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.

Learnings from Redefining Literacy 2.0

Three pages that I marked in Redefining Literacy 2.0 summarize three new learnings for me from the book. The volunteer form on p. 30 is so good, it makes me think, "Why didn't I think of that?" I don't have any great ideas on how I would use the form in the near future, but that is why I marked it because I have a feeling, I will be in a situation that warrants finding out what "experts" are available to me. Another page I marked is page 41 Search Evaluation Tool. What a teaching tool! We give students tips on searching and send them off and hope for the best. With this tool, we can have students record the steps of their searches and can find out where any breakdowns in their understanding of internet searching. The final thing that I want to remember from this book is the HTML list of teachers on p. 127. Again, can't think of when or where I would use this, but I'm bound to need it one of these days. I should probably scan all three of those pages and save it to my computer as a PDF. I would probably retrieve them more quickly that way . . . . just a thought.

iClipart

I went to iclipart.com. I thought it was easy to use. I went to the photographs and searched for book and computer. I wanted something that represented both types of reading, but the results didn't bring me what I was looking for. I searched book in the photographs, and 222 photo results were shown. In some pictures, I couldn't figure out the connection to the search term book. I wonder if this site is similar to flickr, and the users are tagging the pictures. Either way, I found a picture of two children reading a book that I liked. I downloaded it following the instructions on the download page. Because of the way I downloaded Infranview or "infrared" as I like to call it, pictures automatically open up in Infranview. So, while I had it opened, I played with the image effects and like how sepia softened the picture. So, here is evidence of my playing with iClipart. Enjoy!

Btw - Did I mention I am typing this in a pitch black night while sitting in a lawn chair by a campfire at a KOA campground in Kansas City? I am being eaten alive by mosquitoes, so I am going in!

New Literacies

I finished the Richardson book. I always like the big picture endings that good books have. It is easy to get lost in the details of how to use the web 2.0 tools in education, but Richardson does a good job of explaining the changes and movements that will take place when web tools are used successfully in education. Some ideas I highlighted under the heading New Literacies in his book are the following:
1) It will be more important to know where or how to find the answer to a question than the answer to the question
2) The ability of students to learn 24/7 may mean we need to change the structure, time and dissemination practices of the school day
3) Teachers can't pretend to know everything anymore, so we have to tap into the resources available to us.
4) Finally students needs to learn how to build their own personal learning networks.

I was reading a blog post from Richardson today entitled Digital Inclusion. I get the feeling that schools are not changing fast enough for Richardson of which I can empathize! Another point that he makes that I would include in this set of "overall picture" ideas is that unless parents understand the benefits of digital learning to their children, change will continue to be slow in education. Below is an excerpt from his post.

"While this is not a post on where the lever is, I’ve been arguing for a while now that not much of this is going to change until the stakeholders, in this case parents, take it upon themselves to demand something new. Something more relevant. But the only way that parents are going to DEMAND access is if they see that not simply as a way for kids to get a computer but to see connections online as a way to a better future, a way to help thier kids become more educated, better learners than by books and paper alone. Unfortunately, we’re losing the media war on this one right now. Feeling like a broken record, but we need to do a better job of making this case beyond our own still small, nascent network."

I, Lisa, would also say that schools will not create digital learning opportunities for students until those 21st century skills are what are tested on district and state wide assessments. Anyone have thoughts on that statement?

June 21, 2009

Warlick Chapter 3

I should probably be more encompassing when I blog about a chapter instead of just one of the topics, but this chapter is full of a lot of information, and some of it is starting to be a review from the Richardson book and learning that has taken place in class, but I do want to mention that I am very interested in podcasting. I think that I will incorporate it into the literacy classes next year. We will have students practicing their fluency by preparing short stories, poems, etc., for podcasts. I don't think they will be published. I don't really see a need to publish them. So I guess in a way we are not podcasting, but creating audio files. Then teachers can listen to those audio files to see what fluency problems the students are having. I can work with a student and record them doing a reading fluency progress monitoring probe. Then I can play it for teachers to teach them how I would analyze the probe to determine what the student needs to work on before the next fluency check.

Flickr

The difference I see between Flickr and AP images and clip art is the difference between web 2.0 and web 1.0. As far as I know AP images and clip art don't allow interaction with commenting and asking questions to find out more. Whereas Flickr is interactive and can be used in a classroom privately for students to comment on digital images produced or found by other classmates. The main problem I see with this is that looking at digital images, commenting on them, collaborating etc., has no correlation to achievement tests. So in my literacy coach position next year, I don't think I will be using Flickr. We will be too busy trying to increase reading rate and comprehension of written text, which I think is more important than manipulating pictures. Isn't it interesting how our focus can change based on the position we hold in a school. If I was going to be the teacher-librarian in a school district, I would be more interested in Flickr, but now that I am going to be a literacy coach, I have decided I need to focus on other tools.

