Vision of the Future

Image from erelations.info

Blog: thestaffroomchat.blogspot.ca

For my vision of the future, I decided to consider my future employment as a Teacher Librarian at an elementary school. I was able to connect with a current Teacher Librarian at my daughter’s elementary school, and based on my experiences there, I decided to design this final assignment as if I were the Teacher Librarian at that school and what kinds of things I would do in order to nudge the teachers there into the direction of 21^st century educators. I have worked with many of the staff there in different ways over the years, and have already developed a positive relationship with many of the staff and students there. Based on my connection with many of the staff members, I realize that many of them do not incorporate technology into their classrooms. My goal would be to introduce them to different media tools that they could incorporate with their students ­– not to change what they are doing – as many of them are excellent educators – but to enhance the learning environment for the students. I also wanted to consider that many of these teachers may not be using these tools in their classroom, simply due to the fact that they are not familiar with them. As William Kist states: “…a disinclination to use new media in the classroom may simply stem from uncertainty and limited familiarity with the possibilities” (Kist, 2010, 6). I recall one instance recently where I suggested a blogging website to a teacher to incorporate with her grade 5 class. After she had introduced it to her students, she was excited to approach me in the hallway and tell me how much the students enjoyed blogging. This sparked in interest in me to find a simple way to communicate to the teachers at the school ways to incorporate these kinds of tools into their classrooms.

During the LIBE 477 course, I developed an enjoyment of blogging our learning experiences each week. Many of the reflections I had were based on my step by step learning of each individual tool, as many of these tools were new to me. I decided my approach to teaching about these tools in my blog would also be step by step, so that other teachers would hopefully not feel overwhelmed when introduced to some of these tools. My goal was to keep it simple, and to hopefully provide enough incentive for teachers to be willing to step out of their comfort zone and give some of these tools a try!

This elementary school does not have much in terms of technological equipment, so part my vision would be to advocate for the purchase of some new equipment for the school and make some changes to the layout of the library to accommodate this new equipment. My goal is to not just add equipment, but have more of a Learning Commons aspect in mind. I would like to see the library as a “central and collaborative hub for instruction, research, and learning, as well as a place to use innovative technologies and information resources” (Colburn Harland,P. 2011, xiii).  As part of the redesign of the library, I would remove some of the large round tables which take up a lot of space, and create some work stations for laptop use. Getting the school to incorporate wifi access would be a necessary part of increasing access to the internet. I would also like to have a set of ipads that could be borrowed from the library for classroom use. These ipads could have multiple uses for all grade levels, with convenient access to the internet.  Each teacher would be provided with their own laptop for ease of mobility, and each classroom would either have a projection unit that could be connected to the teacher’s laptop, or a Smartboard for each classroom, including the library. This school has purchased three Smartboards so far, but only one of them is connected and functional at this point. Getting the rest of the classrooms set up would be part of my vision for the school’s technological future.

I would also develop a school library website/blog for student, teacher, and parent use. This would be updated regularly to keep everyone updated on events, new books, new resources, and other pertinent information regarding the school community. In another course that I took, we watched a webcast by Meredith Farkas. She brought up a significant point for me regarding the usefulness of library websites. She comments that “we can do two things. We can try to make our Websites more user friendly and more what our students want. And that may have some effect. But, we also need to go where our users are. We need to put our content where our users eyes go online. And we need to make it easy for them to take our content and get it how, when, and where they want it.” A library website that is relevant and usable could be a challenge to create, but in my vision, I would create a website that becomes an extension of the library and the services it provides.

For the teachers, I would also like to incorporate a library wiki so that it would become a central location for resource sharing, and also a simple way for teachers to develop a community of learning within the staff. It could become a place where ideas are shared, lessons are contributed, links are presented, and questions can be answered. As Richardson states: “The collaborative environment that wikis facilitate can teach students [and teachers] much about how to work with others, how to create community, and how to operate in a world where the creation of knowledge and information is more and more becoming a group effort” (Richardson, 69). As educators, we are trying to instill the collaborative community with students, and I feel this is something that should be facilitated with the teaching staff of the school as well.

Challenges:

I think the first challenge of this assignment was trying to figure out which tool to use to present the information to teachers regarding Web 2.0 tools – I narrowed it down to either a weebly, blog or a wiki. I have become comfortable with blogging over the past 7 months, and am familiar with how to embed documents and add new posts. I have had opportunities to work with a wiki and weebly, and appreciate the collaborative aspect to a wiki, but I was not as familiar with how to embed photos, videos, and other tools within the wiki or weebly. I was also unhappy with the limited design templates with the wiki, so I decided on the blog format. If I find in my future employment that a wiki would be more useful, then I can switch it up later – the benefits of having these useful tools at my fingertips!

