Learning 2.0 - Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 (Thing 12)

I'm excused from this post, but I wanted to throw in a few websites that looked like they'd be good resources for learning new Web 2.0 skills.

Discovery Education: Web 2.0 - Internet safety, Web 2.0 tools (presentation, video, mobile devices), media literacy, tech tips

Glogster EDU

Learn It In 5 - Video tutorials for Web 2.0 teaching ideas

Oh! The Web 2.0 Places You'll Go!

Read...Share...Learn

WebTools4u2use

Learning 2.0 - Social Bookmarking with Technorati (Thing 11)

When looking over Technorati's blog directory, one of the categories that I felt was noticeably absent was "Education."  I know education is a bit of a specialized field, but it seems as though there are quite a few blogs out there dedicated to sharing teaching ideas.  I'm sure it's tucked away under the umbrella of another category, but I thought it would be a bit more visible.

I tried to do searches for two different topics (school librarian and board games) and came up with very different results when searching by blog and blog postings. The only blog on the first results page for my school librarian search with an authority rating above "1" didn't seem to actually have anything to do with school librarians.  When I searched by post, I found articles about a December school shooting involving a school librarian, but there was nothing else of interest on the first two pages of results.  My search for board games was also relatively fruitless.  I know of a few good blogs on this topic, and none of them showed up in the first few pages of results.  There were also a lot of irrelevant results for video games.  When searching by post, I also didn't come up with a lot of useful results.

Overall, I was kind of disappointed with Technorati.  It didn't seem like it necessarily pulled up a lot of relevant results, and it was a bit frustrating to go back and try to sift through everything.  It also felt like the site was down a lot.   I tried to get onto Technorati five times as I was completing this assignment was only able to access the site two of those times.

Learning 2.0 - Social Bookmarking with Diigo (Thing 10)

Diigo seems like a pretty cool social bookmarking site.  I think I'm most excited about trying it with students as a research tool.  With an educator upgrade, you can create accounts for your students and add them to groups.  I think this would be a great tool for students to use when researching because they can collect and share articles with others in their group as well as any mark-ups (highlighting, sticky notes) they make.  As I understand it, you can also comment on the notes that others have made.  I think this could be a great time saver for students who are working on group projects, but it would also be great for students who are working independently on projects.

This would also be a neat site to recommend to classroom teachers to use with their students for follow-up readings in content areas.  I think the mark-up capabilities of Diigo can offer a fresh take on reading an article and then writing a summary or response.  Instead, teachers could assign the reading and ask students to come prepared with their highlighted text and comments or questions written down on sticky notes.  I've often questioned the relevance of writing short summaries or responses to prove I've completed a reading.  If someone really wanted proof that I've read something, all they'd need to do is look at my marked up text! :)

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Here is a link to some videos about using Diigo in the classroom as well as a nice article with ideas and handy tips for using the site.

Learning 2.0 - Search Engines (Thing 9)

 Search engine created!  This video was very helpful!

Learning 2.0 - Goodreads and LibraryThing (Thing 8)

Here are some of the ideas I had for using Goodreads in a school library.

Adding Friends on Goodreads
This would be a fun feature to use with students because it would allow you to track the types of books students are reading (although this might be more useful to a classroom teacher than a librarian) and make recommendations to them or let them make recommendations to you!  There's also a feature on Goodreads that allows you to compare your library of titles with your friends and see how similar your tastes are, and I think some kids would enjoy using this tool.  One of the blogs I looked at also mentioned that students who "friend" each other on Goodreads tend to read (or at least record their reading) more than those who don't have many friends.  I think this makes sense because Goodreads is yet another social media site and posting updates gives kids one more way to connect with their peers.

Book Reviews
Again, this might be of more use to classroom teachers, but Goodreads could be used as a way for students to write reviews of the books they read.  One blog post also suggested having students look at different reviews that have been posted on the site in order to create a set of criteria for a well-written book review. 

Book Discussions
I think it would be fun to start a library book club, and it would be fun to set up a discussion thread on Goodreads for kids to use before the meeting to spark discussion or even after the meeting to follow up with ideas that were shared.  According to one blog I read, there's also a student groups feature that can be used for this, but I haven't done enough research to find out more about that yet.  I think you can also create private groups that require an invitation to join, and I think using this feature would be a good way to protect students' privacy.

