Tech Tips & Timely Tidbits

More from Thursday:

I forgot to mention the fun I had last night at dinner with Cathy Nelson, Jessica Donaldson, Chris Craft and Fran Bullington at the Liberty Steakhouse and Brewery - after Chris made us walk all the way around Broadway at the Beach!  Not that I minded, too much, as I don’t believe I’ve ever visited there at night.  It was neat to see the lights and walk over the bridges.  And I got a kick out of watching Chris get so excited about feeding the fish.  Those were some HUGE fish - they were even biting the ducks!  Of course, I also teased him about the idea that you’re supposed to work OFF a meal, not work up to a meal!

From the “Encouraging Reading Through Technology” session I wanted to expand more on my notes regarding the “Senior Athletes Read” program.  The READ posters/trading cards are of only senior student athletes.  The posters are displayed around the school and at the games.  Their school has a specific block/period during the school day (4th block?) for athletic practice.  During this block, the coaches have made arrangements for the athletes to read to elementary classes.  The media specialists design the posters and trading cards and photograph the students.  The posters are printed on an HP Designjet printer and are laminated.  Other items I failed to mention include banners promoting reading are paraded during pep rallies “Win, Fight, Read” or something like that.  Another program was their book club - they read The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson and invited their local coroner to participate & talk about her job. Resources on their handout:

• Photostory
• Scholastic Video Booktalks
• Blogs
• CrazyTalk
• Turning PowerPoint slides into a screen saver

Friday:

I did decide to sleep in an extra hour!  So there were only two sessions I attended; however, both were excellent and ended EdTech on a high note.

Reaching Out Beyond the Walls: Distance Learning for Everyone - presented by John Woodring.  Despite some technical difficulties with the Internet access, this was an interesting session using Wiziq for distance training/meetings.  I’ve been toying with learning a system (preferably free) that we can use in our district media specialist association to provide access to our meetings/workshops for folks who can’t make it in person to our meetings.  Despite the technical difficulties, I found it interesting to chat with folks he’s been collaborating with.

Using Excel for More Than Spreadsheets! - presented by Donna Goldsmith from the SC Department of Education.  She showed examples of using Excel for interactivity in the classroom.  This session was awesome and Donna was a blast.  I so would have loved to have been in her classroom as a kid (or adult!)  Since she said her materials would be on the EdTech website, I didn’t take notes; however, as of right now they are not there.  I’ve emailed her for copies and would be happy to forward them on once I get them.

I will say the items she showed were real “wow” as well as “duh” moments for me.  For example: inserting a map of the US as the background (turning off the grid lines) then using comments to enter the state name/capitals (making sure to resize the columns and rows really small).  You could also put a picture of any diagram (cell structure, disection photo, etc.) of anything you want to label and use comments and/or create a matching type worksheet.  DUH! moment for me.

I didn’t stick around for the Luncheon.  Mom and I had a nice lunch at Margaritaville and did a little more shopping and walked around The Gay Dolphin before heading back to the condo.  You can see more of the photos my Mom snapped while we were in Myrtle Beach on my Flickr Photostream.

Saturday we had an early breakfast (well early for me since I don’t usually get up unil well after 10am if I’m on vacation or weekends) and checked out of the condo.  We stopped at the 501 Tanger outlets, had lunch, and headed on home.  Since we were passing by the Sumter Outlet mall, we just had to stop - boy is it NOT worth the stop.  There were only like 8 stores, but Mom could have stayed there and spent some money at the Antiques store.  We got home after dark and couldn’t bring outselves to empty out the car.  Spent all day Sunday unpacking and getting organized for today.  Since there was no food in the house we headed into Orangeburg to the IHOP!  Pecan Coffee Cake Pancakes, YUM! So, another fall vacation has come and gone.  Time to get back to work.

PS:  Oooh, reminder for everyone to plan for the Upstate Technology Conference: “Teach Tomorrow Today,” June 23 - 25, 2009.  The Call for Presentations is open.

If you are following along in the SCASL 2.0: 23 Things blog, they are up to week seven, while I have only completed week FOUR.  *Sigh*  It seems I’ll always be behind.  Oh, well.  I’m going to skip week five which is all about play…maybe I’ll come back to it.  Or not.  Which brings me to week six and Delicious.

Delicious is one service that I didn’t see the big deal with…in theory, yes, but in practice, not.  As a way of organizing bookmarks with tags for my own reference, it’s great.  However, I’m not one to ’share’ well when it comes to my bookmarks.  The things I bookmark are usually just things I want to go back and explore when I have “free time” (ha, ha) and not so much things that are important or even useful to others.

That’s not to say that I don’t see the value of sharing with others when there is a REASON to share - such as if I’m collaborating on a unit with a teacher or preparing for a group workshop/training session or gathering sites for a pathfinder. Delicious could also be used by a teacher to bookmark resources, along with notes, for his/her students to access and/or have students add additional links.  The only problem with this - Delicious is BLOCKED by my district.  So, even if I wanted to use it to collaborate with teachers, I couldn’t.  Just another great Web 2.0 tool denied to my school community.

Next up: Technorati - not one of my favorites as far as searching for useful blogs.  Looking at the most popular blog list, they are all useless time wasters.  Looking at the top authority blogs, I subscribed to three of the top 5 already.  I already have way to many blogs I subscribe to and prefer to add new ones based on recommendations of folks I know or follow.  If I do have an information need, I may revisit Technorati, but as for now, I’ll pass.

