Librarian & Mom

5th Grade's 50th Birthday project for SOE

2010-04-23T14:22:00.011-05:00

Shadow Oaks 5th grade students worked on locating pictures to create an Animoto for our 50th birthday party and celebration. Each class was assigned a decade, and 5th grade was assigned the 2000s, essentially the 21st century. Because of technical difficulties, I helped them with the project.

Here it is:

Here is the actual link to the video:

http://animoto.com/play/UyLQka88Whj0Irws9NoA3Q

I'm proud of our hard work!

5th grade begins to study the U.S. Civil War

2010-04-15T07:52:00.028-05:00

One of my 5th grade classes came in and they used our new Mac books and created US Civil War projects on Bookr. They had just started the Civil War unit and had not completed learning about this period of time. THEY LOVED IT!!! THEIR TEACHER LOVED IT! When it was time to go, they didn't want to because they were having fun and learning! It was truly one of the highlights of my week!

Here are some of the projects:

U.S. Civil War by Sherry / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Samantha / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Dustin / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Jose / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Adrian M/ Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by David / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Alondra / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Sofie / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Victoria / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Edder / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Cesar / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Brian /Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Jade / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Sonia / Cashiola

U.S. Civil war, wonders and photos of Ray House by Alyssa / Cashiola

U.S. Civil War by Samantha F. / Cashiola

More Bookr Projects

2010-04-07T17:16:00.015-05:00

Students LOVE working on Bookr projects creating a digital book by adding text to Flicker creative commons pictures.

Ocean by Ethan

Habitats by Cassandra - Guykens

Habitat by Pablo - Guykens

Biomes - By Kristen - Guykens

Cheetas! by Arthur - Ms. Guykens

Habitats by Jose - Guykens

Biomes - By Monica - Ms. Guykens

HABITATS by Crystal - Ms. Guykens

Life cycle by Giselle - Muske

Life cycle - by Miranda - Muske

Habitats by Josalynn- Muske

Life Cycle by Madison- Muske

Habitats - BY MISS LOVE (created by one of our teachers!)

Bookr projects - Garza

2010-04-07T16:54:00.009-05:00

4th grade students from Ms. Garza's class worked on a Bookr project about habitats using our new mac computers. They created digital books adding their text to pictures from Flickr creative commons.
They only worked on this for 1 class period.
I'm very proud of their efforts!

Deserts by Rachel - Garza

Desert Homes by Emilio

Desert habitat by Juan

Desert - by Jose - Garza

Desret by Romario

Animals habytat by Ramon

Desert by Luis - Garza

More Animotos - Muske

2010-04-07T13:36:00.015-05:00

This is a group of Animotos is from another class (Muske). They were studying plants.

Plants
by Zelma - Ms. Muske - Ms. Malget

Plant video
by Maddy - MUSKE /Ms. Malget

Cutie Flowers
By Aileen Z. - Muske

Plant Cycle
Randy - Muske /Ms. Malget

Plants
By Cecilia R. - Muske

Plants
By Makhaylah J. - Muske

Animotos By SOE students (Rice)

2010-04-07T13:06:00.035-05:00

Earlier this spring many of our second, third, and fourth grade classes worked the new Mac books creating an Animoto. I conferenced with their teachers and we planned appropriate topics for them to work on. For various reasons, not everyone was able to complete the project, but here is one class that did....

Click on the student's name to view their Animoto.

I'm very proud of everyone's work!

Thurgood Marshall
by Kristin - Ms. Rice - Ms. Malget

Florence Nightingale
by Sarah - Ms. Rice - Ms. Malget

Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Eiyen - Ms. Rice - Ms. Malget

Sojourner Truth
by Mayah-Rice - Ms. Malget

Paul Revere
by Austin - Ms. Malget

Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Jaesung - Ms. Rice - Ms. Malget

Florence Nightingale
by Romeo - Ms. Rice - Ms. Malget

Amelia Earhart
by Joanna - Ms. Rice-Ms. Malget

Paul Revere video
by Le'Yanna, Ms. Rice
Robert Fulton
by Mawaddah-Ms.Rice-Ms. Malget

Thurgood Marshall
Alicia - Ms. Rice - Ms. Malget

Thing #11.5 Evaluation

2009-08-09T22:09:00.003-05:00

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I REALLY enjoyed Bookr and Glogster. I've become almost addicted to Facebook. Slideshare will also be useful!

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

11.5 things has forced me to look at new web apps that are available, many of them interesting, some useful, and a few that are too cumbersome to use, or not what I want to spend time working on. But, the new cool stuff is waaay cool, and I want to show students and teachers some of the great and awesome things they can do with these applications.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
Slideshare, Glogster, and Bookr were some things that I had not heard of. I also enjoyed exploring the videos. I think that the students will really like Glogster and Bookr. I think that the teachers will like Slideshare and Bookr.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I think that you all did a great job of getting this going and encouraging so many educators to become more aware of "bleeding edge" technology and applications. Thanks for all of your hard work!!!

Thing #11 Digital Citizenship

2009-08-09T21:18:00.010-05:00

Digital citizenship is something that all students need to learn. However, students need to learn this in incremental stages apropriate for their development - especially in elementary settings.

I liked the post: Digital literacy and the classroom. I especially like the thoughts expressed in this graphic:

For the student, all 4 areas of literacy, safety, learning strategies and etiquette are balanced and important.

I thought that I-Safe Factsheet was helpful in describing what would be appropriate to teach diferent ages of students about safety.

I found this .pdf file about "Cyber-Savvy Teens: Making responsible choices online." I thought that the information presented gave a good overview of what might go into each lesson.

One of the ideas stated on the Kenton, KY school website was that September was the month they focused on digital citizenship and internet safety. I think that we in SBISD would be wise to consider this also as we prepare for the upcoming year.

Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship - from the Digital Citizenship website.

1. Digital Etiquette - electronic standards of conduct or procedure

2. Digital Communication - electronic exchange of information

3. Digital Literacy - process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology

4. Digital Access - full electronic participation in society

5. Digital Commerce - electronic buying and selling of goods

6. Digital Law - electronic responsibility for actions and deeds

7. Digital Rights & Responsibilities - those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world

8. Digital Health & Wellness - physical and psychological well-being in a digital technology world

9. Digital Security (self-protection) - electronic precautions to guarantee safety.

I'm not sure where this actually originated, but I found it at the Kenton, KY website:
Understanding Digital Citizenship
"A citizen both works for and benefits from a larger society."

It is vital that our students understand that they are part of a bigger picture, and if they do not value and use their digital rights, then they will be relegated to a lower class, with fewer options in multiple areas of their life, than those who are able to use the power of technology to their advantage.

Thing #10 Virtual Worlds

2009-08-09T18:40:00.005-05:00

Hello, I'm Sherri Madrigal in Second Life. I found this to be quite frustrating and not quite sure how this has an educational application. Yes, I know that it's good to know what students & others are doing.....

Although... A discussion about copyright regarding Frank Lloyd Wright and a museum that was created was interesting.

