World Ebook Fair is an interesting site to play around with. Though I had used the Guttenberg Project in the past I had not used this site that incorporates Guttenberg along with so much else. If only the average high school student were more interested in the classics! I did have trouble locating much in the line of children's classics, for example the E.B. White books. They must not be public domain yet.
I listened to the schoollibrary.com video and it looks like a site that fits the description of making information available so that we can have buildingless schools. I then went to "Ebooks About Everything" and searched for Obama and found 42 titles. So there is already a great deal of information out there in ebook format.
Librivox is a great site to send students who want an Audiobook of a required classic when our library copy is already checked out. It was easy to search and, on my fast connection at home, the first chapter of Bleak House only took a minute to download and the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice only about 6 seconds. Some titles had more than one version so that if the listener didn't like a voice or accent, there were other options. The hits also gave a connection to the ebook on Guttenberg and referenced one or more wikipedia pages on authors, time periods, etc. I know I will refer students to this site. Unfortunately many of them probably do not have fast internet at home, and I know this would be unbelievably tedious on dialup connection. This is also the site where I made an RSS to a podcast so I should become very familiar with it in the future.
I had considered purchasing ebooks for school so had researched audible.com at that time. They have a nice, current collection and the prices are pretty reasonable. I checked for the Twilight series and they had the entire collection at around $40 each, not too steep for a massively popular title.
I don't do a lot with ebooks myself because I prefer to read with a book in hand. However, I am on the verge of ordering a Kindle so travel is lighter with such strict weight limits now. I do want to set myself up with whatever device I need or add-ons to my computer that allow me to use these online free audio-ebooks when I am on a driving trip!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Chapter 9, New Schools
I am so completely in agreement with this chapter. The sad thing is that the book is copyrighted 2007 and we still aren't even close to accomplishing the goals of School 2.0. Our students know how to use the tools, but we need to get the faculty up to their level and figure out how to implement the tools and completely alter teaching as we know it today. Some teachers and librarians, myself included, dabble in some of the Web 2.0 tools but more as a special interest or novelty and not as a crucial teaching tool or methodology.
It is so exciting to think that we already have the tools and potential to make offsite education a reality. Considering the cost of maintaining school buildings and providing student transportation, it is mind boggling to think of what uses all that money could be put in a School 2.0 world. It could probably bring the student body up to a level playing field technologically so that a remote school could work. We see the possibility and potential in the way the Raven About Web 2.0 is taught.
I appreciate the section that discisses the five elements of the video game experience that can have direct application to successful learning. I have a sort of snobbish disregard for video games as somewhat useless and as detractors from more worthwhile pursuits. This section made me look at my attitude a bit more critically. The education world could probably take pointers from the video game world and gain greater buy-in from our students. It is apparent that what we are doing in schools now is not stimulating students to invest the proper amount of time and energy in their education. We need to get on their level and not expect them to perform in our world that has so little bearing on the rest of their lives.
It is so exciting to think that we already have the tools and potential to make offsite education a reality. Considering the cost of maintaining school buildings and providing student transportation, it is mind boggling to think of what uses all that money could be put in a School 2.0 world. It could probably bring the student body up to a level playing field technologically so that a remote school could work. We see the possibility and potential in the way the Raven About Web 2.0 is taught.
I appreciate the section that discisses the five elements of the video game experience that can have direct application to successful learning. I have a sort of snobbish disregard for video games as somewhat useless and as detractors from more worthwhile pursuits. This section made me look at my attitude a bit more critically. The education world could probably take pointers from the video game world and gain greater buy-in from our students. It is apparent that what we are doing in schools now is not stimulating students to invest the proper amount of time and energy in their education. We need to get on their level and not expect them to perform in our world that has so little bearing on the rest of their lives.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Week 9, Thing 21
Sometimes I felt like I was struggling through a maze in this exercise. I think I may have downloaded software I didn't even need, but that is no problem. I ended up using my Itunes and subscribed to three podcasts, one of which I added an RSS feed onto GoogleReader.
