Thing 23: Congratulations

Reflection and Sharing about 23 Things

• What were your favorite exercises:  see Thing #20: Recess
• How has this program (23 Things) assisted or affected your learning goals: I have a greater appreciation for the role librarians play in technology. I feel more competent now in technological applications for the elementary classroom. Setting up my own classroom blog was a big deal and having one of my prospective students reply to my Welcome and first assignment was a huge affirmation. 
• Unexpected Outcomes: 1)getting to know two of my classmates better and adding them to my Facebook 2) reading daily updates about areas of interest via Feedly
• Improving Program: Overall I had a good experience--the format and concept are geared towards a self-learning of the technological tools available to teachers and librarians. 
• Another Discovery Program like this: Yes, I'd participate. I'd blog my heart out.
• One Word or Sentence: Revealing

Thing 21: Online Image Generators

This has been a difficult assignment for me. My luck with online image generators has been dismal.

Being the 11th hour, I've decided to create a Photostory vidcast for my 5 week old granddaughter.

Thing 22: Your Turn

Not being all that tech savvy, I'm at a loss for applications and websites that will add to anything I've learned  in writing this blog. I anticipate though, that the educator who isn't familiar with technology in the classroom is going to ask "How does technology fit into the philosophy of education?" 

I'm delighted to be able to answer that question and the digital bloom's taxonomy will help me.

I loved this image when I found it on the Feedly Newsread. (It's a living document; search Bloom's Digital Taxonomy to view various configurations). That being the case, these are my additions: since RSS is missing on the taxonomy, let's add it to Understanding. Oh heck, Delicious earned two levels on the pyramid...and reading Feedly definitely leads to analyzing. We'll put RSS beneath Understanding AND Analyzing. 

Wouldn't this be a great way to entice teachers that are reluctant to use technology into a 6 hour PD?. The librarian facilitates Tech 101, and she tackles one level and one application at each session. The librarian can pick the tool s/he's most familiar with to present, while challenging participants to explore other tools in that level. Within each session an analogy is drawn between the tech tool, category/level and how it applies to Bloom's Taxonomy. 

P.S.   Where would you add your favorite web tools on Bloom's Digital Taxonomy? 

Thing 19: Mashups

This assignment was hard. The wiki I was using to conduct my searches in this area had many linked sites, but they were either dropped or so filled with advertisements that I couldn't navigate my way through. Luckily I found this blog entry on my Feedly

Mashable-13 Fantastic & Fun Image Generators. http://mashable.com/2009/08/22/image-generators/

I chose to investigate tuxpi.com. photo editor. It allows the user to upload a photo and then adjust brightness, contrast, saturation and hue to make a photo 'perfect'. User can then download to their computer files or publish. Other adjuncts which I haven't investigated on tuxpi are making posters, collages and stamps with the photos.

So, with tuxpi I used the above photo of my youngest grandson's b-day pic (with his brother) and transformed it into this:

Just kidding- both pics were altered by tuxpi.com's photo editor.

Thing 20: Recess

After a flurry of postings, this assignment is truly a break. It allows me to reflect. The question is not what I learned the most about, but what was most fun and engaging. Adult learners are not all that different from 10 yr. olds...they want to have fun. If I had a great experience with a 23 thing tool, I'm hoping my students will find it likewise.

Will use as a teacher librarian for professional use (including PD for teachers)

• Feedly
• all the great blogs and newsreads I've added to Feedly
• Facebook (some of the greatest library pics come from there)
• Flickr and its common share 
• Video-sharing

Will use as teacher librarian to collaborate with K-5 classroom teacher and lessons

• Kidblog
• Photostory
• Prezi
• Glogster

On my docket to learn more about:

• Voki
• Mashups
• Edmodo
• Twitter and Tumblr

Thing 18: Shelfari

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Shelfari is alot like Goodreads.com, but I haven't been using Goodreads in a while, so I signed up for Shelfari. Shelfari allows you to post books you've read, hope to read, and recommend favorites. You can also follow others' book selections among friends or readers with the same interests. The cool thing is I was able to upload a widget, or gadget, to my 23 Things Blog on this post and show my blog followers what I'm reading.

I hope to set up either a class wiki, pass-word protected blog or Edmodo for my class this fall; I found in reading TeacherLibrarianNing that I can upload Shelfari to whichever interactive teaching platform I use for my class and then post books that my students read and review.

Thing 17: Ning

Ning is a social networking tool that allows users with the same interests to collaborate with others within that field or area. I chose to explore and join TeacherLibrarianNing. It allows the user/member to peruse groups of particular interest (technology, book reviews, literacy, etc.), participate on a forum, post photos or videos of interest to other teacher librarians, and much more. The forum allows any member to post a query related to the field and receive responses, or v.v. respond to someone else's question. After exploring the various groups available, I became very interested in the Web 2.0 in the Library World group and expect to find some great ideas for using, teaching and collaboratively planning with some of these Web 2.0 tools.

