Jul
27
My Reflections…Change in Teaching Practice
July 27, 2007 | | 2 Comments
The biggest change in my teaching practice…is going to be a new level of confidence!
Even though I have wanted to incorporate technology into our book club for the last couple of years, I haven’t really made it a priority. Now I know why…I didn’t really think that I could figure out a way to do it and do it well! Now I have the confidence and the skills to be able to incorporate this interactive technology into our book club. Since the Maine Student Book Award is voted on by students in grades 4-8 around the state, it only makes sense for our students to have the opportunity to share their thoughts with other middle school students and go beyond the walls of our school.
I am amazed when I think about all I have learned this week…blogs, wikis, Delicious, aggregators…the list goes on and on! Last week at this time I had never heard of Twitter or Second Life! I feel as though I have learned a whole new vocabulary. And that’s because…well…I have!
We have all learned a lot this week, but I have to say that this is the first course I have taken where I have truly felt as though we were all collaborating and learning at the same time. It didn’t feel like a teacher/student environment. We were (and still are!) a bunch of colleagues collaborating to improve our teaching practices.
And speaking of improvement in teaching practice…I feel that this blog is just the beginning. Taking this course and learning about all these awesome tools make me feel confident to really start incorporating them into my teaching practices. We are always collaborating with classroom teachers to teach research skills, and I am excited to work with their classes and bring this new knowledge back to my school!
Jul
27
My Final Project
July 27, 2007 | | 18 Comments
For my final project, I am creating a Maine Student Book Award Book Club Blog. We (me and the librarian with whom I job share) have facilitated a Maine Student Book Award book club for the past four years. It has grown a great deal over the years. We meet monthly, and each book club gathering lasts for two hours and consists of a lively book discussion, snacks, raffle prizes, a book-themed scavenger hunt around the school (the kids’ favorite thing!), and other book-themed activities if there is time! We have anywhere from 15 to 45 students at a book club gathering, depending on competing activities. Now that we are an after-school activity, we are competing with sports and the drama club as well as all the other things kids have to do after school!
We do some fun and interesting things in our book club, but for the past year or so, I have really wanted to incorporate student use of technology into the book club, especially now with the MLTI laptops! What better way to do that than with a blog!
My blog has several purposes. I basically want to use it as a combination book club website to post information, pictures, etc., about the book club and as a blog for interactive discussions. This will be a great way to be able to include the whole school. With sports and other extra-curricular activities, there are students who would like to attend book club but are unable to come. The blog will give everyone the opportunity to participate. I also want our students to be able to talk about the MSBA books with students from other middle schools…how cool would that be!! I plan to contact one of the MSBA committee members about my blog, so they can help to publicize it. It would be really cool if they would add a link to my blog from the MSBA website! I want to create a place where our students (whether they attend book club gatherings or not) will be able to converse about the Maine Student Book Award books with each other and with other students around the state. What a great way to get more students involved with the MSBA books and our book club!
I also want to use it as a way to provide information on the Maine Student Book Award Program and to provide information about our book club. Obviously I want it to showcase and advertise our book club!
For one of our book club meetings each year, we host a Parent/Student Book Club Dinner. We do lots of the same activities that we do during regular book club meetings, but we do it in the evening and provide dinner, and the parents get to take part in the fun! The blog will allow parents to keep abreast of our book club activities and take part in online discussions as well!
I have created a blog that has links to Maine Student Book Award sites for book lists and other MSBA information (my Delicious account). Other links contain book reviews and information on the seven books we are featuring this year in book club. I have linked each of the titles to its page on Amazon so that students can read all kinds of reviews of the book, including reviews from “real” people! I have also included links to the websites of the authors of the seven featured titles. I have also put pages on the blog that describe our book club and give all the nitty-gritty book club details and meeting times. The Meeting Times Page is obviously not finished, since we will not schedule the meetings until school starts! I have also posted pictures from previous book club gatherings so that students can see them, and I will continue to post pictures each month after each book club meeting as well as change the custom header often so that it is always a current picture!
I have invited students to share their thoughts on any of the book club choices, as well as any other books on the MSBA list that they read. I have also included a link with topic suggestions to help students as they write their posts. I plan to include questions specific to each book that we feature in book club. I am hoping to meet with the language arts teachers and get some of them to build some assignments around posting on the blog.
I am also working on a Page dedicated to Blog Etiquette. I will add to that page as necessary!
The biggest change in my teaching practice will be the fact that I am incorporating this interactive technology into our book club. Since the Maine Student Book Award is voted on by students in grades 4-8 around the state, it only makes sense for our students to have the opportunity to share their thoughts with other middle school students and go beyond the walls of our school.
My MSBA blog is certainly collaborative, because it will allow students in my school to collaborate not only with each other, but also with students from other schools. When we get back to school at the end of August, I will also be working with “my other half” to show the blog to her, and I have no doubt that she will have even more ideas to “tweak” our blog and make it an even better resource for students.
At the beginning of the year, we schedule booktalks for each team to introduce them to the featured book club books and get them excited about reading them. I think that would be a great time to share the blog with them as well!
Who knows? We may even be able to get some responses and comments from the authors! How cool would that be!!
Disclaimer: Although I have put links for the seven featured books for 2007-2008, those title choices are not yet set in stone! My Other Half and I still need to meet and determine the final list! However, these seven would be MY choices if it were all up to me!