I tried to watch the Yahoo: What is a APodcast video but the link was a dead one. I then just went on to the Educational Podcast Directory and looked around a bit. I tried the Instructional Technology link but didn't find anything there to interest me. I then went under English Language Arts and found a fun one called Librivix, which is an audiobooks subscription. I subscribed to it and listened to part of one reading of a story in a beautiful British voice! This is the one to which I added an RSS feed on GoogleReader.
I then moved over to Podcast Alley and searched for book reviews--the list was heavy on comic book reviews. I tried a few of their top podcasts and subscribed to a couple that I may or may not keep--I just wanted to practice the subscribing. I did find a Twilight podcast that would be very interesting to a number of students at NPHS. The last two entries in it were a comparison of the movie and the book of Twilight and a preview of the New Moon movie. I will have to point that out to one particular student that we in the NPHS library call Amy Twilight because of her serious obsession with the series.
The whole podcast world is fascinating, if a person just had more time to listen to them! I think podcasts would a nice addition to my library wiki--another thing to explore in my days that are already to full at school.
I tried to watch the Yahoo: What is a APodcast video but the link was a dead one. I then just went on to the Educational Podcast Directory and looked around a bit. I tried the Instructional Technology link but didn't find anything there to interest me. I then went under English Language Arts and found a fun one called Librivix, which is an audiobooks subscription. I subscribed to it and listened to part of one reading of a story in a beautiful British voice! This is the one to which I added an RSS feed on GoogleReader.
I then moved over to Podcast Alley and searched for book reviews--the list was heavy on comic book reviews. I tried a few of their top podcasts and subscribed to a couple that I may or may not keep--I just wanted to practice the subscribing. I did find a Twilight podcast that would be very interesting to a number of students at NPHS. The last two entries in it were a comparison of the movie and the book of Twilight and a preview of the New Moon movie. I will have to point that out to one particular student that we in the NPHS library call Amy Twilight because of her serious obsession with the series.
The whole podcast world is fascinating, if a person just had more time to listen to them! I think podcasts would a nice addition to my library wiki--another thing to explore in my days that are already to full at school.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Week 9, Thing 20, TeacherTube
This was not the first time for me on TeacherTube. During one building inservice where staff chose one of six possible sessions, I manned a workshop on various online video resources including TeacherTube, Discovery Video, etc. One objection to TeacherTube is that it loads slowly. I find it more palatable if I start it downloading and then pause it until it is done buffering. When it is done I then play the video in its entirety. I really can't stand when it shows 30 seconds at a time and then stops to buffer the next 30 seconds.
A lot of the videos are truly amateurish, which is also true on YouTube. There is a great deal of variation in quality. If one perseveres, there is good stuff on TeacherTube. A lot of what is there would be a hard sell to students who usually are looking for something more entertaining and flashy.
I searched for "librarians" and found one that was entertaining called "What Do Librarians Look Like?" High school students are being asked that question and the answers are amazingly clueless--much of it involving glasses, old, gray hair in buns, and shhhh. I can hardly believe that image is still at the forefront--I don't think that is happening in our District HS libraries.
There is a lot of information on Web 2.0 that might be worth checking out. I found a couple of neat Twitter sites as I am interested in learning more about that since much of the political world is using it.
I attached a cute video where first graders are asking President Obama questions. One of my searches was "Obama" because I am a great fan and this was one of the few that was original and not just his inauguration or some other event.
On YouTube I really enjoyed the Library Dominos clip--actually there were several, but my favorite was the one where the books are falling down in lines running around the shelves. However Conan has been removed so that one remains a mystery to me. I have used YouTube to listen to political speeches that I missed, but find that most of them are done in sound bites of five minutes or less. I have now turned to MSNBC online for the full speech in one video.