Thing 16: Video Sharing

This afternoon I'm exploring all the great videos to be found on youtube and teachertube with regard to education, school libraries, and technology in the classroom. I've used these video sharing sites before when guiding my parents to a visual model of how some of our "new math" looks like and works in the classroom. The feedback I've received from them is that actually viewing a teacher using these newer models of computation has helped them assist their children with homework.

Today I decided to embed a tutorial video I viewed  about using Edmodo, since I'm thinking about employing this web 2.0 tool with my fifth grade class next year.

Thing 15: Podcasts and Vidcasts

Today I used photostory to create a vidcast of my students participating in a mock classroom debate between the Patriots and the Loyalists and later presenting colonial projects. The actual process of creation was very easy and really quite fun. I wish I'd had more pics and a better selection of music! Uploading the vidcast to my blog was the tricky part. And it does take a while once you've placed it in your blog to actually be 'present'. 

Thing 13: Online Applications and Tools

I went to my google.docs page today and finally added a profile photo...and it shows up on my blogs too! I also uploaded a recent photo of my two youngest grandsons.

During the school year my district sponsored a google.docs page for every classroom teacher. I tried to find it earlier today, but wasn't able to locate it. My district's website is under construction, so I'll keep trying. My classroom page listed my daily schedule, upcoming events, assessment calendar and I had a featured sites spot for students and parents to link to free websites providing extra practice in math fluency, problem solving or vocabulary. I would also upload classroom photos throughout the year of special events or student presentations. I'll bring that link to this blog entry when I find it.

Thing 14: More Online Applications and Tools

This evening's task was to explore online presentations with Prezi.

Six months ago my school's TIS introduced teachers to Prezi and other Web 2.0 tools for education during a half-day professional development course. I grabbed onto Prezi and then later used for presentations in a Young Children's Literature Class.

Really enjoyed learning about this artist/author and was able to present an author study using Prezi.

 http://prezi.com/a6dgujxm_lew/lois-ehlert-author-illustrator-naturalist/

Thing 12: Microblogging

This afternoon I joined Twitter! My username is Gloria Miller@swikmiller, so readers of my blog can follow me.  I'm only currently following three people: my son (who hasn't tweeted in 6 months), my media/technology instructor and a friend from church. I had the option of adding friends from my yahoo mail account, but that hasn't been weeded in years. I couldn't tell from the pop-up if I was going to be allowed to be selective in my choices of who to follow, so I opted out of that choice. I did search for various library/education related twitter accounts to follow. One of the seven high schools in my school district has an active twitter account. My school has a twitter account also, but it hasn't been used in almost four years. I have not downloaded Twitter to my mobile phone--I've blown up my data usage this past month and have to investigate unlimited date usage first. Am I catching up with technological advances or are they catching up with me? Stay tuned.

I know that twitter is all the rage among high-school age students; the question is whether they will follow a school or public library. Harris County Public Library has a tween twitter account and my local branch, Freeman Library, has its own twitter. I will investigate and perhaps follow as I become more comfortable with 'tweeting'.

Thing 11: Play in the Sandbox

This morning I joined a professional group wiki--PISD's librarian wiki. I can definitely see worth in establishing and maintaining a group wiki for a select group of educators(e.g librarians) or educators at large. Information is shared and all in one place for any individual of that group to access. Calendars, questions, comments, etc. are consolidated and the collaboration/communication possibilities are improved among that group's members.

School Wikis

This morning I am investigating the use of wikis in the schools. Wikis are websites that let visitors become participants. In my media/technology class we are using a PBworks wiki for class discussion, assignments and follow-through. As students, we needed to be invited to join this wiki. PBworks seems to be more suited for high-school and college educational purposes. Another type of wiki that is more popular in K-12 education is Wikispaces.

As a fifth grade teacher and prospective elementary school librarian, Wikispaces would probably suit my purposes better. I viewed several wikis set up in elementary and middle schools; their sites included class calendars with hyperlinks, listings of safe web 2.0 tools with hyperlinks, parent-interest sites and virtual libraries. Other uses for a school wiki include student-generated study guides, discussion boards for lesson topics, and collections of research projects. As an educator, the first question before establishing a wiki is how it will be used to enhance instruction in your classroom or library. If inter-active student collaboration is intended, then a wiki is preferable to setting up a classroom blog or teacher's webpage on Google.docs. However, the security considerations of a school wiki are weightier than a classroom blog or webpage. A teacher/librarian must decide who may join and edit the wiki and who will moderate for appropriateness. In an elementary school there may also be district policy restrictions on the use of student names, photos, and security settings. District filters often set up a firewall preventing the use of wikis on district licenced computers.

