Back in Business

I'm back from a hiatus--maternity leave. It's good to think about things other than diapers for a change. Here's a great find that many people already know about but I still wanted to mention.

The Kindle. No you don't need to go buy one. Just download the Kindle app on any Mac, PC, Blackberry, Android, iPhone, iPad, or Windows Phone 7. One of the great things about this is you can access your ebooks from multiple sites. For example, I have the Kindle app on my Mac laptop, my iPhone, and my iPad. I can read the same thing from each of these devices. It saves my bookmarks, annotations, etc. This would be excellent for students! They could read--make annotations--at school on a computer, and then access the very same work at home or on their mobile device. I wish I knew about this when I was teaching AP English, and I definitely wish this existed when I was working on my undergrad! See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Y27P3M/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=7293345187&ref=pd_sl_1cn00yyeh7_e for more details.

It's a little long, but worth a listen--interesting thoughts from Daniel Pink at the 2010 Creativity World Forum in OKC.

It's Fall Ya'll

School is in full swing, and things seemed to have calmed down a bit--even the temperature is starting to cool off. Yesterday we had a professional development day, and the other LMS and I met with our district's Director of Instructional Technology to brainstorm some "big ideas."

I'm looking forward to introducing faculty to ways that we as media specialists can provide opportunities to assist in teaching information literacy skills that directly correlate with core curriculum PASS objectives, thus helping improve API scores, and perhaps taking a little load off teachers' already overloaded shoulders. Here are a few lessons we're working on providing:

• evaluating sources
• teaching summary and generalization skills through podcasting
• using thinking maps for organizing information
• lessons on primary and secondary sources
• literary genres and sub-genres
• using GoogleDocs for note-taking and collaboration
• reading for pleasure

We'll be looking at ways to incorporate various Web 2.0 tools, information literacy standards and standards that are tested on the EOIs in the spring. Exciting things are coming!

Powerful Ingredients for Learning: 21st Century Learning Skills

Professional Development with the district's LMS's led by Wes Fryer

Kids most at risk in the “real” face-to-face world are the kids who are most at risk in the cyber world. We, as educators, must be teaching responsible digital citizenship!

Big Ideas:
1. We don’t consider someone LITERATE who can read but not write, yet many people today don’t write/create/publish with a computer (Mitch Resnik)
2. Information literacy is NOT sufficient--we need to focus on COMMUNICATION, THOUGHTFULNESS, and EMPATHY (Michael Wesch)
3. Creativity is VITAL--without creation there is NO creativity (Wesley Fryer)
4. Interactivity is not enough - kids need to become CREATORS and MAKERS (Mitch Resnik)
5. We don't just use English in Language Arts - same should go for digital expression (Mitch Resnik)
6. Expressive environments need to have low floors and high ceilings - AND thick walls (Mitch Resnik)
7. We need to focus on helping students learn how to Think creatively, Reason systematically, Collaborate with others (Mitch Resnik)

NETS (National Education Technology Standards) for Students

Moodle Bootcamp

I am very excited about things that are happening in Mid-Del. About nine other educators and I are going through a detailed training of Moodle--I believe I've mentioned it here before. Moodle is a learning management system that makes the life of the teacher a little easier. It is an online extension of the classroom--assignments, assessments, activities, resources, links, etc. can all be posted and managed on Moodle. Up front, teachers will need to be dedicated. It will require extra time to enter quizzes and assignments, but because Moodle will grade these for the teacher it saves time in the end!

Another open-source, Web 2.0 tool we're being introduced to is Mahara.org. Mahara is an eportfolio site--students can have resumes, blogs, essays all on Mahara. They can set their account to public or semi-private, where they share their work with friends, teachers, or colleagues. How exciting?!?! Maybe this means the crates full of paper portfolios can finally be retired.

Animoto

Animoto (www.animoto.com) is a website that creates video/image/text slideshows set to music. It is SUPER SIMPLE, and can be used by both educators and students for various reasons. Recently, I had an English class create Animoto presentations for books they had read. They chose images from creativecommons.com or found cover shots and photos of the author. Along with the images, they incorporated key quotes from their novels along with their opinions and theme statements. They were also instructed to choose songs that fit the mood, theme, and tone of their novel. This was perhaps one of the parts of the assignment that they enjoyed the most! Once they gathered all images, text, and sound, Animoto created eye-catching slideshows and the students presented them to the rest of the class.

This idea could be used for teachers to create presentations to introduce students to new concepts. Librarians could create Animotos to spotlight various authors and books or as a new innovative way to do a book talk. It's also an excellent way for students share books they have been reading!

Poll Everywhere

If your school allows cell phone use for educational purposes, then I highly recommend www.polleverywhere.com. This is another survey tool, but it can be done via text messages. Users sign up for an account (free or paid, and free has worked just fine for me), create questions, and students respond by sending a text message. Much like Survey Monkey or Quizlet.com, it can be used for review, assessment, or to find out more about students and their interests. PollEverywhere has worked well for me because it shocks students when they are told they can use their cell phones. They appreciate the chance to access their mobile devices, and I get valuable information about their knowledge and interests. If teachers or librarians have access to a projector or interactive white board connected to a computer, then they can have Poll Everywhere on the screen so students can see the question, number to text, and the results. The results are conveniently displayed in bar graphs with percentages as soon as text messages are received by the website. In my use, it's only taken seconds.