Thing #23

Library2Play Reflections
What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
*I learned a lot from the Common Craft videos. In general, all of the videos were very helpful for me.
*I have a much better understanding of how to integrate technology into daily lesson plans.
*Picasa (#19), Imagechef (#10), Big Huge Labs (#10), Taggalaxy (#16) were all great discoveries.
How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I have felt quite inadequate in the tech field the last few years of teaching. I feel that I am now on the right track to change that thinking.
Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
*I learned that I can (usually) work through tech problems without running to others for help. It just takes a lot of experimentation and perseverance.
*I was surprised by how much technology is being used in classrooms around the world.
What could we do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept?
My only suggestion: I had some problems posting some items. Perhaps more in depth instructions would have been helpful. (example: wordle)
I thought the program was very well done.
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
Yes, I would be interested in more training next summer.
How would you describe your learning experience in one word?
Eye-Opening!
I will continue to go back and read and comment on other players' blogs and respond to comments on mine. It is great fun and educational to see what everyone else has discovered.

Thing #22

I had never heard of Ning before. I can definitely see how a group of people sharing similar interests could be beneficial. I explored, and joined both Educator Ning and
Ning for Teachers. In Educator Ning I found some groups in Classroom 2.0 that were blogging on i pod touches and wikis in the classroom. Both very timely topics for me for next year. I spent a lot of time in Ning for Teachers. I started getting into digital storytelling and animotos. The possibilities are endless.

Thing #21

I had fun making the videocast. I narrated the pictures and tried recording them several times, but couldn't get the sound to work. (It was really a good story!) The screen kept saying it could not detect my voice. (Do I have an internal mic?) Once I figure that out, I know the students will love recording book recommendations and reports.

Thing #20

This is a podcast from Coolcatteacher called Fear Factor in Education.
This has been the most difficult assignment for me thus far. I thoroughly enjoyed searching YouTube using tags "primary,learning,teaching, and technology. I found a great video by Dr. Patrick Dixon called Multichannel Learning in Blackberry, You Tube, and I-Pod world. On the sidebar for that I located Education Trends in a Fast Changing World. I tried for hours (I'm not kidding) to post it on my blog and could never figure it out. I tried Zamzar and after waiting forever to get an email from them, gave up. Then I went to Teacher Tube, and using the same tags found this interesting video (above). I hope I did this correctly and you can view it. I was able to see it when I looked.

Thing #19

I went to quite a few sights on the Web 2.0 Awards List. There were many that I found useful personally, but that didn't transfer into classroom use. I went to the games and entertainment section thinking that I would find something there for school, but all the sites I looked at were inappropriate for second graders. Comiqs is very similar to comic strip generator that I explored earlier. Picnik allowed you to upload pictures and use photo editing. The picture above was made from this site. Yourminis provided the opportunity to download music that the children could listen to from radio stations during class time. Live maps might be useful when we study cardinal directions in geography. The tool that I liked the most was picasa. I entered the keyword "birds" and then had a choice of clicking on many different photo albums put together by other people. I looked at slide shows of several of them and one was better than the next. I know the children will love this when we do our bird unit. Perhaps it will inspire some to make their own albums.

Thing #18

I had heard of Google Docs as a possible alternative to Microsoft Office for the new laptops we are getting in the fall. I didn't know anything about it prior to this lesson. I found it easy to work with and I liked the template feature. (Perhaps Microsoft Office has this feature as well and I don't know about it.) I also like the idea that you can share documents and/or work on them at the same time from any location. I can see this as an advantage for my teammates, but I'm not really sure how the second graders will be able to benefit from this feature.

