Week 9 Thing # 23 Web 2.0 book notes

First I want to say thanks to the web 2.0 team, this has been a very worthwhile class and "easy" as you said, just VERY time comsuming. I learned a lot, and feel good about my progress in Web 2.0 "Things".


Chapter 1 outlines for us a rapidly changing world which is easily observable in the last few years. The challenges which lie aheas afe met by people who are tech savvy and working collaboratively to develop new businesses & means of communication.


Our role as educators is to guide our students to use this new technology in ever more creative and innovative ways. By combining their intelligences new energies will emerge.


Chapter 7 Online safety & security is always a concern when students are involved. They are trying their best to find the places they shouldn't be. Their vulnerabilities can cause them to be targets for other students bullying as well as for cyber predators. Their immaturity and lack of sound judgment require that they be taught a n online code of ethics and guided through the confusing morass of copyright.
Administrative issues in using internet tools with students are numerous. Then there is the involvement of parents who may or may not know about the internet. The parents need to learn about potential problems with the internet and how they can exert control over their child's use. I can see adding a wiki page on Internet Safety to the Steller website because we have no formal training at our school.
Schools often block sites with potentially harmful material, substituting others deshgned especially for schools, such as Nettrekker. Schools can also place tools on an internal net, behind a firewall and not accessible to the outside web. this "walled Garden approach provides safety & security desired by many.

Chapter 9 New Schools.
Mike Prensky says our students are no longer the students our schools were designed to teach. How should new schools look? Ideally each student would approach learning in the way he/she liked best, information would be accessible 24/7 and be interactive & able to suggest new avenues of exploration and new resources to use, much as Amazon suggests new books to read.
All of this will come together on free open-source software.

This sounds great, but it may require these digital natives to become teachers themselves bafore the reality matches the vision.

MORE TO COME later, out of time at the Naples public library. OK, here we go again..

Chapter 4 - New Tools in Schools. - Stories from real schools using Web 2.0 tools.

Science Technology Engineering , Math, (STEM) people are 40 % of graduates from the new Tech High School in Napa. The cost of running this new school is very high, Servers and support plus software, Costs will go down with open-source software.

Students are motivated to learn to write well because of the Audience of the Web. They know that others will see their work. They are empowered at an early age to write in Blogs.

Pocasting is used to get student feedback on lessons. Digital storytelling gives students insights into their own experiences as they work our their stories. They come to value the story and strive to do their best., knowing it will be viewed by many people, not just their teacher. In effect, simply publishing to the web validates the importance of the students' work.

Blogs on Dickinson & Frost, Imovies on family histories, personal stories to illustrate history, (Where were you during the 1964 Earthquake?) , current events through communicating with soldiers in Iraq, The possibilities are limited only by our imagination.

Math Students are blogging about their strategies in solving problems, geography students have Google Earth to give them a bird's eye view of the world,, and more.

ESL learners are using language lessons on an IPOD, their own portable language lab.

Perhaps MOST IMPORTANT is that the use of technology engages the students in their studies and learning in increasing. Students who would never say a word in class can make meaningful contributions online. They can approach the subject at their own level...often surprisingly well above that demonstrated so far in class.

Chapter 10 Tutorials

Here is hands on a literal contiunation of the Web 2.0 Class. Many we have done in class, and I've enjoyed trying out a few more...things I've HEARD about, but haven't taken tht time to explore..Such as Google Earth, My Husband and I carefully traced the route of our upcoming vacation, able to even see the undersea floor, which gives an explanation to the great snorkeling and deep sea fishing in the Western Caribbean. I also intend to use Photostory 3 for my pictures when we return. The Bubbleshare photo site i used before has shut down, and it was really fun to makd a captioned slide show for my relatives who live far away. Hopefully I can add audio with Photostory, and have a nifty presentation to show them.

I also intend to guide, (push, shove, compel) my daughter into Web 2.0. She has just announced her intension to become a Math teacher, and I very much want her to be as technologically savvy as possible. She will be a good teacher without it, because of her ability with the kids, but a mastery of the web will allow her to reach so many more. We need teachers like that.

Week 9 Thing # 22 eBooks & audio eBooks

The World EBook Fair does feel a lot like the World's Fair, a bit of everything, from everywhere and certainly something for everyone. The current goal of the project is to collect 2.5 Million books available online by July 2009.

