I first began using Prezis this past summer for a class. I made one to convince a school board to switch our library over to an Open Source System. This second Prezi is one that I share with my parents on ways they can easily help their child at home.
http://prezi.com/jrfomhfwi8cp/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
Monday, October 21, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Thing 13-Online Applications and Tools
Here at home, I have a Mac so I use icloud for my personal documents and photos. I don't have to worry about my computer crashing and then I lose this important stuff.
I created my Google Drive Account here at home and I can see how useful this is for school documents and presentations. Instead of having to save and send as an email or saving to a thumb drive, I can just keep it in Google Drive and access anywhere. What I like is that if I am working on a staff presentation or a team document, others can give their input and add updates as needed. This is so useful and would make things far more efficient and productive!
Speaking of efficient, my brother gave me a Livescribe pen last semester. This pen allows me to record lectures and also keeps track of everything I write on special dot matrix paper. I can touch anywhere on the paper and listen to exactly what was being said in the classroom at the moment I was writing those notes. I can then upload the recorded information, including written, to Livescribe desktop to be reviewed later. If I upgrade the pen, information will be able to be saved or sent directly to a Google Doc. I am having issues with the pen lately but I sure love the technology when it is working. It is a great tool for many reasons but it would be especially good for students taking note heavy or technical classes.
I also played around with a form in Google Docs and here it is...
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13eRlHGaJRRG8IvmW_yUzLXLwpsuiq7b-Z65HCHos7Vw/viewform#start=openformhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/13eRlHGaJRRG8IvmW_yUzLXLwpsuiq7b-Z65HCHos7Vw/viewform#start=openform
I joined Evernote and plan to explore this more fully. I know it has such great organizing abilities. Anything that has to do with organizing is a winner in my book.
I created my Google Drive Account here at home and I can see how useful this is for school documents and presentations. Instead of having to save and send as an email or saving to a thumb drive, I can just keep it in Google Drive and access anywhere. What I like is that if I am working on a staff presentation or a team document, others can give their input and add updates as needed. This is so useful and would make things far more efficient and productive!
Speaking of efficient, my brother gave me a Livescribe pen last semester. This pen allows me to record lectures and also keeps track of everything I write on special dot matrix paper. I can touch anywhere on the paper and listen to exactly what was being said in the classroom at the moment I was writing those notes. I can then upload the recorded information, including written, to Livescribe desktop to be reviewed later. If I upgrade the pen, information will be able to be saved or sent directly to a Google Doc. I am having issues with the pen lately but I sure love the technology when it is working. It is a great tool for many reasons but it would be especially good for students taking note heavy or technical classes.
I also played around with a form in Google Docs and here it is...
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13eRlHGaJRRG8IvmW_yUzLXLwpsuiq7b-Z65HCHos7Vw/viewform#start=openformhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/13eRlHGaJRRG8IvmW_yUzLXLwpsuiq7b-Z65HCHos7Vw/viewform#start=openform
I joined Evernote and plan to explore this more fully. I know it has such great organizing abilities. Anything that has to do with organizing is a winner in my book.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Thing 12-Twitter
Okay so now I belong to Twitter! (username: kmcgin5151) I don't really have a burning need for it at this time of my life but I will certainly give it a fair shake.
I searched for and found some people that I know. Not much really posted by them. Also, my school does not tweet as of yet. At first, I was a little confused when I saw a bunch of tweets come up for things I did not choose to follow. Then I saw the small print that these are suggested posts based on who I chose to follow and what they were following. Interesting!
It seems most useful for those that have their own business and can use this to promote it or to send out professional ideas or information. I always thought that the perfect use for Twitter is by food trucks. They can tweet out exactly where they are located on any given day/hour and their loyal followers can find them. I think it would be good for actors, dancers, and musicians as they perform at different locations. They can advertise any last minute events or changes.
I enjoyed discovering the funny things posted by people such as "funny or die" and comedians' various posts.
I can really see a librarian having fun with tweeting as he/she promotes events and new books.
I am honestly not sure how much I will tweet personally but professionally I can see me doing this when I become a librarian. It's quick and easy.
I plan to play around more and see what else I can discover. I like how you can customize in privacy settings like Facebook or Pinterest.
I searched for and found some people that I know. Not much really posted by them. Also, my school does not tweet as of yet. At first, I was a little confused when I saw a bunch of tweets come up for things I did not choose to follow. Then I saw the small print that these are suggested posts based on who I chose to follow and what they were following. Interesting!
It seems most useful for those that have their own business and can use this to promote it or to send out professional ideas or information. I always thought that the perfect use for Twitter is by food trucks. They can tweet out exactly where they are located on any given day/hour and their loyal followers can find them. I think it would be good for actors, dancers, and musicians as they perform at different locations. They can advertise any last minute events or changes.
I enjoyed discovering the funny things posted by people such as "funny or die" and comedians' various posts.
I can really see a librarian having fun with tweeting as he/she promotes events and new books.
I am honestly not sure how much I will tweet personally but professionally I can see me doing this when I become a librarian. It's quick and easy.