The other challenge, after deciding on the blog format, was deciding how to make it look for visual appeal, and ease of use. What I like about using weebly and wikis are that the pages are easy to access, and navigation can be simple when trying to find specific information related to a topic. Having a drop down menu is appealing, and allows for convenient access to see what information is available within certain topics. I felt that this blog would have to incorporate a fairly simple layout, with visible topic headings, so that teachers who are new to using this kind of format would find it user friendly. I also did not want to overwhelm teachers with a lot of new tools, so I decided to narrow it down to six that teachers could explore, and from there, hopefully they would pick one or two to incorporate into their classrooms.

Deciding on which six to include in the blog was also another challenge, as I had to think of it from the perspective of an elementary school – which has a wide range of student abilities, and also which tools a Kindergarten teacher may be interested in as compared to a Grade 7 teacher. I decided to use a few of my personal favourites, and ones that would be appropriate for elementary school use.

Overall, my comfort level with Web 2.0 tools has grown during this course. Looking back at my first blog post for this course, my personal reflection was: “This new course, which will explore Web 2.0 and the way technology can be incorporated into learning is exciting, yet also a bit scary for me as I tread into new waters. I hope to gain new insights, and become comfortable with using these web-based tools, so in the future, when I am in a TL position, I will be able to share my knowledge with my colleagues and how they can have a bigger impact on student learning” (Sauer, N. 2013). I am hoping that my new-found excitement about these educational opportunities will transfer over to my teacher colleagues, and they will be eager to move in the direction of 21^st Century educators.

Cited:

Colburn Harland, P. (2011). The Learning Commons: Seven Simple Steps to Transform your Library. Santa Barbara CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Farkas, M. (2007, June 15). My Top Technology Trends for 2007 | Information Wants To Be Free. Retrieved from http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2007/06/15/my-top-technology-trends-for-2007/ 

Kist, W. (2010). The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Sauer, N. (2013). Semester 2 begins…the adventure continues! My Investigation of Web 2.0 - LIBE477. nsauer77.blogspot.ca

Wrapping it up...and tying a bow

Social Networks

It was so true to read Richardson’s observation that youth of today hare using social networks

as a way to communicate with their friends, but to also access “peers and adults outside of their physical spaces, people who they don’t know but with whom they share a passion” (131). As I view both my daughter’s technology uses, this is very apparent – and it is NORMAL to them – it is a part of their everyday lives. I agree with Richardson when he states “kids engage in ‘self-directed, peer based learning’ that looks very different than most of their experiences in school” (132).

I was curious to read Richardson’s view on Ning. I hadn’t heard of it before this course, yet it has been around since 2005. Taking a look at it again (I recall looking at it a few weeks back) I notice that there is a price involved – minimum $25 per month. Seems kind of hefty when there are free networks available.

It was interesting to read Richardson’s stance on Facebook, as this site continues to be a hot topic with educators. I have not allowed my daughter’s to sign up for facebook until they are 16, however, they have found other avenues to be socially connected – through instagram, text plus, email, and now snap chat. By the time they are 16, facebook may not even interest them with everything else that is available to them. I do agree with Robertson, though, after taking this course, that “no teacher should be denied exploration of a technology that with good pedagogy could be a valuable learning tool for students, or, more importantly, could provide important context for learning in general” (134).

It is fantastic to read about the educational uses of social networking sites. Richardson describes the use of Ning (which at the time must have been free), and the uses could likely be applied to other social networking sites. The collaboration of the Marine Biology students (142) and the ArtSnacks (143) pulled in people from other parts of the world to contribute to student learning. To me, that just seems amazing and incredible for today’s students…something that certainly wasn’t available when I was in school! …But hey, it is now!

The “Big Shifts” that Richardson describes, indicate to me that the way we teach needs to undergo some changes. Learning is a lot different than when I was a child in school, and as educators, we need to adapt to the changes in order to be effective for the sake of the students. All educators should be aware of these “shifts”:

