Wikis in Plain English

Week #9, Thing #23

WOW, what a wonderful trip it's been. It is hard to select just one exercise as the most rewarding; all of them had merit and added so much to my repertoire of web utilities. I thought I knew a lot, but realized I know so little of what's happening on the web. I truly want to keep abreast of the innovations in technology that teens and young adults are so good at discovering and using. But, without a course like this I can hardly imagine being able to keep up (and barely, at that!) And, keeping up is imperative if we librarians, particularly young-adult librarians, want to add to our credibility. If nothing else, my desire to keep on learning has been re-affirmed by completing these "23 things". I commit to learning as much as I can and as quickly as I can. I fear that I will never be able to catch up with the innovations that seemingly appear overnight, but I will try my best.

I suppose if I had to summarize my experience with the "23 Things", it would be "ENLIGHTENMENT". Please, please do this again. If I hadn't participated this summer, I would have been forever floundering around in Craig's List looking for all manner of unnecessary stuff!!!

Pat Kuhn

Week #9, Thing #22

I'm hooked on listening to audio books and enjoyed discovering resources on the web for acquiring new ones during this latest "Thing". I just downloaded The Call of the Wild from the website "Librivox". Downloading to my ITunes account was so easy. From there I'll put it on my IPod, playing it through the IPod Nano or in my car. Love the fact it is such easy access. I wonder, though, about e-books. I've been debating for the last several months about e-books in my middle school library. I just don't know how popular or effective they will be. I know I have to investigate this medium to make a final decision about purchasing some for our collection. I myself have never used an e-book, but seems like now is the right time. I have to admit, though, for me....there is nothing like the feel of a book in your hands, pulling the covers over a weary body, looking forward to a good 20 minutes of reading before sleep steals consciousness. BTW, loved the British Online Gallery. What an amazing site. Enjoyed looking at the historic maps. Nothing like it that I can tell.

Week #9, Thing #21

I've used ITunes store to subscribe to podcasts in the past. One in particular I like is the Photoshop Elements Tips Podcast. I enjoy learning how to use Photoshop Elements on my own time, without having to labor over a manual or a tutorial on DVD. I can choose which feature I would like to know more about and I can listen and SEE how to perform a particular Photoshop function without having to follow a prescribed table of contents sequencing. I did, however, check out some of the podcasting sites recommended and was truly amazed at the quantity and depth of subject matter, just for educational topics alone. I also took a course using Apple's Garageband in which we learned how to create our own podcasts, a simple procedure, but like anything worth doing, preparation of quality content is key!! Students can use podcasting to learn AND to create their own content.

Week #9, Thing #20

There are so many uses in education for sites like YouTube. Multimedia is taken for granted by today's students, not only as a medium for producing their own content, but also as a means for teachers to deliver content meant to enhance curriculum. Unfortunately, at least in my school district, video streaming sites are blocked, probably because of the amount of bandwith these sites consume. I know students have been frustrated producing projects that utilize video streaming sites, particularly the popular YouTube Video site, only to discover when they attempt to show their projects, that a key element of the project will not play because it has been blocked by district restrictions.

Libraries can take advantage of user-generated video that often adds to resources that are woefully underfunded. Furthermore, use of this kind of resource allows for up-to-the minute global collaboration. For the last couple years I have collaborated with our ESL teacher who uses the annual Iditarod race as a springboard for teaching a host of subjects including math, science, geography, language arts and political science. In the past, the students would use the Internet to access daily reports of the progress of the competition. However, with the use of YouTube, et. al., students are treated to a first-hand, close to real time, perspective of what it means to run this grueling race. I've embedded a video from YouTube presenting a musher's birds-eye view of this Alaskan tradition.

Week #8, Thing #19

The Library Thing is the BOMB! Can't wait to introduce it to my students and fellow teachers! See my Library Thing on this blog.

