PONderings

Thanks, Wesley Fryer, for pointing out this video in his blog. For my advisory group, I have created a Ning group, so that I can get to know my group better. On the main page, I’ve added an RSS feed to our daily announcements and Google Calendar appears.
Despite setting up a Facebook-like presence, I still [...]

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I use this blog as an instructional tool and as a personal repository of digital objects. The blocking of YouTube is a hinderance to my potential audience of teacher-librarians within my division. My division works around the YouTube issue by providing staff with a repository called WebFiles.
To view video found on YouTube I had to [...]

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Another gem from Joyce Valenza’s blog, this video from Michael Wesch explains how Web 2.0 has revolutionized our ways of thinking.
I’m going to use it with my Lunching with Laptops group.

Download

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I just stumbled across a podcast from School Library Journal that speaks to providing PD to busy professionals in regards to Web 2.0. Helene Blowers created a tool through a blog entitled Learning 2.0 that encourages users to explore Web 2.0 tools on their own.
This model is described in Blowers’ podcast. In learning through this open and collaborative [...]

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I found the interchange of ideas on Dean’s post on Blog Rage most interesting. It occurred to me, as I engage in this blogging experience, that I’m not at all certain what my voice should be online, that I’m venturing into a forum where my online persona may be very different than my own. This, [...]

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Kathy Schrock is an authority on educational uses of the web.
She has developed two new tools to evaluate blogs and podcasts. They can be found here along with many other great web evaluation tools.
The Canadian (and bilingual) Media Awareness Network has created student activities dealing with blogs, instant messaging, text messaging, file sharing, and chat [...]

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These online videos provide real-life examples of cyberbullying and present them in a very student-friendly manner. Topics broached include gossip, “rating” sites, and password security.
I particularly like the brevity and the student voices contained in the videos, and I would use them as discussion starters in my Info Lit classes Grades 6+.

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I’m spending the better part of my morning here at Suds Car Wash, happily working on their internet-enabled computer. While the employees are diligently hard working on removing the smell that mice have left in my car, I am exploring Jamie McKenzie’s work particularly in the area that he calls Slam Dunk Lessons (SDLs).
Key benefits [...]

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I just stumbled upon Joyce Valenza’s blog. In my very short time exploring her reflections, I found an interesting post entitled You know you’re a 21 century teacher- librarian if…
Among many other notable checkpoints, Joyce points out the need for educators to understand the concept of Web 2.0, a term I admittedly know little about. [...]

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David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan published the book Ban those bird units. The intent of the book is transform research projects from activities of cutting and pasting into activities that require higher levels of critical and creative thinking.
Here’s a glimpse into the 15 proposed models.

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