I plan to play around more and see what else I can discover. I like how you can customize in privacy settings like Facebook or Pinterest.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Thing 10-Wikis
It was great to see such a wide variety of Wikis examples. Obviously, teachers of students of all ages have found them useful.
Some were used generally to post pictures of school events and others could post pictures that they had as well. Other Wikis had a page for each class that they taught. Elementary teachers had a page for each subject area and also just to post great student work. I saw some Wikis that were a specific author study. For example, one Wiki's focus was Lois Lowry. Students were working on reviews and projects about two of her books.
For older students, I can really see some genuine collaboration going on as the teacher posts a project of inquiry or exploration and students must upload what they discover and learn. In this way, students are learning from each other as well as the teacher.
The teacher can also post notes from lessons and students can read them as many times as needed to understand a concept or topic. They can also post questions or ideas or segues into new avenues of thinking.
Projects can be posted individually or as a collaboration. Since these can be living documents, students can edit as needed as they go along.
I do understand the concern that some have about the "openness" of a Wiki and its susceptibility to spam and vandalism. I have never used one at school up to this point. My only experience is with the ones we are currently using, or have used, for our graduate classes but I think that if it's well monitored, then its ease of use and flexibility will outweigh the disadvantages.
Some were used generally to post pictures of school events and others could post pictures that they had as well. Other Wikis had a page for each class that they taught. Elementary teachers had a page for each subject area and also just to post great student work. I saw some Wikis that were a specific author study. For example, one Wiki's focus was Lois Lowry. Students were working on reviews and projects about two of her books.
For older students, I can really see some genuine collaboration going on as the teacher posts a project of inquiry or exploration and students must upload what they discover and learn. In this way, students are learning from each other as well as the teacher.
The teacher can also post notes from lessons and students can read them as many times as needed to understand a concept or topic. They can also post questions or ideas or segues into new avenues of thinking.
Projects can be posted individually or as a collaboration. Since these can be living documents, students can edit as needed as they go along.
I do understand the concern that some have about the "openness" of a Wiki and its susceptibility to spam and vandalism. I have never used one at school up to this point. My only experience is with the ones we are currently using, or have used, for our graduate classes but I think that if it's well monitored, then its ease of use and flexibility will outweigh the disadvantages.
Thing 9- Useful Library Blogs
The following "library" blogs are ones that I have now saved on my reader. They are:
Cool Cat Teacher (Vicki Davis). While she is not a librarian officially, she offers great teaching and technology insights.
Watch.Connect.Read (Mr. Schu's site). He is a librarian and on his site, he mostly has book trailers.
Joyce Valenza-Never Ending Search She is a guru for librarians.
Nerdy Book Club-Donlyn Miller's site which is not specifically for libraries but is very useful for reading teachers and librarians both.
I have others saved as well that are great for teaching ideas but these are the top ones I think. Edublog award winners list and Google Blog search were my "go to" blog search tools. These were the best for me and the easiest to work within.
I read about the standard feed icon and I am certainly glad that this is now the norm. How confusing for everyone if you have to search around to find the RSS icon. Easily recognizable icons are how we can maneuver rapidly through the internet noting ones such as Pinterest and Facebook. Everyone knows those icons.
Thing 8-more on RSS
I really enjoyed reading the recommended post, "How to Create Your Circle of the Wise" by Vicki Davis on her blog Cool Cat Teacher. It is very sage and timely advice. I think that I am going to copy down and display some of the quotes she used. I liked how she said to begin with one person you admire and then note the ones that they follow. This is a great way to have a high quality set of RSS feeds that really mean a lot to you and not just a bunch of posts that you see in your reader and never get around to reading.
Edublogs was very useful in finding good quality educational blogs. I like perusing the award winners and felt like it was a better use of my time. You can safely bet that these must be good blogs to be up for an award. I also liked how there were so many categories so that you can narrow down which ones you really want to delve into. Within these award winners under best library/librarian blog, I found Watch. Connect. Read which is found at mrschureads.blogspot.com His site is amazing! It is all book trailers. What a great resource. I also found Mighty Little Librarian that has some good middle and high school library ideas such as Book Speed Dating. Fun!
Google Blog Searching was pretty good too. I typed in several things and found a couple of good ones such as Growing Kinders-Using Technology in the Classroom.
I could not open Suprglu or Syndic8. Topix did not really point me to anything I was interested in.
Since I already used Technorati in the previous lesson on RSS feeds, I did not use it this time.
I can see how RSS feeds would really help a teacher, librarian, and administrator stay on top of the latest trends from many sources. While most of us already subscribe to certain organizations and we get their updates and can visit their websites, this brings the information right to you. It would be so useful to share information with staff members right away on timely topics.
Edublogs was very useful in finding good quality educational blogs. I like perusing the award winners and felt like it was a better use of my time. You can safely bet that these must be good blogs to be up for an award. I also liked how there were so many categories so that you can narrow down which ones you really want to delve into. Within these award winners under best library/librarian blog, I found Watch. Connect. Read which is found at mrschureads.blogspot.com His site is amazing! It is all book trailers. What a great resource. I also found Mighty Little Librarian that has some good middle and high school library ideas such as Book Speed Dating. Fun!
