Reflection on the Experience of Blogging

While blogging over the past few months, I have become more comfortable with this method of communication. Although there were some nights of panic in which I couldn’t seem to find any more to say about my two assigned topics, there were also many times in which I encountered new sites or ideas that I was very eager to share with my blog's readers.

The most positive part of this experience was definitely being part of a resource-sharing community. By learning about new websites and technologies from my classmates, I became excited to explore more of the web and to share my discoveries.

Each member of my blogging group made a lasting impact on my education. From the Confused Student in Information Technologies blog, I learned about the social tagging and recommendation site StumbleUpon, from which I was then able to find new websites to share in my own entries. I also enjoyed learning about Second Life from this blog and now see that it is a wonderful way for people who have trouble communicating in person to share their thoughts, ideas, and resources with one another. It’s also a helpful site from which people around the world can learn from one another for free.

Due to Ace’s Blog, I understand the usefulness of RSS feeds and can definitely see myself using them to keep informed about library-related news and ideas while working as a library media specialist. Geocaching also sounds like a great way to combine technology and the outdoors and may be an activity to begin with students or my family members in the future.

Thanks to Juddthelibrarian’s Weblog, I learned to give Wikipedia a chance, especially because it has a lot to offer in terms of pop culture and can be a great starting point from which students can gain background information on their topics and find more stringently-reviewed resources to support their claims. I also have begun searching both YouTube and TeacherTube for useful video clips on a variety of topics.

Finally, the research for my own blog entries has been very informative. While I doubt that I would purchase either DyKnow Vision or DyKnow Monitor for my upcoming elementary library position, I see their value as highly-interactive teaching tools for upper grades. Learning objects are even more directly applicable to my future, and I was thrilled to find and share learning object sites and repositories for future use.

Despite the “What could I possibly write about?” moments, I do view blogging as a useful information-sharing tool. Being able to link directly to discussed sites is very beneficial to a blog’s readers, and a blog is much more interactive than newsletters or other one-way communication forms. I do plan to create a school website blog for my upcoming library media specialist position and hope that students, teachers, and parents will share their favorite books, sites, and ideas with me as I share all of mine with them each week. I will include pictures, audio files, videos, and tutorials on my new blog to make it more interesting and useful than this current one. I also plan to involve students in blogging about books and research findings, as blogging is familiar to some students already and will provide them with the exciting opportunity to share their thoughts with the world!

Learning Objects Galore!

As our course winds down, I want to point out one more site I have added to my StumbleUpon account. This one contains links to fantastic interactive sites in various subject areas, and each of the linked sites contains learning objects that you may want to pass along to educators in your school. I could spend hours looking through all of the possibilities on this site and am excited to use it in conjunction with a SMARTBoard.

The site is called Interactive Websites for Grades Pre-K-12. If you haven't already seen it, check it out here: http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/interactive.htm

Happy browsing!

Sites With Learning Objects, Courtesy of PBS

PBS Teachers offers free subject-area guides with relevant site suggestions and descriptions. The recommended sites within the .pdf guides offer some great learning objects in the form of games and activities. I'm adding the PBS Teachers site to my collection and just wanted to pass it along in case you don't already have it. :)

Learning Objects, Inc.

As I continue to search for interesting articles and sites with descriptions/examples of learning objects, I keep coming across a company called Learning Objects, Inc.

Based on Learning Objects, Inc.'s page describing the company's K-12 products, it looks like they sell blogging, podcasting, etc. platforms to schools. I do wonder, though, how they will manage to continue to sell the products when schools can access sites (like Blogger.com) that offer such products for free. Since we are discussing filters this week in class, I have begun to wonder whether the issue is that schools can't access sites like Blogger due to filter issues. Any thoughts?

A High School Library with Posted Learning Objects

Joyce Valenza at the Springfield Township High School Library has also created a page in which various learning objects that she and her students created are posted. Some of them (especially the student-produced ones) are specific to her school and its mascots but could be used in different Springfield Township High School classes at various grade levels. Others are more universally applicable.

Using the School Library Website to Post Learning Objects

After completing my practicum in a Syracuse City School District library this spring, I've realized just how much professional collaboration can do in terms of disseminating both ideas and learning objects. Syracuse City is a VERY large district, which means that there are many talented librarians sharing their knowledge, experiences, and resources. These librarians meet for professional development for a full day each month, at which point various librarians and the library media director share best practices and their experiences with new books, clubs, and technologies. The library media director also maintains pages of the district website and uses these pages to make library resources, including some learning objects created by district librarians, available to everyone in the district.

A few learning objects in the form of PowerPoints have been shared on the "LMS Tools" page under the category of "SCSD Power Point Presentations" (some presentations directed towards library media specialists instead of students are also linked within this category). I hope that the number of learning objects posted to this site continues to increase, as there are so many talented librarians who have created learning objects that will benefit everyone.

