Thing #11 Location

I had a hard time with this "thing" but do like the idea of how it can be used. I just did a quick tour of our spring vacation trip to the east coast.

Click here to view map.


View East Coast Trip in a larger map

Thing #10 RSS

I used the recommended site Technorati to find feeds in my interest areas. Being a Media Specialist I have subscribed to various book talk feeds. They will come in handy when I want to do talk books to the 9th grade classes. It will also be very helpful when recommending books to students that I have not had the time to read.

Having an interest in cooking I also found some awesome food and nutrition feeds. They have all been organized in folders along with some national news feeds.

Thing #9 Learning Networks

I have joined the Interactive Whiteboard Users group on KPS's Ning site and added to Todd Hower's introduction thread.

Thing #8 Video

I loved this video and is one I am putting on our Facebook page. Get those kids reading. This site was abounding with advertisements which I found to be very distracting, but that is how they pay for the site. It was easy to navigate and find subject appropriate videos.
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=159726&title=Gotta_Keep_Reading

This is a video from SchoolTube. This site didn't have near the advertisements as TeacherTube and was easier to navigate. This would be a great video to put on our Facebook page as the students are really into the The Percy Jackson series right now.

http://www.schooltube.com/video/acad37db8c6843f3bdf7/Rick-Riordan-at-National-Book-Festival

During the fall, libraries celebrate Banned Bookd Week. It gives Teacher Librarians the opportunity to educate students and staff which books have been banned at particular schools, why some books are banned and which banned books we own. Students are always surprised at some of the banned books. The following video from SchoolTube would be great to put into the library home page during that week and/or to run it on our daily live announcements.

http://www.schooltube.com/video/797b7759e1814b848960/Banned-Books

Great new tool!

Thing #7 Wikis

These wiki's look like they would be a fun thing for a classroom of students to work on and correspond with students all over the world or with each otther. One of our Social Studies teachers at the 10-12 building does something like this with her moodle account through the ISD.

I looked at a cookbook wiki which had various related wikis including one for a Pop Tart Wiki - did you know the newest flavored Pop Tart is "Frosted Wild Grape"? It was fun to see where the links would eventual lead. Many of the wikis were very colorful some had advertisements on them some had ethnic wikis linked or healthy foods links. I would think a wiki could be useful in a Life Management class with students sharing ideas with others. Another wiki I visited was a site with literary awards database. It was many lists of award winning books with a synopsis of each book.

Some of the wikis had way to much information on them for younger students. Most were very well organized and easy to navigate. I also liked the idea that many of them had links to follow to other wikis.

I found a list of game wikis containing hints, tips, strategies, and guides to popular games. Rather than purchase the magazines the players can just go to a wiki
and find a walkway through the difficult parts of a game.

I would like to start a family wiki for communicating when we gather for holidays and celebrations (there are a lot of us) would be a good way to communicate with everyone at one time and decide where to go and who brings what. It would save me a lot of time as I always seem to be the one who has to organize our family.

Thing #6 Presentations

In Zoho Show I have created a short orientation to the Library Media Center that can be used with the 9th grade English classes. I wanted something that I could use with students that were absent on the day of the orientation. This is something a student could view on their lunch hour, after school or during class time.

Like anything else new, it takes time to learn a new program. I couldn't find a spell check that I am use to using with all my PowerPoint files. Maybe there is one here also. The program was easy to use. It didn't have as many "bells and whistles" as PP but the site said they were working on some new features for the next update. I like the idea that it is available anywhere and anytime so you don't have to worry about using a thumb drive, it is easily shared between colleagues for viewing and editing.

I would really like to try Prezi, it was very impressive. I will play with it this summer when I have more time.

Library Orientation

Thing #5 Google Docs

I have played around with Google Docs for the last two days. I am most interested to know why the district continues to purchase license for Microsoft Office when this is a free application. Right now I use Excel, Word and PowerPoint from Microsoft on the library media center computers and have had to purchase license for each computer from my shrinking budget.

For my fall orientations I use Microsoft's PowerPoint application but after playing with the presentation software in Google Docs I find it very easy to use and very similar to PP. My budgets in both buildings are on Excel spreadsheets. Once again I found the spreadsheets in Google Docs to be just as easy to use. I liked the idea of the various forms that are free. These free forms have given me ideas on how I can make my job easier along with the two clerks in the 9th Grade Building and High School buildings.

Once again why isn't the district using this free software? I would think with the drastic budget cuts that we may be facing this would be a good way to save the district some money. I have also read recently of a few districts in our area going with this software.

My personal opinion is, yes, Google Docs will one day replace Microsoft Office. As our economy continues to struggle why purchase a program when one is available free?

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tisBubqSWCg9KaL4-0fofPQ