• 1. Open Content – the vast amount of information that is available is staggering. The teacher is no longer the primary source of learning information.
• 2. Many, Many Teachers – students (and teachers) now have access to professionals, authors, scholars, etc…many people who can contribute to the education of students. Tapping into these resources is a huge benefit for student learning.
• 3. Collaborative Knowledge – the key point that struck me was Richardson’s comment: “That work can have real purpose and real meaning for the audience that reads and consumes it” (151).
• 4. Teaching is Conversation – “By inviting students to become active participants in the design of their own learning, we teach them how to be active participants in their lives and future careers” (151).
• 5. Know “where” learning – be able to find answers to questions, and to be able to evaluate which sources are accurate and relevant
• 6. Readers are No longer Just Readers – “readers themselves must learn to be critical consumers of the information they consider” (152).
• 7. The Web as Notebook – our society is becoming more paperless, as we move to storing/retrieving information on the web.
• 8. Writing is no longer limited to text – this is one area that I have particularly enjoyed learning about, as putting together information into multimedia presentations can be enjoyable, and informative for the audience that “reads” it.
• 9. Mastery is the product, not the test – I had to chuckle at Richardson’s comment: “Would you feel safe in a world where kids were awarded drivers licenses by just passing the written test? I don’t think so” (153).
• 10. Contribution, not completion, as the ultimate goal – “teachers will have to start to see themselves as connectors, not only of content, but of people” (154).

Richardson makes a good point, that through many of my courses, I have felt that this will become more of my responsibility in the near future: “teachers need to find ways to use these tools to move away from the more traditional paradigms of instruction on their own terms in their own ways and recruit others to follow suit” (155). The school that I have been “learning” from during my courses uses very little technology. When I gave one teacher the suggestion of a class blog with her students (kidblog) she was so excited after setting it up, she couldn’t wait to stop me in the hallway and tell me about it. I think this was just the tip of the iceberg, and this made me want to share with other teachers the vast amount of tools and information that is available to create exciting learning opportunities with their students!

Reading the Epilogue, it kind of made me jealous! The teacher effortlessly maneuvers his way through all these tools, knowing how each of them work, and he seems to have them all organized so well. Taking this course, it feels like I have been introduced to so many new tools, but I don’t feel as if I am proficient with them yet. For instance, RSS feed – it sounds like an amazing tool, but I don’t quite have it figured out yet. The teacher also has tools linked together (158), and that seems like a great strategy, yet I am not that familiar with it yet. Certainly I would like to be that proficient; I just feel I have a little ways to go before I get there!
 

RSS Feed...I'm Hungry!

Reading through this chapter, I was excited, AGAIN, to read about the collaborative learning that can take place through blogs and other social networking sites. As Richardson states: “ …students at my old school have collaborated with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, elementary school kids in Georgia, high school students in Poland, theater troupes in Oklahoma, and the list goes on….In short, the blog has allowed students to build a community around their collaborations, and it has enhanced the depth of the curriculum” (24). When I think of the teacher that I spoke to at my daughter’s school a few months ago, she had never blogged with her students. When I mentioned a simple student blogging site (kidblog.org),

she was excited to report back to me the enjoyment that the students had at the opportunity to share their learning. I know many educators already incorporate blogging into their classrooms, but I think that many educators have not bought into this form of education yet. Oh how I wish they could see the simplicity of setting it up, and the wonderful benefits for student learning! "...we write not just to communicate but to connect with others who can potentially teach us more" (Richardson, 28). 

I am also excited about the opportunities that a blog can have for a school library. I have wavered back and forth between a website and a blog, and I am still undecided. I like the "keeping it current" aspect of a blog, but I also like the navigation of a website - as I have become familiar with using Weebly. When looking through the Lewis Elementary School site

mentioned in the Richardson text (25), this appealed to me. It looks like A LOT of work to set up, but I enjoyed the navigation aspects - similar to a website, and the fact that it was current - like a blog! Looking through some of the pages, I had to wonder how they set it up like they did, but I did notice it was done through wordpress. I haven't used wordpress yet, but may consider it once I am in a library. It looks like it has more features than blogger, but will also take some time to learn how to use the features...something I will have to look into later when I have more time!


Looking at blogging from an elementary school perspective, I appreciated Richardson's simple steps to introduce students to blogging. These suggestions are ones that I would certainly communicate to teachers who may be interested in starting some blogging with their students (32):

• find interesting sites and comment on what they find useful
• write about what they would like to see on the site
• recruit an audience to interact with students
• bring in sources like authors, politicians, etc...so students can ask questions and receive responses

RSS

Hmmm...After watching the hangout this past week, I decided to use feedly.com to replace my google reader. I tried to subscribe to a blog that I like to read using feedly, and it wouldn't work. So I went over to google reader to subscribe to it, and it added instantly. So I am not sure what I am doing wrong, but something is different, and I don't know what. Also strange is that when I created a category in feedly, this category showed up in my google reader list (???) So I don't know why I couldn't add the blog to feedly. Maybe it has to do with the site having an RSS feed, but this wouldn't make sense as to why it would appear in reader, and not in feedly. I'm stumped! I do like the look of feedly, so hopefully it will be as easy to use as google reader was!

