FINAL POST

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

• Although I often WANT to learn about new tools and websites, my daily obligations usually take up my time and attention, and I keep putting off the shoulds of my own professional development. Having this extended structured time was very helpful in giving me the opportunity -- or the excuse -- to fulfill my goals. The role of a school library media specialist / instructional technology facilitator is to help teachers to learn and use new technologies and to embed them within their curricular practices. This program has helped me by allowing ME to learn new tools, as well as spreading the word that media specialists are available to help teachers who also want to learn and use new tools.
  

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

• Not really. I expected to learn new things, and I did. I expected to find some wonderful new tools, and I did. I expected to be amazed at the things my colleagues created, and I was.
  

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

• I can't think of a single improvement. It is portable, flexible, and incorporates a variety of TYPES of tools that can be used in a variety of instructional settings.
  

If we offered another Web 2.0 program like this in the future, would you encourage colleagues to participate? What would you tell them?

• ABSOLUTELY! This is a wonderful format for learning new skills - especially those that center on web-based tools. Learning hands-on, with an eye towards implementing these tools in one's job, made this relevant and motivating. I could work on it at home or at school. I could do two lessons - or even three or four - at a sitting. I could fall behind, only to catch up when I had a chance. This really takes into account all the demands on a teacher's time and attention.

How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote the program in the future?

• (Now, you KNOW I'm anything but concise!) But here goes . . . "17 Things is just the Thing to jump-start your energy and enthusiasm for teaching in a way that meets students where they live - and where they'll need to be able to work in their future."

Thank you for organizing this for us, Alicia! It has been really fun - AND educational, and collaborative, and all that web 2.0-type stuff!

Thing 17 - My Choice

I looked at about 9 different sites from the Webware 100 list, and I think I'll add Webware 100 to my Delicious account. This will be a great resource to return to if I want to "up my skills" in new technologies. The ones I chose to tell you all about are listed below, with brief descriptions:

• Good Guide This site is a good one for consumers wanting to preview products in order to select items that are environmentally friendly, safe, and healthy. You can search for something, let's say a soup. The results will rank by rating in each category (Health, Environment, and Social), as well as an average rating on all three criteria. Then you can sort the results by price or by ranking -- and you can filter them by other criteria. For example, you might wish to see highly-ranked soups that are low in saturated fats, or low in salt. You might wish to see floor cleaners that are fragrance-free, or that weren't tested on animals. Reportedly this site will soon be available in an app for an iPhone -- irrelevant to me, but a great idea because of its portability.
• Aviary I love this one -- it's a replacement for Adobe's expensive suite of programs like PhotoShop, Illustrator, etc. With this free web tool, people can not only edit photos, but also edit vector images, adjust colors, apply visual effects, and more. People can also collaborate on a project. I think that a background knowledge of what's possible to do with these tools would help -- or else plan on a steep learning curve and a significant amount of time devoted to learning how to use Aviary. But this is definitely one I plan to use - and would maybe offer a workshop on this in the future.
• Hulu My son had already told me about this one, and I had a hard time imagining that producers of movies or TV shows would voluntarily post their products for people to watch on line -- for free! But here it is. When I learned that there is a valid business-plan reason for them to share their content, it made more sense. They believe that viewing shows boosts DVD sales -- and the stuff is only posted for a limited time online. So if people want to see a show, they'll need to buy it for future viewing. I can tell that this is true, because I looked for the last episode of "Monk," and all I could find were clips and interviews. Bah. -- But I COULD watch this week's episode of "NCIS." Yea!

And now, for the one I will promote, dig into more deeply, etc. etc.:

• diigo This is a content sharing and bookmarking tool -- but I like its uses for research. In our big6 lessons we emphasize students' interactions with the written word -- the reading, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, etc. Students are taught how to identify the main idea(s) in an article, highlight (or underline) the main words, summarize them in an annotation along the side, and then paraphrase the idea or fact into their own words on a Notes Page graphic organizer. Diigo would help with the highlighting and annotating (they call this 'adding sticky notes') part of it, allowing students to save paper, to use a cool Web 2.0 tool, and yet still accomplish the goals of reading, writing, and thinking. (One reason we've focused on these skills is past observation of students doing too much copy-and-paste when "doing research." They would capture words without really reading or understanding them, and then would regurgitate them in some kind of pseudo-written product -- really more of a plagiarized collage of words taken from various articles they'd found online.
• The bookmarking and tagging features are like Delicious (hey, does this mean I can eliminate ONE of the many useful sites on my list, to consolidate features under one useful window? Yea!)
• One possible disadvantage to diigo is that you have to download a free toolbar -- which subsequently allows you to bookmark, highlight, save for later, send, or do other things with webpages that you're viewing. I was able to download the toolbar -- but haven't yet rebooted my computer to see if it's still there. On your home computer, this should not be any problem at all. And diigo is FREE!

Here is a video which shows what diigo is, and how to use it:

Diigo V4: Research ~ annotate, archive, organize from diigobuzz on Vimeo.

Weebly website - Thing 6

After working with Frontpage for several years to create and edit the RBHS District website -- and after struggling with an online class to learn Dreamweaver so that I can introduce more "bells and whistles" into the district site, this was my first experience with an online web creation tool. My impressions:

• the result is pretty and professional-looking (kind of like how PowerPoint improved the look of classroom presentations over the previous hand-written overheads or typed-up (or even word-processed) outlines)
• The options for layout are limited. For example, I wanted to have four columns of photos, but was limited to a 2-column layout. And adding more rows to the "table" of columns wasn't very easy. I did figure out how to split each column into two columns (resulting in four narrower total columns), but text had to wrap, as the width of each column is pre-set. In other words, the webpage creator is limited to using design specifications pre-set by the creator of the Weebly program. This was a bit frustrating.
• Adding pages was easy. Linking between pages was easy.
• Linking one word on a page to a section further down that page was not possible. (creating targets). On one of my pages, which will be very long if I complete it, targets would make navigation on that page much quicker and easier.

I will probably use a free webpage creation tool now and then -- especially if I'm helping a teacher to create a Curriculum Page - that way they can update links and resources easily as they adapt the lesson for future classes.

The limitations make it less likely that I will use it for the district website -- but then, I'm hoping we'll be going to a content management system for that site.

By the way, my weebly site is: http://jensenfamilysite.weebly.com

Dee-Lish-Us way to save and share info

So - my Delicious username is fritzdoreen Add me to your network!
I added a few sites that I visit a lot - some of the gurus of educational technology and information literacy. Also some organizations useful for school librarians and educational technologists.

And just for grins, I added the Internet Public Library, which I hardly ever use any more. Maybe I'll find that information is more readily available via a simple Google search. But not that many years ago, this was a wonderful resource for reference assistance using tools not available in all libraries. Hmmm. Maybe another result of the exponential growth of credible (and not-so) information available on the Web.

I'd be interested in hearing how the information available on the Internet has changed other teacher's professional lives -- how do you find good, realiable, up-to-date information, new lesson ideas, resources, and other tools for teaching (and learning)?

Does the library have a role in helping you to find and organize this type of information? For example, did you know about the page on our website which lists curricular resources? Do you ever use it? Should it be updated? Should it be available, but in a different format (like Delicious)? Your thoughts and input, please . . .