So.... I've been reading other beach combers & certified diver's blogs. I read I "Heart" Bibliophiles sbl blog about this thing, and realized that what I probably need is someone to sit with me and help guide me along in this part of the adventure and I'll do a lot better. I've read other's blogs that say similar things. The Tsunami and Hurricane adventures in SL sound interesting and would be very educational. So... I guess I've learned something more about what SL has to offer. Now, I just need to keep exploring it and learning more about it......

Thing #9 Slideshare

2009-08-09T08:06:00.007-05:00

How Cool is this??? Being able to share your powerpoints?? Both Slideshare and Authorstream seem realy cool. I like that Authorstream has the ability to be downloaded as a video.

I can see how this could be easily used by grade level teachers to share what they have created so that others don't have to "reinvent the wheel."

I was looking at slideshare and wanted to search to see if anything was already uploaded that would be educationally useful. Just typed in "dinosaur" and came across a cute set of dinosaur printables that my Kinder teachers could use with their kids during this unit.

I can see teachers and students using this in so many ways. I am eager to explore this!!!

Thing #8 - Screen Capture

2009-08-09T07:04:00.007-05:00

As I started learning about Screen Capture, I thought of lots of ways to use this. And, when I told my husband about this and explained it to him a little, he was also intrigued. [I suggested that he make a screen capture video explaining how to do a very technical part of his job.]

After reading comments, I tried downloading Jing on my home computer. That was a somewhat cumbersome process that may have had more to do with home issues than with Jing issues.

I frequently advise teachers "How to clean-up their computers" so that they will run faster. So, I attempted to make a screen-cast of how to do this using Jing and upload it to screencast.com. I was successful at the video part, but the sound on my home computer's microphone wasn't working, but I think that if you watch it, you can still figure out what to do.
Here it is:

I can see lots of possibilities with this!!!

Thing #7 Video Resources

2009-08-08T06:44:00.016-05:00

The fair use video & FAQs were helpful, but it took me a little while to digest this. (Could be that I'm not back in my librarian brain after being on vacation & away for quite a while,) I think that teachers and students may be confused somewhat about how this works legally, but I will use these resources to try to explain it to them, though it might be helpful to have a book...

I've looked at Ms. Frazzled blog on this topic, and enjoyed the interview videos she posted about Tomie DePaola and Mo Willems. (I couldn't embed the videos either...) I want to share these with students & I think they will really like them! What a cool way to be able to bring in a author!

In Hulu, I found the Biography channel, and upon exploring it, found a video about Amelia Earhart. I think that when 2nd grade is learning about various heroes, including Earhart, that this would be fun to show them so that they can see her as a "live" person, not just someone who is another dead person they have to learn about.
http://www.biography.com/video.do?name=historicalfigures&bcpid=1740031454&bclid=1745181015&bctid=1718499309
(I tried to embed this and couldn't remember how. Hmmmm, I'll try to work on remembering this.... LATER: I watched the YouTube video on embedding videos, and biography.com does not seem to permit this. You can link to it, but not embed it, so... here it is.)

I really liked Joy Valenza's list of video sources, especially NeoK12 with it's categories of videos that have been screened to be appropriate for school settings.
One of the videos that caught my eye was one on the water cycle. I know that several teachers will enjoy using this. (I'm trying to remember which grade level works with this, and I think that it's 3rd grade.)

I explored DotSub a little. I will let our Spanish langauge teachers know about it's existence, but it didn't seem to have very many educational videos. (Maybe I'm not looking in the right place....)

Totol was interesting - seemed appropriate for PK - 1st grade. When my son was much younger he would have enjoyed all of the train videos.....

At TeacherTube, after some searching, I found a video that would be appropriate for upper elementary grades studying magnets.

All in all, this was a fun way to spend the day, and I look forward to doing more of this!!!!

Thing #6 iTouch Apps

2009-08-07T06:52:00.009-05:00

Since my husband is addicted to his I-Phone, I am fairly familiar with what an I-Phone can do with the various apps he he frequently showing me.
What I've learned over the last week or so of playing around with this project is some of the things that other educators are doing with I-phones/I-touches. I still think that the management of these will be somewhat challenging, but I am less skeptical about their use in the education setting.

One of the most useful websites I discovered was the appism webstore so that you can search for I-touch apps on an actual computer. Just for fun I downloaded pictaslide since I always enjoyed sliding the little boxes around to complete a picture. On John's I-Phone is several ed apps that our kids already use, like the math flash cards that my daughter loves to use to "play" at learning addition/subtraction facts, and my son will use to work on multiplication facts.

Since my son is enrolled at Cornerstone this year and his teacher is one that is getting new I-touches for their class (among other things), it will be interesting to see what/how his class is using and managing them.

I've read several of the articles and watched the I-School video that was really exciting. I really liked the articles, 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better, and the ACU ConnectED Summit 2009, as well as Chris Webb'space article Why an iPod Touch in education? I'm looking forward to using these cool devices in helping students learn.

Thing #5 Microblogging

2009-07-28T16:28:00.007-05:00

Easy enough to sign into Twitter. I can see how this could get addictive - reading losts of different posts. It was interesting to look at some of my favorites - Astros, President Obama, etc. But, I think that it would also be fun to follow other friends and colleagues. So, school use? Not sure how that would work exactly. Although, there could be uses for this - current events, etc. As I was wondering about this, I went back to the SBISD webpage describing the assignment and noticed
Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter. I find that I can agree with many of the ideas presented there. So, it can be a great way to expand your knowledge base and keep up with friends.

I experienced using back-channeling using Today's Meet at a GT workshop in early June. It was an awesome way to communicate without disrupting the session. I can see many ways that this would be helpful for students to post questions without fearing that they would be embarassed by expressing their ignorance about a topic.

Next, I'll look at Facebook. I've wanted to join, now I have a reason!

Added to this post: 7/31/09
I've been able to setup my Facebook account and requested quite a few friends. This was fairly easy because my husband is friends with sooooo many people, so I just looked over his friends list. Plus, I do have other friends as well and they were easy to locate and add. I'm looking forward to being part of this. Looks fun! The idea about using the book club app with older students for reading groups sounds interesting. I'll need to investigate more, but I'm doubtful that this will appropriate for elementary, mainly because of the age requirements.

Ta, Ta for now!

Thing #4 Video Hosting (YouTube)

2009-07-28T15:43:00.010-05:00

I am currently working on my laptop at a public library in a small town in Oklahoma and YouTube is blocked. So, on to #5 - if possible.

Latest update July 9, 2009:
I have signed up for YouTube and am attempting to upload a video of my daughter and her friends performing a VBS program at church.

OH DRATS! "This video has been removed because it is too long. Regular YouTube videos must be 10 minutes or less. " [Details, details, details.....]

So, since uploading to YouTube isn't working... I'll try to post it here!

Well... That didn't work either. So, I tried editing the length in Windows MovieMaker, and I can't seem to get that to work to split the video and create just a clip of the entire movie, so, I'm really bummed that it isn't working. I know that my husband works on videos sometimes, so, I may see if he has any great ideas...