So I went into feedly later, and lo-and-behold, there was the blog! I am guessing that feedly picked it up from my google reader. This is nice, but it won't be an option once google reader is gone! 

Reading the Richardson text and how to incorporate RSS feeds into my own blogs or websites sounds like a fantastic idea...it's just figuring out how to do it! I would like to try with some local news sites for practice. 

So I looked up the Kamloops Daily News website and found the RSS feed symbol:

When I clicked on it, another page popped up that looked like this:

So I decided to click on the RSS feed symbol beside "City & Region" and this popped up:

...and now I don't have a clue what to do with this! Time to head back into the Richardson text!

I think I must be missing something...I just can't quite figure this RSS feed thing out. It looks to be very useful...if I can get it to work! I know I enjoyed having the subscription to the blogs from our 477 group, as it made it very convenient to only have to look in one place to find everyone' information. I also like the suggestions by Richardson to create a Web Page (82), I just think I need some assistance in figuring this out....

....Aaron?

Tweet Tweet...twitter twitter

I was disappointed to miss the google hangout this week for our course...some great discussion regarding twitter. I had to laugh at myself as I was watching the replay of the hangout...a few times I caught myself almost talking to join the conversation! Such a great aspect of this course - I wish more of my courses did this. I will kinda miss the great discussions, and the people I have met - but at least I can follow them on twitter!! 
Speaking of following on twitter, I now have a new followers on my twitter account, and I have no idea who they are. I am guessing this is just part of the twitter world ??? 

"Heavy Traffic!"

One of the suggestions this week was to create lists for people who are "heavy tweeters." I think this is fantastic way to reduce the traffic in my feed, and a great way as well to be able to read the tweets that I may have missed in my feed. As Aaron called it... a "time machine on twitter!" The one thing that I quickly realized, is that I need to be aware of what kind of names I create for my lists, as this is available for ANYONE to see!! If I give a name list like "people who don't have too much to say" then I may offend someone!! So note to self...be careful about my list names!!

So I just went in to create a list for the news tweets that I follow, and I noticed that I can make the list private - so that's good to know! I added 3 of the members I am following to my "News" list - so much better for organization!

I like the idea of creating a list for local educators. Once I am in a school, I think this would be great for me to find other teachers that are on twitter, and then I can post quick tweets/links to interesting things that I find. It can be a QUICK and easy way to communicate to the staff...emphasis in the quick!

I tried to search for a few local educators from Kamloops that are using twitter. I did find Tracy Poelzer, our district Tech Coordinator, so she is one I chose to follow. I also checked to see who was following her (as suggested in the hangout) and I now can see the significance of updating my profile. As I was looking to see who was following Tracy, I was looking at the profiles to see if there was anyone to follow. I did find some other TL's, so that was neat. I can see how one click leads to another click, and then another... and another...
So I updated my profile...I just have to remember to update it in a few weeks when I have my diploma!!

I discovered that at only 5 tweets, I really don't tweet often! (I did up it by 1 as I was typing up this blog!) Maybe once I am finished my courses I will have more time to tweet, and hopefully once I am in a school, build into it some information for teachers at my school. 

I created a few more lists, and tried to organize them a bit. I think the lists will be hugely beneficial once I have more people that I follow. I created one list for suggestions from this course, and recently added Chris Hadfield. Wow!! Over 500, 000 followers! Crazy! ...but he doesn't have any lists. I guess with only 45 followers, it's not too bad...yet...

Okay...I can see that time can get away on me when I am browsing around on twitter! Time to go!

Social Networking...hello?? hello?? Anyone out there?? I'm here!!

Twitter

I signed up for a Twitter account earlier in this course, but quite honestly didn't use it much. I followed a couple people, and left it at that. I finally made my first tweet last week. I then discovered that the local girls curling team that is competing in the world curling championships was going to tweet from Sochi Russia. We are family friends of one of the girls on the team, so I thought this would be a fun, easy way to practice using Twitter and keep updated on their progress! Then it was mentioned during the Tuesday evening Hangout to follow scanbc. I had a look at it, and thought it was useful if I were going to travel down to the coast. Then just tonight, I realized how amazing Twitter is in the ability to get information "out there" rather quickly. My husband called on his way home from work and said he as held up on the highway. His phone then died. So....I went to Twitter, and found out that there were a few posts regarding a semi-trailer jack-knifed on the highway an hour ago. Crews were being sent out about 25 minutes ago to assess the situation. Well...I couldn't talk to my husband on his dead phone, but I did find out what was going on! I guess he will be a little later getting home. Too bad I can't call him to let him know!! I got to thinking that maybe upper elementary students could use twitter for current events, or finding out information regarding a certain topic. 

