I decided that it would be important this year to do the final reflection since I worked hard on completing 10 items this year. I feel the having a final reflection is important this year to help keep everything I've done straight and to note what I have been able to continue on with throughout the year and what I hope to use in the fall.
1: What did you learn? This year I chose to complete 9 items plus the final reflection. I thought it would be best to complete more items this year and really dive into the learning activities provided. There were a few activities that I have completed in the past but I found new aspects to look at this year such as Thing 5. While at SSL I was introduced to Buncee and I really wanted to explore that more. I also learned that Twitter isn't as "scary" or "overwhelming" as I thought. Overall I feel that this year I was able to dive into more topics and really discover new ways to better myself in the library.
How did you put what you learned into action at school? I will be using Buncee in the fall with one of my collaborative classes. I have also discovered the many uses of Google Keep and I will be using that more in the future for both school and home.I also hope to show some of the students fotojet, and many of the apps that I looked at. I'm very interested in looking at using seesaw for my elementary students. I'm looking forward to implementing new projects and trying out new media next year with my students. Personally? I have been using Google a lot more both at work and at home- I will be using Google Calendar and Google Keep a lot more in the future.
What challenges did you face during the workshop? I felt that this year I was able to fully manage my time better and submit pieces throughout the year as opposed to at the very end. So although this was not a challenge I faced I did want to mention that I feel like I was better able to manage time and do more thorough work this year.
Other thoughts? My job changed this year to where I was part time in a school district and part time at our media library at the BOCES. I found that this set up was fantastic for me and I was able to really dive into pieces of this workshop more. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity through my BOCES to participate in this program each year. This is my third year and I'm happy to say I could finally complete ten lessons. Every year I've been trying to complete ten but struggle with hitting five and I'm happy that this year I had the time to do all ten that I wanted to do. I hope to have the same opportunity next year.
2: What’s next? Are you planning to share what you’ve learned with others? I will definitely be sharing out some of the products I explored. I'm most excited about Buncee but I also want to show teachers how I will have my library calendar set up on Google in the fall. I am hoping to pull in more teachers this year and really dive into projects with the students. I think it is best for students to learn through collaborative projects and what better way to do that then show them teachers collaborating. I'm hoping to be able to collaborate more and branch out from my three normal teachers and pull in a few more. Fingers are crossed :-)
What other professional development projects will you be pursuing? I continue to attend any and all conferences made available to me. I am hoping to apply for a scholarship for AASL this year and travel to Phoenix (but we will see). I'm also hoping to attend workshops to become better involved with the new science standards along with reading and writing programs going on in schools. My summer is booked up with teaching summer school however, I do have a few PD items scheduled for the summer.
3: Did you like learning this way? For some of you, this might have been your first experience with this kind of independent, self-driven learning. Did this work for you? What did you most value about the program? What didn’t work well? Would you do it again? Other thoughts? This is my third year participating in Cool Tools and I absolutely love it. I have always loved participating in this program since I was first introduced to it. I find it to be a great resource and I love that I can go back and find the information again to continue exploring. I also love that many of the things remain the same you just update them as the technology changes so you can go back to the thing and dive in deeper and learn more about it. This I feel is one of the most beneficial pieces to the workshop. You're not pigeon holed into one topic you can choose topics that best suit the needs of you, your faculty and the students. So I will definitely continue to participate in this workshop until it is no longer available at my BOCES. Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to this program!!
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Thing 5 Presentation Tools
I completed this activity last year but there are so many presentation tools out there that I decided to do this one again.
I am super excited about this topic this year because while attending SSL this year in Buffalo I attended Mike Drezek's presentation Oh the Places You'll go... And this presentation was shown to us via Buncee! What a fantastic program! I completely fell in love with the presentation and what the program allows you to do. I also love how interactive it is and when I came home I created an account just to try it out and see if it really was that simple. AND... It is! I'm so looking forward to the fall now when I can introduce one of my classes to this program and use it to create presentation.