Reading Challenges
Interested students can join a reading challenge and use the site to chart their progress toward reaching their goal.

Fan/Follow Features
Students can become fans of their favorite Goodreads authors and follow their posts.  I think it would also be cool for kids to take a look at the shelves of their favorite authors to see that they read just like we do and also to recognize the important link that exists between reading and writing.

Quizzes
Teachers and even students can create quizzes for the books they read.  I think some kids would enjoy making a quiz and then challenging their friends to complete it.  As a teacher librarian, you could also create a quiz as part of a school-wide reading challenge and give out prizes for the students with the most correct answers.

One caution that I saw repeated in several places dealt with using Goodreads with a younger crowd because of the ads that can pop up as well as fact that there's no way to monitor the content of reviews or comments.  Several people recommended using BiblioNasium for readers in elementary school in order to track the books you've read or Edmodo if you wanted to set up class discussions for
different books.

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A few of the ideas I shared for using Goodreads can be found here.  I also found some ideas for how teacher librarians and public libraries might look at using Goodreads including a nice comparison between Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari. 

Learning 2.0 - Online Image Generator (Thing 7)

I played with the image generator on redkid.net (which also offers ways to resize images), but I'm also going to play with the keepcalm-omatic and shrinkpictures.com sites.  Given my love of fortune cookies, I couldn't resist using the following message generator...

I made this fortune to go along with the book Divergent, and I think it would be a lot of fun to have kids create a similar project using one of the message generators on redkid.net.  It was quite tough to shorten the message to fit on the fortune cookie slip, and I really had to think about what information was important to convey without including any spoilers.  I think the fortune cookie generator in particular would make a fun book display around Chinese New Year.  I'd probably try a set of directions similar to those below:

Imagine the main character of your favorite book is sitting down to a delicious Chinese dinner in the opening pages of the story.  What sage advice might appear on their fortune cookie to help guide them through the twists and turns of the story's plot?  Visit redkid.net/generator/fortune/ to generate your own message, print off a copy of your creation, and bring it to the library to be included in our school display!

Learning 2.0 - Skype (Thing 6)

I just signed up for a Skype in the Classroom account and am excited to find out more about how Skype can be used in the library or classroom.  There are three main categories of activities that are listed on the main site:  Collaborating with other Skype in the Classroom teachers, finding guest speakers for classes, and taking virtual field trips.

After doing just a tiny bit of digging, I came across an activity that I think would be a lot of fun for my students.  It's called MysterySkype and involves two different classrooms from two different parts of the world connecting and giving their partner class clues about their location.  There are a couple of suggested formats for the activity, but one that I think would be fun is the "20 Questions" version.  Basically, each class would come up with 20 clues to share with their partner class that would help to narrow down where they are located in the world.  I think this would make a great and very interactive geography lesson...especially since geography is a subject that is often brushed aside in the curriculum.

If using MysterySkype in a classroom setting, I'd probably have groups of students work together to create a list of clues to share with the partner classroom.  As far as resources go, I'd try to focus on using more general sources such as encyclopedias for the initial clues as well as more specialized sources such as books on unique landmarks or even local history for the final clues that pinpoint our exact location.  Before Skyping with a partner class, we'd also talk about presentation skills (eye contact, speaking in a clear voice, intonation, etc.) and practice these skills.  After Skyping, I'd let the kids have a few days to figure out their mystery location and then set up another Skype call to share our thoughts.  During this second call, it would be neat to have a few kids share information about how they conducted their research (either for writing the clues they shared or for finding their mystery location) or give a more detailed description of a few of the locations we mentioned in our presentations. 

It would also be fun to try something similar on a school-wide scale.  Interested classes could participate as described above, and then partner sites could be mapped on a world map that is kept in the library.  If teachers wanted to extend things even further, their students could get into groups to conduct a very brief research activity on a specific aspect of the country.  I'm thinking CultureGrams or World Book Online would be good resources for this and that groups could be in charge of categories such as family life, schooling, holidays and celebrations, cultural food, etc.  The information they discover could be submitted to the library (perhaps through a Google Doc) and then transferred onto a newsletter style template and compiled into a "Travel Log," which could also be kept in the library for browsing.