Thursday, July 23, 2009

Week 12: Instant Messaging

Week 11: Social Networking

Week 10: Podcasting

Week 9: Online Collaborations/Applications tools

Since I already use Google, I added Docs and started playing with it. Easy as pie. I think it is fabulous since I work at 2 schools and I am always emailing things back and forth or searching for a flash drive. Now my stuff will always be right there. I bet that all the things I do in Word are available. I started to create a new Year at a glance for what I will teach in library this year. These kinds of things help keep me organized and ensure I have enough time. I think it would be neat to share it with the other librarians in my district. We can add comments, etc.

I love iGoogle because everything I need is right there. I love that my Docs can be searched right from that screen. I am going to try to use the Calendar this year too.

Bubbl.us was terrific. At school, we like to use inspiration with our students. That allows them to brainstorm ideas and make connections. The Bubbl.us was similar. I will have to play with it more, but certainly a great option.

I played with last.fm. That was a lot of fun. I am not sure how that would work in school, but personally it is cool.

Week 8: Presentations

These presentation tools are really amazing! I loved the professionalism and the possibilities. Slideshare took a little bit to figure out, but there were many resources there. Sliderocket looks really spectacular, although it is certainly tailored toward business. It would be interesting to see if they had something for educators that doesn't cost. I think that is one of the things that impressed me the most though, was the amazing ability to do everything via the web and the apparent seamlessness of it all. I liked that Sliderocket would work no matter what platform, because especially in education, that is a huge issue.

What I didn't like about Slideshare (and maybe I just missed something, although they said they don't currently support audio) was that all I see are the slides, but not the rest of the presentation.

I can see lots of ways these can be used in the library, either myself creating a presentation to highlight activities or for students to create them to share their learning. However, one of the biggest challenges is always how safe is it for students to use? That is something I will definitely be exploring this year. My students are elementary and it is not appropriate for them to have all kinds of accounts, but that is something that the tech integration teacher or myself can help with.

Here is one I liked:

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Week 7: Photos & Images

I think these applications are so much fun! I am making myself play with them this summer! I loved the slideshow with the puppets. That is one thing I definitely could see using. Often students make various projects in my school and bring them to the library to share. I think I am going to try that this week!

The comiq site is also great, but as a public school, I do worry about letting students just search around for images. The same worry goes with flickr. We use Comic Life in our schools and the kids and teachers LOVE it. For us, that is a safer alternative. We can control the pictures.