I created a very simple and easy Buncee so it could be shared out in our SLS- Booktalk Weekly. The presentation is only 5 slides so that the other librarians and members that read the Booktalk Weekly will be able to get a glimpse of the program. I added a background, an interactive and a sticker along with the text so I could show the different ways to use the program. I found this program to be very simple and easy to use and I feel that it would be a perfect program to use with 7th graders during one of their science projects that I collaborate on. I am looking forward to exploring this tool more and if there is enough interest I may even buy one of the memberships so I can continue to use the wonderful world of Buncee.
https://app.edu.buncee.com/buncee/acf15bfcae134cbcbb2a9be36c854ce5
I will definitely be demoing this at upcoming meetings along with showing it to the teacher at my school.
I am very glad that I chose to go to this workshop at the conference and learn about Buncee. Matt also introduced us to other tools as well but they were more about collaborating with other schools, teachers, librarians and more via the Internet. Newer tools to use other than just Skype.
So I will definitely be using Buncee more in the future. I feel sad that I didn't really learn about this until the end of the year when it won't really be beneficial to introduce it to anyone because many people already have summer on the brain
I am super excited about this topic this year because while attending SSL this year in Buffalo I attended Mike Drezek's presentation Oh the Places You'll go... And this presentation was shown to us via Buncee! What a fantastic program! I completely fell in love with the presentation and what the program allows you to do. I also love how interactive it is and when I came home I created an account just to try it out and see if it really was that simple. AND... It is! I'm so looking forward to the fall now when I can introduce one of my classes to this program and use it to create presentation.
I created a very simple and easy Buncee so it could be shared out in our SLS- Booktalk Weekly. The presentation is only 5 slides so that the other librarians and members that read the Booktalk Weekly will be able to get a glimpse of the program. I added a background, an interactive and a sticker along with the text so I could show the different ways to use the program. I found this program to be very simple and easy to use and I feel that it would be a perfect program to use with 7th graders during one of their science projects that I collaborate on. I am looking forward to exploring this tool more and if there is enough interest I may even buy one of the memberships so I can continue to use the wonderful world of Buncee.
https://app.edu.buncee.com/buncee/acf15bfcae134cbcbb2a9be36c854ce5
I will definitely be demoing this at upcoming meetings along with showing it to the teacher at my school.
I am very glad that I chose to go to this workshop at the conference and learn about Buncee. Matt also introduced us to other tools as well but they were more about collaborating with other schools, teachers, librarians and more via the Internet. Newer tools to use other than just Skype.
So I will definitely be using Buncee more in the future. I feel sad that I didn't really learn about this until the end of the year when it won't really be beneficial to introduce it to anyone because many people already have summer on the brain
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Thing 41 Anything Goes Google
After attending a few conferences/workshops this year where the seating was particularly well thought out I decided that I needed some type of device that was light-weight and easy to use. I began searching for an ideal device to use as my laptop is a 15 inch laptop (this is my main work computer for BOCES and Morristown). I was debating on a tablet of some kind but I too like to have a keyboard every once in a while. So my supervisor and I went on the hunt for a device that not only had a keyboard attached to it, but it could also go into tablet mode if the area was not well suited for a fully functioning device. We found the Acer Chromebook R11. This device is light-weight, can be a tent, or tablet along with a normal laptop. Best of all it is a Chromebook so it will sync all of my data and information between devices. I have been playing around with the device a little bit at work this week but I will be testing it out fully at SSL this weekend. 😀
So far I have been using Google Docs on it which I have used in the past but it is nice to see how they are synced so easily and readily available with the docs pinned to the shelf. I have been trying out Google Keep this week- I am very much a list oriented person and so far I find it useful.
I will be trying it out at the conference to see how I adapt to taking notes online as opposed to handwriting them all and then typing them up once I'm home.
I look forward to having a way to do things online and quickly that way I don't have to type everything once I'm home. I have set up a folder and documents for SSL already to make is that much quicker for me while I'm there.
I have also started using Google calendar heavily after attending a Google Summit in the fall and learning about the different ways to use Google calendar and allow for it to really help keep things in perspective. I use it for my library in Morristown so I can share with the staff members which days I'm district and what is going on in the library. It has been very useful when collaborating with teachers and I can put it right on the calendar and they are invited to the event. I still very much keep my hand planner to help keep track of the two locations I'm in along with my personal appointments and such but I find the Google calendar works wonders for school. I have found this calendar to be useful for so many events and activities at school. I am co-adviser on year book so I was able to plug in the meeting times and share out with the students as well as my co-adviser.