Thing #3 Like Skype

2009-07-28T15:17:00.004-05:00

I read quite a few of the articles about conferencing. I liked Kathy Schrock's post: Tools for Schools: Live Online Conferencing Dim.Dim sounded very interesting - much like the video conferencing that I did eons ago when I worked on my Master's degree.

I tried working with Skype some, but didn't have a lot of success. However, I think that if I played with it more extensively, it could be very useful. I have a friend who uses Skype 3-4 times per day to communicate with her husband as he travels extensively.

So, the question is, how could Skype be used in the classroom or library? I saw many suggestions about being able to communicate with other classrooms from all over the world, I liked the many suggestions at the Teaching Degree.Org Blog: 50 Awesome Ways to use Skype in the Classroom:
For my school The MIXXER: A language exchange community for everyone seems like it would be a new way to get English Language Learners to work on their language skills.
Setting up conferencing with authors when classes are studying particular writers could also be a lot of fun.
There are many ways to do use this technology, the key is to find an opportunity and do it.

11.5 Things - Thing 2: Image Generators 2 - Update

2009-07-28T15:07:00.004-05:00

VWB asked me to post samples of some of the things I've done to my blog.
Here is the animoto my daughter created for father's day: To Daddy.

While I have worked with Wordle, I don't have a specific example saved.

PS: Thanks for checking my Wordle link (.net vs .com makes a big difference!)

11.5 Things - Thing 2: Image Generators 2

2009-07-08T16:22:00.014-05:00

GLOGSTER - Wow! This is pretty darn cool! I can think of many ways to incorporate this into student learning.

It has taken quite a while to finish my glog, but here it is:

http://soelibrarian.glogster.com/Saturn-Glog/

I wanted to work on one so that I had an idea of how long it would take to put one together. I can see quite a few uses for glogster, especially in upper elementary, and up. I think that students would enjoy working on this project. In order to do a good job, they would need to think about content, perhaps a bit more - rather than just searching for the first picture that they find (either in print or online). With the ability to embed video and audio, it certainly adds a whole new level of information to the "poster project."

I am fairly familiar with wordle and my daughter (who will be in 2nd grade) did an animoto for father's day, that is TOOOOO cute.

Wordsift is cool. I like the ability to pull words into the visual thesaurus. I think that could be very helpful for some of our bilingual students. (Although it could be somewhat confusing also.....Hmmmm.)

Bookr : I wasn't sure quite what to do with Bookr when I opened it. But after a few minutes, it seemed fairly intuitive and simple. I love that you can pull images from Flickr. Being able to add text and more pages is really a cool feature to this simple website. I can see nearly all ages of computer users being able to do this, even kinder and first graders, and they would be sooo proud of themselves! This is also a cool way to present information. I looked a a few of the other bookr projects. I'm guessing that one of the people who did a project that I looked at was another person doing an 11.5 things type of project, because it was about the boy with the talking tooth. It was a cute presentation, but a little fiction story. So, students could write and illustrate their stories on here as well. Fun, fun, and more fun!
[When I did the bookr project on Butterflys I was not aware that you could adjust the picture up or down a little. Knowing this would have resulted in a better positioning of the text over the picture. Live & learn!]

On to more fun!

11.5 Things - Thing 1: Registration & Video Reflection

2009-07-08T15:56:00.002-05:00

Wow, more web 2.0 things to learn about!

I've really enjoyed watching the The Networked Student - The Movie video on You-Tube. I've watched it a couple of times so that I could think about and ponder what was being introduced.

I think that librarians can definitely be in the role of the "teacher", or can assist and help the student with their project. I LOVE the tags near the end about the teacher being the LEARNING ARCHITECT and the LEARNING CONCIERGE. They sound soooo much more interesting than teacher.

I looked at a couple of other sbl postings. I posted a comment on L'l Bit of This & That's blog.
Mainly I agreed that her that students would love this, but teachers would need a lot of training, and for this to work full time and replace text books, students would need their own laptop, which would cost $$$$$. I have my doubts about the feasability of this working for elementary - especially primary grades. But, I do think that it might work when limited projects are given for elementary students.

Well, I'm off to learn more new cool things!

Taking Notes using Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Word – Part 2

2009-02-02T12:05:00.000-06:00

Taking Notes using Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Word – Part 2

Login to the computer using YOUR lunch number
User Name: 999999 example
STUDENT’S ID (Lunch) NUMBER
Password: soe (lower case)
Log on to: SBS

Look to see if your shortcut to your folder is there on your desktop! If not, find it @ MY COMPUTER – NORWAY, then make a shortcut to the desktop.

Open your 2008-2009 Folder.
Open your MARTIN LUTHER KING.DOC
Minimize it.

Open INTERNET EXPLORER

Go to the LIBRARY RESOURCES PAGE
Go to #9: ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
You may select the English version of Britannica Elementary, or the
Enciclopedia Juvenil en español

Click on the Search Bar and type in
MARTIN LUTHER KING
Then click GO (or press ENTER)

Click on the encyclopedia article and read it.
As you find things that you think are important, you will take notes in MICROSOFT WORD. To Click back and forth between your screens, use the tabs at the bottom of your page. You may [Edit] copy & paste only key words & phrases.

Type a brief description of him OR
The year he was born & the year he died:Born – Died OR Born: 19xx – Died: 19xx

SAVE your WORD document to your folder.
(Click SAVE)
Space down a few lines.

Write 3 to 5 key facts about Dr. King in WORD.
Write them using upper and lower case letters. You may write in phrases.
Find out: 1 fact each about:
His life,
His education,
His achievements.

Type BY: YOUR NAME and Teacher
SAVE your WORD document to your folder.

Taking Notes using Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Word

2009-02-02T12:01:00.001-06:00

Taking Notes using Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Word

Login to the computer using YOUR lunch number
User Name: 999999 example
STUDENT’S ID (Lunch) NUMBER
Password: soe (lower case)
Log on to: SBS

Look to see if your shortcut to your folder is there on your desktop! If not, find it @ MY COMPUTER – NORWAY, then make a shortcut to the desktop.

Open INTERNET EXPLORER

Go to the LIBRARY RESOURCES PAGE
Go to #9: ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
You may select the English version of Britannica Elementary, or the
Enciclopedia Juvenil en español

Click on the Search Bar and type in
MARTIN LUTHER KING
Then click GO (or press ENTER)

Click on the article and read it.

As you find things that you think are important, you will take notes in MICROSOFT WORD. To Click back and forth between your screens, use the tabs at the bottom of your page.

Minimize your Internet screen, then click on the WORD icon.

Type the title of your report:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(You may add an adjective or two to this line.)
SAVE your WORD document to your folder.
Space down a few lines.

Type a brief description of him OR
The year he was born & the year he died:1929 – 1968 OR Born 1929 – Died 1968

SAVE your WORD document to your folder.
(Click SAVE)
Space down a few lines.

