Week 9: Thing #23 and Congratulations!

I am sitting at my kitchen island and it is only 4:04 Sunday afternoon. With all my computer problems I had foreseen at least midnight until I started Thing 23. I loved the video "A Fair(y) Use Tale. It has raised a lot of questions that I want to investigate more especially since the audio portion was very choppy. I guess I want to find out how copyright went from 14 years to forever if I heard the clip correctly-which segues into my feedback...

First, I realize that I need a much more powerful computer and a less invasive security network. I will make sure it is fast and it speaks clearly.

Next, I have overcome my fear and aversion of You Tube - I really like it but it is a time thief.

Overall, I am more overwhelmed by all the technology available but less ignorant or fearful about taking it on and adapting it. I felt so successful when videos and pod casts actually appeared in my blog. If only there were more hours in the to experiment with it but this course has given me a great start.

My favorite week was Week 5 Play week (probably why I work well at middle school). I really liked the pod casts especially since I don't have an Ipod. Now I don't feel at all left out. I will probably buy a Kindle and read everything I can download for free from eBooks.

Besides You Tube designing my Avatar took forever. I had to go through all the outfits and accessories before I could commit.

The only things I would add would be:
1) A bit more explanation to the RSS feeds= maybe a step by step guide. I watched the videos several times but I need a printed script also.

2) About two more weeks to complete the 23 things. However, part of my problem was that sites had been blocked the second week into the course.

Overall, I found this to be one of the best courses in technology that I have taken.
I loved the tone of each week's lesson. It was like I was to embark upon a new adventure each week. I would most definitely sign up for anything else that was offered and I plan to share what I learned with anyone who will listen to me.

In one word this course was: EMPOWERING

A Great and Terrible Beauty

Teen book video award winner.

Week 9: Thing 20 Discover YouTube and a Few Sites

I finally finished this assignment. I knew it would be a bear since the school has blocked Youtube and my own computer shuts itself off at whim. I first explored sites that weren't blocked to the school and found that I could get everything offered on TeacherTube. There is a great little video for Rick Riordan's Olympian Series called "Camp Half-Blood". I love this series and I am always promoting it so I would definitely show this clip the next time I book talked The Lightning Thief.

Next I explored Youtube at home and found a fabulous clip for Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty It is at the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L93HOOy-lSc

It was from Teen Book Video Award Winners. There were also some interesting clips about banned books which would work well with a lesson I sometimes teach.

I have tried several times to down-load it to this blog but I thought I better get this posted since time is running out. I will try to get the clip in when I finish the rest of Week 9.

The drawbacks were of course the blocking of Youtube so I would have to see if I could have individual sites unblocked. The massive amounts of video clips and the time it took to buffer and download. On TeacherTube an ad page popped up before the video would start to download.

Overall, it was interesting and I am going to explore these sites more. This experience has also convinced me that I need either a more powerful computer or a weaker security program running in the background.

Week 9: Thing 21 (Podcasts) and Thing 22 (eBooks and Audio eBooks)

The podcasts were really neat. I found a fabulous one by Nancy Keane. It is called:

Podcast Book Reviews by Nancy Keane

They are available as a page at http://www.google.com/reader/shared/08125276564536541007(and there's a feed too! I have attached it to my delicio.us. account.

I have so many students who speed read and always want a new reccommendation. I am going to favorite this site on the library computers and have them search here if they want more choices than I can give them.

My exploration of eBooks coincided with the science teacher showing off his birthday gift to me. It is a Kindle which is like a notebook that downloads books from many of the sites listed in the lesson. He also rattled off a few other sites he goes to. I usually go to Mexico for a month each summer to study Spanish and I fill one suitcase with books I want to read. After this lesson and my introduction to Kindle I think I am going to invest in the machine and give my arms a break.

We also have a student who is legally blind and I told her about the eBook site and
have invited her back after school to show her how to log on and listen.

Week 8: Thing 18 and 19 Online Applications and Tools

I fell behind in keeping up my blog because I had jumped ahead and started playing with the links of this week three weeks ago. I love the Zoho writer. We have two teachers in my building who wanted personal accounts for each of their students so that no other student could go into the file on the desktop and change, copy or delete another's work. After many phone calls and a few frustrating sessions, the kids were able to have separate accounts. However the option of having them create an account with the Zoho writer seems far better since they could access their accounts not only from any computer in school but also from any computer at their homes, at a friends or at gram's. The only drawback is if the power or internet goes down but it seems like a great trade-off. Both the teachers who had wanted separate accounts seem very interested in using this next year.

Okay, Library Thing is very cool. I need about three more hours to really explore but I see many possibilities.

Week 7: Thing #16 Wiki's

Although I know many people love wikis, I feel a little nervous about creating one for my students. Teaching middle school students,I don't think I could give uncontrolled editing permission. Even though students are constantly reminded not to give out locker combination, there are always incidents of theft from a locked locker because the combination had been given out. If I gave passwords and told students to keep them safe, 99% would do it but the 1% would cost me untold grief. I have opened computer screens to some shocking sites even with firewall controls.

One site that I saw asked that book reviews be emailed and then they were posted. I think this might work but I would need to find the time to read and post the reviews. But couldn't this be done with a blog and one would have more control. I don't want to be a control freak but I also do not want to be a lead story on the 5:00 news.

Week 6: Thing 15

I have just reread three of the articles from Web 2.0 and I am feeling a little despondent. I feel that my school library is stuck in the Dark Ages and there is no forseeable hope for a future in Web 2.0. I hate to be a nay-sayer and I try to think of the ways I can bring some of the new and exciting digital changes into my school environment but I am in a system that faces grave financial problems each year. Our middle school students do not have classes in health or even keyboarding never mind other computer programs. Saying this let me respond to each of the articles I have read. Rick Anderson writes "Away from the 'icebergs' listing the three problems he sees threatening the progress of libraries and "indeed our existence".

The first deals with the "just in case" collection. He claims that this approach does not make sense anymore since as Web 2.0 continures to emerge patrons will be accessing everything digitally. I agree with him totally and the upside for me is with little or no budget each year I can still help my students access information they need.

The second "iceberg" deals with "reliance on user education". He states the understaffing doesn't allow the needed education for research so the tools must be user friendly requiring little or no instruction for use. As a school librarian one of my jobs is educating my clientele and helping them navigate through the information with the tools at hand. Taking this course, I thought I could count on some computer savy kids to help me but they are not familiar with any of the tools I have asked them about. Well, some had heard of Blogs. I myself am waiting for the day when I just have to ask the computer to do a task verbally and it is accomplished.

Finally, changing the "come to us" model. I like going to the library. I like the ambience and order. I do feel that libraries have made great efforts in accessing materials for patrons from all over. We are in an "I want it and I want it now" age but what we give up is practice in patience and civility.