Thing #3 - Skype

Skype is basically an online video conferencing tool that allows parties to make audio and video connections over long distances for free! It would be a real money saver for coordinating author visits or setting up "web" pals for students to share their unique cultural differences with students in other states or even countries (as long as the time zones aligned!). I've used Skype once already to facilitate a book study between one of my 3rd grade bilingual classes and a comparable class at another Srping Branch school. It was great and the kids really enjoyed it - they said they felt like they were on TV! Both classes had read the same book and prepared comprehension questions in advance of the Skype call to ask each other. Each student got a chance to be on-screen to ask their question and then students from the other class got to pick someone to answer the question. Skype helps the students work on their verbal skills as well as boosts their confidence as a "presenter".

Thing #2c - Bookr

Bookr worked great! It's a fast, easy way for students to create simple online books for sharing with others. The built-in feature for importing pictures from Creative Commons ensures students won't be violating any copyright laws when they create their products.

Thing #2b - Wordle

Wordle is a fun way to graphically display a group of words. I've used it with elementary students to supplement reports on animals (where they write the name of their animal several times to make it the biggest word on the wordle and then type in words to describe all its characteristics). Another possible academic use of Wordle is to identify main ideas or recurring themes in a short story by copying and pasting the text of the story into a Wordle and seeing which words are the biggest (i.e. repeated most often in the text). Students enjoy the opportunity to use their artistic talents to modify the layouts and color schemes. I just wish we had color printers to publish their final products!

Here's a Wordle I made of the text to Green Eggs and Ham (there are only 50 unique words in the whole book!)

Thing #2a - Glogster

Glogster is a cool online poster tool that allows users to add photos, videos, sound, hyper links and text. It can be embedded in a wiki and viewers can leave comments on others' glogs. I think this would be a refreshing option for student to use in place of the traditional tag board poster reports.

Well, I made a glog about Valentine's Day and included a video from YouTube. Unfortunately, I spent over 30 minutes (with the help of a fellow librarian) and I still couldn't get my glog to embed in my blog. I'll have to revisit this later - it's very frustrating!

Well I tried again - and now it works! Hooray! I'm making progress!

11.5 Things - Thing #1

Well, here I go for round two. I'm not giving up, although it is a challenge for me, so be patient. I watched the video about the Networked Student. Things have definately changed since I was in school. All the Web 2.0 technologies have made it possible for students today to gather and share information from all around the world in record time. Teachers and Librarians should be moving into the role of facilitator and guide as opposed to instructor. The kids today already are familiar with the technologies (i.e. social networking), now we just need to encourage them to transfer those skills to educational purposes.