Acceptance Letter

Having written an acceptance letter for a classmate's OPAC proposal, I can appreciate the value of the assignment. I found it enlightening to have to go through the thought process involved from the opposite perspective; having moved from a proposal writer to a proposal evaluator.

Most Valuable Part

The most valuable part of this course for me is that just about everything in it is directly applicable to my job as a school librarian. It is not often one can say that. I have gained perspective of what other school librarians' library programs are like; including the elementary level, and the middle and high school levels. I have learned of many great ideas from others that I either have already, or plan to implement in my library. I feel I could easily approach any one of the members of this class, including Barb, to discuss just about anything.

... all very good outcomes for the physically isolated, sole librarian in a school.

I also must acknowledge the comfort factor I have gained. I was well aware of my own limitations regarding all the latest technology; not a good thing. I feel much more confident in my position now, a very good thing :)

Top 10 Things Teachers Should Know About Technology

Having revisited the subject, here is my Top 10 Things Teachers Should Know About Technology.

Google Docs

I said it before, but I have to say it again. Google Docs is the best thing ever. It is so easy and intuitive to use. I have used it for documents, slide presentations and spreadsheets for this course. It is so easy to share the links. Best of all, when/if you see an error just after you have posted (distributed) the document, you can get right in there and fix it, and everyone's link will automatically point to the corrected version.

Discussion Board

I realized this week, thanks to a classmate's posting, that the discussion board in Blackboard for this course will be going away. I have been going along merrily thinking I have access to all the valuable information in it for future reference. It would have been one thing to realize this at the start of the course and have been saving useful tidbits all along. It is quite another to be in the last few weeks of the course and not have saved anything. There must be a better way!

Library OPAC Proposal

Investigating library OPACs this week has been one of those topics where I realize how much I have to learn. Unfortunately, all my experience both as a librarian and as a library patron have been with the SAILS/SirsiDynix Symphony iBistro online catalog interface. This made it difficult to "read about" other library OPACs and try to picture actually using them. I did find a few demos but this is a task that I would really want to visit libraries and be able to log in and really use the interfaces.

I was frustrated with the Breeding Library Automation website. I found it confusing with all the company logos just displayed on a page. Then there was not much useful information on the links themselves. It was all very high-level.

I also had to get beyond my own confusion that SAILS is not providing all the library management functionality. It had come to feel that way due to the fact that SAILS is the only company that I ever interact with - for training, circulation and cataloging, reports, technical support, etc. I barely noticed the name of the Workflows software application that SAILS showed me how to use was Symphony from SirsiDynix.

My OPAC proposal looks at keeping SAILS/SirsiDynix or moving to Koha/LibLime/MassCat in the Norfolk elementary schools.

Series Books

I, just like the kids, love series books! I often read the first book in a series aloud in the library, expressly to get as many kids hooked as possible. I tell them if they liked the book, it is so easy to pick up the next book in a series! They have already made a big investment in understanding the characters and have started to become familiar with the author's writing style. I stress that I have favorite authors and love it when they publish a new book.

Of course, with The 39 Clues, I stress that they can become familiar with a number of different authors. I explain the logic to the series having different authors is to not have them in college when the final book comes out, like what happened with the Harry Potter series. I learned this from Rick Riordan. With each different author, I go over all the other books by that author that they will probably like, too.

Empowered to Frustrated

My empowerment of last week has fallen away to frustration this week. I have heard many good ideas regarding cataloging, something I do enjoy, with tangible results(!), and yet this year I have basically a classroom teacher's schedule, and a pink slip for a possible reduction in hours next year. Maybe I'll start another journal blog to specifically keep track of all the good ideas I hope to follow up on ...someday.

Another Book Display

The discussion board this week reminded me of another "display" I had intended to put together - collecting all the nonfiction Magic Tree House books and displaying them close to the fiction Magic Tree House books. I have had students looking for these nonfiction books, without any particular topic in mind. Also, they are so tough to even see on the nonfiction shelves of large, hardcover books. I'm sure the circulation will go up with them in clear sight.

