I'm trying to make friends with my interactive whiteboard, since to date I have not found it to be particularly user-friendly and I obviously have to work on making overtures. These are sites I've been tapping for tips:
http://www.teachhub.com/free-interactive-whiteboard-resources
http://cwolgemuth.pbworks.com/w/page/6370878/Exploration
And my newest, picked up at a Pete&C workshop by Larry Kling:
http://oldteachernewtech.com/smart-notebook-tips-and-tricks-videos/
I've conquered "The Magic Tunnel" -- now I'm working on the magnifying glass.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
ICT Magic
I just stumbled upon this ICT Magic site, at http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools. It looks interesting, so I plan to explore it later when I'm not already in the midst of following another search trail for the lesson plan I'm writing.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Educational Innovations Changing How We Learn
I was just reading "The Year in Education: Seven Innovations Changing the Way the World Learns" via the Google Currents app. The original source of the article is http://goo.gl/mag/HLHH1. The "Social Media in the Classroom" section and the paragraph on "Twitter as a Collaborative Education Platform" particularly caught my eye. The latter suggested educators use "Grassroots hashtags like #edchat and #edtech" to call attention to their blogs about best practices.
The last of the 7 innovations is "The Library Revolution", listing the ways that libraries are changing due to digital content. It highlights Drexel's "Library Learning Terrace" and Cushing Academy going all digital, with no printed books. The librarians teach how to research with all digital resources. That sounds much like what we are doing at Chambersburg Area School District with our use of LibGuides: http://littleurl.net/d4c3d1
The last of the 7 innovations is "The Library Revolution", listing the ways that libraries are changing due to digital content. It highlights Drexel's "Library Learning Terrace" and Cushing Academy going all digital, with no printed books. The librarians teach how to research with all digital resources. That sounds much like what we are doing at Chambersburg Area School District with our use of LibGuides: http://littleurl.net/d4c3d1
Sunday, December 18, 2011
"12 Things You Didn't Know Facebook Could Do"
The blog heading is the title of an article that appeared in the NY Times and can be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/technology/personaltech/12-things-you-didnt-know-facebook-could-do.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share
It's worth reading.
It's worth reading.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Free Online "Thinking Tools" for the Classroom
I'm working my way through my Intel guide to using the Intel(R) Teach [Thinking With Technology] Program, and I'm being reminded of how many resources are made available free on the Web at http://www.intel.com/education . There's a Seeing Reason tool at www.intel.com/education/seeingreason, a Showing Evidence tool at www.intelcom/education/showingevidence, and a Visual Ranking tool at www.intel.com/education/visualranking. To use them with a class, you'll need to register in the teacher workspace area, so you can do behind-the-scenes setup of the scenario that will suit your class. There are a lot of project examples and unit plans offered for each tool, to guide one in thinking about how they could be adapted to an individual classroom.
Friday, December 16, 2011
I'm currently reading Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century by Henry Jenkins [et al.], one of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning.
We hear so much about digital natives, and the fact that today's young people have grown up with the Internet, but research is proving a fact that school librarians have known for some time: that young people may spend a lot of time online, but that does not mean they have the knowledge of how to find the best resources, know how to reflect and upon what they have found, or how to cope with the ethics of the social environment they find online.
Our current push with our library curriculum involves writing Internet safety and cyber bullying lessons for the full spectrum of our K-12 public school educational offerings, so I picked up the digital book (free at the time I downloaded it from Amazon) with the idea that it would offer insights into teaching children how to use social media in ways that would not infringe upon their privacy and would teach proper social media interaction (i.e., not using it to spread meanness, rumor, innuendo). So far, however, the report is dealing with the issue of equality of access to digital media, and the inequities of children's educations if they do not have access to a computer and the Internet.
The next section of the report deals with the so-called "transparency" problem, involving assessing the quality of information that is found online. This is the kind of teaching we librarians do in school, trying to teach how to read the Web site to determine its purpose, and whether it is commercial or non-commercial, and why they might be trying to sway the reader's thoughts. Advertising on the Web is not as obvious as it is in the TV commercials that interrupt the entertaining parts of the television programming.
Then there's the question of ethics, especially when cut-and-paste is such an easy way to throw together a report. Ethics also enters into the use of social media. It is easy to lie about oneself when posting to MySpace or Facebook, or in chat rooms. We need to make students understand the importance of ethical conduct online as well as in their offline real lives.