Now that I have a chromebook for workshops and conferences I look forward to learning new tools on Google and making them more a part of my career. I use Google drive on my "normal" laptop on a regular basis so I look forward to expanding the knowledge as I progress.
If you're at SSL look for the fluorescent orange case and that'll be me :-)
So far I have been using Google Docs on it which I have used in the past but it is nice to see how they are synced so easily and readily available with the docs pinned to the shelf. I have been trying out Google Keep this week- I am very much a list oriented person and so far I find it useful.
I will be trying it out at the conference to see how I adapt to taking notes online as opposed to handwriting them all and then typing them up once I'm home.
I look forward to having a way to do things online and quickly that way I don't have to type everything once I'm home. I have set up a folder and documents for SSL already to make is that much quicker for me while I'm there.
I have also started using Google calendar heavily after attending a Google Summit in the fall and learning about the different ways to use Google calendar and allow for it to really help keep things in perspective. I use it for my library in Morristown so I can share with the staff members which days I'm district and what is going on in the library. It has been very useful when collaborating with teachers and I can put it right on the calendar and they are invited to the event. I still very much keep my hand planner to help keep track of the two locations I'm in along with my personal appointments and such but I find the Google calendar works wonders for school. I have found this calendar to be useful for so many events and activities at school. I am co-adviser on year book so I was able to plug in the meeting times and share out with the students as well as my co-adviser.
Now that I have a chromebook for workshops and conferences I look forward to learning new tools on Google and making them more a part of my career. I use Google drive on my "normal" laptop on a regular basis so I look forward to expanding the knowledge as I progress.
If you're at SSL look for the fluorescent orange case and that'll be me :-)
Monday, April 24, 2017
Thing 34: Collaborating, Connecting, Sharing
One of the teachers that I complete collaborative science lessons with asked to use Padlet this year. She created a Padlet for each of the science 7 classes. We demoed how to use Padlet, showed the students how they would create their presentations on it along with how we could potentially add our feedback. The students were tasked with choosing one of the five areas of science and a job in that field that they potentially could see themselves working in, in the future. Students were required to share the Padlets with the teacher and myself so that we could see how they were progressing through the project and leave feedback for them to work on. I have added the links for two of the students final projects. The students loved being able to have immediate feedback and to see their Padlet come to life as they worked throughout the week.
Here are two padlets completed by two students. They worked very hard and you can tell from their results.
For the first time this year I used a Google Sheet with another teacher to collaborative grade the 7th grade social studies inquiry project we completed. We collaboratively designed the rubric choosing the pieces of the rubric I would grade and the pieces he would grade. The teacher created a Google Sheet with the class rosters and the components of the rubric so we had to add in the total number the student received as we read their the Smore flyer. I have never used a collaborative rubric before when grading and looking at different pieces for a project. It was nice that we created a collaborative rubric in a Google document and then used Google Sheets to finalize grades. It was useful as I am not always in district for my school since I am a shared media specialist. Using Google allowed for me to be home or at my other position and grading during breaks while the teacher did the same. It also allowed for us to hit our deadline for the marking period.
I still continue for ways to collaborate with my teachers in district. Many of the teachers are becoming more comfortable with Google Drive so I am slowly working at getting them more involved with collaborating that way. The teachers that I do currently collaborate are working with me to help get the students ready and used to Google as well. We help them set up group note taking sheets along with Google Slides so that they can all be working on presentations at once. It is my hopes that in the future I can have better technology in my library so that I am able to have full classes working in the library at once. I currently only have 12 working computers in the library that are desktops many times groups will have to hover around one computer so they are able to work on a project. Hopefully we will be able to get some new technology in the library so that I can have students working at the tables as I'm going over the lesson on the Smartboard. I look forward to continuing my collaboration experience with teachers and students. I hope to show students how to better use and access the parts of Google Drive to better enhance their educational experience.