Facebook
I have had a facebook account for a number of years now, and have basically used it to keep in touch with family and friends. I do like it's ability to create groups that are exclusive to only certain people, but I still would hesitate to use this in elementary schools. It is just too public, and like Aaron had mentioned, there are too many other distractions for students if they are trying to accomplish any type of educational purpose on there!

I do find Facebook a great way to communicate and share with others, and often find someone has posted a link to a good laugh. Someone share this today, so I thought I would pass this one on, and share a laugh with others as well! Tim Hawkins is one of my favourite comedians! (The song starts around 1:10)






remind 101
My daughter, in grade 9, came home one day and said that she had to give her teacher her cell phone number so that she could receive text messages from the teacher. At first I thought, wow, that's ambitious of the teacher to individually text each of her students! When my daughter received her first text, I could tell it was a "mass-send-out" type of format. So then I was curious...how did she do it? I then found out at the Tuesday night hangout that this was possible through the use of remind101. I think that is a really neat idea! The ability to send out a simple text for a reminder of an upcoming quiz, or a reminder to hand in some homework is a great way to communicate with students. I wasn't sure how this would work in elementary school, as not all students have cell phones, but then I figured that many parents do! This could be useful for reminding parents about upcoming field trips, or any other special events that need a quick little reminder. I know that as a parent, I would appreciate it!!

* I had a parent teacher interview tonight with the teacher that uses remind101, and she took the time to show me how it works. I was impressed by the privacy of it - as she doesn't even know the students' phone numbers. It reminded me of twitter in that she can only use up to 140 characters. She also told me that the principal of the school asked her to present what she uses to the rest of the staff, and some of the others have started to use it as well. I think it's a great use of another social networking tool!

flickr photo credit to kobiz7

I was thinking about why I, personally, find things like twitter, facebook, and remind101 more appealing than say a wiki or a blog. I think it may have to do with the length. These social networking tools provide short snippets of information, and it doesn't take long to read a post or tweet. It's quick, and to the point. In contrast, I find that if a blog post is really long, I will come back to it later when I have the time to sit down and read through it. So now I have to process how my thoughts about this would possibly be the same thoughts of some students, and how I would approach it. Food for thought...

ok...so now I have a new question regarding Twitter...why would someone who is following 9677 people and have 23319 followers choose to follow me??? Seems strange...as I don't have much to say, and I really haven't made much of a presence in the Twitter world. Is this normal??

Presenting.....(with) Web 2.0

This week's readings is about using presentation tools. My first exploration was with Voicethread, and I initially thought that voicethread was like a podcast – just voice. Apparently this is not the case. “It’s often described as a media album that is made of a series of different types of media, images, documents, and videos that others can comment on in multiple ways: using voice (with microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a Webcam) – and share them with anyone they wish” (Berger & Trexler, 2010, 133). It sounds to me like this encompasses pretty much everything we have learned so far!

Taking a look at a few voicethreads, this reminds me a bit of twitter. What I am understanding this as... is that someone posts a question, comment, etc…then other people can add their thoughts, questions, etc…related to the topic. These people can add text or sounds of their voices.

Berger and Trexler discuss voicethreads quite extensively, so I decided to look it up. Okay…so I didn’t realize there was a cost, as the text said that registration for the educator pro account is free. Guess this isn't the case anymore...

Costs aside, I did like some of the ideas presented in Ned's Keeper blog:

• make different slides for familiar words and have kids share their own words for that to compare cultures
• create optical illusions - have kids take pictures of something familiar REALLY close up and have others guess what it is. (Okay...this would be lots of fun, especially if tied in as an introduction to a new unit!)
• book discussions (Berger & Trexler, 2010, 137)

Next stop...

Animoto

Oh yay! I have already played with this one, and posted my experiences in a previous blog post. I did like Animoto for it's ease of use, and it is quick to come up with something that is fun. It's too bad that it is only 30 seconds...it would have been nice if it was at least the length of a short song. 

I decided to play a bit with Jing to do a screenshot of my video that I made in Animoto. I like this tool! I haven't figured out if I can embed it into my blog right from Jing. I notice that I could share it to Facebook, Twitter...but I didn't see anything about a blog. To get this, I saved it as a file on my computer, then added it to my blog by "Insert image."

So moving along...