Thing #17

Bruce's video was so helpful in breaking down the whole idea of Rollyos.
I created a search roll for bird facts, since this is a major unit in second grade. I plan on putting this site on my wiki next year. It should be extremely helpful when the students go to do their research. Bird facts

Thing #16

I had a classroom wiki last year for my second graders. It was devoted to our bird unit. There were webcams for the children to observe bird hatchings and activities at various zoos across the country. There were links for the students to go to do research for their bird reports and then the children made podcasts that they posted. I took videos of our chicks hatching. The section that was used the most was the challenge question/discussion page.
I just want to add how much I enjoyed going to two of the suggested sites. I loved the Book lovers wiki . What a fun way for children to share book recommendations. alibraryisalibrary is another great sight. The author said you couldn't resist savethewords and taggalaxy and I couldn't agree more.

Thing #14

I did a keyword search for "School Library Learning 2.0" and came up with hundreds of blogs in the Blog Directory, 59 blog posts, and 28 tags. The blog directory's entrees were a bit overwhelming because of sheer numbers. I found the way the posts were listed the least helpful. The title of the blog did not give me enough information. Searching by tags seemed to be the way to go.
I liked the Technorati Favorites page. It seems like a good way to keep track of your blogs. The Front Page feature was a good jumping off point for gathering information. I went straight to the Technology section and read about the multimillion dollar townhouse transactions in Manhattan. It was an interesting article that I never would have come across without this Technorati page. When I tried to view the 100 top tags, it was not available.
I wanted to link the reader with these sites, but it seems that Technorati is down now because of overload. I will try again tomorrow.

Thing #15

The video of A Vision of Students Today is a little scary to me. The world is changing so rapidly and we as educators must keep up to engage our students, or lose them.
The Away From Icebergs and Into a New World of Librarianship perspectives had the most meaning for me. I thnk the Library2Play site is a good example of how Spring Branch is trying to move into a Libary 2.0 world. Patrons can access knowledge by clicking on instruction videos and websites and communicate with peers instead of depending on "the librarian" to teach us. Information can be accessed from home, work, train or coffee shop. The librarian's role in the future is to find out the needs of its community of users and then point them in the right direction.

Thing #13

The Delicious tutorial was helpful. Digg seemed like a huge source of info. If I understood it correctly, it seemed like Furl would be very useful for emailing specific info from a site that might change by the time the recipient received the email. Magnolia was not available to view. It said it was being remade into a by-invitation community and I could not get into the Social Bookmarking site.
When I went to register for Delicious, it wanted me to add bookmarking buttons.
When I started to do this, all kinds of security warnings popped up on my screen. So, I proceeded to register without adding the buttons. The rest of the registration went smoothly and it was very cool how all of my current bookmarks were automatically copied to the new account.
I'm not sure, yet, how my second graders would use all this, but I can see how tagging might be very helpful to share sites with my peers.

Thing #12

After reading many entries on commenting on blogs, the two that I found most useful were from The Cool Cat Teacher Blog and from the 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on your Blog sites. The first point that The Cool Cat Teacher makes, says it all. Always make a meaningful comment. I frequently see comments like, "I agree" on blogs. If you care enough to respond, you should care enough to voice the reasons behind your thinking or how you might put a different spin on something. Blogging should be an exchange of ideas. The second idea I found useful was to ask questions. From personal experience on our class wiki, I found that the children responded more frequently to questions I asked than to discussions I posted.
Comments to participants on the Library2Play site:
Book Diva - I, too, loved the "look" of your blog. It put a smile on my face. I followed your Jeopardy link, but am not sure where to go to create my own game.
Martin's Message - I am not familiar with the "Products for the 21 Century" site on the Library Resources page. I will definitely check it out. I like Millie's idea of using the trading cards to represent book characters. What a great way to list attributes.
Vanessa - I love the examples you posted of your explorations. You say you would use these as visual aides to support research. I was wondering what you meant by that.
Let's Learn - I really enjoy following your blog. It has so many personal comments interwoven with the responses to the required questions. I had a great time creating a WORDLE, but couldn't figure out how to post it. I tried saving it as a microsoft document to my desktop, but that didn't work either. Help!
Theresa's News - I am not familiar with the Pocket Picture Book. Was this a gadget I missed? This sounds like a great way to use technology to illustrate life cycles. Besides the butterfly, we also hatch praying mantises. I can use this for both!
Personal Blogs:
I have been following my nephew's blog from Tanzania and one of the Harry Potter blogs. I am a big fan of both!