Here are two padlets completed by two students. They worked very hard and you can tell from their results.
https://padlet.com/mia_johnson3/aemvgh3hiha0 (Mia Johnson - Science 7 Section 1)
https://padlet.com/molly_wright/sxhbw3el49ur (Molly Wright - Science 7 Section 2)
For the first time this year I used a Google Sheet with another teacher to collaborative grade the 7th grade social studies inquiry project we completed. We collaboratively designed the rubric choosing the pieces of the rubric I would grade and the pieces he would grade. The teacher created a Google Sheet with the class rosters and the components of the rubric so we had to add in the total number the student received as we read their the Smore flyer. I have never used a collaborative rubric before when grading and looking at different pieces for a project. It was nice that we created a collaborative rubric in a Google document and then used Google Sheets to finalize grades. It was useful as I am not always in district for my school since I am a shared media specialist. Using Google allowed for me to be home or at my other position and grading during breaks while the teacher did the same. It also allowed for us to hit our deadline for the marking period.
I still continue for ways to collaborate with my teachers in district. Many of the teachers are becoming more comfortable with Google Drive so I am slowly working at getting them more involved with collaborating that way. The teachers that I do currently collaborate are working with me to help get the students ready and used to Google as well. We help them set up group note taking sheets along with Google Slides so that they can all be working on presentations at once. It is my hopes that in the future I can have better technology in my library so that I am able to have full classes working in the library at once. I currently only have 12 working computers in the library that are desktops many times groups will have to hover around one computer so they are able to work on a project. Hopefully we will be able to get some new technology in the library so that I can have students working at the tables as I'm going over the lesson on the Smartboard. I look forward to continuing my collaboration experience with teachers and students. I hope to show students how to better use and access the parts of Google Drive to better enhance their educational experience.
Monday, March 20, 2017
Thing 37: Social Reading & Book Stuff
When I saw this topic added I was intrigued by the title: Social Reading & Book Stuff. So I decided this would be a good topic for me to look at. As I began reading the lesson the first thing I noted was Goodreads. I have been using Goodreads now for a while but it has been more recently that I've actually started using it on a bi-weekly basis. I go on to log the books I'm reading with my faculty book club, fourth grade book club and my fifth grade book club (if I'm doing a new book I've never read). I find it fun to track my challenge and see if I can reach my goal of books for the year. It is helpful to go on at least once a week or every other week. I do subscribe to a couple of the groups on there but I haven't had a chance to fully explore those groups. That will be my next step with Goodreads is to look into the groups.
As I continued through the lesson I then found the topic about Overdrive! I had only heard other librarians mention this resource but I never really understood it. Well let me tell you what I looked in to it this fall and fell in love! I have downloaded the app on my cell phone and now listen to books on my way to work now when I'm in district. This is a great resource and I wish that I would have learned how to use it sooner as it has been a life saver on long car trips. I love that I can go online to the website choose titles and then sync them right to my phone or if I want I can find the books right on my phone. Right now I've just been doing audio books as I'm not a huge fan of eBooks. I prefer to have the book in my hand- I'm sure that'll change eventually. The only set back I've had with overdrive is that I forget to select 14 days instead of seven and sometimes I'm not fully done with the book. It has been a great resource to learn this year and I'm looking forward to using it more throughout the summer. The next step will be to get an AUX cord so that I can plug it in to my jeep and listen to it through the speakers rather than just my phone.
I have successfully implemented a faculty book club, a fourth grade book club and a fifth grade book club in the district I work in. For the fourth and fifth grade book clubs we read at least four books a year as I can only meet with them once a cycle. The faculty book club reads multiple books. We try to read one book every two months. These book clubs have been going strong for two years. The number of participants for my elementary groups varies depending on the book but I always have at least four students to a book. For the elementary book clubs we meet once a cycle and discuss what they liked and disliked about the section they were required to read. So far the students have loved the books they have been asked to read. I love the book club setting because sometimes you get students you never would have expected to have. It is nice for the students to share their opinions and express themselves about the books they like. Many girls have branched out to different genres than what they would normally read. The faculty book club is doing well I have three members that have been with me from the beginning and we have just added a parent member. We meet once or twice a month depending on the book and my schedule in district. We discuss half the book at a time and have snacks. I'm working on branching out to more teachers and members of the community to expand our faculty book club.
I feel that book clubs were and will always be the first form of social reading. Meeting and discussing a book with peers is the best way to socially discuss books. I have very specific rules for my book clubs that the kids must follow and they do a very nice job with it. My fifth grade book club morphed into a book and movie club this year. We read the book and then watch the movie to discuss the similarities and differences between the two. The students love this feature this year. They enjoy seeing just how different the movies can be compared to the movies.