Lastly: Library 2.0.  I’ve heard the term, but hadn’t really thought about what it meant.  Taking a parallel with Web 2.0, I’m going to say Library 2.0 is providing services to patrons via the web when and where the patron needs the services.  So, things like homework help via chat/IM/Twitter, ebook/audiobook downloads, electronic pathfinders, wikis, etc. would all be Library 2.0 services that could be provided.  While I wholely agree and embrace these tools, realistically, in my high school setting, they are not “practical.”  Most of these tools are blocked.  Add our rural setting where only about 60% of our students have computers and only about 40% have Internet access (which is 70% dial-up), online services aren’t a priority for after school hours.  However, I would love to be able to provide these types of services and am slowly developing what I can - see our schools library webpage and podcast page.  I have also signed up for wikis on both wikispaces and pbwiki that I’m still exploring what services to offer.

SCASL Thing #8: RSS and Newsreaders - the task is to find our rss reader shared link and provide it to our public.  So here is my Google Reader shared link.  However, I must tell you that I’ve not used it up until today.  I went and put a couple of the posts that I starred in there just so something would be in there.  I’ll have to remember to “share” what I star from now on!

SCASL Thing #9: Finding Interesting Blogs - the first part of the task is to use search tools to locate interesting blog feeds.  Okay, I COULD do this, but I already have way to many feed to get through now! See also my previous post All Together Now - Think#2.  I currently have 185 subscriptions in my Google Reader.

The second part of the task was to blog about the experience of finding feeds.  That I will do!  Most of the feeds I’ve subscribe to were found in 4 ways:

1) Following the leader:  I started by following the blogs Cathy Nelson listed in her blog roll or that she specifically told me to check out.  Then I followed the ones those folks followed, and just kept doing this.  You’d think that would be way too many, but you’ll find that the groups tend to follow the same blogs.

2) Professional readings:  there are more and more blog links showing up in the professional journals and websites I already visit.

3) Personal interests:  Most of these were news, entertainment, or author/book sites that I visited often, but now the content comes to me instead of me going out to find it!

4) Recommendations/Mentions:  If a blog I follow mentions or links to a blog, I’ll usually go check it out.  If I like what I see/read, I’ll add it to my reader.

I ran across this article from BBC News - “The revolution of paperless paper” that has me kinda intrigued.  Paperless paper isn’t a new idea.  Many ebook readers have been using e-ink technology for a while now.  I personally have a Sony Digital Reader and am quite happy with it.  [I just wish they'd make it Mac compatible!]

The “revolution” here is that the Plastic Logic reader is all plastic, including the screen, so that the size and weight of it is about the size and weight of a magazine.  My one complaint with my Sony Reader is that it is a little on the heavy side leading to the fear that I’ll drop/break it.  The article says Plastic Logic’s paperless reader won’t be out until sometime next year.  It will be interesting to see what the cost and additional feature are for their reader.

While I have been purchasing more of my reading selections on ebook, the ebook doesn’t replace the joy of reading a “real” book. I’ll still purchase my favorite authors in paper formats.  ‘Cause lets be real, books lining the shelves of a bookcase still make me happy!  But, packing one ebook reader for a trip vs. an armload of books sure makes the suitcase a lot lighter.  Decisions, decisions.

BTW: This is SCASL 2.0’s Think #7.

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the phrase “Be Careful What You Wish For.”  Well, that’s is SOOO true for me.  Last school year was a particularly slow one for me in terms of work load.  I’d gotten into a rut routine with few surprises.  This year is totally different.  I’m swamped! - but happy.

So anyway, I’ve fallen behind on the SCASL 23 Things project (among other things).  This is my attempt to get caught up.

#1 - Learn about the program.

#2 - Go through the 7 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners tutorial from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

#3 - Set up your own blog (or for advanced users an independent blog just for SCASL 23 Things).  I’m choosing to use my existing blog as I’ve got too many accounts open to keep track of one more.

#4 - Create an Avatar using Yahoo Avatars.  In case you didn’t notice, there is one over there on the right - you may have to scroll down a bit.  Boy did I “waste” an hour playing around with this one!  I was just as bad as some of my teens - trying out each outfit, background, bling, hairdos, etc.  While this is neat, I like Voki better, as you can record a message and the avatar moves.

#5 - Explore Flickr.  Create an account, upload photos of your library, and tag at least one SCASL2.0.  Boy was I surprised to find that there is already an hloy on Flickr!  Who isn’t me!  So, had to fall back on my other screen name and my flickr account is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hloy22/ for those of you who may want to go visit.  Right now, you’ll be disappointed as there is only one photo up!  Just give me time!  I used one of the Books wi/ Bite photos.

I use Flickr Creative Commons photos all the time, both in my blog and on my school website.  I think it is wonderful to be able to find (granted after a lot of paging through junk some times) photos that match what I’m trying to post.  Typically, I download the photo to my computer instead of using the image URL because my district blosk Flickr.  This way, I know my faculty will see what I’m inserting.

Okay, I’m still a few “Things” behind, but it’s time for me to hit the sack.  Lots to do tomorrow.  ‘Nite All!

PS: I hope some of you will take the time to work through the SCASL 23 Things with me.  While some of the items I’ve learned on my own and with the help of my online friends, I still learn something new with each activity.