The project looks at the numbers of Kindle and other Book storage devices, verses the number of cell phones operating worldwide, and wonders how to make books available on your cell phone. Amazing.

Organization by collection is logical, and the collections vary from US Government documents , American, Canadian, British literature, to collections from other countries, and even ancient cultures such as Etana, from the Near Eastern Archives. Music, Science , Law, Medicine, Math, even the ebook archives of my Alma Mater, Penn State.

Students doing research would be well served to check here, especially if they are encountering difficulties in locating information. This resource adds an entirely new dimension to the espression, "So many books, So little time."

Add in audio books, and there is no excuse to ever miss a title...for any reason. You can even get into the act of recording them if you like. What a service these folks are performing.

Week 9 # 21 Podcasts

Podcasting should be done very early in the morning. Anytime between 5 and 7 am is much preferable to "normal hours" when everyone else is online. The Education Podcast Network gave me some spectacular results this morning. I have already sent emails to teachers alerting them to" This Week in Science" and the many tech skills topics available (60) .

The link to Podcast.net is no longer working, and Tech Savvy Girlz Podcasts opens, but doesn't seem to go anywhere, perhaps because it was later in the afternoon when I got there. The time factor, did not seem to affect Education Podcast Network on a second visit, nor Teacher Created Materials: Podcasts. Now that I know more about podcasts and how to locate them, can I justify the expense of a mobile "device" with which to carry them around? Somehow, I think I'd hate to give up my airplane reading time for Podcast listening time....I seem to have so little time to read.

Week 9 # 20 Teacher Tube

Teacher tube is a wealth of information available to the classroom. It was quick and painless to locate a video produced by a group of students who had visited some Mayan ruins. The quality and content were excellent, and should hold the class' interest.

Posting it to the blog was another question. Following the directions step by step did not produce the desired result. Another possibility presented itself through the share button on the teacher tube site, I was able to share the site to Blogger, and appeared to be logged in, but could not get it to display on this page. Help tried to be helpful, but again the desired result was not forthcoming, a bit frustrating. I finally downloaded the file to my desktop, then added it to the blog.

Here it is visit the Mayan Ruins and learn about the culture.

Week 8 # 19.1 Digital Pipeline

This is a good exercise in using the more refined features of digital pipeline.
Making an alert to the School Library Journal may remind me that it's out, and I should scan the contents.

My initial efforts in finding a diagram of the eye in the consumer health database ended unsuccessfully. I eventually located the diagrams/charts box on the bottom right of the initial search page and found the chart I wanted. Found no animations or videos, references to them, but nothing "live".

The tutorial on the new features is fantastic. I'll add a link to it on my Wiki. The students would prefer it to my verbal instructions.

The more section was eagerly inspected. My "hands on" people are interested in this, especially for older models of cars that can still be worked on without computers and lots of sophisticated equipment.

Week 8 # 19 Library thing

What a nice tool for small libraries. I'm not about to start adding all 5,000 titles in my small school library, but the Church library is only about 10 shelves, and that would be "do able". In this format, it would also be attractive to the younger generation, perhaps they would even help. We won't have many fancy covers, though. so it mught look as dry and dusty online as it does "onshelf".

As for my personal collection, maybe its a good way to remind myself of what I have, and serve an an impetus to organize better. No, those stacks, ARE organized, just not according to Dewey.

Week 8 number 18

I just copied and pasted this post into Zoho, and posted it to my blog. It posted beautifully, exactly as created. Then I tried to edit it, but I generated a" HTML error, The tag is not closed:DIV". Since I don't know how to fix that, this is an interesting experiment. When previewing the post, I see the header I created survived intact.

Week 8 #18 Online productivity tools

Zoho looks very interesting. Collaboration on a Career and College meeting in January will be possible and easily managed easier than with email. Three people are working on this, and we are not all in the same building or time schedule. It will be especially useful when I leave the state.

As we near the holidays, I can see this may be a fun way to set up a round-robin letter to the family. The computer "users" can add to it and the computer "reader-only" crowd will just enjoy.

Week 7 #16 Wikis

Wikis are a fantastic way to give the librarian a simple website that can be added to the school's main page with very little effort from anyone else.

