Online organizational tools...this week topic instantly makes me think of summer and Google Calendar. My family uses the calender to organize the use of the family summer house. Every was invited to join and can now reserve the times they want to use the house. No more arguments or mis-communications. especially important because there are 6 siblings, their 10 children and their 12 children that all use the house. Needless to say Google Calender has been a blessing.
Besides reminding me that there are approx 16 more weeks until summer...it also reminded me of my bloglines account which I had not logged into in about 6 months. I had created it and linked all these great blogs that I was going to keep up with and alas have not. Even if it does organize my information and prevent me from having to search all over for what I want to read I still have to login in and read it. I love having all of this information at my fingertips but there should be some online class I can take that teaches me how to manage my time. Maybe I need to make it a habit to log on everyday and check my feeds. Is this something that digital natives find easy to do? Do they need to try and make it a habit or does it just come naturally? Ha or maybe I am just lazy... Soo I decided to check out Google Reader. I set up an account and added a few blogs to it; The Blue Skunk blog by Doug Johnson, Web 2.0 Tools and Applications, The Shifted Librarian, The Cool Cat Teacher blog and ALA's job listing site. I like Google because I can have a lot of stuff in one place plus my calender, mail and documents. Now I just need to set aside the time to keep up on it...
In terms of social bookmaking I started with Delicious and created my collection of sites..linkasaurus but then I discovered Diigo and loved the functionality of it. I have 240 links on delicious but have not been maintaining them or adding. I have 498 on linkasaurus at Diigo and continue to add to it. The button that you can add to your browser makes it so easy to add new sites. I have used it with the students for particular projects or when a teacher wants them to use a set collection of resources. I have a link to my collections on the media center website and encourage studentss and faculty! to use them when they research. I need to work on encouraging the students to add to the collection. I think it can be a great resource but also something I will have to maintain...double checking the quality of the links added.
Shelfari was another tool that I had always meant to try out but had not yet. It was also discussed at my book group this month. One of the members was describing what a great tool it is. She uses it to keep track of the books that are recommended to her that she wants to read. Also to search for books that she would be interested in reading. I set up a site and added my shelf to this blog. I listed books that I want to read. I think it will be a nice way to keep track of what I want to read. At school I am thinking of creating one of recommended books. The students could select the books and write reviews..This would also be great for the forensics class book assignment. The students could recommend or not the book they read and then we could add the information to the media center website.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
On my Wiki way...
On my way exploring technologies this weeks assignment is to explore wiki's. I knew what one was, had used many of them, I mean who hasn't at least peeked at Wikipedia.. but had yet to create one of my own. I was unsure of what to create my wiki about and was thinking of doing one for my library with links to resources on different topics.
In the mean time... a history teacher and I have been developing a book assignment. Students are going to be divided into groups of five. Each group will read a different assigned book. Since technology has obviously been on my mind, I suggested rather than traditional book discussions we could have the students create a blog and have the discussion online. They would be graded according to a rubric we developed for their posts. Something like...1 point for agreeing with someone, 2 points for agreeing and then pointing to another example in the book, 3 points for commenting and providing a link to some other resource which adds a new perspective to the discussion. The only thing we were worried about was how to make sure the students had to read the book and think about what they had read. Even with the rubric, students could get by with reading sections of the book that were being discussed and kind of ignore the rest.
Then it hit me...a wiki! We could have the students create a "sparknotes" wiki for each book. The students could read the book and then create a sketch of the book including character analysis, a quiz, background information, paper topics and information about the author. Each student would sign up to be primarily responsible for one heading and be required to contribute to all of the headings.
The teacher liked the idea because he would be able to look at who and when the edits were being done. He also had the idea to post them to the library website, where they could be viewed by other students.
So the dilemma about my assignment has bee solved. I am going to setup the wiki for the assignment. I created a table of contents and created a page for each entry. I then added a brief description of "what we are looking for" and links to ideas and resources. Creating the wiki was easy, just create a login and you are on your way. As with anything you can get all caught up in designing it or just pick a template and start writing.
In the mean time... a history teacher and I have been developing a book assignment. Students are going to be divided into groups of five. Each group will read a different assigned book. Since technology has obviously been on my mind, I suggested rather than traditional book discussions we could have the students create a blog and have the discussion online. They would be graded according to a rubric we developed for their posts. Something like...1 point for agreeing with someone, 2 points for agreeing and then pointing to another example in the book, 3 points for commenting and providing a link to some other resource which adds a new perspective to the discussion. The only thing we were worried about was how to make sure the students had to read the book and think about what they had read. Even with the rubric, students could get by with reading sections of the book that were being discussed and kind of ignore the rest.
Then it hit me...a wiki! We could have the students create a "sparknotes" wiki for each book. The students could read the book and then create a sketch of the book including character analysis, a quiz, background information, paper topics and information about the author. Each student would sign up to be primarily responsible for one heading and be required to contribute to all of the headings.
The teacher liked the idea because he would be able to look at who and when the edits were being done. He also had the idea to post them to the library website, where they could be viewed by other students.
So the dilemma about my assignment has bee solved. I am going to setup the wiki for the assignment. I created a table of contents and created a page for each entry. I then added a brief description of "what we are looking for" and links to ideas and resources. Creating the wiki was easy, just create a login and you are on your way. As with anything you can get all caught up in designing it or just pick a template and start writing.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Blogging
I had a great time setting up my blog. There are a lot of things that you can tweak if you want. I thought it was nice too that they offered a lot of templates... if you want to be up and running in 5 minutes that is possible too. I got all caught up in playing with the font colors and pictures. I explored the settings and then decided to create a Voki. I have been having the hardest time inputing the code so that it comes out in the sidebar. I finally got it to show up but in the middle and I have a feeling after I publish this post it will be somewhere else. Oh well, I will have to play with it later. So far I have enjoyed the experience and look forward to chronicling everything I learn in this class on my blog.
I am thinking of the different ways I could use blogging at work. I think it would be a great way to keep teachers and students informed of the resources available and of what's new. Blogs could also be used for different types of assignments. I am curious how many teachers in my building are using blogs in their teaching...
I am thinking of the different ways I could use blogging at work. I think it would be a great way to keep teachers and students informed of the resources available and of what's new. Blogs could also be used for different types of assignments. I am curious how many teachers in my building are using blogs in their teaching...
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