As you can see I've done a lot with different social reading aspects. I love Goodreads to keep track of my books, overdrive to listen to books I don't have time to read and my book clubs are a huge part of my life. This was a perfect topic for me to explore and talk about the achievements I've already been able to reach.
As I continued through the lesson I then found the topic about Overdrive! I had only heard other librarians mention this resource but I never really understood it. Well let me tell you what I looked in to it this fall and fell in love! I have downloaded the app on my cell phone and now listen to books on my way to work now when I'm in district. This is a great resource and I wish that I would have learned how to use it sooner as it has been a life saver on long car trips. I love that I can go online to the website choose titles and then sync them right to my phone or if I want I can find the books right on my phone. Right now I've just been doing audio books as I'm not a huge fan of eBooks. I prefer to have the book in my hand- I'm sure that'll change eventually. The only set back I've had with overdrive is that I forget to select 14 days instead of seven and sometimes I'm not fully done with the book. It has been a great resource to learn this year and I'm looking forward to using it more throughout the summer. The next step will be to get an AUX cord so that I can plug it in to my jeep and listen to it through the speakers rather than just my phone.
I have successfully implemented a faculty book club, a fourth grade book club and a fifth grade book club in the district I work in. For the fourth and fifth grade book clubs we read at least four books a year as I can only meet with them once a cycle. The faculty book club reads multiple books. We try to read one book every two months. These book clubs have been going strong for two years. The number of participants for my elementary groups varies depending on the book but I always have at least four students to a book. For the elementary book clubs we meet once a cycle and discuss what they liked and disliked about the section they were required to read. So far the students have loved the books they have been asked to read. I love the book club setting because sometimes you get students you never would have expected to have. It is nice for the students to share their opinions and express themselves about the books they like. Many girls have branched out to different genres than what they would normally read. The faculty book club is doing well I have three members that have been with me from the beginning and we have just added a parent member. We meet once or twice a month depending on the book and my schedule in district. We discuss half the book at a time and have snacks. I'm working on branching out to more teachers and members of the community to expand our faculty book club.
I feel that book clubs were and will always be the first form of social reading. Meeting and discussing a book with peers is the best way to socially discuss books. I have very specific rules for my book clubs that the kids must follow and they do a very nice job with it. My fifth grade book club morphed into a book and movie club this year. We read the book and then watch the movie to discuss the similarities and differences between the two. The students love this feature this year. They enjoy seeing just how different the movies can be compared to the movies.
As you can see I've done a lot with different social reading aspects. I love Goodreads to keep track of my books, overdrive to listen to books I don't have time to read and my book clubs are a huge part of my life. This was a perfect topic for me to explore and talk about the achievements I've already been able to reach.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Thing 29 OER- Open Educational Resources
This was a new topic for me as I didn't realize OER existed- I have always just looked for CC or created my own materials so I knew that I wasn't "stealing" someone else's work. I was glad that I found this topic and that I could explore with it more. I did however, find it tricky at first to navigate and find resources.
I am getting ready to work on a project with my 7th grade science teacher about the solar system. The students are given the task of researching a particular planet and then creating a travel brochure for it. I currently have a set of books along with eBooks that relate specifically to each planet but I was interested in finding other resources because I also do the solar system with my third grade library class. As you may have guess I love the solar system.
I decided to go to opened.com and see what they have on the solar system. The one item I clicked on has taken me to an interactive website where you appear to be in space. You move the cursor around until you land on a planet or object in space once you click on it you're taken to a information bubble that fills you in on the topic. The link is as follows http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/kids/index.cfm#.
I found this site very useful and I feel that I will use this with my 3rd grade class so that they are more engaged with the project. I loved that this site had a lot of videos to be able to use and interact with.
My BOCES has access to PBSLearnigMedia which was referenced on this site. This makes me very happy to know that I already have access to such a great resources.
I also found the first article Frequently asked questions to be very beneficial since I had never heard of OER. It was a nice clean breakdown and easily understandable. My favorite piece of the article was the description between free and open. Many people wouldn't realize that there is a difference but there is and it is good to have it pointed out to you. It is not anything I would have compared prior to completing this lesson.