The Steller library wiki can be found at www.stellerlibrary.wikispaces.com. I have 8 pages on information that folks tell me is useful. They can find the volunteer calendar there, as well as the ebooks and online references with live links. One large page is devoted to Career and College Resources.


Wikis can be customized to fit many needs. I liked the English teacher who added a Mebo window so that the kids could connect with him in real time if he was online.
It's also interesting to see how other libraries deal with their situations and plan for the future. Lots of that planning is centered around training users how to use the online resources.

All in all, a very useful, simple to use tool.

Week 6 # 15 Web 2.0 and the future of libraries

The future of libraries is an interesting topic for this week when the Mayor of Anchorage is trying to balance the budget. It was very enlightening to attend a meeting at the library on Nov. 10 and learn that the current library services are far below the levels of comperable sized cities in the US, but our costs are higher. The present level of staffing at the municipal library is 25% below the 1986 level. In 1986 the ratio between people and facilies was one library for every 24,600 people. Today the ratio is one library for every 56,000 people.

The municipal library is looking for ways to serve the needs of the community in the face of social changes that have occurred. The rise of the internet places a greater need for IT people than librarians, at least in the eyes of the politicians. The librarians realise that the library serves the community as a source of job information, resume preparation, and the use of computers to apply for jobs online. They see the library as a social hub of the community with students using the library after school not only for reading and research, but also as a warm, safe place to be socially active and interact with their peers both live and online.

I can relate to Rick Anderson's observations of his "just in case" collection. How many school libraries contain pristine volumes of reference materials, placed lovingly and expectantly by the librarian, never to be touched by the patrons. Last week I assisted a student who was looking unsuccessfully online. I gave him 3 pertinent books hot off the shelf, only to find them sitting beside the computer, unopened, when the student left. I was thrilled to have what he needed, and so disappointed when he rejected it.

I believe we need to understand how the technology is working for today's student so we can help him/her find what they need, and evaluate it critically. Is wikipedia good enough? It seems to be improving at every turn,according to the students, now some teachers are finding it valuable.

My quandry is how do I wisely utilize my budget? Do I buy the online references the kids seem to want, then wage an all out campaign to get them and the teachers to use it over Google. Do I purchase mainly those titles the teachers want to supplement their classes. Often these books are not used by the kids at all but become an extension of the teacher's classroom, collection. When the teacher checks it out more or less permanently, is it technically a library book or a teacher resource, and whose budget should it impact? I guess the bottom line is to get information into the kids heads. If it goes first thru the teacher, it's still benefitting the student.

Week 6 #13

I'm out of sequence because I've been wandering in the Delicious maze.

Delicious is exactly that, a great place to look at some of those wonderful websites you know are out there, but never quite take the time to review, then you can conveniently save them for another day...and another place, from another computer, which is why you need an online bookmarking site like Delicious. There's a lovely Photoshop Tutorial that I'm marking, but I won't bother with the rss feed, because there's not time right now.

I can see this will be good for the classroom, to mark places you'd like the kids to see. You could guide them to approved or prescreened, or topic-centered sites that you have located. My searches for teachers can be bookmarked there as well.

Week 6 # 14

Technoratti, lots of places to get lost here. I searched several blogs, tags, then several other spots for School Library Learning 2.0 with little success. I did find some interesting general articles on school libraries, but clicked the wrong "X", lost it, then couldn't find my way back. Hmmm, it's early and I shouldn't be brain dead yet! Simple searches like travel got me to Florida and Universal Studios in December. Useful information, but not quite within the scope of the class.

Sorry, this was a large disappointment as far as finding the desired result..fun otherwise.

Week 5 # 12 voice thread

I had seen voicethread once before in another class, and I'm finding it difficult to apply to my situation. Other classrooms could use this to get assignments started, to keep a record of who is doing what, i.e. Jimmy will discuss the weapons of the Civil War, while Mary is interested in the nursing care the soldiers got in the hospitals, and Chris will report on the battle of Bull Run.

Writing classes could post a picture as a writing prompt, and have each student write a sentence or even some "popcorn" words to get their and others' ideas flowing.

At this point my idea thread is fraying...I will keep looking for applications in my library.

Week 5 # 11 Exploring web apps

How fun, I have heard about Craigslist and Delicious, so I checked them out when I saw them on the winners list.