Write 3 to 5 key facts about Dr. King in WORD.
Write them using upper and lower case letters in sentences.
Type BY: YOUR NAME and Teacher
SAVE your WORD document to your folder.

SAVING PICTURES

2009-02-02T11:57:00.001-06:00

SAVING PICTURES

Login to the computer using YOUR lunch number
User Name: 999999 example
STUDENT’S ID (Lunch) NUMBER
Password: soe (lower case)
Log on to: SBS

Look to see if your shortcut to your folder is there on your desktop!
If it is not, you will have to do a few more steps to save your pictures.

Open INTERNET EXPLORER

Go to the LIBRARY RESOURCES PAGE
Go to #9: ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA

Search for MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., click GO

Over on the right side of the screen, find MULTIMEDIA & go down

Double Click MORE MULTIMEDIA

Find a picture you like.

Save the picture to your folder.

If you position your mouse on the picture, often a toolbar will appear in the left corner.
Click SAVE.
OR --- use the right click button on the mouse and go down to SAVE PICTURE AS

If your shortcut is on your desktop:
On the LEFT side of the “Save Picture” box, select DESKTOP.
Double click your 2008-2009 folder to open it.
At FILE NAME give your image a name, ex: Martin Luther King Standing [tell who or what it is]
(Make sure it saves it as a .jpeg file!)
Click SAVE.

If your shortcut is NOT on your desktop:
On the LEFT side of the “Save Picture” box, select MY COMPUTER.
Select the NORWAY (H:)
Find your graduation year & open that folder
Find and open your folder
Open the 2008-2009 folder
At FILE NAME give your image a name, ex: Martin Luther King Standing [tell who or what it is]
(Make sure it saves it as a .jpeg file!)
Click SAVE.

You may do more than 1 picture – if time permits.

Be sure to START – LOG OFF when finished!

For fast typers:
Add a shortcut to my blog to your desktop and folder:

Open the Internet:
Type in:http://librarian-n-mom.blogspot.com/
Go to FILE – SEND—SHORTCUT TO DESKTOP
Minimize your internet window.
Using your mouse RIGHT CLICK and COPY
Open your 2008-2009 FOLDER.
Click FILE --PASTE SHORTCUT

Ta DAA!

Trading card project at Shadow Oaks

2009-02-02T11:47:00.002-06:00

Trading card project @ Shadow Oaks

Week 1:
(Logging in to Network, Norway and Creating a folder)
Log in with Lunch number & password.
Go to My Computer – Norway – Graduation class folder – locate name/folder
(Was the first time for many to realize WHEN they would graduate from High School!)
Create folder for this year’s work (2008-2009)
Create a shortcut on the desktop of the computer they were working on. (This is their computer station for this project.)
Hint: Make seating charts for your classes!

Week 2:
(Saving a picture to their folder)
Log in with Lunch number & password.
Verify they have their shortcut to their Norway folder on their desktop of their computer.
Open Internet – #9 Encyclopedia Britannica
Search Britannica for Martin Luther King (spelling!)
Scroll down to MORE MULTIMEDIA
Find a picture they like click save (discuss ways to save a picture e [Toolbar on picture & right click )
In the SAVE PICTURE box, Name the picture appropriately.
Locate their Norway folder using their desktop shortcut, and Save picture.

Week 3:
(Working with multiple screens, copy & paste, undo)
Log in with Lunch number & password.
Verify they have their shortcut to their Norway folder on their desktop of their computer.
Open Microsoft Word, then minimize it.
Open Internet – #9 Encyclopedia Britannica (using an appropriate language edition)
Search Britannica for Martin Luther King (spelling!)
Copy name Martin Luther King in Britannica
Use the tab at the bottom of the page and Paste his name in MS Word.
(Show different ways to COPY & PASTE, as well as demonstrate UNDO)
Save the MS Word file
In the SAVE box locate their Norway folder using their desktop shortcut,
Verify that the name of the file is appropriate and Save

Week 4 & 5:
Use Encyclopedia Britannica for information to locate 3 facts about MLK.
Open their word document; type his birth & death years as the sub-heading, and type 3 -5 facts about him.
Type their name for the bottom of the card.

Week 6:
Open the trading card website @ http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php
Put it all together, save it.
Then, print it!

Websites for projects

2009-01-15T12:21:00.001-06:00

Free Clip-Art websites:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/

http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm? (Requires SBISD Login)

Free Music websites:
http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/

http://freeplaymusic.com/index.php

http://www.soundzabound.com/

Stuff to do:
Trading card maker http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php

Magazine cover
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/magazine.php

Load pictures and add music. Could add your own audacity audio file. http://animoto.com/

PhotoStory * Create movies with pictures & audio
Audacity * Create Audio files
*Requires program loaded on computer

Other Games, etc.:
Create word clouds: http://www.Wordle.net

STATERIS: http://www.mapmsg.com/games/statetris/usa/

Comic strip generator: http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/maker.asp

Kid friendly signs: http://www.customizemagnets.com/ecards/childrens.asp

Signs: http://www.glassgiant.com/make_pictures.php

Build a wild animal of yourself: http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

Mr. Picasso Head: http://www.mrpicassohead.com/create.html

Vocabulary game to help others: www.freerice.com

Creating a student folder assignment

2009-01-15T12:11:00.003-06:00

This week I have been working with students to create folders on our network.
Here is the worksheet:

How to Login to a Student’s Folder

User Name: 999999 example
STUDENT’S ID NUMBER
Password: soe (lower case)
Log on to: SBS

When your screen loads...
Double Click on MY COMPUTER.

Double Click on NORWAY-- (H:)

Using the chart below, find the YEAR
You Graduate from High School

Year you are in Year you
school now. graduate
(2008-2009)
12th grade 2009
11th grade 2010
10th grade 2011
9th grade 2012
8th grade 2013
7th grade 2014
6th grade 2015
5th grade 2016
4th grade 2017
3rd grade 2018
2nd grade 2019
1st grade 2020
Kinder 2021

Double Click on your graduation year folder

Click: VIEW -- LIST
Type the First 3 letters of your last name quickly.

Locate & open your folder.

Create a new folder for this school year:
Click FILE – NEW – FOLDER

Name the folder 2008 – 2009

Next, click FILE –
Select SEND TO-- DESKTOP (create shortcut)
This will put a shortcut on your login page so that when you are saving pictures you only have to put it in your 2008-2009 Folder on your desktop. Note: Each time you login, you may have to do this little step of creating the shortcut to the desktop.

This 2008-2009 folder is where you will save pictures, music and projects.

How to Actually Save:
1st way: Select the item, or file and
If you have the shortcut to your folder on your desktop, click SAVE AS. Pull down the menu to select DESKTOP, select Your 2008—2009 FOLDER.

2nd way: Select the item, or file and
Select MY COMPUTER (on left side of box)
Select NORWAY (H: ), Find your 2008-2009 folder (as above) and Save in Your 2008—2009 FOLDER.