Currently I have a google.docs page for my classroom which informs parents and teachers of calendar events, curriculum pointers, and featured sites. Owing to the many security issues surrounding wikis in an elementary school setting, this is the teacher/student/parent communication tool I will probably continue to use for now.

Thing 9: Useful Library Blogs

Today I'm adding blogs to my newsfeed. I explored many of the blog recommendation sites including Cool Cat Teacher's blog entry on How to Create Your Circle of Wise. There was a way to link blogs to newsreaders, but unfortunately Feedly was not one of those. I found the other recommended search sites for blogs interesting, but the easiest way I was able to locate and add blogs to Feedly was through Feedly. By using the word search tool, I was able to locate great blogs to peruse. So, I entered 'school librarian' and 'education technology' for the purposes of this blog and pursuing my interests. Looking these over, I chose the following blogs to add to my newsreader:

*The Daring Librarian
*Apps in Education
*Free Tech for Teachers

Innovative Educator and School Library Monthly blogs were already on my Feedly newsreader. I continue to get great updates from these two blogs.

Thing 8: RSS Feeds

I am in love with Feedly! I followed a fellow blogger's advice and joined Feedly for my RSS newsfeeds. Wow!. It was so easy to navigate. My previous request for a news bundle was automatically transferred from googlereader.

Feedly made it easy for me to search my favorite topics. I first chose School Librarians. Feedly allowed me to add School Library Journal to my newsfeeds. I was then able to create categories of interest, so I separated my news from my library/education category. Exploring further, I  found a great blog, The Innovative Educator,  that I added to my library/education category. Other sources I have tagged in this category are: NPR Education and NPR/Guardian Book News, Reviews and Author Interviews.

I am planning on using Feedly for personal uses as well, I added the categories of food/recipes and now want to read all the recent posts of Foodnetwork.com's blog. 

I've tagged an article I read in School Library Journal about creating 'white noise' in the library. I've also tagged an article from The Innovative Educator's blog about using older technology (plug-in phones, VCRs and large monitors) as new teaching tools.

http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/index.php/2013/06/24/let-there-be-noise/


Here's the latest news about Google Readers demise.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/25/195654168/google-reader-replacement-race-feedly-and-digg-reader-make-waves?ft=1&f=1019

Thing 7: Blog Searching

Today I explored Technorati, a search tool for blogs. I first used the key word search bar to explore blogs on 'school libraries', but the results did not reveal blogs of libraries or librarians. Rather they primarily led to human interest stories included on major news blogs. Interestingly, Little Free Library, a blog we viewed and discussed in my media/tech class was listed. Next, I searched in the tags section. Libraries was not listed but 'education' was, so I linked to that. Again, somewhat disappointing. Although there were some articles of interest to educators (primarily technology related), there were numerous human interest stories that dealt peripherally with education. Finally, I looked at the top 100 blogs in Technorati. Huffington Post was listed first, followed by a succession of news, entertainment, political and technology-oriented professional blogs connected to major print/web sources. As a blogger looking for others personally blogging about their experiences as an educator or a librarian, I didn't find that Technorati offered that. Tagging is a useful tool if the person seeking information or trying to get their information out there has specific and maybe more obscure information in mind. Otherwise, a browser or EBSCO database search might be just as efficient and productive for the educator/school librarian.

Thing 6: Tagging

This day's task was to investigate a social bookmarking site, namely Delicious, and report back.

The theory behind social bookmarking sites is great. You become a member (for free), set up browser tabs that will allow you to access and search Delicious, and then set up your favorites. The account user establishes tags that are of interest to him--in my case I set up tags for school libraries, restaurants, and recipes. Then the user may search for these topics among Delicious members' top websites and add to their tag or copy and paste a preferred web-link to their tag.

The advantage to social bookmarking is that the best websites suited to your interests are in your Delicious. It becomes your new search engine. The next time I go on line for recipes, my go to is Delicious instead of any other search engine. Why? Because the first results I get are top-rated by users and afficinados rather than advertisment ratings or other criteria.  

Note: Delicious has altered its format from the tutorial videos. Best not to view the videos and just jump into joining and starting to bookmark and tag your favorite sites. Delicious will send you an e-mail once you've joined that takes you through the steps of setting up and managing your account.

Thing 5: Social Networking

Today's topic is social networking. I've been on Facebook for over a year, but didn't actively start posting till recently. Something about having these great pics of my new grandaughter got me motivated. And of course checking my daughter-in-law's posts of her pics.