Lots of potential on Craigslist, you can do anything from rent a house, find a roommate, to buying anything from soup to nuts. I really did search "soup", came up with soup bowls, and "nuts" garners Chrome wheels for my Subaru...with nuts to hold them on. Immediately bookmarked this one. One of these days I'll talk my husband into parting with stuff, and advertise it there.

Delicious is going to be very useful as we travel to Florida in December. I can finally locate my favorite necessary sites...ie the mail order pharmacy, when I'm away from home. I was proud of my "technical skills" when I moved from the local email provider to gmail and had my address book available, This is the next step.

I'll eventually work my way through the entire list, It's marked on Delicious.

Week 5 #10 images,

Won't she be fun on the overdue notices? Will require running a batch of paper thru the copier first, but the kids might remember the image and make a connection to the book. WHATEVER WORKS!

Week 4 # 8, 9 RSS & Newsreaders

I'm not exactly a news junkie, but my browser opens to the Anchorage Daily news site, my car radio is set on NPR, and I usually spend Friday evening with Washington Week in Review and Anchorage edition. I set up some RSS feeds and waited a few days to see what came up, and if/how I would use them. Several sites are blogs from people "in the biz" Alan Sitomer, Terri "the Goddess of YA Lit", the YA YA YAs, Guys Lit Wire, and the Spiral Notebook. I can already see that I'm underwater as far as keeping up, but realize that these are busy people and don't post something every day.

I'm also experimenting with a few non-library sites. I act as Career Resource advisor at school, and would like to figure out how to get scholarship notices. Maybe I can just pass along the blog sites to my users. I also subscribed to a travel site, which is interesting. Hopefully I'll use that info someday. Now the biggest challenge is to organize the interesting tidbits I find.

This is a wonderful way to focus on a topic or area. Focus here is the keyword, and is something that will sharpen as I gain familiarity with the tools. Lots of potential here for use in many ways.

Week 5 thing #2

This post actually went out as an email, and as I become more familiar with the mechanics of the blog, I realize I need to put it here. too.

My challenge/problem mindset needs a major overhaul. Especially with things computer related and MY steep learning curve. Looking back at where I was when I first started this job 10 years ago...."You've come a long way , Baby!" The tech guy had to show me how to email.
Whenever frustration sets in, I try to remember all I've learned so far. Then find a person or class to help me out. Thanks, Ann, Jacque, Larry, Hilary, Eugene and all the others , you know who you are.

The other habits are pretty well ingrained. Lifelong learning is the spice of life, and there are so many directions to go, and it's all so INTERESTING. Fun to share with others, tool Focus is often a "challenge" as well because I tend to have too many things going at once.

Week 4 Things #5,6,7 Flickr, Mashups and Post

5. Having fun exploring with Flickr, and Mappr. It's great to search places you've been and see how others got new shots of the place. I also like to look up new places and see other's pictures. Do I want to go there? This would be a fun way to document a trip as well as share photos with others you've befriended while there.

6. Has anyone seen the science fiction mashup? It's a pile of book/magazine covers sorted horizontally by date and vertically by color...and our patrons think Dewey is complicated!
I love it, it rather resembles the floor of a teenager's room at any given point in time, minus the pizza boxes, sneakers and sweats.


7. I downloaded several of our photos from a recent trip to Portland and the Oregon Gardens, and sent them to my mother. This is the second digital camera that I've owned. My tecchie daughter worked at Best Buy and convinced me to get the first one, a small simple Cannon Powershot S 500 that was very easy to use. When we took a trip to the Amazon I had no qualms about buying a more elaborate one. We settled on a Cannon SX110. The larger lens and zoom and movie capabilities are great, but there's a lot to the convenience of the small camera, too. I get the photo if the camera is handy, in purse or pocket. Not worrying about the cost of film also frees me to shoot away and possibly get that great picture I would have otherwise missed. Batteries are now the greatest limitation.

Week 4 Avatar & Blog Things #3 & 4

Here's my avatar. Not in the right place, but we're working on this one step at a time. Taking this couses is a great way to spend a great deal of time on a rainy weekend...It will have to rain all fall to get me through it, Should have given myself an unbrella, too. ;-)

I set up the Blog and registered it with the Raven2.0 Team