Chapter 6 The Social Web Learning Together

In Richardson's introduction is my favorite line from the chapter, "Because of these tools, we can build complex networks of resources to tap into, allowing us to find more information, more teachers, and more learning." p. 86. I am more interested in diigo as a educational networking site than twitter. I think I can convince more educators of the benefits of diigo's bookmarking tools than twitter. One has to start somewhere, and I don't think twitter is the thing to introduce first to teachers who may not have any experience in web 2.0. Diigo on the other hand allows educators to share good websites, good information, etc. I don't have my head wrapped around all of the ins and outs of Diigo yet, but I will. It is a tool worth learning and sharing with other educators.

RSS for News Searches

I forgot to mention my favorite piece of learning from the chapter. RSS Feeds for News Searches. The fact that I can find out when a topic that I care about is in the news the day it is printed, is fantastic.

RSS Where have you been all my life?

I feel like I have been missing out! I had heard the term RSS and it had been explained to me before, but it didn't really sink in until I read this chapter and we set up Google Reader. I am fascinated by the idea of a personal learning space. I just had an interview today to be a literacy coach for a middle school. They asked how I would communicate with all of the teachers I would be coaching. I told them face to face of course, but also digitally. I told them I would probably set up a blog, and I would have all the teacher's subscribe to it. I could post all the information that they needed there. I could have links to research articles that I wanted to share, a calendar of important dates, and the teacher's could leave comments and questions. I hope that it made sense to the people I interviewed with. Then I would see which teachers really like the blog, and I would help them set up RSS feeds so that they could set up personal learning spaces or environments. I got the idea from reading the Girls Write Now Blog and website. It seemed like a very good way to communicate to the group like I mentioned in my last post.

Comparing 2 School Blogs

I don't think this blog is a "school" blog, but it was on the list. It is http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/ and it is the blog of Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach who has strong credentials in education and technology although it took a bit of clicking to find them. My only complaint is that the title is not very specific as to what the blog discusses. It is 21st Century Learning. The purpose of the weblog is clearly stated on the website, but not until I read some of the posts, did I begin to understand what the blog was about. Once, I did, I enjoyed it and found myself reading longer than I planned. Her blog seems to be read by many people, and she receives two or so comments with each post which I think is a good indication that people are reading her blog. I read some of the comments, and they do seem to indicate that they believe she is an expert in the field of 21st century learning (which I know I would have to read more posts to understand her definition of 21st century learning.)
The other blog I looked at is http://sarahpuglisi.blogspot.com/ Sarah is a teacher and a prolific blogger. She has many resources on her blog for teachers, readers, artists, and writers. She also uses the blog for social information about her life as well, but it is nicely connected to her overall theme of living life to the fullest. She has cancer, and as she says it doesn't define her, but it does define her perspective on "A day in the life."

Comparing Two Education-Related Blogs

I looked at Weblogg-ed Learning with the Read/Write Web, and I do subscribe to it because I feel it has very up-to-date discussions that are relevant to 21st century literacy. I like that Richardson creates links within his blog to further provide information on vocabulary, concepts, and programs that he is discussing. The layout is easy to read.
I also looked at Girls Write Now Blog which I knew nothing about prior to opening it. It is easy to find out what the blog is for. Under the about link, there is very straight forward information about Girls Write Now. The organization is in New York City, and it partners mentors who are accomplished women writers such as magazine editors, journalists, novelists, etc. with high school girls. The purpose is to provide role models, and to assist the girls in their desires to attend college. I learned all of this in just a few minutes. So the blog is very well organized. It is a good example of how an organization can use a blog to communicate to its members, attract volunteers, and provide assistance to its members without having face to face meetings. http://www.girlswritenow.org/gwn/blog/1

URL FOR TEACHER LIBRARIAN BLOG

http://shmsmediacenter.wordpress.com/

Contrasting Blogging to Journaling and Writing

From Chapter 2 of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts by Will Richardson

The connection or new learning for me while reading this chapter is the difference between blogging, journaling and writing. If someone had asked me before reading this chapter, I would have said all were the same thing, skill, and task. I WAS TOTALLY WRONG! Here is what I now understand about the differences of blogging, journaling and writing.

Blogging is a genre, a process of thinking in words. In other words, what I am doing write now. Blogging can be a reflection. It is collaborative and connective writing. In other words it is a conversation. The skills that it takes to blog are different than journaling or writing. A blogger must consider the "world" audience when creating their post. A bloggers goal is to start a conversation. Blogging is a synthesis of the content that the blogger has read, and the blogger may provide links to that content. Blogging can increase the following skills: critical reading and writing skills, increase information management skills, and evaluation of sources.

Again, before reading this chapter, I would have said journaling and blogging are the same. Journaling is similar to a diary. It is a more finished and final than a blog. This happened today, and that happened yesterday. This type of writing doesn't change and evolve with new learning taking place among the people reading it. It is social, and a good task, but not really blogging. This reminded me of a teacher-librarian blog that I found while looking at library websites for my Information Lit. final. I've attached this one here. It is called a blog, but is it really? Especially the twitter feeds on the left. I don't know. Do people really want to know that the school librarian just ate some macadamia nut cookies? I don't know how I feel about that much information on a library web page. Maybe someone else has an opinion on that for me.

Lastly, writing is a monologue according to Richardson and again blogging is a conversation.