This was definitely an exercise in patience and determination not to let it get the best of me - the 2nd time around. Since I was so overwhelmed when trying to complete the class with the other librarians during the school year, as they say on "5th grader" - I had to drop out. I am glad I went through all Things though. At least now I'll know what people are talking about.
It is definitely "changing, challenging, and exciting." There are quite a few things that I loved learning about and working on even though it usually took me 3 hours to complete each thing. I love del.icio.us for storing my bookmarks; I went from school, to home, to laptop, to my son's computer without any problems. Of course, I really like Imagechef, Animoto and Flickr and will continue to use these. I really liked finding some of the sites geared toward the library, i.e. Library Thing. I did not like creating an Avatar; it was pointless to me and took such a long time to finish.
As far as my lifelong learning goals, there is a whole world out there that I don't know about or understand. To me it is too time consuming. "Don't text me, just call me and leave a message. I'll call you back." I want to interact with another human that understands and can explain it to me. That said, I realize this technology is THE future.
I suggest you move Social bookmarking to an earlier thing. It was very helpful to have bookmarks "to go" wherever I went.
I would probably take another discovery program, but not during the school year. My time is so limited that I just can't concentrate and these courses easily intimidate me.
I would like to demonstrate some of the things I learned to our faculty and students. However, with the district's filter, most of this would be impossible to have the students learn. There are several teachers who will love the tools we learned about while others would run away - kicking and screaming. I would like to set up a blog for the Lone Star books and have students review and post comments; I think this would be easily accomplished by continuing the wiki I started.
Keeping up with Web 2.0 and beyond is probably best accomplished through RSS, readers, and alerts. I will maintain a couple of these, but delete and cancel several subscriptions. I do not feel comfortable with My Space and Facebook - even my son raised an eyebrow when I asked if I could be his friend. I am definitely a private person and will not share things on the internet. I don't trust the privacy of the internet - there are so many people who know how to access accounts, etc. For some reason, the bad people know all the tricks.
Where do I go from here? I'm not really sure. Yes, I will continue a few things, but I doubt that I will spend even 15 minutes a week on this. When I come home from school, the computer is the last thing I want to use and it's virtually impossible at school. However, I have already passed on several "things" to family and friends. I will definitely encourage other teachers to take the class.
As I re-read this summary before posting, I realize I sound negative. It was time consuming and often frustrating, but definitely FUN at times. I will do my best to continue to explore and maybe with time I will improve some of these skills. Ha!Ha!
Thanks for the introduction and lessons; it was truly insightful. I'll just count on YOU to keep me informed.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thing 23 - Creative Commons
I can't believe I made it to the last "thing" with a few days to spare.
The copyright video on Youtube was difficult to follow. It took me several minutes to figure out what the characters were saying and then I had to piece together their words to make sense. Copyright is such a difficult concept for people to understand. When I explain it to students and teachers that it is all about money and put yourself in the creators' shoes, most seem to get the point. However, they still feel like they are entitled to the work. It doesn't make sense to the average person that to read a book and follow it with the movie version then compare and contrast the two versions could be a violation of copyright.
Creative Commons is a "gray" concept to me. How does one have permission to change the copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved"? I suppose that's where the internet is taking us. The explanation that "we work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare 'some rights reserved'” I think would be difficult to monitor, but I hope that it will become a common practice. I discovered that The Learning 2.0 - 23 Things program is based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers, and adapted by the California School Library Association and others. Content and style for Learning 2.0 - 23 Things has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.
Helene's program was loosely based upon Stephen Abram's article, 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006.
The copyright video on Youtube was difficult to follow. It took me several minutes to figure out what the characters were saying and then I had to piece together their words to make sense. Copyright is such a difficult concept for people to understand. When I explain it to students and teachers that it is all about money and put yourself in the creators' shoes, most seem to get the point. However, they still feel like they are entitled to the work. It doesn't make sense to the average person that to read a book and follow it with the movie version then compare and contrast the two versions could be a violation of copyright.
Creative Commons is a "gray" concept to me. How does one have permission to change the copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved"? I suppose that's where the internet is taking us. The explanation that "we work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare 'some rights reserved'” I think would be difficult to monitor, but I hope that it will become a common practice. I discovered that The Learning 2.0 - 23 Things program is based on the Learning 2.0 program that was designed by Helene Blowers, and adapted by the California School Library Association and others. Content and style for Learning 2.0 - 23 Things has been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License.
Helene's program was loosely based upon Stephen Abram's article, 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Thing 22 - Podcasts
Podcasts are definitely a thing of the near future. Students will absolutely love these. Several podcasts were unable to open. I viewed several from Education Podcast Network - Middle School category: Owl Bytes - The History of Technology and Cranbook Composers Podcast - KMS Podcast #7. The History of Technology was about Sony so you might be interested in hearing and seeing this. There were a few pictures to accompany the story.
Students will be able to create podcasts for anything and everything. It will be very easy for teachers with the new Mac computers to create podcasts with their students. I went through the MISD librarians class and found several suggestions for podcasts. I tried Storynory for children's literature podcasts. Book Voyages files were not found when I clicked on various episodes. I listened to a podcast from David Warlick's Connect learning. The text of the podcast was there as well as the audio. Before he went into his conversation with Chris Lehman, he explained how one of his podcasts had been porn-spam linked. This is is most frightening thing about all this technology. Not only do we have to deal with identity theft, but we must be concerned about others attacking our students podcasts. YA Bookcast did not work either. I believe that podcasts will be part of our students educational experience. However, it will take a while before we get teachers on board with this tool.
