Week 9, Thing 23

Favorite discoveries:
Custom Searches with Rollyo and Google Search both work well, but I like the Google version better. This is definitely a tool I will use often with our students.
PBwiki, what a great collaboration tool and not just for students. I see this as having a real impact in improving our school wide community. I am working on a library one but I see lots of other uses especially with our staff, meeting agendas and sharing of teaching ideas.
Visit my wiki. The magic word is runner. It definitely needs lots of work and I am sure our students will provide lots of ideas and inspiration. I am thinking about locking the AUP page but that is relatively expensive so I'll wait and see what happens.

Life-Long Learning Goals:
I am no longer afraid that the technology will overwhelm me. I have learned to try new things, not be afraid to fail and keep going. There will always be new “things” to learn and do. Our students deserve the very best I can provide.

Surprises:
Just about everything.
RSS feeds have greatly changed the way I view family and friends blogs. The professional blogs have been eye opening and very educational. There are so many wonderful, creative teachers and librarians surrounding me that I will never lack for inspiration.

Do differently:
If there could be some way to encourage more interaction among the participants, maybe comment on another blog each week. I found the comments very encouraging from the team but was elated when a fellow participant commented. The team has been wonderful and I treasure all the input. As so many others before me have said: Thank you!

Participate in another:
Yes, for sure. This was a great experience for me. I don’t think I would attempt one during the school year as I would get too far behind.

One word:
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
I guess that dates me. I am proud of what I have accomplished.
Lyrics.

Week 7, Thing 17

Playing in a sandbox, what a wonderful image. The calcurriculum PB wiki is a wonderful resource and learning tool for us. This is another example of an application that is excellent for teachers and students. We are all in this sandbox together. I added the idea of making staff trading cards because the idea of a library book review wiki is already posted. The library PB wiki is where I will be focusing my play time for awhile because I really believe that this will work well with our students. I discovered that student artwork in paint can be posted in the wiki as long as it is saved as a JPEG file. I need to figure out how to make that the default save for the paint program on the school computers.

Week 7, Thing 16

Visit my wiki.
This is very much a work in progress but the concept is so exciting that I just had to share the early stages.

Week 7, Thing 16

Wikis may be the best tool yet for an elementary school library because you can control who contributes. Thus, it is possible to have a fifth grade only project on a topic and only allow fifth grade students to contribute. (True, you do not know who is behind the keyboard after log in or who the students choose to share the log in information with.) The pages are reasonably ad free and neat with clear instructions for contributing. The Wiki WorldCat concept could be applied to a site library with students contributing reviews of books they have read.

I also like the potential for group editing. What a great way to compile a class newspaper.