We hear so much about digital natives, and the fact that today's young people have grown up with the Internet, but research is proving a fact that school librarians have known for some time: that young people may spend a lot of time online, but that does not mean they have the knowledge of how to find the best resources, know how to reflect and upon what they have found, or how to cope with the ethics of the social environment they find online.
Our current push with our library curriculum involves writing Internet safety and cyber bullying lessons for the full spectrum of our K-12 public school educational offerings, so I picked up the digital book (free at the time I downloaded it from Amazon) with the idea that it would offer insights into teaching children how to use social media in ways that would not infringe upon their privacy and would teach proper social media interaction (i.e., not using it to spread meanness, rumor, innuendo). So far, however, the report is dealing with the issue of equality of access to digital media, and the inequities of children's educations if they do not have access to a computer and the Internet.
The next section of the report deals with the so-called "transparency" problem, involving assessing the quality of information that is found online. This is the kind of teaching we librarians do in school, trying to teach how to read the Web site to determine its purpose, and whether it is commercial or non-commercial, and why they might be trying to sway the reader's thoughts. Advertising on the Web is not as obvious as it is in the TV commercials that interrupt the entertaining parts of the television programming.
Then there's the question of ethics, especially when cut-and-paste is such an easy way to throw together a report. Ethics also enters into the use of social media. It is easy to lie about oneself when posting to MySpace or Facebook, or in chat rooms. We need to make students understand the importance of ethical conduct online as well as in their offline real lives.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Plagiarism
Even though the concept of plagiarism comes into our library department curriculum in the earliest stages of teaching research skills, the fact remains that we still need to deal with it in a manner that will catch the student's attention. I just ran across a good graphic representation that can be used in educational settings, from Acadia University. The link to it is here: http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/plagiarism/
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Free Apple iBook - The Beatles Yellow Submarine
Yellow Submarine is a free digital book available from the iTunes store. It's based on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Beatles tunes. You'll need a Wi-Fi connection to load onto your iPad -- it's too large for 3G downloading. There are video clips within the book that provide sidebars for the action.
The Library Grants Center
The Library Grants Center, http://salempress.com/Store/grants/grants.htm, is a free Web tool from Salem Press that pulls together listings of library grants on both the national and the state levels. There's also a comprehensive "Solving the Puzzle" page with information to help you navigate the maze and find newsletters and blogs that announce new grants.
Find the Library Grants Center on Facebook and "Like it" to get updates on new grant listings.
Find the Library Grants Center on Facebook and "Like it" to get updates on new grant listings.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
WebJunction
Pennsylvania librarians may register at WebJunction Pennsylvania, a service provided by Access Pennsylvania, to register for free library trainings for which Act 48 continuing education credits are available. The URL is http://pa.webjunction.org/. I've just finished two of their self-paced courses, "Leadership Essentials 2: Communicating Vision" and "Directors ASK! (LibraryU)", each of which granted 1 hour of Act 48 credit. My next selection will be "Copyright Issues in the Classroom and School Library (LEAD)".
Our district hosted a training session in LibGuides recently, so our librarians and others in neighboring areas could obtain a free year's subscription the the PA LibGuides curation pages for public and school librarians. My cohort librarian and I have made a CASD Faculty LibGuide page at http://palibraries.libguides.com/content.php?pid=270348&sid=2230234, where we organize resources for classes coming to our high school library for library instruction. I am also working on a private LibGuides site to arrange lesson plans for the Technology Integration Into the Classroom course I'll be teaching next semester for Wilson College's M.Ed program, focusing on Web 2.0 tools for education.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
I've been exploring the Web. 2.0 tools listed in Bloom's Revised Digital Taxonomy: http://www.usi.edu/distance/bdt.htm and teaching the use of them to new teachers in our district: http://www.chambersburg.k12.pa.us/education/dept/dept.php?sectionid=2528&
I just joined Library 2.0 in order to participate in the [free] Library 2.011 Worldwide Virtual Conference that will be held online from Wednesday, November 2 through Friday, November 4. More than 4,000 information professionals from 149 countries have signed up to join the global conversation on the current and future state of libraries. 160 presentations are scheduled over two days, and all will be recorded so you can catch them later if you're not available at they time they are happening.
Create your own membership in Library 2.0: http://www.library20.com/main/invitation/new?xg_source=msg_wel_network
Create your own membership in Library 2.0: http://www.library20.com/main/invitation/new?xg_source=msg_wel_network
Back to Blogging
I'd been the only librarian in a middle school library and I had a blog on my school Web site, so I really saw no need to continue using this blog that had been set up for the purposes of a course.