Thing #11

Creating an account and navigating Library Thing was fun and easy. My second graders recommend books to each other during the school year. This is another way of doing this. They are always excited about reading books their friends have enjoyed.

Thing #10

Comic Strip Generator was very easy to navigate. I can see the students having fun with it during Writer's Workshop. I had several children writing joke books last year. This site would add another level to their products.
http://comicstripgenerator.com/







This image was made on Word Mosaic. It is a Shel Silverstein poem. I can see my second graders having fun using this site when we study Shape Poems.
http://imagechef.com/

Thing #9

I really liked Topix.net. I am a news junkie and this tool is a great way to quickly catch up on the latest information out there. I thought Edublogs' Award Winners was an excellent site. It was the easiest for me to navigate. One of the blogs I explored was The Cool Cat Teacher. It had great info on classroom wikis that I think will help me with my wiki next year. I also really liked Mrs. Cassidy's Classroom Blog. I'm planning to check it out further.
Syndic8.com was not very user friendly for novices like me. I played with it a little and then gave up in frustration. I tried going in to Atomic Learning and then realized that I had forgotten the Spring Branch password.

Thing #8

RSS feeds - The only blogs I have followed before this assignment have been on Facebook. Using Google Reader, I set up several feeds. On a personal level, I made folders and put in feeds for news, weather, health, sports, and entertainment. Then I make a Spring Branch folder with blogs on wikis, district news, and some teacher blogs. The "alibraryisalibrary" blog looks like an especially good tool for searching out the latest in technology at a glance.
I am a little overwhelmed with all the RSS feeds I have set up on my page. I spent hours searching for new sites, but I'm not sure I will have the time to follow them all. So, instead of saving me time, I think I have made more work for myself. (I'm sure it is not supposed to work this way.) I do think it might be beneficial in the classroom if students need to go to specific places. This would give them easy access and, on a public site, they could share information and thoughts.

Thing #7

I had so much fun exploring all of the cool google tools. Setting up a home page on igoogle was great. I think I may have overloaded the page. I got so excited with all of the options. I put in several feeds to live aquariums across the country. They are so soothing to watch, and I know my second graders will love them when we study the ocean. I added google alerts for breaking news and weather. We will be studying weather as well this year and I think this will be useful for the students. I set up a link to an email account as well.

Thing #6

My second grade class made trading cards this last year. The children loved creating them. We used them when we studied the ocean habitat and then again when we studied birds. I scaled them down to about 2 1/2" by 4" and laminated them for durability. The students earned the trading cards for good behavior and traded with their friends. I'm still having trouble with my pictures. They come out distorted. I need to figure out what I am doing wrong.

We also made magazine covers this year in second grade. The children used them as covers for their bird reports. Our tech coach set up a link on our campus home page, so that the children could also make these from home.

Finally, I was able to put together this mosaic. I had difficulty downloading my pictures and then when I tried to add more squares, it wouldn't allow it. I'm going to play around with it some more, but wanted to save what I had just in case...



I tried puzzle maker on the Big Huge Labs site. It was fun making the puzzles, but I'm not sure the educational value for my second graders.

Thing #5

I was not familiar with Flickr before this lesson. I have shared photos from other sites, but this opens up a whole new world to continue to explore.

This is a photo of the Greek Isles. I hope to be exploring this, as well ,this summer!

Thing #3

I had a lot of fun creating an avatar, but am having a difficult time posting it on my blog. A little box with a red x showed up, but I can't find the picture I made. When (and if) it does appear, I am wondering where else I can post the "new me".

Thanks for the advice. I think my picture is showing now.

Thing #2

The easiest habit for me to relate to is Habit #2. It is to accept responsiblity for my own learning. I am very comfortable asking questions if I don't understand something and sharing my thoughts with others. Habit #4 is the most challenging for me. All of this technology is very new to me and I don't yet feel confident of my abilities.