Week #8, Thing #18

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Fun with ZOHO Writer,Week#8, Thing #18

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i am experimenting with ZOHO, specifically the ZOHO Writer feature of this application.  There are several different features one can switch to including a speadsheet, presentation (think..PowerPoint), Website, Wiki, Planner, Chat creators and MORE.  Being a Web 2.0 app, of course a big advantage of using ZOHO is its collaborative power.  If only I'd known how "easy" it is to edit documents using this kind of application, I would have convinced a colleague ,for whom I and another colleague were editing a complicated document ,to use ZOHO or Google Docs rather than emailing back and forth, trying to keep track of who made what changes and when those changes were made!  Sure looks like a full featured word processor, A LOT like Microsoft's Word.    Another advantage of using this kind of authoring tool is that one can always find the document to continue editing since it is located on the web and not somewhere on a flash drive or on your home computer.

Week #7, Thing #17

Wow, sure are a lot of very prolific contributors to the California Library 2.0 collective. While looking over the ideas for using wikis, I noticed one that suggested creating a wiki in which students participating in a "Battle of the Books" competition could create questions after reading titles from the "Battle" list. Students on the team would have access to these questions, thereby preparing them for the competition. I've helped prepare our school's Reading Olympics team (sounds much like the "battle of the Books") and it is an arduous task for advisors to the team to read all the books (45!) and create questions. What a wonderful way to get the kids to be the creator of the questions, helping out the team in the true spirit of teamwork and collaboration.

Week #7, Thing #16

Wikis!! I love how many uses our community of educators can find for Wikis. It took me quite a while to discover the extent and power of wikis as I looked through several of the resources and example pages. (Part of the problem with getting through an assignment is finding myself deep into the subject matter of a related link found somewhere on a previous page. Hmmm...wikis are not for the attention deficit disordered, but what fun. Anyway, I particularly liked the idea of groups of students creating wikis about a teacher assigned topic, asking the class to then use the student created content pages as their source for studying for an exam. Or, as one teacher did, ask students to select a topic from a teacher created set of topics and, using the web, their textbooks and other reference material, create a wiki as their final exam. Students would have to document their sources, of course. Also, professional collaboration can be made so much more efficient by using wikis to compose documents that call for collaborative thinking and design. And, wikis are a natural when it comes to creating a subject guide or pathfinder for students on particular topics.

Week #6, Thing #15

Hmmmm. Web 2.0 and the future of libraries??? After reading a couple of articles in response to the question of how libraries will meet patrons' needs using the methods that our Web-savy patrons use the most, I was struck with how inadequately prepared many libraries (including mine) are to meet the needs of its patrons on today's terms. We are so used to asking patrons to COME TO US, that we forget many patrons are migrating to a library or world of information that exists outside of the 4 walls that enclose the library building. Libraries and librarians (library media specialists?) must work overtime to familiarize themselves with how their patrons access, use, create and collaborate on web-based information and trends.

Week#6 Thing #14

Blogger Central, a feature of Technorati, is a tool that helps one keep track of what is the latest and greatest (as voted upon by Technorati users, I think) on the blogosphere. You can check out the top 100 blogs, the top 100 searches (links) and the top"favorited" blogs. And, I am sure all of these are up-to-the minute realtime statistics. INCREDIBLE. I'm beginning to get Blog Exhaustion and worry that I will NEVER be able to catch up, let alone know what is on the horizon in the Web 2.0 world.

Week#6, Thing #13

I've had a del.icio.us account but didn't really understand its value other than an online keeper of my bookmarks. Now that I have had time to sit and play with this application, I recognize that it has value way above and beyond a place where I can access my bookmarks from any computer. I love the idea of tagging and taking advantage of the collective community's bookmarks as well. We truly are learning so much from one another. I suppose teachers have always welcomed building on the ideas of those who came before, but the web has made an incredible difference in the access and sharing of these ideas.

Week #5, Thing #12

Yikes, it took me forever to figure out what Rollyo was all about. Once I did, though, I became more enthusiastic about this tool. I created a "Young Adult/Teen Literature" Rollyo and understand how useful this tool can be. However, I guess one will need to check the list of sites searched periodically to make sure those links are still viable. Very ingenious!