Life changes, and so do decisions. I'm now librarian at a high school and find myself sharing the high school library Web site with another librarian. I have not yet ventured to put my own blog there -- although I might -- but in the meantime I've decided to resurrect this blogspot.
Life changes, and so do decisions. I'm now librarian at a high school and find myself sharing the high school library Web site with another librarian. I have not yet ventured to put my own blog there -- although I might -- but in the meantime I've decided to resurrect this blogspot.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Comic Book Artists Illustrate Sci-Fi Legends | NewsCred, Quality Newspapers & Blogs
Comic Book Artists Illustrate Sci-Fi Legends NewsCred, Quality Newspapers & Blogs
Love these comic book artists' renditions of Sci-Fi authors!
Love these comic book artists' renditions of Sci-Fi authors!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Is the Internet Rewiring Our Brains?
I recently read an article in eSchool News Online titled, "Scientists: Is technology rewiring our brains?", that I found very interesting. The part about whether the social skills of teens could be harmed by being online so much wasn't of so much interest to me as the question Wolf raises about whether young children, learning to read, will have brains that do not follow "normal reading pathways" because those pathways take more time, which is not accorded in Internet reading.
I'll be interested in following this research. I'm currently taking Reading Apprenticeship training, which has taught me that I need to teach my students how to read a Web page. Apparently they don't know how to look for keywords and key ideas as they read, and they don't read the details that are laid out in the sentences before their eyes. Those of us who learned to read text in books before the age of the Internet do not have the same problems reading a Web page that school students who are "digital natives" have.
I'll be interested in following this research. I'm currently taking Reading Apprenticeship training, which has taught me that I need to teach my students how to read a Web page. Apparently they don't know how to look for keywords and key ideas as they read, and they don't read the details that are laid out in the sentences before their eyes. Those of us who learned to read text in books before the age of the Internet do not have the same problems reading a Web page that school students who are "digital natives" have.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Week Nine, Assignment #23
#23. This is the final discovery exercise on Copyright and Creative Commons. When I finish it, I will go to the PA Online Survey to complete an evaluation.
It's interesting to me when I go to the School Library Learning site to find out about assignment #23 that I'm seeing the video "A Fair(y) Use Tale." I'd seen this video bookmarked on Del.icio.us in a friend's networked bookmarks, and I'd considered using it as the YouTube item I was going to embed in my blog, until I started to watch it and saw Disney characters and the Disney logo. I realize now, after watching the whole thing, that I didn't watch far enough previously to realize what the creators were doing. They took such small portions of each movie clip that they were not infringing on copyright, and they were putting the clips together in such as way as not to infringe upon the original work or retell the original work. They demonstrated how to put together a new creative work that does not break copyright law, and they properly gave credit to the original productions and the owner of the original copyrights, Disney Productions. It's really a very clever work showing how "fair use" can work for someone.
Part of our assignment is to find something that indicates that this video was changed from its original. That indication is on the screen that says, "The following film is not associated with, authorized by, or should be confused with any product produced by" and then the "Walt Disney Pictures" logo appears.
I just visited the Creative Commons Web site and I was surprised to see an entry about Lawrence Lessig having appeared on "The Colbert Report" on TV's Comedy Central channel on January 8th. Lessig is the founder of Creative Commons and he was promoting his new book, Remix, when he appeared on Stephen Colbert's show. I'd seen that show, but I didn't know who Lessig was, and I didn't know I'd be visiting Creative Commons and finding out about the connection. It just seems like an odd coincidence that I'm doing that within three days of the show.
Another coincidence: Even as I am in the process of working on this assignment and I found another blog I wanted to add to my blog reader, I see that my blog reader has brought me Joyce Valenza's "NeverEnding Search" blog about "Remixing: Lessig vs. Colbert". Talk about timely matters!
Creative Commons is a site with tools that lets people license their work and share it legally. It allows the owner to reserve all rights or only some rights to their creative work, so others can take the work and use it in a "remixed" way.
I visited the Arts Project Web site of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain and found some interesting links there. I paged through a bit of the comic book about intellectual property, but I've never liked having to read comic books -- they take so much longer to absorb than just text. Nonetheless, some people like their instruction in graphic form, so it's nice to know that this comic book on intellectual property can be viewed online.