Google Blog Searching was pretty good too. I typed in several things and found a couple of good ones such as Growing Kinders-Using Technology in the Classroom.
I could not open Suprglu or Syndic8. Topix did not really point me to anything I was interested in.
Since I already used Technorati in the previous lesson on RSS feeds, I did not use it this time.
I can see how RSS feeds would really help a teacher, librarian, and administrator stay on top of the latest trends from many sources. While most of us already subscribe to certain organizations and we get their updates and can visit their websites, this brings the information right to you. It would be so useful to share information with staff members right away on timely topics.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Blog Searching-Thing 7
Technorati is a very effective way to search for blogs of topical interest to you.
7.1 I searched for brain research under blog posts as well as tags and the directory.
There are 178 blogs that have something to do with the brain. There were 72 posts that referred to brain research. However, there were no tags for this. Also, it does not show up in the blog directory. Interestingly, the results are all different from each other. The tags have to do with what was posted in just the last month so I understand that one but not sure why it was not showing up in the blog directory when if I search for Blogs, I get 148. Hmmm.....
7.2 The popular tags are the popular ones for this last month. It was surprising to see what was on people's minds this past month:
These seem random:
Bacon, Remote Control Paper Airplane, Quantum Mechanics
These make some sense:
Apple and IOS7, The World Trade Center.
Very interesting regardless.
7.4 I think that tagging is practically a necessity considering the billions of websites and blogs that are out there. If you are a person who reads and researches a lot online, tagging will be so valuable. That way you won't have to hunt around for what you are looking for. it will be a time saver and the organization will be visually pleasing. The one disadvantage I can think of is that there are no "set" tags so there is no consistency for how people tag. However, I feel this will become a problem of the past as technology grows. For example, using suggested tags and further refinement.
7.1 I searched for brain research under blog posts as well as tags and the directory.
There are 178 blogs that have something to do with the brain. There were 72 posts that referred to brain research. However, there were no tags for this. Also, it does not show up in the blog directory. Interestingly, the results are all different from each other. The tags have to do with what was posted in just the last month so I understand that one but not sure why it was not showing up in the blog directory when if I search for Blogs, I get 148. Hmmm.....
7.2 The popular tags are the popular ones for this last month. It was surprising to see what was on people's minds this past month:
These seem random:
Bacon, Remote Control Paper Airplane, Quantum Mechanics
These make some sense:
Apple and IOS7, The World Trade Center.
Very interesting regardless.
7.4 I think that tagging is practically a necessity considering the billions of websites and blogs that are out there. If you are a person who reads and researches a lot online, tagging will be so valuable. That way you won't have to hunt around for what you are looking for. it will be a time saver and the organization will be visually pleasing. The one disadvantage I can think of is that there are no "set" tags so there is no consistency for how people tag. However, I feel this will become a problem of the past as technology grows. For example, using suggested tags and further refinement.
Tagging-Thing 6
I visited and then joined the Delicious site after viewing the short video by Common Craft and viewing other teachers' use of it. Until this past summer, I had never even heard of it! Gosh, that made me feel out of it when I realized that it has been around for 10 years!!
Of course I think it would be a very useful way to access and organize my bookmarks so that I can access them anywhere. That is a real plus. However, now I also know that there is a whole other dimension since it is a "social bookmarking" site.
I can see this as a real asset to team planning at school if teammates and librarians and content specialists connect through this site. As one teacher collects great websites and links of certain concepts, others can see how she tagged it and tag it themselves. Plus, these tags allow teachers to add to their own site so that everyone is building up their collection of useful and relevant sites and links. Since it is public, everyone can help each other and all benefit. Classroom teachers and librarians will find to be a very effective and efficient way to organize information and thus streamline planning. Additionally, for a librarian, it would be so wonderful to be able to share and receive great library ideas from other librarians. Sometimes, the librarian can feel isolated, being the only one on a campus.
Livebinder is also amazing and a way to share all kinds of media on a given topic. I like the way it has tabs and you can see everything at once through them. I am sure that once I become a librarian, I will use this so much so that I can organize information for all grade levels and content areas. I will certainly need it!!!
Of course I think it would be a very useful way to access and organize my bookmarks so that I can access them anywhere. That is a real plus. However, now I also know that there is a whole other dimension since it is a "social bookmarking" site.
I can see this as a real asset to team planning at school if teammates and librarians and content specialists connect through this site. As one teacher collects great websites and links of certain concepts, others can see how she tagged it and tag it themselves. Plus, these tags allow teachers to add to their own site so that everyone is building up their collection of useful and relevant sites and links. Since it is public, everyone can help each other and all benefit. Classroom teachers and librarians will find to be a very effective and efficient way to organize information and thus streamline planning. Additionally, for a librarian, it would be so wonderful to be able to share and receive great library ideas from other librarians. Sometimes, the librarian can feel isolated, being the only one on a campus.
Livebinder is also amazing and a way to share all kinds of media on a given topic. I like the way it has tabs and you can see everything at once through them. I am sure that once I become a librarian, I will use this so much so that I can organize information for all grade levels and content areas. I will certainly need it!!!
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