I am getting ready to work on a project with my 7th grade science teacher about the solar system. The students are given the task of researching a particular planet and then creating a travel brochure for it. I currently have a set of books along with eBooks that relate specifically to each planet but I was interested in finding other resources because I also do the solar system with my third grade library class. As you may have guess I love the solar system.
I decided to go to opened.com and see what they have on the solar system. The one item I clicked on has taken me to an interactive website where you appear to be in space. You move the cursor around until you land on a planet or object in space once you click on it you're taken to a information bubble that fills you in on the topic. The link is as follows http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/kids/index.cfm#.
I found this site very useful and I feel that I will use this with my 3rd grade class so that they are more engaged with the project. I loved that this site had a lot of videos to be able to use and interact with.
My BOCES has access to PBSLearnigMedia which was referenced on this site. This makes me very happy to know that I already have access to such a great resources.
I also found the first article Frequently asked questions to be very beneficial since I had never heard of OER. It was a nice clean breakdown and easily understandable. My favorite piece of the article was the description between free and open. Many people wouldn't realize that there is a difference but there is and it is good to have it pointed out to you. It is not anything I would have compared prior to completing this lesson.
Thing 25- App-palooza!
I wanted to look at Thing 25 this year to find apps or programs that I can incorporate for my collaborative lessons with high school teachers that requires some for of presentation tool or other tool. My school is very small with an approximate total of 350 students PreK-12. We do not have a lot of technology readily available to us so I try to incorporate what I can when I can in the library. I find it really important to stay up to date on the technology and try to introduce students to new means of tools when I can.
One particular tool that I found interesting is Seesaw. I plan to complete more research on this tool and possibly begin to implement it with one of the teachers in Morristown. I know a couple of the middle school level teachers that would like to go paperless but without the technology we are not able to do that just yet. I would like to introduce the teacher to seesaw though so that they could in the future use it with their classroom. It seems like it would be a seamless tool to use and very effective for what the teacher desires.
Another tool I found useful was ABCya! We are currently looking into creating elementary typing classes since our students in 3-5 will be taking computer based testing this year. We are hoping to add an elementary typing program and I found that ABCya! was a great option to use because it increases as their skill levels change. It is beneficial to have a program like this because it will allow students to work at their own paces. There are many other games on this site as well that would allow students to learn and excel. There are many games that I could also use in the library to assist with library skills such as ABC order games. The site is very colorful and interactive. This too will be a site that I will share out with my PreK-5 teachers. Many of the classrooms have SMART boards in them so the teachers could pull the interactive games up on the SMART board.
As I've been reading through many of the articles I noticed that a few of them point out Goodreads. I myself use Goodreads for my faculty book club and for my personal reading. I like that at the beginning of each year you can set a reading goal and try to achieve it. I keep track of the books I read with my 4th and 5th grade book clubs as well if they are books I'm choosing that I haven't read before but were recommended to me from another librarian for my book clubs. I also keep track of my faculty book clubs and two of the members of my faculty book club also keep track of the books they are reading on Goodreads. I still only use the web based version of this because I do not find the app version as user friendly as the web based version.
Many of my middle school classes that I work with use Google Drive, slides and docs. We use it to help keep items organized and so when students are doing group work all members of the group can be working on the project at the same time. The seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher and I have had a lot of success with this, this year. The students are loving that they can work together at the same time as their partners.
There are many apps and websites to consider when designing a curriculum or project. I look forward to continuing my education with different apps so that I can always continue to introduce new and improved apps to my students. One web based resource I love to use is Smore and I find that every class I introduce it to loves it as well. I'm looking forward to trying out some new apps and continuing to learn from my co-workers and other members of this workshop.
One particular tool that I found interesting is Seesaw. I plan to complete more research on this tool and possibly begin to implement it with one of the teachers in Morristown. I know a couple of the middle school level teachers that would like to go paperless but without the technology we are not able to do that just yet. I would like to introduce the teacher to seesaw though so that they could in the future use it with their classroom. It seems like it would be a seamless tool to use and very effective for what the teacher desires.
