From the TCMS Media Center

I felt near panic when 23 things became 43 things as I am running a bit behind schedule getting my things completed.  I didn’t care for 43 things.  Here’s why:

First, I just have a difficult time believing that everyone needs to know what my goals are.  I’ll admit that I wouldn’t care for any one here, there, or wherever knowing if I am meeting my goals or not.  I get enough criticism from my faculty to know that many of them have issues with my performance as it is!!  Who needs to add strangers to the mix?  Not me — at least not right now.

I also don’t see myself using 43 things to check out other people’s goals.  Does that make me uncaring?  Insensitive? Obnoxious?  I hope not for I see a mix of 640 kids daily here in my media center, 50 + staff members, all of whom I need to gently affirm or correct whatever the need may be.  Some days, I just feel a bit too drained to care about one more person.  Oh - that does make me sound obnoxious and for that I apologize. 

I also don’t see utilizing this with students.  I have been introduced to too many other great Web 2.0 tools that I would want to focus on with students.  Sorry, but this one is just not for me.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am not associated (other than finding favor with my nephew’s mother-in-law and through Kathy I found favor with Shelley) with any other school utilizing this great opportunity to learn more about Web 2.0.  In the public school system where I am employed, funds for professional development are devoted to the four academic areas.  Other teachers have been excluded from many great opportunities because of the funds required for teachers going through training for Georgia Performance Standards.  Notice:  I didn’t say I disagree with the policy, but I am concerned by the policy.  Many teachers in our system have been given the message that the subjects they teach are not as important simply by the constant denials to attend valuable and applicable training sessions.  Tools like K12 Online Conference can help those of us who have been denied access to quality training to take the matter  of our personal professional development into our own hands.  Does the phrase “taking ownership of your learning” ring a bell?  Well, it does with me.  I am not going to get access to quality training if I don’t push to find it. 

 I’ve listened to two of the presentations offered at the K12 Online conference site. Each presentation, though in two different divisions of the conference, were very from very positive presenters who gently encouraged the listeners to take the step into the world of Web 2.0 in the classroom. 

Sylvia Martinez, in her presentation titled Web 2.0 Share the Adventure, encourages the classroom teacher not to view bringing Web 2.0 into the classroom as a big step, but rather as a smaller series of steps in which our students help us, the teachers, make discoveries of uses for Web 2.0.  She encourages the teacher to use the students to create classroom wikis, blog pages, or other tools to be utilized.  Martinez makes mention that teachers should not be embarrassed that students seem to know more about the Web 2.0 tools than the teacher seems to know.  Utilizing the students knowledge will give the student more ownership in the process.  I’ve enjoyed listening to this presentation.

The second presentation I listened to/watched was from Chris Harbeck.  Harbeck shared how he utilized Web 2.0 tools in his classroom to facilitate learning.  I enjoyed the visuals of the student work he presented.  I thought that it was interesting that he wrapped up the presentation by sharing several things he would do differently next year.  So many times we hear how others do things that go so perfectly and the things they describe just do not seem doable in the normal classroom.  Harbeck seemed real and genuine to me. 

 I have a teacher on my staff who has made the comment several times that his classes would never utilize computer technology because the students knew more than he did about computers and he didn’t want to seem dumb to them.  Perhaps I should stream the two presentations about into his classroom and see what happens!

Am I nosey or simply curious?  Maybe more of one than the other, but either way I love to see what is on other people’s bookshelves.  “Mind if I look over your bookshelves?” is a question I commonly ask when I feel comfortable enough to ask in the homes of friend, colleagues, and family members.  Of course, I would never peruse the shelves in depth without asking first.  LibraryThing allows me to do some that that perusing without leaving my computer.  I always want to know if someone has read a new book that I need to read.  Is there a new author whose thoughts would touch my heart?  I just like to know.  Several of the feeds in my RSS reader have to do with new authors/new books. 

I did find one down side to LibraryThing, or perhaps I just have not played enough yet to figure out how to do this.  Either way—-when I find a author I really like, I tend to get all of their books.  I would like to add several books by the same author in one click on LibraryThing, but I do not see a way to do that.  That one step alone would save me bunches of time in getting my personal stock of books catalogued into LibraryThing. 

A very practical use of LibraryThing in my media center would be to get students to create their own LibraryThing.  Remember a previous post about a certain young man who has become the King of Book Recommendation at my school?  I can think of several kids at our school who would love to sneak into his home to examine the bookshelves.  Students willing to share their own personal titles could be an encouragement to other reluctant readers to give titles they would not ordinarily consider a try.

Well, I am going to explore your bookshelves now.  Got anything good you would recommend for me to read? 

I must tell the truth.  At first was was not impressed with del.icio.us AT ALL.  I followed the prescribed steps of creating an account, checking out all of the how to stuff, and did my first search on a topic that had been heavily on my mind — young adult literature.  Needless to say, I was appalled that the first three or so hits were adult explicit links.  UGG!!!  I certainly didn’t care to stumble on that, so I logged out and left if alone for a few days. 