Glogster is a new one for me. I haven't used it yet, but I have heard of people using it and liking it. My first impressions are that there is a lot on one page, and some pages can look a little overwhelming, but it looks like it would be fun for students to put together. 

I went to glogster.com and noticed that there was an educational aspect as well. They have a deal for $20 per year, but I am just looking for the free one right now! I also got a pop up to link to Facebook as well...I don't think I am comfortable with my glogs popping up in Facebook for all to see! 

Oh... maybe I wanna become a GlogStar!!!! I had to laugh at the message that appeared in my mailbox:

Get fans & get famous - Get your Glogs noticed to attract fans. The more fans you have, the closer you'll be to becoming a GlogStar! 

...Really??!!


So I chose a predetermined template, but I think I need to watch some tutorials on how to use this! It doesn't look like a quick and easy thing to learn late at night! 

Every time I sign in to glogster, I get this message:

I don't think I am comfortable with this, nor would I want this to happen to students. 

Using glogster is kind of fun, but I decided to use some of the pre-made templates, which made it much easier to figure it all out. Some of the animated graphics are fun to add. I can see students enjoying putting these "poster-like" pages together. I am thinking there are many more uses, and I have only played with a few of the features. At least if I can get a basic understanding, I am thinking that students would take off with it!!
I have been trying to upload some pictures, but it is certainly taking awhile. Maybe I should have tried to only upload one at a time. 

Now I need to figure out how to post my glog into my blog  (wow...gotta love technical terms!!) I'm not sure if it worked. I tried both ways (in compose mode, and in html mode). I did get permission from my 13 year old daughter if I could poke a little fun at her!

http://www.glogster.com/nsauer/kaylee-13/g-6ku3i3ir16ehj4hh9mu9ca0

http://www.glogster.com/nsauer/kaylee-13/g-6ku3i3ir16ehj4hh9mu9ca0

Oh, I think I may have figured something else out...

I think it may have worked!! I needed to go look at the glog, then there was an embed tool at the bottom. Yay! (sorry Kaylee....it's public now!!)

Personally... I think “nikiswiki” has a nice ring to it!

This week our exploration involves wikis. I have been hearing a lot of debate regarding wikis and blogs, and the benefits of each. The biggest thing I have been hearing about wikis is the benefit of collaboration. One of my other courses we were to join a wiki, but we haven’t done much with it. I have my own wiki for a course, but it has been acting similar to my blogs, so I am not seeing much of a difference right now, other than the layout.

I decided to go looking closer at my wiki, and I noticed that it has the feature of looking at recent changes. This is of benefit if the organizer of the wiki would like to see if any other member has gone into the wiki and made any changes.

As Richardson states about wikis: “…wikis can be pretty amazing and versatile. And if you believe as I do that doing real collaboration is something that every student needs to learn, keep reading” (Richardson, 57). So I guess I will keep reading!

I know the “free” wiki that I have is limited to 5 members, so I am curious how some of these other wikis have so many contributors? It seems as though Richardson is saying that when a wiki starts, people can contribute, and it grows from there – especially in his description of the Indian Ocean earthquake of 2004 (p.57). I am thinking there must be some additional fees if someone wants to create a wiki that can have endless amount of contributors?

I agree how Richardson comments that we need to teach Wikipedia to our students – “because they are already using it in their research, whether we like it or not” (p.58). If students are going to be using Wikipedia, then we should be training them on how to use it properly. Also, it appears that the bad rap that Wikipedia may have had in the past is diminishing, as it is “becoming a trusted and cited source by many major news outlets (the New York Times among them) and scholars” (58).

It was interesting to look at some statistical data for the global warming wiki that Richardson provided the url for (p.59). The “number of watchers” and “contributors” is quite an impressive list!

Wikipedia in schools:

Personally, I like Richardson’s idea of students doing research on a topic, and then contributing to Wikipedia (p.60). Being able to watch what happens to the added information, and if/how it gets modified would be an interesting project, and a great way to learn about collaborating in a “real life” situation. I didn’t realize that there was a “Simple English Wikipedia” for younger students. I had a look at it and decided to compare Wayne Gretzky in both. The Simple English was simpler to read, and had much less information. I had to smile how a Wikipedia tab says “Article” but on the Simple English Wikipedia the same tab says “Page”…yup, simpler.

I spent some time looking at some wikis that Richardson suggested for “K-12”, but I really can’t see younger students performing some of the skills that he mentions (p.63). Some of the suggested uses for older students are quite amazing, and would certainly develop useful skills.