I enjoyed watching the short film called "Great Composers Steal", with Anthony Kelley giving examples of how the limitations of the Western musical scale can make many tunes sound as though they are borrowed from others but really are not. He played notes that sounded like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star when played at one rhythm and I'm In the Mood For Love when played at another rhythm, to give examples the audience would recognize as being very different works even though they use identical notes. When you have only 11 notes of a scale, and thousands (millions?) of tunes to write, some of them will have to have the same notes because there are no others from which to choose.
I've enjoyed this journey through the "23 Things" of Library 2.0 and am heading now to complete my evaluation on the PA Online Survey site.
It's interesting to me when I go to the School Library Learning site to find out about assignment #23 that I'm seeing the video "A Fair(y) Use Tale." I'd seen this video bookmarked on Del.icio.us in a friend's networked bookmarks, and I'd considered using it as the YouTube item I was going to embed in my blog, until I started to watch it and saw Disney characters and the Disney logo. I realize now, after watching the whole thing, that I didn't watch far enough previously to realize what the creators were doing. They took such small portions of each movie clip that they were not infringing on copyright, and they were putting the clips together in such as way as not to infringe upon the original work or retell the original work. They demonstrated how to put together a new creative work that does not break copyright law, and they properly gave credit to the original productions and the owner of the original copyrights, Disney Productions. It's really a very clever work showing how "fair use" can work for someone.
Part of our assignment is to find something that indicates that this video was changed from its original. That indication is on the screen that says, "The following film is not associated with, authorized by, or should be confused with any product produced by" and then the "Walt Disney Pictures" logo appears.
I just visited the Creative Commons Web site and I was surprised to see an entry about Lawrence Lessig having appeared on "The Colbert Report" on TV's Comedy Central channel on January 8th. Lessig is the founder of Creative Commons and he was promoting his new book, Remix, when he appeared on Stephen Colbert's show. I'd seen that show, but I didn't know who Lessig was, and I didn't know I'd be visiting Creative Commons and finding out about the connection. It just seems like an odd coincidence that I'm doing that within three days of the show.
Another coincidence: Even as I am in the process of working on this assignment and I found another blog I wanted to add to my blog reader, I see that my blog reader has brought me Joyce Valenza's "NeverEnding Search" blog about "Remixing: Lessig vs. Colbert". Talk about timely matters!
Creative Commons is a site with tools that lets people license their work and share it legally. It allows the owner to reserve all rights or only some rights to their creative work, so others can take the work and use it in a "remixed" way.
I visited the Arts Project Web site of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain and found some interesting links there. I paged through a bit of the comic book about intellectual property, but I've never liked having to read comic books -- they take so much longer to absorb than just text. Nonetheless, some people like their instruction in graphic form, so it's nice to know that this comic book on intellectual property can be viewed online.
I enjoyed watching the short film called "Great Composers Steal", with Anthony Kelley giving examples of how the limitations of the Western musical scale can make many tunes sound as though they are borrowed from others but really are not. He played notes that sounded like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star when played at one rhythm and I'm In the Mood For Love when played at another rhythm, to give examples the audience would recognize as being very different works even though they use identical notes. When you have only 11 notes of a scale, and thousands (millions?) of tunes to write, some of them will have to have the same notes because there are no others from which to choose.
I've enjoyed this journey through the "23 Things" of Library 2.0 and am heading now to complete my evaluation on the PA Online Survey site.
Week Nine, Assignment #22
#22. eBooks and Audio eBooks
The World EBook Fair site was operational for one month, July 4, 2007-August 4, 2007. I found it on May 23, 2007 and explored it during the month of its availability. (I was blogging in another place at that time and remarked on it in that blog.) I had just discovered Playaway audiobooks and had written a grant proposal that had landed quite a large collection of audiobooks for my library, so I had little interest at that time in finding ebooks I'd have to read on my computer when I much preferred to go out walking while listening to my new audiobook collection. After all, it was midsummer and I wanted to be outside. Also, at that time, I had no interest in an e-book collection that I'd have to read on my computer, because as it is I spend not only most of my working day on a computer sut also most of my free time in the evening with a laptop computer on my lap while I type away at various Web sites I administer. I wish now that I'd shown more interest in downloading these books, because my library now has a Kindle and I'm wondering if I would have been able to read them on it. The Kindle is a wonderful way to read e-books because the weight of it doesn't put your legs to sleep (like my laptop computer does).