Book Store Display

I have setup displays for my young patrons grouping certain nonfiction books together on the windowsill, or on top of bookcases. I have an American Girl section of nonfiction books beside a wire rack display of the fiction American Girl books. The girls love these books (babysitting, money, school smarts, feelings, etc.) and gravitate to them because they are American Girl more so than looking for a particular subject. The books also tend to be thin paperbacks, which makes it all the more difficult to see on the shelf.

Another display is all the 'ology' books, Dragonology, Pirateology, Egyptology, etc., which are otherwise scattered around nonfiction due to subject.

These books circulate a lot more, now - the goal.

Note: these are only displays of books, no changes to the cataloging. In fact, there is a bulletin board with the Dewey numbers of commonly searched for books, in case they do get put back on the shelf. The kids can find them, it just takes longer.

Empowered

After reading Catalog It!, I do feel empowered to make sensible decisions regarding library organization and cataloging of books, based on my patrons. After reflection, however, I am not jumping into any major reorganization. One must not only consider ease of access for students, but also ease of reshelving for parent volunteers! Kids would love to go to a genre section in fiction, however, unless there was a genre sticker on every book, the parents would not love trying to put them back.

I will feel no guilt however, leaving the Garfield books in fiction, and not in the nonfiction comics section.

Cataloging

Wow, it is not easy to read an entire book on cataloging! I love to catalog and miss it now that I have no time at all in my schedule for it. I have realized, however, that apparently I am quite spoiled by SAILS Workflows cataloging software. The cataloging interface presented is at a much higher level than the fields and individual character settings and the punctuation I just read about in Catalog It!. All this in a broad survey book for school library media specialists. I can only imagine what the 14 week courses in cataloging are like!

High level interfaces are wonderful things; such as being able to blog and create wikis with ease, not having to learn all the HTML code supporting it... or catalog new records without being aware of every field and MARC format underneath!

Annotated Bibliography: Cyberbullying

A cyberbullying annotated bibliography, developed with elementary/middle school teachers in mind, is also posted on the Freeman Centennial Learning Commons Wiki Teachers page. It consists of resources for teachers and kids, including tips, a cyberbullying glossary, webquests (including one for parents), and cyberbullying prevention curricula for grades 3-5 and for grades 6-12. I actually have quite a span going from what is appropriate for 3rd graders to what is applicable for 6th graders.

Internet Safety: Cyberbullying

What a broad topic internet safety is. I finally decided I had to narrow down my research. It was easy to decide on cyberbullying as it seems to be in the news daily and is a current concern in my school. I developed a cyberbullying presentation to give to teachers defining cyberbullying, and providing resources to use with students. I even went so far as to include a webquest for parents - to create an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to be used at home!

The presentation can also be reached on the Freeman Centennial Learning Commons wiki under Teachers Professional Development.

Another Presentation...

Now I know how to put a Google Doc presentation together and have a place to post presentations on my wiki. How nice to be doing something a second time, reaping benefits from the first time. This week I also found out how I could add speaker's notes on each slide.

Professional Development Presentation

I chose to create a PD presentation on wikis that I would feel comfortable with giving to the teachers at my school. I did not want to reinvent the wheel, and looked for credible resources on the web. An excellent resource for teaching teachers about wikis is the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through.

I created a Teachers page on the Freeman Centennial Learning Commons Wiki that has a section on Professional Development. In a list of 2.0 topics to cover initially with teachers, I created the presentation on Wikis.

Publishing new content containing other web content brought all sorts of issues with licensing and proper citing of resources that I am still trying to figure out!

Presentation?

Wow, my first thought is: how do I even make a presentation anymore? It certainly does not feel right to drag out PowerPoint. Happily, I found Google Docs presentation. It was so easy to put a slide presentation together. I've never been one to use all the fancy fading in and out, slide "transitions" in PowerPoint anyway. Just give me straightforward, easy slides and I'm good to go.

Bag of Tricks... preferably little by little

Creating a Unit Plan incorporating 10 online apps (my bag of tricks) was very difficult for me. Having just become exposed to all these apps, it was hard to have to plan to use so many all at once. In school, I will be starting small and gradually incorporating more and more, building on prior successes.

