The Top 10 Technology Things That I Think Every Teacher Should Know

1. It is alright not to know more than your students. Sometimes they are going to be a little more tech savvy than you.

2. Play around with the technology before you try to teach it. You can not teach something that you do not know how to use.

3. Always have more than one back up plan. Technology sometimes does not work the way we would like it to, so be prepared.

4. Ask for help. Find someone that knows how to use the technology you are trying to use and get their advice.

5. Become friends with your tech person, they are an invaluable resource.

6. I liked this one so I decided to just copy the quote "Use technology only when it makes rich, real and relevant curriculum richer, more real and more relevant." It came from Nancy Bosch.

7. It is alright to feel overwhelmed. Technology is always changing and it is very hard to keep update on all topics.

8. Learn by playing. Have fun with technology; do not be afraid of it.

9. Remember to practice, if it does not work well the first time, change what went wrong and try again.

10. Use networking. There are millions of people out their willing to give advice and help.

OPAC Decisions

In comparing my current system, Follett InfoCentre, to one that I have heard a lot about, Koha, I decided that we should stick with Follett. I am still learning new features that InfoCentre offers so this weeks assignment was very beneficial to me. I talked with our high school Librarian, Valerie, and she was very informative. I realized that I probably should have been asking her some of these questions in September! For example, I did not realize that Infocentre lets you align the catalog with the curriculum allowing teachers to find resources much faster. They can also create lists based on the curriculum and then just pull those books. This feature will save me a lot of time finding resources. I also did not know that you can just scan the ISBN Label on the book and it will pull up the Marc records from several different places that I get to chose. You can also print the barcodes for the books you entered by creating lists. I am so excited about all of this new information! When I explored Koha I found it very confusing and not very user friendly. I think that InfoCentre is easier for students to navigate, especially having the visual search options. For younger students that do not yet know how to read, this feature is great. In the future if our school was looking to switch systems, I would recommend staying with Follett and just upgrading to their newest system, Destiny. I am going to do some more research regarding this system because based on some of the class discussions this week, that system sounds interesting.

Cataloging Continued

After continued reading about cataloging, there is a part of me that thinks that I should go apologize to the librarian that replaced me in my previous position. I now know that I did not always put in all of the important information, or catalog the equipment properly. Who knew that all of those fields were so important! I could always find what I was looking for, so I assumed that it was ok. I now realize that I used to be a librarians worst nightmare. Luckily for my new district, I now know that all of those fields are important. The program that they used, Winnebago Spectrum, never really showed me the Marc Records. There was just a fill in the blank screen and I filled in some of the blanks, but never all of the blanks. Maybe they should have had a little red asterisk next to the fields that were very important like on websites. This would have helped me out and made it so that future librarians in that school would not be cursing me as much as they are now. This also can be used as an example of why school libraries need certified librarians working in them instead of paraprofessionals or volunteers. If I only knew then what I know now.

Cataloging

I have been working as a librarian for the past four years, first as a paraprofessional and now as a librarian, and I am ashamed to say that I hate cataloging. After reading this weeks discussions and our assigned reading, I know that I am not alone. I must admit though, that I was not aware that there were websites out there that allowed you to download the cataloging information before this weeks readings. I think that this will make cataloging much easier. I used to put it off because I just did not have time to look up the information at the Library of Congress website, print it out, then retype it into my electronic card catalog. I still find it hard to believe how many times I have gone to that website and never realized that I could just download the information without all of the retyping. I am hoping that this new information will make it so that I do not hate cataloging as much, but we will not know until after school vacation. I have a whole box of new books that I just ordered from Scholastic sitting their waiting to be cataloged and I cannot wait to try out one of the websites listed in Catalog It! by Kaplan and Riedling. I will keep you posted on my progress, but right now I am going to go swimming.

Internet Safety

This is a list of some of the most useful sites that I stumbled upon while doing this week’s lesson. There are many, many more out there as this is a very important topic so please feel free to add any that you feel are useful.

http://www.netsmartz.org/index.aspx
This site includes information for kids, parents and educators to learn about internet safety. Also includes games and videos for both kids and teens to use.

http://www.wiredsafety.org/
This site offers plenty of good resources for parents and teachers to use to learn about different aspects of internet safety.

http://www.safekids.com/2010/01/22/online-safety-3-0-protecting-empowering-youth/
I found this article to be very interesting. I think that is time that schools stop trying to block our children from danger and inappropriate things on the internet, and instead empower them with the knowledge of how to avoid such danger. They are going to use the internet, so let’s show them the correct way to do it.

http://www.theteachersguide.com/Internetsafety.html
This is a good site to educate parents on the importance of internet safety. It is a little old but the message is still the same – teach your kids to be safe online.

http://kids.getnetwise.org/
This site has links to tools that parents can use to help keep their children safe online.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/dvp/YVP/electronic_agression_brief_for_parents.pdf
This site offers some statistics and offers suggestions to educators on how to stop internet aggression.

http://stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/
This site is a good resource for parents and teachers to use with children. It includes useful information and statistics to share with children about cyber bullying, and also has a webisode to watch that addresses cyber bullying. This site is also a great resource about other forms of bullying as well.

http://www.ikeepsafe.org/
This site has a variety of resources for teachers, parents and kids. There are videos, books and other resources.

http://www.dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/Computers/Internet/Safety/
This is a directory of many different sites that include resources for all different types of internet safety.