Have you visited any school library media center websites with posted learning objects? If so, please share! :)

Addicted to StumbleUpon!

Ever since "Confused Student" suggested StumbleUpon to me, it has become harder and harder to stay away from my computer! Here are a few reasons why my addiction to StumbleUpon has grown over the past couple of weeks:

1) Through the StumbleUpon toolbar, I am led to so many new and interesting sites based on my categories of interest and my opinions of previous sites-- That's great in and of itself!

2) I can tag (or, in many cases, edit existing tags for) all of the sites I like. This feature has enabled me to create a sortable list of favorites that I can access from any computer.

3)If I go into my StumbleUpon account and click on other people's reviews of the websites I have saved as favorites, I am led to their accounts and can see what other sites they have liked in various categories.

4)No matter what work I am doing online, the StumbleUpon toolbar seems to be calling out, "Click me," "Click me," and who could resist? The best site ever might be the one that comes up next!!!

If there is a StumbleUpon addicts group, I may need to join. When used sparingly, though (and not to the exclusion of exercise and other responsibilities), it's quite the resource! :) Thanks for sending it my way, "Confused Student"!

Cyber Safety Learning Objects and Lesson Plans

Thanks to this week's class reading assignment, I read about many sites containing cyber safety learning objects. Here are two of the best sources of cyber safety learning objects that I came across:

• Cyber Tree House: Games, music videos, and other digital activities that can be incorporated into elementary school cyber safety lessons
• NetSmartz Kids and Teens Pages: More digital activities, games, and videos that can be incorporated into various lessons and discussions

From this week's discussion leader, I then acquired the link to a wonderful learning object on phishing:

• Anti-Phishing Phil: Informative, fun game teaching students how to recognize phishing schemes; I learned a lot from this game too! :)

For cyber safety lesson plans, I found these two sites to be most helpful:

• CyberSmart! Lesson Plans and Activity Pages: Contains plans for a variety of K-8 Internet safety/use lessons
• Purdue's CERIAS Lessons: More elementary school and middle school lesson plans, ideas, and materials on Internet safety/use; many of these are quite creative and would really appeal to students (Even though the lessons on this site are written in Indiana and include Indiana subject-area standards, they could be used to meet most states' standards.)

Do you have any cyber safety favorites that you have used or encountered along the way?

Elementary Learning Objects

Below are examples of elementary school learning objects in a few subject areas:

Virtual Tour of Ancient Greece:
http://www.mystery-productions.com/hyper/Hypermedia_2003/Miller/%20AM_hypermedia/Artifact/

Any BrainPop Introductory Video:
http://www.brainpop.com/

EdHeads Simple Machines Activities:
http://www.edheads.org/activities/simple-machines/

"Do We Really Know Dewey?" Tutorial (created by kids for kids):
http://thinkquest.org/library/site.html?team_id=5002

Digital Author Interviews on TeachingBooks.net:
http://www.teachingbooks.net/

WebQuests, buILders, podcasts, YouTube videos, and even websites can all be considered learning objects too, provided that they are digital aides that can be reused by other schools, classes, or grades to support learning. You have probably even created some of your own learning objects far before you learned the term!

Collection of Library Learning Objects

The following site contains many library learning objects:

http://www.merlot.org/merlot/materials.htm?category=2269

What makes these learning objects? They are digital, reusable resources that enhance learning. They can be used in many different classes, depending on the context in which instructors plan to use them.

Many of the resources linked within the site above are intended for high school or college audiences though, so my next post will contain elementary/ middle school library learning objects such as the short digital activity on copyright below:

http://www.cyberbee.com/cb_copyright.swf

Learning Objects: Clarifications

As Ace pointed out in her response to my last post, the term "learning objects" is confusing to those of us (including me!) who have not heard of it before. As I looked over various sites and definitions, I came up with clearer insights as to what a "learning object" really is. Here is the main portion of what I posted in response to Ace:

A learning object is basically any type of digital aid that can be used in your lesson and can be reused for other lessons. A videotaped experiment posted to the Web, for example, is a learning object that can be used in a seventh grade science class in one school and a tenth grade biology class in another school, depending on the context in which it is presented and the discussions/ assignments that spring from it.

The goal of learning objects seems to be to provide students with a variety of smaller chunks of information in a lesson instead of presenting them with a continuous lecture that is much less stimulating and does not appeal to various learning styles.

Library PowerPoints, video clips, or even short digital scavenger hunts could all be considered learning objects that are relevant to us.

My explanation here seems to coincide well with the explanation given by Ohio State University librarians in the workshop PowerPoint linked at the bottom of this page. In the PowerPoint, the presenters note that games, short WebQuests, cartoons, online mazes, and many more instructional tools can all be considered library learning objects. Check out the benefits/ purposes of using learning objects on the final slide!