I even found myself falling into the trap of having technology just to have technology, to get 10 apps in all at once. I luckily became aware of what had happened (it wasn't feeling good), and pulled myself back up to the level of the MA Frameworks standards to be met as the driving force for the unit plan. For me, a slower roll out of tricks with deeper understanding will feel a lot better.

eReaders

After reading the SLJ article, Ereaders, the iPad - Is That All There Is? from Emily, a classmate, I went to Borders and played with both the pocket Sony eReader ($199) and the touch eReader ($299). The touch, though bigger, did have the ability to highlight passages and make notations while reading. It is still just a cool looking electronic book reader for the solitary reader.

David Lankes articulated a web 2.0 eReader reinvention of reading... a device enabling reading to become a social activity. After taking notes and citing passages, sharing them with friends, colleagues and even authors in real time with an ever-present network connection... I think I'll wait for that!

Second Life

I have read articles about Second Life, but never had a chance to play around with it. I looked forward to it this week. Then, I couldn't successfully download a copy to my laptop or desktop at home! Quite frustrated, my husband came along and got a system for me to play with on the weekend.

After having fun designing and naming my avatar, off I went. Knowing that there was a lot of "dark" and mature content, I kept PG content checked off. Still, I came across some scary avatars and places.

Things picked up considerably when I met up with a like-minded classmate in SL and we explored together, looking for good educational content. It also helped that she was more knowledgeable about SL than me and had already found a number of good groups to join, as well as collected note cards with good information. We found Info Island and the library. We traveled to Rachelville for children's information and resources. There seems to be so much available... I think I'm going to out and buy a new graphics card so I can go back!! Who would have thought?

Online Gaming

I am not an online gamer at heart, and I do not at all appreciate violence while "playing". I did take a glance at World of Warcraft, and was surprised actually that it is a game that is rated T instead of MA for violence and gore. I watched a cinematic trailer and doubt I'll be back.

Ragnarock surprised me, as it sounded like the name of a game, when it is really get "what you need, when you need it" shopping, ranging from insurance to used cars to online games. Not sure I'll be using this one, but I'm glad to know what it is.

I took a cursory look at GaiaOnline, but had already been taken with Second Life this week.

Online Social Networking

I also took a look this week at the following: Myspace, LinkedIn and
Ning. Myspace looked similar in functionality to Facebook. I have heard better things about Facebook both from my sons and from others, so I stuck with that. Ning did not seem to offer anything more to entice me to set up an account there.

I did make a mental note of LinkedIn. Depending on how Facebook works out with my teacher and librarian friends, that is another option for career networking. It looked like an excellent resource for someone looking for a new job!

Facebook

For social networking, I dug up an account in Facebook that I had set up in a 2 hour professional development training. I set it up, went back & forth between associating it with my home email and my school email, and then never really used it.

At this point, I decided on my home email. I found that a couple of people from school had sent friend requests. I accepted. Then, when I searched for friends (it must read all your email contacts), just about all my nieces and nephew (20's & 30's) showed up. I sent friend requests to all of them. They will probably fall off their chairs when they see the requests.

You see, I am actually worried that it will be one more thing that I won't feel able to keep up with, and by sending out all the friend requests, will they be thinking that I'll be on Facebook all the time? We'll see what happens.

So far, I ended up with an interesting split between professional friends and family.

iTouch and iPhone

I visited a store this week to get my hands on the iTouch and iPhone. I brought my son who is home on break. It truly is having a computer in your pocket. Apparently it is ridiculously expensive to pay for an iPhone each month. The kids my son knows at school opt for the iTouch and keep their phone with unlimited texting packages, which is mainly what they do.

iPods in Education

I found a great podcast on YouTube specifying the Educational Uses of iPods... if they were "allowed" in school. I really like the idea of it being an IEP in your pocket :)

Videos and Podcasts

The lesson I really learned this week with videos and podcasts is that there is a lot of "opportunity" to create good quality, elementary-level online media resources - it is needed! www.teachersdomain.org (thank you, Kathleen) finally had some curriculum-related use of videos. I found a few podcasts on TeacherTube, searching "audio media" and using tags.

