ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

Thing Ten: Image Generators

I used HeaderBar.com to generate a personalized blog header for this course. I also tried the ImageChef link to access Poetry Blender and created an image with a simple, animated message.
I played around with many of the options provided and it seems to me like these image generators can be applied mostly as creativity tools to enhance the overall finish of student products such as personal blogs, classroom pages, ppts., writing projects, etc. As of right now I am not quite sure with any other ideas of curriculum application other than for this, but I hope to read of other ideas from class members.

Thing Nine: Useful Blogs and Newsfeeds

I liked Technorati as a resource for locating useful blogs. What I really liked was the organization: grouping by subject, ranking by followers, summary of blog, user reviews.
As a professinal resource, I liked Edublog, which lists the award winning blogs by categories.
By far the most confusing for me was Syndic8.com. While I'm not the most technology/computer literate person, I'm not the worst either, but Syndic8.com simply was out of my understanding.
The most unusual one (although fun for those days when there's not much else to do) is Cool Tools which I found through Bloglines. It contains review of new or old tools such as hardware, appliances, software, websites, and other "tools" that have been used and reviewed by others. I liked that the reviews are from actual users and not commercial.
What I like to do for finding other blogs to follow is to look at the blogrolls of those blogs which I've found usefuk/interesting and then locate similar blogs.

Thing Eight: RSS Feeds

Wow! RSS are great to know about! It's unbelievably easy to set up and use and the information that is of personal interest is very easy to follow without having to open so many sites and go through old information. I signed up for several of the blogs on School Library Journal since this is important in keeping up with my professional life.

I did a quick search on using blogs and RSS applications for schools and one idea I liked was for maintaining an ongoing discussion of a novel being read in class or as a book club. Participants could post and check for new comments provided by other readers until the next face to face meeting. Parents could also have an opportunity of joining in and being part of what the students are reading by visiting the blog.

Updated:Thing Three: Set up Blog and Avatar

For Thing Three the assignment asked that we become familiar wtih avatars and choose one for this course. I've tried doing this through yahoo avatars with no such luck. As another member posted, the only exporting that seems to be possible at this time is for Facebook. Am I missing something? I did a search for free avatars and downloaded one from a different site. I believe I've followed the process correctly as I've posted comments on other blogs and I see my chosen avatar there.

Thing Seven: Captioner & Jigsaw

Two other web apps that I really liked were Captioner and Jigsaw. I think both could add to student learning experiences. For example, if you've had a chance to explore Captioner, you'll see right away that it is a wonderful tool for adding captions (of course) to digital photographs. This tool could be a great addition to a creative writing experience of creating one's own graphic story or comic strip. Students would be writing, applying varied punctuation as needed, learning about the essence of voice from characters, etc.
Jigsaw, I thought right away would be a great tool for vocabulary development. Pictures or images could become jigsaw puzzles and it could be a classroom center activity to learn and review vocabulary words. Students would complete the puzzle and match the image with a list of words. Rotate after every certain number of minutes and have fun reviewing a different voc. word. It's hands-on, encourages cooperation. Of course, it would also serve as a beautiful gift for Father's/Mohter's Day!

Thing Six: Flickr Mashups & Third Party Sites

Trading Card Created using the Trading CardMaker. Fun. I would say one library or classroom application could be for use in a book club. Students could create trading cards for every book read with most important book info and reviews. Or these could also be created beforehand by library staff and used to promote a genre of the month such as "Mystery" "Forgotten Books" "marvels of the world", etc. Students would be encouraged to read all in a list or collection and collect all of the trading cards.

Wondering About Flickr and Copyright

I've also posted on the ESC1 page under Thing 5-Post Comments. I'm still a little unsure of where we are supposed to be sharing ideas and such...
Seems like Flickr can be used for curriculum purposes wherever images would help the delivery or enhancement of instruction. Some educational sites have listed use of Flickr for writing prompts, PPT presentations, teaching of geography, virtual field trips, etc. good thing that the Comoons section is made available as this provides protection against commiting a copyright infringment as long as credit is properly given. I need to review the copyright regulations, but how about when there was a strong desire to use a photograph that was not part of the Commons? Would asking permission from photographer to use in school application plus giving due credit be enough as long as it was not used for profitable purposes? I think this would be a good teaching opportunity.

Thing Five: Flickr Photo Follow-up

Well, I did a search on the reading in bed glasses shown on the commons pictures of Flickr and unfortunately not much information was acquired. Apparently they work through the integration of prisms which are inserted into regular frames. Originating in England, they were called Hamblin glasses and according to some, versions of these are still sold.

Thing Five: Exploring Flickr

I used the search terms "inventions" thinking this would be a topic often part of the academic curriculum and one that I remember seeing in one school library visited. There were several photos that were interesting (such as plastic, cone shaped face covers for snowy days) but I chose this one to save. The tags were "England" "1936" "bed" "reading". Basically, these were earlier attempts to facilitate the reading in bed experience. I wonder what became of this idea? Definetaly something to look into! Which leads me to think that this is what we want out of our own students: That when they start using resources as part of research, one interesting fact or finding leads to another, then another and the posing of inquisitive questioning and research emerges.
Photo: Courtesy of Nationaal Archief

Thing Four: Registering Blog

I've sent an e-mail for the registration of my blog. I can see my yahoo avatar on my post for thing three, but I'm still boggled by where else this can be made visible. Does the avatar appear automatically or does one have to insert as an image every time we need to? Time to keep on learning!

Thing Three: Set up Blog and Avatar

OK. While creating and maintaining of a personal blog is something I've done before, this adding of an avatar thing is new to me. But in following Habit #3 of 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners, I am trying to keep with the ideas of: This is only a challenge, not a problem. So here we go...

Thing Two: Lifelong Learning Habits

I enjoyed listening to the 71/2 Habits of Lifelong Learning because if one is in the profession of education, it is essential that one continues to learn on a daily basis to be updated and keep up with what our students are being exposed to.
The easisest habit for me is Habit #2: Accept responsibility for your own learning. The narrator mentioned that continuing one's learning is attitudinal. The decision to take on new learning opportunities is based on if we believe learning is of value. There are many, many opportunites for learning and some mentioned were through reading, taking courses, speaking with others, and being an active participant in classes. Out of these I personally am most often involved in reading for learning. However,I recognize that through the use of the Internet there are many, many other learning opportunities that can be taken adavantage of such as Webinars and Listservs which I need to start participating more in.
The most difficult habit for me is Habit #3: Viewing problems as challenges. It is often quite easy for me to get discouraged and feel overwhelmed when a roadblock appears on my way to a learning or project goal. While I trudge on and continue to seek solutions, I do have to make a conscious change in my attitude when this occurs. It is indeed important to keep in mind that these problems are simply bumps on the road to success.

Thing One: Course Expectations

From the 23 Things course I expect to be able to learn about what the Internet has to offer to enhance my profession as a school librarian. In browsing through the table of contents I see that many of the components will be new to me (who knew that an avatar was not reffering to the movie) and others will serve as a much needed review such as the creation of a blog and the use of You Tube to upload videos. While I tend to do well in self-directed, online courses I also hope to be able to gain ideas for library integration from other members in the course. Of course, the course will serve to also earn CPE credit that is required for renewal of certification.

Hi!

Hello! I’m Miriam. I am an Elementary School Librarian (School Library Media Specialist) and I just enrolled in Learning 2.0: 23 Things. I figured that since I probably won’t be able to attend any face to face staff development sessions this summer (we are expecting our 2nd child this month) online learning would be the best bet.