Multimedia Final

There are numerous professionals that I learned about in multimedia class that I will be following. There are some individuals that I got a “good idea” from and want to use in the future. I’ll start with one of those first.

Kathy Kaldenberg from Solon. It is always good to meet people in the field doing the everyday work that we are learning about. Seeing the “real-world” applications was good. Something that I take from her specifically is something she probably didn’t even discuss, but it was on her webpage. It was a page reading contest between the high school grades, and the totals were posted on the website. I thought that was a great idea. I might do that at Indianola. I would give the students a bookmark to log their pages on every day during their silent reading in homeroom. When they fill a bookmark, they will turn it into their teachers and then the number of pages will be calculated. There will be an award for the winning grades or homeroom. I have many different school library homepages added to my favorites. I think that they are excellent resources in many ways. By looking at the Lindero Canyon Middle School webpage I learned about shelfari. I now have a Shelfari widget on my Indianola Literacy Wiki promoting my professional collection. http://www.linderocanyonmiddleschool.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=65&Itemid=113

Another person that I am following is Kelly Gallagher the author of Readicide. I am reading his book, and I like the big concept questions that he asks because I think they are going to be good starting points for the staff to consider in the professional development that I will be leading at Indianola. As I read more, and if I really get into his book, I might see if it can be our text for our professional development for the year. He also solidified my opinions on what needs to be done to raise literacy test scores . . . more practice by the students in deep reading. I hope to convey that the 20 minutes of silent reading time that the school is implementing is not enough time for all students to become proficient readers. Therefore, engaged reading needs to take place in every content area. I have not been able to find a blog or twitter account by him. He does have a website, but it seems that most of his information can be found in his books. I happen to come across The Book Whisper Blog by Donalyn Miller when I was searching for a blog by Kelly Gallagher. Now I am following this blog because the information provided on how to encourage recreational reading among students is right in line with what I hope to impress upon teachers of the READ time at Indianola Middle School.
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/

These are some of the tools that I am using now that I wasn’t using before multimedia class began . . . First, the BIG 3
1) iGoogle as my homepage
2) I have a Google Reader Now, and I am following Wes Fryer, Will Richardson, Warlick, The Book Whisperer and some of the cohort students. I also set up a news search on it. So it brings me any articles that include Iowa Test of Basic Skills in the article.
3) Diigo – I used Diigo to organize and keep track of websites that I used to for my author studies this semester. I have other lists too but I used it directly for those projects.
http://www.diigo.com/list/lmsuya/sarah-dessen

Now for some of the smaller tools that I might explore more. I have accounts set up for the following:
Twitter, voicethread.com, flickr, curiki.org, evernote, skype, and podomatic.


As you can see, I learned a ton! What I know though is that I am not done. There will be more updated versions of all of these tools probably within months. The good news is that I’m not afraid to use web 2.0 tools, and I do see their value in creating my own personal learning network. So, I will rise to the challenge of learning the newest tools when they come out!

Example of Digital Learning

I have many examples of what I have learned in multimedia class and how I have made the tools work for me. The one I am most excited about is my Indianola Literacy Wiki which I have begun and plan to use as a communication and learning tool in my new position as Indianola Middle School Literacy Coach. This wiki will fulfill many purposes. First it will be our literacy website. Forms, information, links to videos, data, and much more will be found on this wiki. It will also be a communication tool. There will be pages with information specific to certain teachers. Those teachers will sign up for notifications of changes to those pages, and of course they will be contributors to those pages. Contributions might be questions, concerns, successes, and general information. I think this wiki will also be a good relationship builder. I think that teachers who are wondering what my role is will see it develop in the content of the wiki. I have embedded a Google calendar so that important dates and meetings will be accessible to everyone. I have also embedded a Shelfari widget to display the covers of my professional development books. Once I have learned more about the needs of the building, there will be more things added to the wiki.

Sarah Dessen

Spider Movie

Sy Montgomery

Google and Creative Commons

Today I read from Wes Fryer's Blog that Google is now going to let searchers look for images that are tagged with the creative commons license making it easier to find images that the creator is okay with people using, modifying, etc. This is another thing we can teach students about when it comes to images.