Working with Sound

2008-08-20T12:58:00.004-05:00

Wednesday afternoon - Table #2

I was able to work with the laptop microphone and record using the laptop mic.
Start -- Programs--Accessories--Entertainment. Others may need to Edit their Sound Properties in the Volume. Check to make sure that the volume is not muted, and that you have selected the Internal Mic. Once that's set up, you can record on the laptop and then save the file.

I found some music to download at Incompetech.com One of the songs I found was Luminous Rain - Rather appropriate for our very rainy day!

I'm trying to upload this file to Dr. Bishop's wiki. I've left it for about 5 minutes, but it hasn't finished. I'll give it a little longer, but then I need to move on.

Will do the Itunes download annd upload later!

Librarian Professional Development

2008-08-20T11:14:00.008-05:00

Wednesday Morning -
Doing different things for staff development.

I am working on Table 1 - Image manipulation projects at this moment.
Most of these things: finding and saving images from Discovery and Flickr, editing the size of pictures and words to pictures in Powerpoint and creating products in an image generator are things that I have already done.

However, using the IrfanView picture editor was something that I hadn't worked with previously. IrfanView is in Programs -- Applications on the laptop.

Thing #21: Podcasts and Audio Books

2008-08-05T18:39:00.005-05:00

I've created a book review in PhotoStory for Gary Paulsen's book, Lawn Boy. I thoroughly enjoyed reading his wildly funny story about the kid who starts his lawn business and ends up a tycoon.

My son has enjoyed several of Paulsen's books, and my father-in-law who until a year or so ago rarely read books, also discovered that he LOVED Gary Paulsen's humor and style of writing.

This was a lot of fun to be able to create this. It was a time consuming, but it is something that I think that teachers and students could master. And, the feeling of knowing that "you did it" it a great feeling.

A special thank you to my husband for going "out in the storm" to borrow headphones for this project.

Thing #10 Online Image Generators - Update

2008-08-05T04:24:00.008-05:00

I've finally gotten back around to Thing #10. I had seen a cartoon recently about the "hear no evil, speak.., see" and someone had mentioned "blog no evil." So, I decided to create a cartoon that would depict that. I found pictures in Photobucket, then used their Remix and added captions. However, the remix put it into a video format - something that wasn't quite what I thought that the Kickball Captains had in mind for this section. So, I paused the video as it was playing, did a print screen, pasted that image into MS Publisher, then cropped the picture, did the same for the second Monkey picture, grouped them together, and saved them as a .jpg and will hopefully upload it here:

Just a little reminder for us to "play nice!"

Thing #23 - Summary

2008-08-05T03:09:00.006-05:00

1. I really enjoyed learning about Google docs, Nings, Delicious, LibraryThing, and Flickr. I think that these tools can be quite useful many, and especially for educators and students.

2. I think that I am more motivated now having worked through the 23 Things to be more dedicated to learning about what's new and is part of the new trends in learning, education and libraries.

3. Unexpected outcomes? I was surprised at how much I "piddled" at some of these websites. I knew that it would take a while to complete each thing, but I didn't expect that I would get so sidetracked on the many tangents available for exploration.

4. In some ways it seems that some of the things could have been condensed somewhat, (ex: #7 and #18 - the Google things) However, it was nice in some ways because we had been partially exposed to what was there, and so it didn't take quite as long.

5. I would be very likely participate in another training. However, if I didn't feel like I could do it adequately because of my sometimes insane schedule, I might opt out. (Hopefully, the next course won't be quite as long!)

6. How would I describe this experience? I did it! This is especially true after I completed my PhotoStory book review.

I have learned much about the new technologies that are available and am looking forward to using them with friends, teachers, and students in a variety of settings, and not just my workplace.

Thing #22: Nings

2008-08-05T02:47:00.003-05:00

I really wasn't aware of what a Ning was until now. This is really cool!
I've glanced at the Texas School Librarian's Ning, and the Teacher Librarian Ning. I will definitely join the TSL Ning, and probably the Teacher Librarian Ning as well. I can see great benefits of being able to benefit from the collective knowledge that is available with these groups! I'm looking forward to exploring the Nings and learning from the masters that are sharing their knowledge, tools, and ideas with the rest of us.

Thing # 20 - TeacherTube & YouTube

2008-08-04T19:10:00.017-05:00

Whooo Hooo! I'm making progress in completing 23 Things! Although I've GOT to get this finished pretty soon, because I'm concerned that Tropical Storm Eduardo is going to come ashore Tuesday morning sometime and we might lose power, and then, oh DREAD, I would have no computer & no INTERNET!! So, onward ho!

The Evaluating Websites Tutorial ... using the CARS method to evaluate sites was good. I like the words associated with that mnemonic device: Credibility, Accuracy, Reasonableness, and Support. I wish that the author would have reminded us of what CARS stood for at the end, but that's a personal preference.

Three Steps: WOW! What a great video to motivate teachers to use technology in their classrooms! I want to show this to my principal, and encourage her to show this to the faculty. I think it would be cool to have teachers do the 23 things over the course of the school year.

Portal to Texas History... What a great way to showcase what an awesome collection! The PORTAL to TEXAS HISTORY hosted by the University of North Texas Libraries is a great resource! I will be sure to show this to teachers!

I spent quite a bit of time looking for a video that I really liked. I ended up using Zamzar to convert the file to an .avi format. (Thankfully I didn't have to wait long for them to convert it, as my husband is an avid user of Zamzar and has a paid account.)

Finally I found one called "Librarian 2.0 Manifesto" on TeacherTube. It is a series of "I Will .... " statements about being proactive in providing library services. I am comfortable with nearly all of the statements, but towards the end, a few are a little uncomfortable for me. Something to work on!

It took quite a while to get this video re-formatted and then loaded, but Yippee! It loaded!!

Thing # 19 - Web 2.0 Awards

2008-08-04T17:49:00.007-05:00

Since I have spent what seems like the entire summer away from home and on the road, I thought that the top travel site might be fun to explore. I explored Farecast. It was a fairly basic travel search engine. The nice thing about it was that it would let you do your search simultaneously in several of the other major travel websites like Hotels.com, Expedia, Hotwire & Priceline. That's pretty helpful.

Just because I was curious about what the Organization software was, I looked at Backpack. It is not a free app. It seemed very geared toward the business sector. Could be some educational value, but schools are highly unlikely to spend the bucks for it.

There was a big article in a recent Houston Chronicle about Twitter, I looked at it and even registered. However, I haven't found any "friends" that twitter. Could be fun! Since this is the newest cool thing, I know that lots of students are doing this, so knowing what they are doing and how they're doing it is neat.

At the Books section, I looked at Lulu. It was a great website if you want to publish a book. I thought that the prices to publish 1 copy of a book would be quite expensive, but it was much less than I imagined. Their add on services for editing and f ormatting were somewhat pricy, but if you were planning to market your book, and not do this just for personal satisfaction, it might be worth it. If you had the funds to create a book for your classroom and give each child a copy, it would run a little more than $10 per book for a 40 page color book that was "perfect bound." Might be a fun project!!

There were LOTS of other apps that look really interesting. This is yet another site to piddle at later!