Jul
25
Response to A Day in the Life of Web 2.0
July 25, 2007 | | Leave a Comment
I just read A Day in the Life of Web 2.0, and I am excited to try out the Google Shared Spreadsheet. It seems like a great way to do curriculum mapping. As I was reading this article, I began thinking of Rip Van Winkle. Can you imagine if someone fell asleep in…let’s say…1975…and just woke up? He would be going from four channels on a TV that you had to get up and change to the World Wide Web and all it has to offer!
Jul
25
Response to Research 2.0
July 25, 2007 | | Leave a Comment
After perusing Research 2.0: Using Emerging Online Technolgies to Facilitate Research, I am realizing more than ever that we really do need to change our research mindset. How many of the new, emerging tools shared here am I using with my students? Some of them…but many of them I had not heard of until browsing this wiki. I am excited to help my teachers and students go beyond what they already know and introduce them to some of these new tools.
Jul
24
Project Ideas
July 24, 2007 | | 7 Comments
At my middle school, we (myself and the librarian with whom I job share) run a Maine Student Book Award Book Club. It has really grown over the past four years since we started it and is a lot of fun for the students. I want to create a blog for our book club that will accomplish the following goals:
1. Provide a place where we can showcase and promote the book club.
2. Provide information about the Maine Student Book Award and this year’s book selections.
And most importantly…
3. Provide a place where students can create book reviews and have conversations about the MSBA books with other book club members as well as with a much wider audience!
Jul
24
Response to Must Read Blogs
July 24, 2007 | | 3 Comments
After browsing through these Must Read Blogs, my initial reaction is that they seem so busy! There is SO much there that I don’t know where to start! Most of them are pretty overwhelming to me because of that.
The second thing that I noticed is that the blogs really show the personality of the owner, even more than traditional websites. They are so conversational.
I actually found myself wondering just why these blogs are “Must Reads.” I didn’t find them to be particularly user-friendly for me. Then I came to The Fischbowl. I really like Karl Fisch’s blog. He has both a catchy name and an uncluttered page! I like that! The purpose of his blog is clear, and everything on his blog relates in some way to that purpose. I really like his Thought for the Day links…they are enjoyable to read and definitely food for thought!
I also clicked on one of The Fischbowl’s blog links, Kristin Hokanson, and I enjoyed her blog as well! Again, the purpose of the blog is clear, and the page is uncluttered.
I also enjoyed Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed blog. He sure is a prolific guy! His post about reading Harry Potter on the plane hooked me and made me want to read more! The posting about using his iPhone to get snake info while out hiking was great! However, I would have put as much distance between myself and that snake as possible if it had been me! I liked perusing his Categories and was not turned off by the plethora of information! Weblogg-ed really makes me feel as though I know Will Richardson!
Jul
24
Delicious is Delectable!
July 24, 2007 | | Leave a Comment
I think that Andy Carvin’s article Tag – You’re Delicious! is an excellent introduction to Delicious, and he does a great job explaining why it is a useful tool.
I just love Delicious! I can see applications for this tool in both my work with students and my own professional and personal internet use. In my school, we are not allowed easy and immediate access to our “official” library website. I job share with another librarian, so needless to say, our library website needs to be easily accessed with immediate results in order for it to be useful to us and to our students. We are continually changing it and adding links for different research projects. Of course, we are doing this late at night on the night before introducing a new research project to a class on many occasions! Therefore, we have subscribed to a TeacherWeb site where we have constructed our own webpage…there’s always a way around every obstacle!…but TeacherWeb only allows us a fixed number of links pages. With Delicious, we can create an unlimited number of links pages for all different research projects. We can still use our TeacherWeb page, but make links off that page to our Delicious links.
I spend quite a bit of time compiling links for research projects. I see Delicious as a way to eliminate a step in this process. Instead of having to find the links, bookmark them, and then copy and paste them into my webpage, I can simply find the links, tag them in my Delicious account, and send my students directly to them!
In addition, I am always getting frustrated at school when I use our desktop computer, because there are three of us that work in the library and we each have our own login. Therefore, if my assistant gets there before I do in the morning and logs in using her login, any bookmarks that I create during the day will only show up when she is logged into the machine. Imagine my frustration when she is not there the next day, and I log in using MY login, and all my bookmarks are gone! I just love having a place to keep all my bookmarks where I can ALWAYS access them regardless of where I am or what computer I am using!
Now, you may think that because I am a librarian, I do not like the idea of tagging. It certainly goes against everything the Dewey Decimal System stands for! I have read many posts on listservs where librarians are complaining about tagging. I, on the other hand, have often used tagging within my own library circulation system for years! Am I going to enter only the subject heading of “Automobiles” for a book titled Fast and Furious because Automobiles is the proper Sears Subject Heading since this is a book about different makes and models of automobiles? Absolutely not! I am a middle school librarian! I want subject headings that my students are going to use! Needless to say, this book’s subject heading is “Cars”!
Tagging makes SO much sense to me! We should all be able to look for information using words that make sense to us! Obviously we want to teach students to brainstorm several key words in order to find all the best information, but who is to say that my key words are better than or more useful than someone else’s!
Finally…the biggest reason why a tool such as Delicious is so delectable…we shouldn’t have to re-invent the wheel!
Jul
24
MSBA 2007 Celebration!
July 24, 2007 | | 6 Comments
Jul
24
My Picture
July 24, 2007 | | 2 Comments
Jul
23
Goals for Class
July 23, 2007 | | 1 Comment
1. To become familiar with Web 2.0 tools to facilitate student learning.
2. To create a blog and a wiki and understand the difference between the two!
3. To incorporate Web 2.0 tools into our Maine Student Book Award book club.
4. To create a list of social bookmarks for a school research project and link them to my school webpage.
