of the user in a new or improved way.”

Richard Anderson’s article concerned me at first. I had to take another look at it to make sure I read it right. At first it seemed that he was saying that there was no longer a need for a library collection or a need to teach research skills. On my second reading, I came to the conclusion that he meant that the reference collection may no longer be needed. I can see that. The web has so much more, and the information is updated more regularly than the library collection. I also decided that he didn’t say not to teach research skills, just that it does not need to be as focused as in the past. I’m still not sure about this. There is so much out there that students need to be taught how to filter through all of it to find what they really need. Of course, he is a college librarian. By then they don’t need that kind of instruction like elementary school children do.