Thing #18: Online Productivity Tools

2008-08-04T14:12:00.007-05:00

I wasn't overly impressed with Open Office. It looked useful, but not something that I felt compelled to use.

However, the Google Docs, with the video, and templates looks really cool. I like the ability to collaborate on it also. (So, how is this different from a wiki???)

I also appreciated the in the templates section the Docs for Teachers & Students. I tried uploading a document and it was very user friendly. Because Google Docs permits others to edit in real time, this is much more advanced than MS Office products that require you to e-mail back & forth to others. This is one thing that is definitely "a keeper!"

Thing #17 - Rollyo

2008-08-04T10:44:00.006-05:00

The video created by Bruce about Rollyo was great. Left him a comment.

I created a Rollyo account, and since a hurricane is brewing, thought that might be an interesting Rollyo. I added the National Weather Service, Weather.com, Click2Houston's weather, and a few other websites. Hopefully this will all blow over and not be a big deal. I'm not overly concernced about it, but will take some precautions "just in case."

The Rollyo process was very easy and I can see how this would be quite beneficial for teachers to create a specific list of sites for students to work on to gather information.

Here is the link for my Hurricane Info Search @ http://rollyo.com/s.malget/hurricane_info/

Thing #16 - Wikis

2008-08-03T21:08:00.013-05:00

On the ALA conference wiki site, I checked out Lichen Rancourt's presentation about Web 2.SO?: Why it matters to libraries. The point that she makes about librarians needing to be aware of and use 2.0 tools could just as easily, to an extent, anyway, apply to educators. Her slide show was well done.

AASL Conference 2007 interactive presentation by David Loertscher with presentation notes and audience responses. I'm looking over the presentation. I came across a reference to MOODLE. I want to explore this more (sometime!) I like his question in Table #5:

what would happen if... the IL standards were more well known by teachers. .... [and librarians had] consistent planning time with teachers

Loertscher replies on his Teaching & Learning page:

what would happen if... the IL standards were more well known by teachers? ed note: We cannot hope to collaborate with every teacher on every unit of instruction taught in the shcool. If all students are to become better users of informaiton and ideas, the teachers must be information literate themselves and then incorcoporate those ideas into their own teaching. That is one gift of true collaboration; the teacher learns what we teach and we learn about what they teach. Together, we are better teachers and learners ourselves. consistent planning time with teachers. ed note: One of the reasons I like the concept of professional learning communities is that smart principals can easily include the librarian and other specialists in consistent planning times. What that happens, the door swings wide open for you to make a difference.

Table #9: Comic Life ($ 500 per district). Example: Research Vietnam - Then a
fiction story into a comic book on "A Day in the Life of a Soldier"
.........This is something that could be applied to my 5th grade teachers who research the Revolutionary war. This would be cool!

What an incredible resource of ideas!

Also on Loertscher's weblink in the Reading section:

The “reading” focus group summarized our conversation with these paradigm
shifts: From → To
promoting reading → modeling reading
collecting
facts → deep understanding
static → active
control → synergy
literacy → multiple literacies
individual → team
gatekeeper →
engaged
Submitted by Judi Moreillon

Lortscher's thoughts on Teaching & Learning are awesome & worth reading & re-reading! There are LOTS of treasures there! One comment he makes is that: Attention is the currency of this century. If one method does not work, try another.

I posted a brief message at the SBISD Sandbox.

Using Wikis to Create Online Communities had some great ideas about ways to incorporate using Wikis. My husband is in a group that is working on a large project for our church. One idea that I had was to share the concept of wikis with him so that he and the various groups he functions on can work more efficiently.

In my reality, I think wikis would be a great place for student's to collaboratively work on a project.

StudentBlogWikiTools: Free Sources (that I found on VWB's blogroll) is a "one one stop shop" for all sorts of cool tools. I've delicious'd this!

In thinking about Loertscher's comment about planning with teachers, the reality is that I don't (right now) have a set time for plannning with teachers. Thinking about this, a wiki may be able to help this communication process!

Thing #15 - Web 2.0 & Library 2.0 in the future

2008-08-03T17:46:00.012-05:00

The teachertube video created by Michael Welsh and Kansas State students in the Introduction to Cultural Anthropology titled, "A Vision of Students Today," was very thought provoking. The students make very valid points about how teaching often still occurs as the "sage on the stage." Since technology has changed so many other facets of our lives, making them much more interactive, our ways of teaching need to change also.

I know that I need to do a better job of making sure that students are practicing what they need to know for the real world and being applicable, appropriate, relevant for their education journey. Note: This is REALLY difficult when teaching students with varying levels of language proficiency who are also in elementary school.

Michael Stephen's comments about How to sharpen skills for Library 2.0 are interesting. I like what he has to say about avoiding technolust, yet embracing what we need to have great libraries, including time to learn and play with the web 2.0 "toys."

Dr. Wendy Schultz' comments "To a temporary place in time... On the way to the library experience of the future" provide an exciting way to think about the library of the future: as the Knowledge Spa.

I also read George Bishop's post titled "A Ripple Effect: A rural school district shows how one new service in 1992 put in motion a steady wave of library support." Because of connections with my previous school, I hope that this article will be helpful to my successor at Cushing. Additionally, Bishop's attitude of complete service rings true.

In exploring the Wiki article on Library 2.0, the article mentions that Michael Casey was first to write about Library 2.0 in his Blog, LibraryCrunch. So, just for fun I looked at his blog. A recent post included pictures of a new library that opened near/in his home town. I really liked the looks of the library, especially the children's area murals; the calm, yellow color scheme on the walls; and the reading porch outside! http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcasey/2518786969/in/set-72157605232877462/ I hope that our new SBISD libraries that will be built soon will incorporate the same enthusiasm and hospitality.

I also read Chris Harris' article in May 2006 SLJ, titled: "School Library 2.0". I appreciate the comments about the article in the Wiki, but I liked his comment that "building a coffee bar next to the circulation desk" isn't what he's talking about. I also may adopt his idea of putting "Library Powered" stickers on things I do to increase the visibility of my services.

I was also exploring other School Library 2.0 aspects on the internet, and came across some images in Flickr Graphics for the Library 2.0 Meme By Bonaria Biancu & John Blyberg that related visually to library 2.0.

David Warlick's post at 2 Cents Worth on Library 2.0. gave some helpful ideas for beginners to start using 2.0 tools (if you haven't done the 23 things!)

This has been very informative! Hopefully I can continue learning about these ideas. I want to find more concrete examples of how to implement 2.0 service.

Thing #14 - Technorati

2008-08-03T15:21:00.008-05:00

Technorati certainly brings functional searching to blogs.

In searching for School Library Learning 2.0, one of the posts by tsheko @ http://tsheko.globalteacher.org.au/2008/07/31/green-pageflakes/ mentioned "PageFlakes." Since I was not familiar with this, I looked at the wiki info on it as well as their home page.