YouTube is really fun to play with--I wish it was available at school, because it is a great way to show something when trying to explain an unknown to a student. Just as an aside: there is a YouTube video of my son-in-law playing the saz, entitled "Abbas playing the Azerbaijani saz.
A lot of the videos are truly amateurish, which is also true on YouTube. There is a great deal of variation in quality. If one perseveres, there is good stuff on TeacherTube. A lot of what is there would be a hard sell to students who usually are looking for something more entertaining and flashy.
I searched for "librarians" and found one that was entertaining called "What Do Librarians Look Like?" High school students are being asked that question and the answers are amazingly clueless--much of it involving glasses, old, gray hair in buns, and shhhh. I can hardly believe that image is still at the forefront--I don't think that is happening in our District HS libraries.
There is a lot of information on Web 2.0 that might be worth checking out. I found a couple of neat Twitter sites as I am interested in learning more about that since much of the political world is using it.
I attached a cute video where first graders are asking President Obama questions. One of my searches was "Obama" because I am a great fan and this was one of the few that was original and not just his inauguration or some other event.
On YouTube I really enjoyed the Library Dominos clip--actually there were several, but my favorite was the one where the books are falling down in lines running around the shelves. However Conan has been removed so that one remains a mystery to me. I have used YouTube to listen to political speeches that I missed, but find that most of them are done in sound bites of five minutes or less. I have now turned to MSNBC online for the full speech in one video.
YouTube is really fun to play with--I wish it was available at school, because it is a great way to show something when trying to explain an unknown to a student. Just as an aside: there is a YouTube video of my son-in-law playing the saz, entitled "Abbas playing the Azerbaijani saz.
Week 8, Thing 19.1, Alaska's Diginal Pipeline
I use the Alaskan databases all the time at school. It is one of the items I cover in my freshman library orientation and I also cover it in more detail with my orientation with sophomores as they begin their big research paper for their English classes. The majority of kids are sold on it after seeing how quickly they can find verifiable information compared to Google searches.
I determined to try something I had not done, so I looked into creating journal alerts and search alerts and opened and saved the tedious instructions on each. The second thing I did was watch the Flash movie on the coming Ebscohost 2.0 interface. However, it sounded like it was to have been implemented in 2008. I went on to the Digital Pipeline and discovered that it was indeed the interface used now.
At school I teach the students to go on the the databases through our District web program called FILE' under the resources tab. On there I always taught them to use the Student Research Center because it was supposedly designed for high school curriculums. Last year during the school year it was not using the Ebscohost 2.0 interface. I logged on to the databases in this manner and discovered that Student Research Center still does not use the Ebscohost 2.0 interface, whether I went onto it from FILE' or from the Digital Pipeline link on SLED. From now on I will teach students the Digital Pipeline way because the Ebscohost 2.0 interface is so much more powerful.
My information gleaned on placing journal or search alerts from the Ebsco Support link from the Raven About Web 2.0 page is now obsolete as the alerts are so easy to place from the Ebscohost 2.0 interface--just a click away.
I then went in and started a folder for myself, something I had never done before. It was easy and it is one click to put an article in the folder from Ebscohost 2.0. Can see it as useful when I am doing research that I can't complete in one session. I can add to the folder and sort later for the cream of the crop.
I am a huge fan of Ebscohost and am very grateful to the Legislature for providing it free of charge. I know I would not be able to afford it in my Library and cannot imagine living without it. We have a big automotive department at NPHS so I also point that database out in my freshman orientation.
I determined to try something I had not done, so I looked into creating journal alerts and search alerts and opened and saved the tedious instructions on each. The second thing I did was watch the Flash movie on the coming Ebscohost 2.0 interface. However, it sounded like it was to have been implemented in 2008. I went on to the Digital Pipeline and discovered that it was indeed the interface used now.