Intro. to Learning Objects

After discussing DyKnow products for the past few weeks, it's time to switch gears. I have been assigned "Learning Objects" as my second blog topic and will be reporting on these now, along with any other interesting technology news or sites I come across.

There are many different ways of defining the phrase "learning objects" in education, but the one that seems to be the most prevalent/accepted is David A Wiley's. According to Wiley, a learning object is "any digital resource that can be reused to support learning... The main idea of 'learning objects' is to break educational content down into small chunks that can be reused in various learning environments, in the spirit of object-oriented programming" (see site linked above). In other words, learning objects are digital materials that come in relatively small chunks and can be used in many different lessons. Various websites can be considered learning objects, as can PowerPoints, animations, videos, podcasts, and other digital materials.

Many websites have been designed to collect and host learning objects so that educators can find ones that match their units. One site, called "LOLA Exchange," has a helpful video showing why the exchange of learning objects is beneficial. Check the site out here and watch the very brief introductory video.

This weekend I will search for some K-12 library learning objects to make this concept a little more clear and relevant. :) In the meantime, please feel free to post any initial reactions!

Cost of DyKnow Products

As "Ace" noted after my last post, cost is always an issue, especially with school districts! It looks like DyKnow software has to be purchased per computer, and the cost ranges from $24 to $108 depending on whether DyKnow Vision, DyKnow Monitor, or both are purchased and whether a technical support package is chosen (See http://www.dyknow.com/vision/faq.aspx for more info.). That can become quite expensive if purchased for all students, but might be more reasonable if purchased for a few mobile labs.

Overall, there seem to be many benefits to using both DyKnow Vision and DyKnow Monitor though. Like most technologies, they are great if you can work them into your budget or find a relevant grant!

DyKnow: More Students' Reactions

As I noted in an earlier post, it's actually difficult to find criticisms of DyKnow products. A Grove City College newspaper article does, however, point out a few students' concerns from when the technology was first introduced to the college in 2006. Since we already know many of DyKnow's benefits from previous posts in this blog, I thought I'd highlight student complaints/concerns here. These include:

-monitoring of their screens (some college students feel that they have the right to look at whatever they want during class without being monitored by professors)

-an artificial atmosphere w/ fewer opportunities for interesting spur-of-the-moment class discussions

-being required to bring computers to class each day

-having to take notes the professor's way

-increased collaboration-over-computer activities detracting from, instead of improving, the learning process

Check out the article here: http://www.gcc.edu/UserFiles/File/news/collegian/090806Collegian2.pdf

Which of these concerns/complaints do you see yourself facing as a K-12 library media specialist (if your school could afford the DyKnow products)? What are your thoughts about them?

Random Websites of Interest...

I am always on the lookout for more websites to add to my developing list of resources, so I was pleased to come across a few somewhat (Ok- very!) random ones I liked while evaluating a library media center's site. Here they are, in addition to a few of my own personal favorites:

Scholastic's Class Set-Up Tool:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/tools/class_setup/
This site allows teachers to try out room arrangements virtually before actually moving the furniture around-- It will save them time and strained backs!

Recipes4Success- Graphic Organizers:
http://www.myt4l.com/index.php?v=pl&page_ac=view&type=tools&tool=graphicorganizers&delete=9029
Create your own graphic organizer sheets here.

Free Rice Vocabulary Challenge:
http://www.freerice.com/index.php
A great suggestion for high school students who have a little too much time on their hands while in the library-- Build your vocab. and fight hunger!

Guinness World Records:
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/default.aspx
Who doesn't love reading these?!

BeFunky:
http://www.befunky.com/
Turn your photos into digital cartoons- Cool for creating publications that will catch students' attention!

Coolmath4kids- Monster Mind Reader:
http://www.coolmath.com/math-mind-readers/index.html
Great for practicing mental addition and subtraction! Suggest it to third-fifth grade teachers as either a good extension for kids who finish work early or a whole-class activity (either using a SMART Board or the computer/ projector combination), with groups taking turns deciding which numbers to choose. Teachers can challenge students to figure out how it works!

Fun Mathematics Lessons by Cynthia Lanius- Power Cards:
http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/pro/powerp.html
Teachers can amaze their students as they read their minds through the “Power Cards” on this site, then teach students the trick (or challenge them to figure it out!) and print the cards for them so that they can astound their families and friends. This is another great activity for practicing mental math. It will help teach kids strategies for adding numbers efficiently in their heads.