Pageflakes seems like a great alternative homepage that you can customize to add many of the things that you might automatically look at as a tiled page. It was cool. I may investigate it more - later! I read tsheko's post about using PageFlakes to build a resource for students to investigate a topic. One educational idea was that teacher would select various pages for students as a guide to start from, but then student was ultimately responsible for continuing their research. I tried to find a way to leave a comment for tsheko, but it seems that you have to be a member from Victoria (Australia) to join their network. I may be missing something, though...

Searching in Technorati for "School Library Learning 2.0” did bring up different items for posts, blogs, videos, and photos. I thought some of the photos were off topic. I scanned the top posts in the Front Page and Technology sections and found newsy posts, but nothing that was overly surprising. I tried to sign up and list my blog, but am having difficulties. Will try this later!

Thing #13 - More Delicious Stuff

2008-08-03T14:34:00.003-05:00

When I signed off from the last post, I didn't completely understand how to add people to the network. Now that I think I understand it a little more I added the "Delicious Network Badge" to the side bar of my blog page. Didn't take too long to do this, and I think that if all SBISD librarians did this, then we would be able to share our bookmarks easily!

Also, I was excited about this and told several people that I thought would benefit from this about it at church this AM. They kind of looked at me like I was in outer space, but I think if I have a chance to actually show them, they'll get it and like it.

Thing #13 - Delicious

2008-08-03T07:41:00.001-05:00

Wow! Delicious is cool. I found it to be fairly intuitive to use also. Right now I'm using my home computer, so at some point I will have to install Delicious on my school laptop! It is really cool. In exploring I have found some personal interest things to look at that were fun.

The TeacherTube video by Common Craft guys about social bookmarking is awesome. I can hardly wait to show this to my teachers! It was very easy to understand. I know they will have questions, but I know it will be useful!

As I look over the advantages of Furl, I am amazed that it will keep archived cache o a web page if you "save page". What a cool feature to use if you know that a website has a page you want to archive that is a non-permanent page. This feature could also be helpful for educators!! (and parents /students if they want to archive a page produced by a student that may or may not be published forever!)

I was unimpressed by Ma.gnolia.

As I was thinking about Delicious, my mind began buzzing with all of the possibilities when students are doing research and how helpful this would be. I think that I will share this with some of my friends at Cushing HS and encourage them to use this for that purpose, (and more.)

I really like Delicious and it makes sense! As educators we can use this so that we don't have to "reinvent the wheel" each time we are looking for materials. I can see that this will be really helpful!

(I also decided that I needed to figure out how to embed links in my blog, so I've figured that out! Copy the website address, highlight the text, press "Control - shift- A" Then, paste the website in the box. Too easy! I'll have to go back & edit posts (later!))

Happy Summer!

Thing #12 Commenting on blogs

2008-08-02T14:56:00.004-05:00

I've been reading Cool Cat Teacher's various blogs. In one she write about the
online predators act that she coments about. She refers to Darren Kuropatwa in another one of her posts and refers to his guidelines for appropriate blogging and how he compared his methods of teaching regarding how his use of technology emerged. http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/06/darren-kuropatwas-class-inspection-and.html

I LOVE Vicki Davis' description of her calling on her blog: http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-comment-like-king-or-queen.html

My Calling God (I cannot pull out my beliefs here) has given me a calling to share the things I'm learning in technology and other aspects of my life.
I believe in the importance of every child and the importance of every teacher.
I believe that teaching is a noble calling and that educators need to be encouraged in a world of people who really do want to zap us with their
light sabers.
Never in history have teachers been expected to do so much and afforded so little respect and that has got to change. We will create our own respect because we are professionals here to do a job.
It is time for us to share across boundaries, continents, and hemispheres. It is time for us to put our collective heads together and learn from the pockets of innovation that spring up in the strangest places. And it is time for me to be a part of it!
She also mentions CoCommenter as a way to track comments from your blog. It sounds like it could be very useful.
I read Darren Rowse blog @ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/11/03/problogger-comments-policy/ I enjoyed reading his comment's policy.
Brown Thought's comments were also very common sense. http://www.brownbaron.com/blog/2007/07/17/the-ten-commandments-of-blog-commenting/
I enjoy Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk blog. Reading his coments about how it's usually OK to post relevant comments to older blog posts is nice to hear. I'm adding him to my Blogreader.
At http://drapestakes.blogspot.com/2008/05/edublogger-etiquette-responding-to.html in the comments:
Sarah Hanawald said... May 1, 2008 7:23 PM
To the question "are there rules. . ." I think yes, but
simple ones. My students started blogging in January. I told them that they just needed to remember two things. First was that behind every post and comment was a real person. Secondly, that whatever they wrote to a classmate (it's a closed circle with us) they needed to make sure they wrote with a tone of kindness. My students are 11, but I think the same concept applies to adults, although I might use the word respect instead. Although I still appreciate the two kind comments I've gotten on my insignificant, personal reflection blog. Even when we disagree, the (sort of) permanent nature of blogging and commenting means that what one said sticks around and represents the author long after the heat of debate is over. Tone and attitude matter, and I've really think the
edublogosphere sets an example others could follow.
I really agree with the comment that behind every post and comment was a real person, and to remember to write with a tone of kindness (and respect.) When you do those things, nearly everything else would seem to take care of itself.
I left a comment on InfoGoddesses' blog for thing # 11 about using LibraryThing to track what students have been reading. That's an awesome idea.

Thing #11 - LibraryThing - more thoughts

2008-08-02T13:58:00.001-05:00

As I was taking a break from 23 things, I was thinking more about LibraryThing. I wondered, "Can you only add books? Could you add your CD collection? Your video?" I'm still thinking that if there was a way to track your loans to your friends that this would be incredible!

I tried adding a recent CD I purchased and it wasn't listed as something that I could add easily. I also tried adding a DVD. It wasn't found on the Amazon or LC sites either linked to LibraryThing. And I know that it could be ordered from Amazon. So, I'm guessing that it is somewhat more dificult to add media to LibraryThing. Maybe this will be a future upgrade??!

Another thought that I had was that if this had a wish list feature that might be helpful also!

Just more things to ponder!

Sherri

#11 - Library Thing

2008-08-02T09:17:00.001-05:00

I saw the LibraryThing website as I was looking over some things related to Thing #9 with library related blogs & news feeds. So, LibraryThing was not entirely new by the time I got to it. It is an exciting website. One question that I have not figured out yet is, if you "loan" a book to another person, will it track that for you? That would be incredibly helpful for my husband who has a large library of professional books and is frequently loaning books to various people.

I added a few of my children's books that are favorites. I joined the group: Librarians who LibraryThing . I also subscribed to the LibraryThing blog.

This looks like an exciting website that I hope to share with my teachers and students.

This website is really cool!

Happy Summer!

Sherri

Thing #10 Online Image Generators THAT ARE HIGHLY FRUSTRATING WHEN THEY DON'T LOAD!