Online Media Creation

For my first attempt with online media creation, I uploaded photos from Read Across America Day of kids reading in the school library into Flickr, checked on public photo permissions for students, and created a video using Animoto. I hope to generate PR for the school library. The kids are invested - they can't wait to see themselves!

I ran into difficulty finding *appropriate* music. I thought I had it with a song entitled "Picture in my Head" ... with all the kids reading... until the last 8 seconds of the song, when the picture in his head was of a lover who never came to bed. So much for that score. Then I spent loads of time with iTunes, was really happy finding the Ice Age Song, only to find out that Animoto does not take the mp4 format that iTunes songs are in. I finally resorted to classical music in the background to have something. When I have more time on my hands, I will have to come up with something more upbeat for the kids.

Wow - this video also represents the number of kids I see with 9 classes on a single day! I bring in my supply of Dr. Seuss books for the day and the kids love it. There are many "Oohs" & "Ahhs" as they reread their 'childhood' favorites together. I am even in there with Harry Potter :)

Read Across America Day: Reading in the School Library

Doodle, Google Docs and Zoho

Google Docs and Doodle look like fine collaborating tools. They will be useful for collaboration... if not as fun and exciting as the other online apps/"toys". Google Docs will be good once I understand all the sharing aspects. Doodle looks like it will be effective scheduling meetings and events. Zoho looks to be just another option for an online office suite. Google Docs I believe has more of an established base of users. I'm not sure what Zoho would have to offer above and beyond?

SurveyMonkey and BubblUs

I will definitely find uses for SurveyMonkey. I like the idea of using it for pretests, determining what students already know; and also for collecting data after workshops.

BubblUs I will try, also. Despite being a visual learner, I have not been that big a fan of mind maps in the past. Maybe I have needed the colorful and exploding bubbles, too!

StumbleUpon and Rollyo

Two more online apps I will be using to create online resource lists for research projects are StumbleUpon and Rollyo. Any tool that will ultimately save me time with my own web discovery is worth its weight in gold. I realize it may take a while to get to a streamlined use of StumbleUpon. Rollyo will be great in an elementary school, providing credible websites to students which are efficient and safe. Lessons on evaluating websites can be done on another day :)

Animoto

I can see myself using Animoto, too, once I have more time with it. I could really use some PR to market the school library/learning commons, highlighting different programs like the MCBA voting, author visits like Andrew Clements, and other literacy programs. I could embed the videos on my new Learning Commons wiki.

Zamzar and Jing

Online apps that I will use right away are Zamzar, for converting Word 2007 (home) into Word 2003 (school) files. This is a regularly occuring problem at school. Jing is another. I have been wanting screen capture software in school to use in creating school library-specific manuals for parent volunteers specifying circulation and cataloging procedures.

Fun Part

The fun part of this exploration week with online apps was seeing all the cool tools that are out there, and all the fun things that can be done. There is so much to do with photos now that I've figured out how to get them on Flickr. Trading cards, mosaics, jigsaw puzzles, magazine covers, pocket-sized photo alblums, captions, photo to sketches, and even help for my blog header using BigHugeLabs and Dumpr. I really want to create a Voki avatar. I know the kids will love it. I also loved Wordle. I have seen word clouds online but never knew about Wordle to create them. Can I add another day in the week???

Flickr Photo Map

Flickr - I missed the requirement to map pictures. I downloaded Google Earth and was able to get geographical coordinates, however, when trying to follow a link to the map from the photo, got an error that Firefly is down... Tried multiple times, will have to come back later!

Online Apps

Where to begin? This was a difficult week looking at 14 or 15 new online apps. I did not have near enough time to really enjoy and play. I was starting from scratch not having used any of them before(!)

Flickr

... is making me crazy. I have my photos in a set in the order I want them in. Then they are displayed in a different order in my Flickr "Photostream" that others see.