At school I teach the students to go on the the databases through our District web program called FILE' under the resources tab. On there I always taught them to use the Student Research Center because it was supposedly designed for high school curriculums. Last year during the school year it was not using the Ebscohost 2.0 interface. I logged on to the databases in this manner and discovered that Student Research Center still does not use the Ebscohost 2.0 interface, whether I went onto it from FILE' or from the Digital Pipeline link on SLED. From now on I will teach students the Digital Pipeline way because the Ebscohost 2.0 interface is so much more powerful.
My information gleaned on placing journal or search alerts from the Ebsco Support link from the Raven About Web 2.0 page is now obsolete as the alerts are so easy to place from the Ebscohost 2.0 interface--just a click away.
I then went in and started a folder for myself, something I had never done before. It was easy and it is one click to put an article in the folder from Ebscohost 2.0. Can see it as useful when I am doing research that I can't complete in one session. I can add to the folder and sort later for the cream of the crop.
I am a huge fan of Ebscohost and am very grateful to the Legislature for providing it free of charge. I know I would not be able to afford it in my Library and cannot imagine living without it. We have a big automotive department at NPHS so I also point that database out in my freshman orientation.
Chapter 7 of textbook.
This chapter covered a topic that is near and dear to the hearts of school librarians. In a perfect world we would have no filters on computer systems so students would have access to all the wonderful tools and toys and information available on the net. However, in the perfect world none of these online tools would be abused either--not by the students or the segment of the world preying on the students.
Until I read this chapter, I was not aware that districts receiving various federal funding were subject to the CIPA requirements. I think I will be a bit more patient with the filtering of the net now that I am aware of that. I have always understood the reasoning for filters but when helping students do research on some topics it is really frustrating to see official sites that would have the best information for them blocked. My tendency has been to blame the shortsightedness of the District administration, but now I know that the impetus comes from higher up than the District.
I hope we can come up with some method of letting students do some of the social networking on school computers. There are a lot of projects that this would enhance. I also realize that their are a lot of bad people out there that we like to protect our students from. However, most of these kids are on these sites at home and many on their cell phones, so they view us as so antiquated at school when they can't use any of the sites and tools there. Surely there has to be a happy medium. I think districts are going to have to do something, because it is getting harder and harder to justify the inability for students to use something like Flickr or Twitter in school.
The copyright issue is huge and one I deal with on a daily basis. Kids really do think that because "it" is on the net that it is available for downloading or copying. They also view information as true because it is on the net. What copyright means and what things are legal to use or download and what are not are tough topics to get students to believe and comply with when they research. Equally important is the ability to evaluate websites for pertinence and expertise of opinion. These topics need to be dealt with as regulary as reading and math, beginning in the elementary grades.
Until I read this chapter, I was not aware that districts receiving various federal funding were subject to the CIPA requirements. I think I will be a bit more patient with the filtering of the net now that I am aware of that. I have always understood the reasoning for filters but when helping students do research on some topics it is really frustrating to see official sites that would have the best information for them blocked. My tendency has been to blame the shortsightedness of the District administration, but now I know that the impetus comes from higher up than the District.
I hope we can come up with some method of letting students do some of the social networking on school computers. There are a lot of projects that this would enhance. I also realize that their are a lot of bad people out there that we like to protect our students from. However, most of these kids are on these sites at home and many on their cell phones, so they view us as so antiquated at school when they can't use any of the sites and tools there. Surely there has to be a happy medium. I think districts are going to have to do something, because it is getting harder and harder to justify the inability for students to use something like Flickr or Twitter in school.
The copyright issue is huge and one I deal with on a daily basis. Kids really do think that because "it" is on the net that it is available for downloading or copying. They also view information as true because it is on the net. What copyright means and what things are legal to use or download and what are not are tough topics to get students to believe and comply with when they research. Equally important is the ability to evaluate websites for pertinence and expertise of opinion. These topics need to be dealt with as regulary as reading and math, beginning in the elementary grades.
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