Another tool I found useful was ABCya! We are currently looking into creating elementary typing classes since our students in 3-5 will be taking computer based testing this year. We are hoping to add an elementary typing program and I found that ABCya! was a great option to use because it increases as their skill levels change. It is beneficial to have a program like this because it will allow students to work at their own paces. There are many other games on this site as well that would allow students to learn and excel. There are many games that I could also use in the library to assist with library skills such as ABC order games. The site is very colorful and interactive. This too will be a site that I will share out with my PreK-5 teachers. Many of the classrooms have SMART boards in them so the teachers could pull the interactive games up on the SMART board.
As I've been reading through many of the articles I noticed that a few of them point out Goodreads. I myself use Goodreads for my faculty book club and for my personal reading. I like that at the beginning of each year you can set a reading goal and try to achieve it. I keep track of the books I read with my 4th and 5th grade book clubs as well if they are books I'm choosing that I haven't read before but were recommended to me from another librarian for my book clubs. I also keep track of my faculty book clubs and two of the members of my faculty book club also keep track of the books they are reading on Goodreads. I still only use the web based version of this because I do not find the app version as user friendly as the web based version.
Many of my middle school classes that I work with use Google Drive, slides and docs. We use it to help keep items organized and so when students are doing group work all members of the group can be working on the project at the same time. The seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher and I have had a lot of success with this, this year. The students are loving that they can work together at the same time as their partners.
There are many apps and websites to consider when designing a curriculum or project. I look forward to continuing my education with different apps so that I can always continue to introduce new and improved apps to my students. One web based resource I love to use is Smore and I find that every class I introduce it to loves it as well. I'm looking forward to trying out some new apps and continuing to learn from my co-workers and other members of this workshop.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Thing 24 Control the Info Flow with RSS & Feeder Readers
I have always been afraid of RSS and what it meant. I was unsure of how to use and what to do with it. I have heard a lot of colleagues talking about how they use it and the benefits but I just could never figure it out. This is why I decided to try it out as one of my "things" for this workshop.
First thing I did was created an account with Feedly. I thought that since it had an app for my smartphone or iPad that it would be beneficial to try this one out. I'm still working on getting the hang of it. It is very different. I"m thinking I need to cut out a few of the topics I selected and get used to just one or two. Right now I feel very overwhelmed with all of the information on the page. I think that I should drop down to one news item for now until I get the hang of this better.
It is nice having all the information streamed into one place but it can be overwhelming if you do not have a chance to look at it everyday and you come back to a feed with over 500 pieces of information.
I was able to add a few blogs about education and makerspaces.
I also added feeds from the database Opposing Viewpoints about ebooks and STEM education. I felt like these two topics would come in handy for my library. I debated on different topics to choose but ultimately wanted topics that would help me professionally not just because I like the topic.
I feel that once I get used to using the RSS Feeder that it will become easier for me to find and sift through the information that will most benefit me. I hope to continue searching and finding more RSS feeds to add to my reader. It is important to be able to stay up to date with the ever changing world and now that I know more about RSS and Feed Readers I feel that I will be able to become more prepared with information and knowledge about the ever changing world. I look forward to doing more with this and determining a way in which to make it benefit my library.
First thing I did was created an account with Feedly. I thought that since it had an app for my smartphone or iPad that it would be beneficial to try this one out. I'm still working on getting the hang of it. It is very different. I"m thinking I need to cut out a few of the topics I selected and get used to just one or two. Right now I feel very overwhelmed with all of the information on the page. I think that I should drop down to one news item for now until I get the hang of this better.
It is nice having all the information streamed into one place but it can be overwhelming if you do not have a chance to look at it everyday and you come back to a feed with over 500 pieces of information.
I was able to add a few blogs about education and makerspaces.
I also added feeds from the database Opposing Viewpoints about ebooks and STEM education. I felt like these two topics would come in handy for my library. I debated on different topics to choose but ultimately wanted topics that would help me professionally not just because I like the topic.
I feel that once I get used to using the RSS Feeder that it will become easier for me to find and sift through the information that will most benefit me. I hope to continue searching and finding more RSS feeds to add to my reader. It is important to be able to stay up to date with the ever changing world and now that I know more about RSS and Feed Readers I feel that I will be able to become more prepared with information and knowledge about the ever changing world. I look forward to doing more with this and determining a way in which to make it benefit my library.
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