Richardson sums up wikis well: “Regardless of how educators fell about the potential of wikis, and I can understand the hesitancy many teachers feel, one thing remains certain: The collaborative environment that wikis facilitate can teach students much about how to work with others, how to create community, and how to operate in a world where the creation of knowledge and information is more and more becoming a group effort” (Richardson, 2010, 69). I agree, there are many teachers, such as myself, that are a little hesitant about getting students involved in these online, public tools, as there are risks. We don’t like to put students into risky situations, and have the backlash of being held responsible. But I do agree that the wikis have great potential in what they can teach students about working collaboratively, and sharing knowledge. As I think about wikis, and my personal use of them as a TL, I think more of how I can incorporate the use of them with the other staff in the school. Being able to create a “central location,” like a wiki, that teachers and the TL can share their ideas and continue to add/modify is appealing to me. 

So for an addition to my post, I decided to combine wiki with screenr. I have been wanting to try screenr for awhile and keep forgetting! I decided to make a short "fictional" tutorial on how to create a new page in wiki - something basic for older elementary school students. Sorry about the low volume - my kids were sleeping and I didn't want to wake them! Making the screenr was super duper easy! I just watched the 1 minute tutorial (I am really liking this way of learning things!) and then gave it a try! The hardest part was trying to figure out what to record. Well, hopefully it works!

Journey to the Podcast...

I have to admit, podcasting is not one of my favourite tools, and I cringe when I hear the word. I think it is partly due to the fact that I am not a very auditory person…I need visuals. I would much rather sit and read a book than listen to an audio book, and actually, I tend to not even remember what has been said if it is just auditory. I was commenting to my husband just the other day that I probably would have enjoyed it more when my elementary teacher read novels out loud to us if I could have followed along with the book. It’s just something that I realize about myself, so I deal with it. So podcasts aren’t my favourite tool, but I know that many others enjoy them, so I will learn more about them!

This chapter by Richardson, though explaining podcasts, is helping me to understand RSS feed a little better (p.113). This automatic updates that a person can subscribe to is quite amazing. I am thinking that is similar to what we have set up for our class blogs in google reader (??)

Richardson describes the access of podcasts through itunes (p.114). I decided to take a look through my itunes account. I was quite surprised at the vast amount available! I searched through the “More Education – K-12” and found podcasts of a young girl reading story books. All of these podcasts were free. I could certainly see the educational implications for these – especially if a student had the actual book in their hands. The people who created the podcast even made sure there was a “jingle” to turn the page. Browsing through the many different podcasts made me realize some of the different uses for them. I think it would be a great idea to have some of the older students in the school create podcasts of themselves reading some picture books for the younger students in the school!

Okay, so I downloaded Audacity, had it working, and recorded a quick “hello”. I thought I would try plugging in a mic, and it didn’t work, so I unplugged it. Now I can’t record any sound, so I don’t know what happened. Grrr…I don’t have time to troubleshoot like this when I have no idea how to troubleshoot!! Will come back to this later….

Okay, so I googled how to turn my microphone sound back on, and I think I found it. Nope…didn’t work in Audacity.

So I decided to move on to a Screencast. I haven’t done this yet, but I think this can be a useful tool, especially for teaching things on the internet, or for computer use. Many upper elementary students may not be as technologically savvy as others, and having this interactive way to learn things incorporates visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning!

Just waiting for Jing to install…

Back to Audacity. It took me a bit, but I finally figured out how to get the mic turned back on for my laptop. After twisting my daughter’s arm a bit, she agreed to play one of her short fiddle tunes on her violin for by podcast assignment. It was really cool how I could quickly delete the shuffling sounds at the beginning, and some extra background noise at the end of the recording with a simple highlight and delete. Now to figure out how to get it to my blog. I am hoping the Richardson text will guide me through that part too!

Well, not too much luck so far. I was able to record in Audacity, convert to MP3 using Switch Sound File Converter, but now I don’t know how to embed it into my Blog. Time to enlist the help of Aaron. Going to take a break from this for now.

Heard from Aaron, so created yet ANOTHER account with SoundCloud so that I could upload the MP3 and share onto my Blog. Going to give it a try to see if it works…

https://soundcloud.com/nsauer/violinpodcast1

or... (not sure which one to use)

If it works, you will be able to hear my daughter playing a short fiddle song on her violin!
If not...I will have to wait for Aaron to help troubleshoot! 

Ah...there it is! I had to switch to HTML when editing my post, and then paste the link at the end. 
Hope it works this time. If so, thanks Aaron!

YouTube

Just trying to see if I can figure out how to embed a video that I created in YouTube... 