Technical difficulties aside, I started a virtual tour of my school library. It also has me thinking now. I took a lot of pictures of kids reading on Read Across America day. They are all hams and want their pictures posted. I have to wait and check on photo permissions with school first before I can post any student photos though.

So much reading

Wow, it is hard to keep up with RSS Feeds. I realize that in the big picture it is good to have information coming to me, but I have to adjust to the fact that the information keeps on coming, even when I'm otherwise engaged for stretches of time!

RSS Feeds

Interesting learning with the RSS Feeds! I started out small with 5 feeds, worried about the amount of content. Seeing so many good choices by class members, I am now "cautiously" up to 13, along with following all the blogs from our class. I have already removed a number of feeds that did not really pan out. There are still SO many things that look interesting to me.

I think I have learned that wikis are not the best sources for RSS Feeds, that they are better bookmarked. I ended up with a couple of complete series of step by step editing changes while wikis were updated :)

Social Networking

Looking to network in the following places:

delicious: sharonlavallee1
Shelfari: mrsLavallee
twitter: sharonjlavallee
blog: http://edutechplayandlearn.blogspot.com/
wiki: http://fclearningcommons.wikispaces.com/

Shelfari

Okay, right back to my favorite place - my books. After looking at examples on LibraryThing (which I had heard about more and fully expected to use) and Shelfari, I went for the visually appealing Shelfari. I can picture this being popular with my elementary students. After intending to enter 5 books for this portion of the exploration, here I am 25 books later... I even added a widget to my blog to get to my Shelfari book shelf.

Delicious

My first foray into the social bookmarking world. I decided to start out with delicious since it was more basic. Social bookmarking is something I'm really going to have to experience in action to appreciate the benefits. I started out entering a few bookmarks. I'll add more later.

Believe it or not, this was also my first experience tagging information!

Google Reader

I am set up in Google Reader. It did not go as smoothly as I planned. I looked into what I could find from MSLA, SEMLS and SAILS, three organizations currently overflowing my email at school, and I couldn't find anything with an RSS feed!?

Then I tried 2 websites that turned out to be paid subscription: Classroom 2.0 and Choice Literacy.

I tried Technorati. I finally set up feeds from ReadWriteThink for strategy guides, NCTE Inbox ideas, Franki Sibberson's (my favorite elementary school librarian) A Year of Reading, Kathy Schrock's Kaffeelatsch, the 1st runner up for the 2009 Edublog award, and one blog that I am worried about since I noticed it has 109 posts/week: ReadWriteWeb. I'll try it out and see.

First Wiki

I decided to move forward from the static school library website I had (which was indeed out of date in a few places) toward a school learning commons wiki. I'm still having navigation and formatting issues, but it's a start. Time to get back to exploring what is out there, and the collaborative aspects. Already, however, developing the fcLearningCommons wiki is a big plus from the proprietary school website software which was very difficult and time-consuming to use.

Probation!

I am not sure what the status was when Will Richardson advised visiting the Wikipedia global warming entry Discussion tab (in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms) to see what sort of negotiation goes on, but the article has been placed "on probation"! See global warming discussion for a good example of disruptive editing and how it is handled.

Wiki exploration

Learning about wikis. TeachersFirst has great information for teachers just embarking on a wiki project, Twiki Issues. Included is a downloadable copy of a Wiki Warranty for parental consent. Note TeachersFirst must be given credit if used.

Almost first tweet

A few months ago I had an brief introduction to Twitter in a professional development program. I created an account, but then unfortunately did not keep up with it. I was wondering how to find everyone. I may have found Elizabeth. My name was already taken in Twitter, so I added my middle initial. If you'd like to tweet me, search for sharonjlavallee.

First Blog

The start of something great, I can feel it. This is my first post on my first published blog. Being such a newbie, I started out reading other blogs. Since I am interested in the use of technology in education and school libraries, I started with a list of "Good Educator's Blogs" from Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Looking for guidance on good practices and getting started myself, I learned my first lesson: if you are going to write about something, you need to link to it. I learned how to do this in ten-habits-of-bloggers-that-win.