I explored the Gutenberg Project to find what e-books are available there. I downloaded the English version of Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room, primarily because my husband is currently reading both the English and the French versions of the book and I was curious whether he could have been just as happy with the free e-book as with the print version in his hands. The download is a "text version" and I have to say that I personally don't care for the bleakness of it, written in small font in unrelenting paragraph after paragraph to be scrolled through, ad infinitum.
By the way, if someone wants the French version of that book as a free download, both the text and the audiobook are available free here. Literatureaudio.com has more than 600 free audiobooks in French.
The Web site DailyLit also has some free and some really inexpensive books that may be of interest.
The British Library Online Gallery, Turning the Pages((TM) system has some free e-books. I attempted to view the original Alice by Lewis Carroll, but the Shockwave Player installation did not go through on my computer and rather than re-try (and possibly mess up something on my computer), I clicked to cancel it. Then I noticed on the site that there's a Turning the Pages (TM) version 2 for Vista and I went to it. It also works if you have SilverLight downloaded on your computer. There I found The Original Adventures of Alice Underground and clicked for it. It took about a minute for the download, and it's really impressive-looking when it finally comes on the screen. You can read Lewis Carroll's original handwriting or you can read the text in regular computer font (in a variety of sizes) in a window that opens. It took me a little time to find how to turn the pages. You click on the edge of the page and then drag your mouse in a "page flipping" direction. You'll see the page flip over to reveal the next page. You also can click "Listen" and have it read to you. Re-click "Listen" when you want it to stop. This is a beautiful resource, and I intend to go back and look at other books available there.
I also liked Best Places to Get Free Books - The Ultimate Guide. There are so many sites listed there that it will take some time to explore them. Note that they are not all e-books. (That doesn't make the sites any less interesting to explore!)
The World EBook Fair site was operational for one month, July 4, 2007-August 4, 2007. I found it on May 23, 2007 and explored it during the month of its availability. (I was blogging in another place at that time and remarked on it in that blog.) I had just discovered Playaway audiobooks and had written a grant proposal that had landed quite a large collection of audiobooks for my library, so I had little interest at that time in finding ebooks I'd have to read on my computer when I much preferred to go out walking while listening to my new audiobook collection. After all, it was midsummer and I wanted to be outside. Also, at that time, I had no interest in an e-book collection that I'd have to read on my computer, because as it is I spend not only most of my working day on a computer sut also most of my free time in the evening with a laptop computer on my lap while I type away at various Web sites I administer. I wish now that I'd shown more interest in downloading these books, because my library now has a Kindle and I'm wondering if I would have been able to read them on it. The Kindle is a wonderful way to read e-books because the weight of it doesn't put your legs to sleep (like my laptop computer does).
I explored the Gutenberg Project to find what e-books are available there. I downloaded the English version of Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room, primarily because my husband is currently reading both the English and the French versions of the book and I was curious whether he could have been just as happy with the free e-book as with the print version in his hands. The download is a "text version" and I have to say that I personally don't care for the bleakness of it, written in small font in unrelenting paragraph after paragraph to be scrolled through, ad infinitum.
By the way, if someone wants the French version of that book as a free download, both the text and the audiobook are available free here. Literatureaudio.com has more than 600 free audiobooks in French.
The Web site DailyLit also has some free and some really inexpensive books that may be of interest.
The British Library Online Gallery, Turning the Pages((TM) system has some free e-books. I attempted to view the original Alice by Lewis Carroll, but the Shockwave Player installation did not go through on my computer and rather than re-try (and possibly mess up something on my computer), I clicked to cancel it. Then I noticed on the site that there's a Turning the Pages (TM) version 2 for Vista and I went to it. It also works if you have SilverLight downloaded on your computer. There I found The Original Adventures of Alice Underground and clicked for it. It took about a minute for the download, and it's really impressive-looking when it finally comes on the screen. You can read Lewis Carroll's original handwriting or you can read the text in regular computer font (in a variety of sizes) in a window that opens. It took me a little time to find how to turn the pages. You click on the edge of the page and then drag your mouse in a "page flipping" direction. You'll see the page flip over to reveal the next page. You also can click "Listen" and have it read to you. Re-click "Listen" when you want it to stop. This is a beautiful resource, and I intend to go back and look at other books available there.
I also liked Best Places to Get Free Books - The Ultimate Guide. There are so many sites listed there that it will take some time to explore them. Note that they are not all e-books. (That doesn't make the sites any less interesting to explore!)
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