Professional Development

This weeks assignment was a little scary for me because there is no way that I will ever be able to stand in front of my colleagues and teach them. One on one I am fine, but the thought of standing in front of several of them scares me. With this in mind I chose to do a short powepoint presentation introducing wikis and then have them create a wiki themselves. This makes it possible for me to work with them one on one if they have a problem and alleviates my anxiety issues.
Another reason that I chose to have them spend most of the day creating a wiki page is because what I least enjoyed about the professional development days that I have participated in was leaving with nothing. I think that it is important for teachers to leave with a completed, or at least well on the way to completed, product that they can begin using. I know that if I cannot start using a new tool right away, I tend to forget what I was taught and then do not have the time to try to relearn it on my own. Professional development days should be useful and productive, and participants should leave with something that benefits them immediately.

Having fun exploring!

I must admit that when I first opened the link to all of the Web 2.0 tools I was a little scared. I could not believe that there were that many different tools out there. How did I fall so far behind? Then I started clicking on them and checking them out and I had a lot of fun. Two of my favorites were StoryJumper and Fotobabble. I created a story for this week’s assignment using StoryJumper and it was relatively simple to use. I can definitely see the benefits for use in the classroom. Kids could create their own nonfiction books to demonstrate their understanding of a topic. I do not have a microphone for my laptop so I could not try Fotobabble, but I am going to go shopping this week to get one. I think that students could create some wonderful projects with either of these tools. Both sites at first glance seem very user friendly (I have not tried to set up my classes in StoryJumper yet). I plan on spending more time on this site in the future, but now I am off to explore Kindle.

To Game Or Not To Game

This week’s assignment was very rewarding for me. I have never been a gamer and this week reinforced that for me. I tried to get onto Second Life a couple times to no avail. I took this as a message that I am not supposed to be a gamer. I did however research the topic quite thoroughly and found that I do see how social networks and gaming could be used in the classroom. Previous to this week I would have disagreed with using either of them in an educational setting. Here is the link to the articles about World of Warcraft that helped change my mind.

Another reason that I changed my opinion about gaming and social networks in the classroom was my interview with my son and a few of his friends. In talking with them I saw how passionate they were about gaming. If you could somehow get them to have the same passion about learning that would be great. Maybe incorporating gaming and social networking into their education is a way to do that. When I showed them the game on 360Ed they were really excited and said that they would love to take a history class like that. Not only was it very informative to interview my son, it was also nice to sit and talk to him for two hours about something that he was very enthusiastic about. He wanted to talk to me which is a rarity these days. Teenagers are not very much fun!

Finding Podcasts and Videos

I do not know if it was my topic, animal adaptations, or that I am not very good at finding podcasts, but I found it very difficult to find any. There seemed to be many more videos out there than podcasts. I am going to keep searching just to see if the more I practice the better I get! Jing is going to be my next endeavor! I have only tried to use it once before and I was not very successful. Hopefully I will be able to figure it out now.

Creating my Flickr Account

Creating my Flickr account would have been much easier if my photos were stored on my computer. Using Flickr was easy, and I found it very user friendly. Unfortunately my husband is the photo person and keeps all of the photos on his Mac. Being a PC user I had no idea how to even find the photos. Once I found them and figured out how to use a Mac the process was very fun and simple. I only uploaded a few pictures from my wedding and honeymoon for now, but I do plan on uploading the rest of our photos because then I will have access to them also. My sister-in-law will be happy because she is still waiting for pictures from Christmas! You can check out my photos at if you would like to see my wonderful husband and my sometimes wonderful teenage sons.

Coming Up For Air

With all of this new technology that is supposed to make my life easier, I find that I am feeling like I cannot breath and need a chance to come for air! In addition to my blog, my wiki, and my tweet, I now have an account with Shelfari, which I cannot wait until I have the time to actually enter all of my books into. I love the look of bookshelf and the way that the books are organized. I definitely am guilty of judging a book by it's cover, even though I tell my students not to do that, so this book organizational tool is great for me. It will also be nice at holidays to just tell people to check out my bookshelf if they need a gift idea! I also found a previous colleagues that has an account. It was interesting checking out her books. I think that so far I like wikis, delicious and shelfari the most. I cannot see me blogging much after this class, unless my district starts letting me blog with my students, which seems very unlikely. The other tool that I might use is the RSS feeds, I put all of my classmates blogs on my feed so that I can check out their sights. I still cannot figure out how to see who I am following from my own blog. That will be a project for a different day.

Technology Overload

I now have an account with Google Reader, Diigo, and Delicious! At first I was only going to use Delicious because I have already been using it and Diigo seemed a little overwhelming. But after reading what some of my classmates had to say about Diigo, I decided to give it another chance. I think that Diigo is going to take some time to get used to but in the end I think that I will end up using it more. Google Reader, just like this blog and Twitter, is going to be something that I remember to check on occasion, but until it becomes a habit, I do not think I will use it often.

Creating my blog

I am definitely feeling a little overwhelmed by all of this technology. I knew that I had fallen behind the times but I did not realize how far! I need to get out of the nineties and into the 21st Century!
Overall setting up the accounts was fairly easy, I think that maintaining them and actually using them will be a different story.