As I am going through my RSS reader I see a great many references to del.icio.us which is curious to me.  One of the “experts” whose blog posts that I enjoy reading most LOVES del.icio.us.  This gets me to thinking that I must have missed something, so I go back and try it again.

While I can’t say that I love del.icio.us like some folks seem to do, I will admit that it will be convenient when I have in the far 8th grade wing of my school needing a certain web link which I can’t remember and I won’t have to walk the 2 3/4 miles (yes, I have taken to exaggeration!) back to my office computer to find the link.  Convenience is good, really good.

I am still working to like the organization and look of del.icio.us.  Is it OK that I admit that when so many folks absolutely love it?  I read in on RSS feed this week that there is another similar site for bookmarking.  I may go there once next year’s budget and all of my end of the year tasks are neatly compiled and filed away. The way things are going right now that may be sometime in December.  

The assignment for thing 13 gave me an opportunity to examine several Web 2.0 tools that could be of great benefit to my students and my teachers.  One of the best I visited was Quizlet.  I immediately thought about the ESOL classes here.  We have several students who have enrolled here who speak little or no English.  The ESOL teacher is always looking for ways to increase the English proficiency of these students.  I think the electronic flash cards would be great.  Also, having five different ways to practice and test your knowledge will go a long way to eliminate the boredom that comes from using certain tools repetitively.  While I was reviewing this site, I had a visit from a former physics teacher.  I went into the public content  of this site and saw a section on physics.  I clicked into a previously created set and found a set for physics formulas.  The former physics teacher and I went through a previously created set covering physics formulas.  She was very impressed by the technological advance of a very basic study aide that she typically suggested her students use when learning formulas.  If I saw any negative side to the site it would simply be the lack of portability.  I am in an area where many kids do not have personal laptops with wireless network capabilities nor Internet access on cell phones, so in the area of access alone, old style  flash cards still have a benefit.  However, the other four activities available get a thumbs up from me.

I also visited 30 Boxes. Reading the brief description of this tool piqued my interest as I can always use a bit more organization.  I liked all of the possibilities.  I thought it would be a great way for teachers to create an interactive calendar that students could check for change in assignment dates or to see other important dates.  For personal use, I think I will stick with my Palm.

Picnic was interesting to me.  In the absence of a purchased photo editing software, this would be a great resource for photo editing.  I also saw that there was a share function on this web site. The site was easy to navigate through and the editing of photos was very simple.  I can see this being utilized in various class projects.  Another great web site to pass along.

Letter Pop also got a visit from me.  I can certainly see this being used for many different types of school projects.  Many of our clubs here have historians who could utilize a way to create easy scrapbook pages.  The ease of use was key for this site.  I liked the email and publish functions.  Emailing a completed project to a teacher would facilitate grading (even if it did give the tech services dept. a stroke over the amount of storage required on the server for such!).  The publish function would be a great way to promote what is going on in classes/clubs around the school.  I think the key here is that very little teaching of the web site would be needed prior students being able to utilize it fully.

I enjoyed this task and found several Web 2.0 tools that I will share with my faculty.

Finding a quiet moment in my media center last week, I decided to begin my exploration of Flickr.  Not long after, I received an email reporting on the bandwidth usage at our school, and my name was at the top of the list.  Shame on me.  I guess that I as explore possible  applications of Web 2.0 in my media center, I will also have to consider who in my school building might be negatively impacted because of the bandwidth required to implement Web 2.0 activities — at least until I wake up from the nightmare of  an antiquated network in my school system.  Thankfully, we are making positive strides in that area.

On with thing 10……

Although Flickr was not familiar to me, I have used other sights like Photobucket  and Slide to store pictures on line.  Typically, though, my purpose in storing pictures on line is for the purpose of creating a slide show to add to a social networking page. 

I remember reading in several places in the last week concerns about some of the images available on Flickr.  Having subscribed to the Flickr feed back in Thing 6, I have seen images that would not hold up to the more conservative view of my school system — or me to be honest.  Yet, I did see a myriad of wonderful photos that I would never would have seen had it not been for such a site or the RSS feed.  As I sit now listening to a teacher discuss the economic situation of Israel, I remember seeing a photo from a fellow 23 Thing’er that was posted of a child in an Israeli store standing in front of a cookie display.  Could such a photo be used to expand the discussion?  I think so.  Two weeks ago writing scores for our 8th graders were returned, and we were shocked over how low they were.  Could vividly colored pictures be used as writing prompts to give students a more creative starting point to practice writing skills?  Again, I think so.  I can see me personally utilizing photos from Flickr to extend or enhance lessons that I will create for my media center.  I have also realized how easy it is to spend huge amounts of time looking for that one perfect photo. 

The photo of the butterfly above came from the Creative Commons section of Flickr.