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!