2008-08-02T08:34:00.002-05:00

I found the cartoon comic strip generator at to be lots of fun! I could play on this a long time. I could see where teachers could use this for creative writing. I created a cartoon at http://www.txt2pic.com/toons/ However, it won't upload to Blogger without an error. I really don't have time to play with making this work. I had found a picture of the 3 wisemen on camels as a silhouette picture with 2 captions and a title. I titled it: Just ask a woman. One wise man says, "Where was that map?" The other wise man says, "Should have asked for directions!"

With Txt2pic.com it looked like there were lots of different frames that you could insert your own text into very easily.

I've played with some of the other image generators and I like the ones on Big Huge Labs. I made a motivational poster.

I've to upload a picture that I created there also, but it's NOT WORKING EITHER!!!! I'm fairly frustrated!
Looking at my time line I need to move on to my next project.
Happy Summer!

Explorations during Thing #9

2008-08-01T05:24:00.001-05:00

As I am exploring the different blogs for Thing #9, I came across a post from The Fischbowl that won an Edublog Award. I have read it and want to ponder it more, and share it with my faculty. Hopefully, it will prompt some of our teachers to action. http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-it-okay-to-be-technologically.html

I was also intrigued by the Spanish techie group, Tinglado. I will be sure to share that with many of the Spanish language speakers @ my school! (Some of whom are more timid with technology than others.) http://tinglado.net/

Fun project to share with 5th grade (or higher) LA teacher: ( http://www.beavton.k12.or.us/jacob_wismer/leahy/2007/proverbs/proverbs.htm

Something to explore more later: Flat Classroom project: http://flatclassrooms.ning.com/profile/coolcatteacher

I read some of the posts on Mike Falik's blog. I enjoyed a video linked from the TED Project: Daniel Goleman's TED Speech: Why Aren’t We All Good Samaritans

I am intrigued by the TED Project videos and want to look at them further.

I glanced at a blog by Wesley Freyer called Moving At the Speed of Creativity. I had been searching for Spring Branch ISD on Google blog search. I' ve added his blog to my list.

A quote by Luke Fox was in Freyer's blog. Read it and glanced at some of the apps for "facilitating PBL" Project based learning. TASK JUGGLER seemed to be fairly user friendly. I noticed that Freyer's blog is listed in Technorati. Looking forward to reading more of his stuff.

I looked at Topix http://www.topix.net/ and it seemed to be more newsy and focused on entertainment than professional topics.

As I looked at Syndica8, http://www.syndic8.com/some of the blogs linked to a search for Librarians pulled up blogs that were old, and hadn't been updated. Didn't see much that caught my eye. It was pretty confusing.

I read several blogs relating to Librarians in Technorati http://www.technorati.com/, but haven't found additional ones to subscribe to. I liked the look of the website, found it user friendly and would go back to it.

Upon reflection, it seems that some of the best feeds I've found were located by looking at what other people are reading. I suppose time will tell if this is true since I don't have the luxury of waiting for several months / days to see if the feeds that I'm choosing to look at (based on past performance) will be helpful. Should prove interesting...

On to more summer adventures with family, friends and travels.

Sherri

Thing #8: RSS feeds

2008-07-31T22:42:00.001-05:00

I used bloglines to set up an RSS feed to keep track of some of the various things that I want to attempt to keep up with. I have also (inadvertently) set up a set of feeds @ http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=68929 I found a couple of feeds for personal use, as well as several for more professional development, including those of people I work with. I'm looking forward to learning & seeing new things on here!

I think that some of the feeds that I've subscribed to will offer ideas and advice on how to take advantage of utilizing some of the new technology and web 2.0 things that are available. I hope to be able to use some of these with students and teachers.

One of the feeds that I subscribed to was church related. My husband wanted to know if I had signed him up as well. I told him that I would show him how to do it, but that he needed to learn to do it himself. But, he was very interested in knowing that these were available.

Librarians can use RSS feeds to help keep themselves current in their field and possibly be in a better position to "know a little about everything" - something that I think is important for information professionals.

On to more adventures in 23 things!

Happy summer (thankfully - still!)

Sherri

Thing #7 - Google Apps

2008-07-27T19:07:00.002-05:00

've worked some on the Google Calendar. (Trying to keep track of my incredibly busy summer!) Here is the link to my : Google Calendar

This is pretty cool!!!

I have done some exploring also on Google Earth, and it is pretty darn cool also! I tried looking at the Illinois River near Tahlequah, Oklahoma and the resolution on the image is not great, so, I can't really show other people what it looks like. I also went to see another of my favorite vacation spots: Red River, New Mexico. The images from there were better, but it still wan't the same as being there!

Gotta go get ready to float down the Illinois River and go to Tahlequah, Ok.

Happy Summer!

Sherri

Thing #6 - Making Mashups

2008-07-25T10:39:00.003-05:00

The Trading card maker is something that could be very useful in the classroom. Fun for kids (& adults) to do.... It's a way that they could do a report on a scientist, state, animal, dinosaur, etc. and yet incorporate technology easily. One other idea that I had was to do invention cards, and then match the inventor to the invention in sets of cards.

Some of the other things at Big Huge Lab's website that I thought looked interesting were the CD label maker, the Magazine cover, Movie Poster, and the Warholizer, (great for art!).

I thought that The Cube could be an interesting tool if someone were reviewing a concept, and wanted to create a picture cube that could be used to stimulate discussion.

I spent some time trying to make a trading card. I didn't realize that I needed to use a .jpg or similar photo format when I tried to load a picture from a URL. It didn't work and I've ran out of time that I've allotted myself to work on this. Oh well.... It was fun and I've learned a little more about this than I knew!

Happy Summer!
Sherri

Thing # 5 - Fun with Flickr

2008-07-23T17:08:00.001-05:00

One of my first experiences with Flicker was when one of the father's of another player on my son's soccer team took pictures of all of the kids playing soccer. He wanted to share them with people easily, so, he loaded them to Flickr, then sent us the link to it. That sure did make it easy to be able to share the pictures of our kids and let the grandparents and other relatives "oooh and aaah" over how much fun our children had playing their favorite sport.

I explored the geo-tagging and was intrigued with the idea that my students could take pictures of what their life is like, and then compare it to other areas of the world. I think that this will have some great possibilities.

I am also inspired to show this to my art teacher and let her post our student's art on here, but also she could help students discover art as well.

This is one website that I will continue to use!!

Happy summer!

Sherri

Thing #3

2008-06-24T11:33:00.003-05:00

Creating the Avatar was fun, a little frustrating, but all in all- fun.

It took a little time to set up the G-mail and Yahoo accounts, but was worth it.
The frustrating part was that my computer (not the new school laptop, but my older personal comptuer) kept freezing and I would have to restart Explorer. Finally, it froze completely and I had to shut it down a while. I was able to finish this part of the project fairly quickly.

Have a great day!

Sherri

Thing #2

2008-06-23T03:25:00.002-05:00

One of the hardest things I have is having time to "play."
I know that "it's summer" and I'm supposed to have LOTS and Lots of time to do this, but my summer seems to be even more scheduled than my very busy school year! - At least this summer!

I think that I have confidence in myself as an effective learner, and I try to pass those skills on to others.

I'm looking forward to learning more!