Monster Exchange:
http://www.monsterexchange.org/
K-8 classes from different locations partner with each other online. Each student (or group of students) creates a colorful monster using school computer software, describes the monster in writing as clearly and succinctly as possible, and then emails the written description to a student in the partner class, who tries to recreate the monster after reading the description carefully. Original and redrawn monsters are then posted to the website. This idea could be modified in various ways to fit other content areas (by making maps instead of monsters, for example) or could be used as a writing/ art hallway display in which students are paired with students in other classes to practice writing clearly and following directions. It might also be a fun reading buddy activity.


What are the coolest or most useful sites you've visited lately?

DyKnow Vision at Park Tudor School

Although DyKnow Vision is not as prevalent in K-12 schools as it is in higher education institutions at this point, many teachers and students at the K-12 Park Tudor School have found the technology both useful and inspiring. To hear some of their thoughts, check out the Park Tudor School DyKnow Vision video clip (produced by students!!!) under the "What Students Are Saying" section on this page: http://dyknowcollaboratory.com/community/students.aspx

It seems like two of the major benefits to students are the better organization of class notes and an increased ability to focus on what teachers are saying. Meanwhile, teachers find that the program saves them valuable class time and helps engage their students. If only we had unlimited budgets... !

Shelfari Fun!

Are you looking for a way to keep track of books you have read or reread lately? You might want to start a Shelfari bookshelf! Shelfari allows you to create a free account in which you search for book covers matching your recent reads, add the book covers to your bookshelf, rate the books, and even annotate or review them if you'd like. You can also see what friends are reading and read others' comments on books you've read or are about to read. Check out my budding bookshelf here!

DyKnow Monitor

I was pleased to read that DyKnow, the company that created the "DyKnow Vision" product discussed below, has also come out with classroom/ library management software called the "DyKnow Monitor." This product allows you to see thumbnails of all students' screens, to push screens or sites to students' computers for class use, to restrict computers to certain sites to ensure focus on the lessons, and to freeze screens or send student attention messages when necessary.

Check it out here: http://www.dyknow.com/monitor/ .

A Few Favorite Blogs

Check out three of the blogs I'm reading these days:

• Esme Codell's The PlanetEsme Plan: The Best New Children’s Books from Esme’s Shelf: http://planetesme.blogspot.com/ This blog contains great book reviews, suggestions for related books, and ideas for book extensions. Esme is endlessly creative-If you need further proof, read her hilarious, inspiring book Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year !
• Library Stew: http://librarystew.blogspot.com/ This is an elementary school librarian’s blog about controversies, books, creative projects, relevant articles, and technology.
• Kathy Schrock's Kaffeeklatsch: http://kathyschrock.net/blog/ This blog contains Kathy Schrock's thoughts/ tutorials on educational technology. Her Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators site (http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/) with annotated lists of helpful websites for educators is definitely worth bookmarking too.

What are your favorite book/ technology/education blogs? I'd love to start a list of suggestions!

Tips for Using DyKnow Vision

Well, I still haven't found too many documented complaints about DyKnow Vision, which is probably a good sign. I still wonder why students' survey responses weren't even higher in the last link I posted.

I just found this teacher tip sheet, though, and I thought I'd pass along the link in case you are ever fortunate enough to have this system. Although this is geared towards university professors, its technical tips and advice for encouraging interaction will be useful to educators at other levels too.

University Students Comment on DyKnow Vision

The last few pages of this article show university students' reactions to DyKnow Vision. The percentages of positive responses are high, but I would expect them to be even closer to 100%. What do you think?

Linking Documents Within a Blogger.com Blog Post

Since there doesn't seem to be a way to link documents directly within Blogger.com blog posts, I set out for answers this afternoon. Thanks to a high school librarian in the district where I am doing my practicum, I now know how to solve the problem. I have compiled the steps that she explained to me over the phone in a Tutorial. Check it out! :)

If you know of a way to link documents directly, though, please let me know. I would love to learn how!

Intro. to DyKnow Vision

What is DyKnow Vision?

For the next few weeks, I will be blogging about a technology called "DyKnow Vision" in addition to other findings of interest. DyKnow Vision is a very dynamic student/teacher interaction system that transmits teachers' notes to students' screens so that students can concentrate on understanding the material and annotating class notes instead of trying to scribble down all of their teachers' notes while listening in class. This system also allows students to play back the notes while studying to see how diagrams, charts, or equations were created. Additionally, DyKnow Vision enables teachers to poll their classes mid-lesson to check for understanding and to collect, comment on, and return students' work electronically as students complete practice assignments in class.

For more introductory information, visit http://www.dyknow.com/products/vision/ .

Welcome to my blog!

Hello, and welcome to my blog about advancements in technology! As an elementary school teacher, an M.S.L.I.S. student at Syracuse University, and a future library media specialist, I have become very intrigued by technology and its possibilities. I am on a quest to learn it all-- the newest technologies, classroom and library applications, benefits for student learning and engagement, and implementation issues. If you too are interested in technology and its educational applications, please post your comments and check back for frequent updates! :)