Learning Community

As I prepare for our presentation on Friday, I am pleased with my progress in using Web 2.0 tools. The whole presentation is in Google Docs, something I knew nothing about a year ago. The practice I've had with this project will enable me to widen my teaching repertoire, as well as using this tool to produce documents during the school year in collaboration with others. The students who will be participating, Shonti & Rose, are so literate about all of this, and it's so fun to watch their ease with all of these tools that are new to me. I have no doubt that they, and their classmates will be using Google docs and presentation, and learn with ease using Internet tools. The ripple effect of this project is immense.

Flikr

I know we're done for the year with MILI, but I just had to say something about Flikr. I finally set up an account, simply so that I could transfer the digital pictures of my hair. About 4 years ago, I had the perfect haircut, and have been trying ever since to get my hairdresser to duplicate that stunning haircut. So I had some help taking pictures of my hair one day when it looked somewhat like what I want. Flikr made it possible for me to print the pictures at school, since I don't have a printer at home. I can understand why so many people use this service; think of the grandparents who get to look at the new kids without making a trip!

Thing 4- Online Productivity

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Pagekeeper? I've been using it at school since I learned about it in last year's MILI class. It is for me, by far, the easiest tool to use during the school day to bounce between all the various sites I need to use. I love the fact that I can partition work tools, personal sites, MILI sites, and thus categorize. It helps me prioritize when I feel overwhelmed. I'm not particularly fond of a lot of graphics, so Pagekeeper's simple design appeals to me. At the front desk, where I spend most of my day, it makes keeping several tabs open easy. The essentials are one for Destiny, one for email, one for Discovery, and one for whatever else I try to work on while fielding questions from students & staff, directing student aides, and maybe trying to work on weeding or cataloging in the few spare moments there are in a day. Spending time in my office, working without interruption, is almost impossible. So, Pagekeeper keeps me sane in a very busy media center. It's there for me to consult when I need it, and my rock in an unpredictable day.

Thing 6- Online Collaboration

The past couple of weeks, Deb & I have been using Google Docs to work on a policy for textbook administration using our Destiny program at South. It has been very useful since we find it difficult to actually talk to each other during the school day, being both very busy with our jobs. We are establishing a procedure for classroom teachers to use to check out & check in textbooks to students. Our textbook coordinator position was cut about 5 years ago, and since then we have not used the Textlink program; teachers have been checking out texts to students using whatever system they choose. Since the district has hired a textbook administrator, we have been asked to come up with a plan for teachers to use the system again. We plan to have teachers use scanners in their classrooms to circulate texts; we will train them to use the system and will assign scanners to the major departments in the hope that this will help keep track of the books. This week, in a meeting with the textbook administrator, I introduced him to the use of GoogleDocs to work with various people on the district-wide committee. He was excited about the possibilities of communicating with others without having to schedule in-person meetings, which is always a challenge. It's such an easy way to work on a single document with many people having input to the final product. I am so glad I was able to pass on yet another tool that I have learned through MILI.

Creative Commons- Thing 9

Tonight I looked at creative commons. Interesting comments on what is really criminal. Even a couple notes copied from someone's musical works; this piece takes squeaking sounds & alters them to fit into anew piece of music. If this is stealing, how do musicians actually own a piece of music? I find it very confusing.
This piece is called Copyright Criminals.
http://www.copyrightcriminals.com/trailer.html
Here's a great sample of music I found there called Sola Solita.
http://ccmixter.org/files/andrewfranco/20393
Just looked at the preview; how can I get the music in here? Help?
This is a very frustrating process. The first time I was able to copy the frame of the movie clip & it showed up in the preview but I couldn't publish it because of an error, so I recopied it & came up with this. How can I do this better?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paloalto/3038701605/

Glogster

This past Thursday, I introduced Glogster to 5 classes of German students doing biographical reports on famous Germans. Many of them were assigned composers like Bach, Handel, and Strauss. They were able to find great musical clips to add to their online posters. It will be interesting to see how they all turn out. The teacher was really excited to have them use Glogster instead of using cutouts, glue, posterboard, etc. Since this is only one option of presenting their information, I know not every student will use it, but I have high hopes for the future of this option. I really like the way it prevents plagiarism by forcing students to be brief, as with the post-it feature.

Tweet, tweet, tweet

Anybody remember that song I learned as a kid-tweet, tweet, tweet like the birdies sing, la, la, la, la, la? I wonder if Webster's had added to the definitions yet?
Did anyone catch that news item last week about twittering in the OR? What if my surgeon needed to twitter for advice during MY surgery? Seems kinda scary to me. On the other hand, I'd rather have a surgeon smart enough to ask for advice than not. Twittering in the operating room; maybe the hospitals will start requiring a designated twitterer as an essential person there.
And on MPR, the number of times I hear, call us at ......or send us a message on twitter, comes up more and more. OK, so I haven't actually tried it, maybe I should.