Week #5, Thing #10

I used an image generator, Image Chef http://www.imagechef.com" to create the "reading" poster that I've included in this blog. Pretty nifty tool, lots of flexibility, but make sure the image you use is not copyright protected and that the image you use is square and no bigger than the size allotted by the site. Still...fun to use.

Week #5, Thing #11

I've just finished creating a customized start page using the web 2.0 application netvibes. Prior to finding out about this application, I had created a start page using Google's "IGoogle". While perfectly adequate, I had no idea how much more one could cram into a personalized start page. In my case, I included a slideshow generated by Slide, a very cool application allowing for the ultimate flexibility in creating a personalized slideshow of your own images or images from other sites AND making it very easy to post the show on your blog or send it via email or IM to a friend. I also included Google News, weather specific to my hometown, a map search tool, my del.icio.us bookmark site, an image and video search tool, AND MORE. You can create tabs for this page which categorizes content, e.g. "General", "Interests", etc. You can easily create a "public page" which, I think, gives you the ability to connect with a wider audience through social networking ("friends"? "universe"? ) via publishing on this public page. I have to play around more to really get the hang of that. I admit I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of what is "out there". I just keep wondering, "how does one get the laundry done when you are so busy keeping up with your social networks on the web?"

Doing this exercise made me think about an article I read somewhere on someone's blog about how our students are evolving from retrievers of information to receivers of information. The example given was a teacher that had his world studies students create an IGoogle start page in which they added modules allowing for RSS feeds about notable world news. When a student goes to his/her google start page, he no longer has to search for current information about specific subject matter, the information comes to HIM/HER.

Librarian Lays Down the Law

Week #4, Thing #8 RSS Feeds

I think I FIHALLY understand RSS! Such a simple concept but extremely powerful in its usefulness. Although I could spend way too much time reading all the feeds I might be interested in, I've begun to identify those that I find must useful professionally and those that I want to read out of personal interest. Prior to including particular feeds on my Google startpage I would depend upon bookmarking pages I wanted to return to on a regular basis. However, what really would happen is bookmarks would proliferate and I would rarely return to any of them.

Now, with RSS feeds directed to my Google page, I'm regularly updated on the news and events I wish to see without ever having to go to another web page. Plus, I get a summary if the news item, choosing to read further or delete. I find I'm much more informed now that I am using RSS. I suppose the downside is information overload!!!

Week 3 Thing 5: Photos and Images

There are SOOO many gorgeous photos. I've included one that resonates especially for me, particularly at this time of year.

I've "wasted" too much time on Flickr, Smugmug, Piccasa, etc. The photographs can be stunning. Absolutely fabulous, though. To date, I'm most comfortable using my computer and Iphoto, Imovie/Idvd to create projects that utilize the photos I take. However, now that I have seen the amazing opportunities for members of sites like Flickr, it's getting more attractive to join a community of like-minded individuals. Not only do you have the benefit of seeing great photographs, you also learn of the camera specifics of each photo, and can tap into the community by way of commenting on the photos, joining a special group, and getting advice from the flickr community.

I would like to figure out how best to use services like Flickr in my middle school environment.

Week 1, Thing #1, 7 1/2 Lifelong Learning Habits

While it may seem that the 7 1/2 Lifelong Learning Habits are pretty much givens, I believe that most people would say, upon hearing or reading them, "uh huh...I already know that." But, would they also incorporate them into their lives on a daily basis? Maybe, maybe not.

"Play" is rarely found in most adult's vocabulary, except when referring to the "work" of children; and, hardly ever as a word describing a method of learning. I know for myself that "work, work, work", is a mantra that rings in my head when what I really want to do is play. I believe the habit of play is probably one of the most difficult habits to achieve, and yet learning ought to be fun. Why is it so difficult to play?

On the other hand, the habit that I find the easiest to incorporate into my life is accepting responsibility for my own learning. I take learning very seriously, even if what is being learned is for pleasure or purely personal benefit. Maybe that's why playing to learn comes so hard for me.