Students will be able to create podcasts for anything and everything. It will be very easy for teachers with the new Mac computers to create podcasts with their students. I went through the MISD librarians class and found several suggestions for podcasts. I tried Storynory for children's literature podcasts. Book Voyages files were not found when I clicked on various episodes. I listened to a podcast from David Warlick's Connect learning. The text of the podcast was there as well as the audio. Before he went into his conversation with Chris Lehman, he explained how one of his podcasts had been porn-spam linked. This is is most frightening thing about all this technology. Not only do we have to deal with identity theft, but we must be concerned about others attacking our students podcasts. YA Bookcast did not work either. I believe that podcasts will be part of our students educational experience. However, it will take a while before we get teachers on board with this tool.
Thing 21 - Animoto
This was totally cool! I did have trouble when I tried to create an account using I.E. I finally got Safari to work and allow me to create the video. It took me a while to figure out how to get the images into Animoto, but once I saved them into my Flickr account, it was super easy. After creating and embedding it, I had my family to check it out. My husband said that he didn't want to see it if it wasn't about our little princess. Selecting the music for this video was so easy; I thought it would take hours. I started at the top category and just looked at titles. This was the 5th song from the top.
Wow! Students would love this. They could use it for so many different projects to show what they learned. I love this!
Wow! Students would love this. They could use it for so many different projects to show what they learned. I love this!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Thing 19 - Other Social Networks
I joined the 23thingsters network earlier in our assignments because I was going through several librarians blogs. I left a comment for Mary. I had also joined Library Thing to post a few of my favorite books to suggest to students. I didn't realize at the time I was working on another Thing. I posted a picture on 23 thingsters with my favorite princess and will enjoy adding more books to my list.I also joined Teacher Librarian ning and enjoyed reading the forum on recommended books. It was no surprise that Twilight by Stephenie Meyer was highly recommended. I want to check into the Meg Cabot series, Mediator, to see if it is appropriate for middle school; the girls love her books.
When reading and learning about social networks on Wikipedia, I discovered that I have been a member of a network for years - Classmates.com. Since I plan our high school reunions, I became a member of this network years ago. There are so many others listed on wikipedia - some sending an alarm - those limited to adults. I know that most of these are probably for adults to find friends, but this is part of the internet that I do not trust. There are so many evil predators and they can trick you into thinking they are safe to be your friend.
I will stay connected to Classmates, Library Thing, and Teacher Librarian as these will help me.
When reading and learning about social networks on Wikipedia, I discovered that I have been a member of a network for years - Classmates.com. Since I plan our high school reunions, I became a member of this network years ago. There are so many others listed on wikipedia - some sending an alarm - those limited to adults. I know that most of these are probably for adults to find friends, but this is part of the internet that I do not trust. There are so many evil predators and they can trick you into thinking they are safe to be your friend.
I will stay connected to Classmates, Library Thing, and Teacher Librarian as these will help me.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Thing 18 - Facebook & My Space
I created an account in both because I have "friends" in both. My friend in Facebook is so excited. She posted something on "My Wall" but I can't find the wall. She wants me to add a picture, but I don't have any available from this computer. (I'm babysitting my granddaughter :-) I knew that I was old when I registered at both sites and had to fill in my birth year. I had to scroll down a LONG way to get to the correct year. Both were fairly easy to set up accounts, but my marital status in Myspace was incorrect, but I got that changed. I had an immediate friend "Tom" in myspace, but I don't know Tom so I deleted him. Sorry Tom. I found a high school friend on one of them and I'm waiting to see if she will be my friend. We work on our reunions together and a 23 things classmate suggested that this was a good way to possibly find classmates.
My main concern is privacy. I don't want anything out there that can be "stolen". Just Friday I opened my home email account to find everything "wiped out." I had confirmations for flights, rent car, etc. Fortunately, I had printed the confirmations, but there were other things I did not want to lose. I was only at 6% usage so that wasn't the problem. I'm very frustrated and want my email Inbox back! I also hear that people put things in these networks that are checked by potential employers. After having one's identity stolen, I certainly don't trust the internet. I never buy things from any site, etc.
Educationally, we need to know about these sites so we can see what students are doing. As a librarian, I want to do more on internet safety and I need to be familiar with these sites as well. Unfortunately, young people are so trusting and don't think anything will every happen, but we all know what is in the news every day. The internet is such a helpful tool, but it has bad things too that we need to teach students.
My main concern is privacy. I don't want anything out there that can be "stolen". Just Friday I opened my home email account to find everything "wiped out." I had confirmations for flights, rent car, etc. Fortunately, I had printed the confirmations, but there were other things I did not want to lose. I was only at 6% usage so that wasn't the problem. I'm very frustrated and want my email Inbox back! I also hear that people put things in these networks that are checked by potential employers. After having one's identity stolen, I certainly don't trust the internet. I never buy things from any site, etc.
Educationally, we need to know about these sites so we can see what students are doing. As a librarian, I want to do more on internet safety and I need to be familiar with these sites as well. Unfortunately, young people are so trusting and don't think anything will every happen, but we all know what is in the news every day. The internet is such a helpful tool, but it has bad things too that we need to teach students.
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