My local library (Diana Freeman in Clear Lake) is a branch of HCPL, so a few days ago I liked the Harris County Public Library facebook page. Easy to do--just go to hcpl's website and click on the facebook image. It'll take you to HCPL's facebook page and you can like. Since following their page, HCPL has posted several images that I've shared w/my friends on facebook, like the one here:

In addition, HCPL's facebook page starts (and allows followers to start) conversations about summer reading selections, advertises summer reading programs and activities for both children and adults, and provides links for its followers to check out their local affiliate library's website.

Now, what about a school library having a facebook page? I did some research and found some successful ones, albeit all high school libraries. I gauged them successful by their currency of postings, the amount of friends they had and the content. For high-school age students, many already on facebook, the advantages of a school library having a facebook page is clear. Get the word out about library goings on--not just to students, but teachers and parents as well. Library activities, kudos to students and organizations, book recommendations, and more can make for an exeptional interactive learning experience. The controversy about school library facebook pages lies in the assurance that responsible digital citizenship will be adhered to and/or monitored AND the understanding that commercial advertisements will be displayed. These two downsides are real concerns expressed by librarians, teachers and parents. There's also the question of who establishes and administers the account. If this is the sole responsibility of the school librarian, it can provide that person with a huge additional workload. In the coming weeks, I want to research this topic more to find out how school libraries with facebook accounts navigated these hurdles successfully.

Thing 4: RSS and Newsreaders

My assignment is to investigate and subscribe to a newsreader and report my experience. In the last 2 hours spent investigating RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Newsreaders I've learned alot! Newsreaders, of which there are dozens-some free and others paid subscriptions, allow one to receive updated articles from your preferred news and entertainment sites. So, instead of me browsing weather.com, school library journal, and Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman's blog, the newest posts from these favorites of mine will come to me.

Google Reader has, for the last 3 years, been the most popular newsreader and the one I chose to join. When reaching Google Reader's website, a notice came up immediately. Google Reader will no longer be around after July 1, 2013. The notice was posted yesterday. Still, the process of joining was easy, so I decided fulfill the assignment. I was offered a choice to browse for my favorites in news or other, or I could look at the packages. I chose a package of news (9 publishings from around the world and locally). Unfortunately, and this is all owing to my slow learning curve, I'm still trying to figure out how the news will be delivered.

That was the first hour. In the second hour I spent researching this topic the Nancy Drew in me had to find out why Google Reader was folding and what other viable newsreaders were out there. Moreover, was the whole concept of RSS fading as well? Note to self: don't 'google' ten top free newsreaders. Seriously, it took some time to find the more recent reports on newsreaders and their future.

My findings: after looking at the top five list of newsreaders for last several years; News Demon was one of the best. Unfortunately, they are somehow tied to Google Reader and are forecasted to announce their take-down later this summer. Other free newsreaders I viewed were either hard to navigate or didn't offer what Google Reader did. I also looked at Usenet.com, which is a site advertising paid subscriptions to newsreaders that match your preferences. It makes me wonder if free newsreaders are a thing of the past...

And then I read an article sent to me by Google Reader newsfeed that addressed concerns of Google Reader users and assured them that if they carried out necessary functions for transfer by July 1st, all their info. would be saved.

I'll let my 9 publication news package come to me, and wait to here more on this front before I sign onto a newsreader for all my daily reading updates.

Stay tuned as I'm sure I'll come back to this topic.

Thing 3: How to Create a Slideshow with Yogile --Classroom Happenings

Here I uploaded a slideshow of my classroom happenings featuring students as they presented or worked on projects. It's easy with Yogile. Create a free account at Yogile.com and upload the photographs you'd like to use in a slide show. Yogile makes it real easy with step-by-step directions for the subscriber to then copy the html script for the slideshow into their blog, facebook post, etc.

A word of caution: Some browsers are more friendly than others when uploading items to social media.I found the greatest success using Google Chrome browser, perhaps because the Blogger site is affiliated.

Parents, please feel free to upload pics of students, classroom events, etc. into my slideshow. It's open to updates at any time, and I appreciate them!

Classroom Happenings

Thing 2: Uploading photographs with Flickr

Uploading photographs from your digital camera to Flickr and then to your blog is easy. You can create a free membership on Flickr, upload your photos and then choose to either use Flickr's blogging tool or Blogger's photo upload tool.

This is a picture of me with my darling grandaughter Violet, born on May 24,2013, when she was a day old.

Thing 1: Blogging

Currently teaching in CCISD at Whitcomb Elementary, 5th grade. I'm blogging on 23 Things for a media/technology class, and hope to learn (and correspond) alot. I feel myself slowing taking on the skin of a librarian, and look forward to sharing thoughts.