My family likes to hike and find geocaches, so when my cousin's son came for a visit, we took him out to look for a geocache:

Reflection of using YouTube...

Seeing as I don't have video editing software on my computer, and Animoto was fun and simple, I wanted to rise to another challenge and try posting to YouTube. I look at videos quite often from YouTube, and even videos from friends, so I have always wondered how to do it. How hard could it be??Unfortunately I couldn't get it to work to upload any of my videos - I am thinking there is a conflict between the program on my computer that the videos are uploaded to and YouTube. I tried a few different things, but could not get the video to work, so settled on photos. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were ways to edit photos, and add music to the photos. I have powerpoint on my computer, but have never been able to add music to it, so I was happy to have this option! I would imagine I could add more photos, and time it perfectly to coincide with the end of the song, but my intent was to just play around with some of the features. I am glad that it was mentioned to change the privacy settings to unlisted. At least it will limit who can see find it. 
I think it would be fun to incorporate these kind of short videos into a library website. Of course I am always concerned about privacy issues though. I thought it would be an idea for students to present book reviews for their friends to see, but I would have to look into those privacy settings a little further. I know most students are very familiar with YouTube, and access it often, so being able to post something onto it from school as an educational project would be an exciting and interactive thing to do!

Men's Curling Provincials!!

My attempt to "share" from websites that have the little "share" icon:

2012-2013 British Columbia » Canadian Direct Insurance BC Men's Provincial Championship » Playdowns.com

My husband and his team are curling at the BC Provincials this week!! Go team Yamada!

http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/sports/189741201.html

**Note - this is an older photo. The guy on the left is no longer on the team. My husband is not in this photo - he's holding the broom at the other end of the ice!! I couldn't find a recent photo.

Social Bookmarking... without the tassel

My Diigo Tags

Although these are bookmarks I created in Diigo last semester, my goal was just to see if I could transfer it into my blog as a cloud...I'm not sure if it worked... okay...it looks like it is at the bottom of this blog post. Hmmm...

This weeks reading about Social Bookmarking is one that I am interested in, as I am continually adding bookmarks to my personal bookmarks on my computer, but I have very little organization with it. As you can see, this screenshot of just a few of my bookmarks is quite disorganized, and there are a lot of bookmarks to sift through when I am trying to find a specific one I have bookmarked. There is no way to "search" through my bookmarks.

Delicious or Diigo? Last semester, in one of my courses, we were given the option to pick one or the other, and I chose Diigo (the home page was more eye-catching to me). I started using it, then I found I was constantly signing in to bookmark, and the highlighting feature wasn’t working. So, I just continued to bookmark like I normally do, but I am finding I need some organization to them! It’s getting crazy!! Something Richardson pointed out in our text this week made sense to me: “Obviously, if we are to be expected to participate in the construction of ‘folksonomies’ to save the information that we find, it will require us to redefine the process we currently use in relative isolation. Our personal organizational systems for content may need revision to fit with a more communal model” (Richardson, 2010, p.91). This is so true. I think part of the reason I abandoned Diigo was that it was something different than what I had always been doing. But what I am finding now, is that what I have always been doing is becoming not all that effective, nor efficient. I also wonder if I can access my bookmarks (my personal ones) from a different computer. Something I will have to check!

Trying to figure out how to add a screenshot from my diigo:
Hope it works

Ah…Richardson compares Diigo and Delicious! Perfect!

Diigo: I did like the highlighting and stickynote features in Diigo – I just wish I could get them to work consistently! I also like that I can decide if it is private or public. I do like Richardson’s reasoning for public though – to be able to connect with others who have bookmarked similar sites (p.92).  Being able to create groups is another nice feature – I could see incorporating that with teacher colleagues at the school.

Delicious: Richardson didn’t have too much to say regarding Delicious, so at this point, I may stick with Diigo and try to figure it out some more. Got a little sidetracked with the information regarding LibraryThing.com and Shelfari.com. Found myself looking at books....reading reviews...having a little fun! Okay....I have work to do!!  I think I like Shelfari.com better – I just like the name of it! 

Clouds outside Niki's window

I had heard of Clouds before, but didn't realize what they were. I also didn't realize the significance of the size of text- now it makes sense!

I can certainly see the usefulness of social tagging within the school. In the library, the Librarian can organize useful sites into categories that pertain to subject areas that teachers can access. For students, the social bookmarking skill can help to narrow down searches so that they are not endlessly searching through google -and they develop their evaluation skills as they analyze the findings within the bookmarks (Berger & Trexler, 2010, p.53). I just need to become more proficient in using them myself!