Thing 6: Going Deeper

I just found some great Google Posters that can be put out for students to help them become better Google searchers...I especially liked the ones entitled "Better Searches, Better Results". I have saved them in a Poster File so I can print and use with students in the Chaska Library Media Center.

WEB for Book Lovers

http://www.shelfari.com/
Provides a place where you can create your own bookshelf and invite users to share informtion on what you are reading. Looks pretty new yet and as I dug deeper, I didn't see very many authors yet but I think this is just in the process of becoming. Will have to keep an eye out and revisit as I continue my personal reading. Would be great for a bookclub to share. I think that at our Next CHS Staff Bookclub, I will share with my group. It would be fun to discuss a book as questions come up during the reading time. It certainly would stimulate the discussion when we meet to talk about the book selection.
It was interesting to look at some of the WIKI's that are already set up for classroom use in the PBWikis section of this thing under Grades 9 through 12.

Thing 5 Libraries and Media Centers

I really enjoyed taking a look at the Minnesota Digital Library which has lots and lots of historical items, searchable by topic as well as lots of geological maps and data. I typed in Chaska and examined a hand-written journal from the farm of "Ezra Peabody" which had lots of interesting charts and data about wages, price of stamps allowing the viewer to see the actual historical item. There was even a digital documentation of the building of the aerial bridge in Duluth which was fun to look at. I need to bookmark this site so that I can place it on my Media Center Webpage.

Quality Rubrics

A great place to research and create rubrics with a variety of formats such as Oral Projects, Art, Science, Math, and more: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

A CHRNOLOGY OF US History Documents

Great for all US History Teachers: http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/index.shtml

Primary Sources for 15th to Mid 1900s Resource

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/corlst.html

19th Century Advertising Tool

WOW, can our business and marketing classes benefit from this site. A great tool for researching older products - http://advertising.harpweek.com/

BOOKS On-Line Sites

Just this past week I had occasion to look up access for the classic book "Odyssey" by Homer and did find it online after lots of time researching. Today I found in IPL.org, two great sites that I want to remember where books can be accessed online FREE. Here they are:
This site has over 16,000 books online: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
AND this site connects to 3 large databases for books, magazines, and newspapers:
http://www.ipl.org/div/reading/
Great treasures on the IPL webpage. It also includes:
The entire collection of William Shakespeare's plays are available online in IPL webpage as well, which can be helpful for students who are working on homework but don't always carry all the books they need with them.

2008 Election Website - A Great Issues on Candidates Site

I was attempting to catch up in my MILI assignments, and while exploring Thing 3...yeah I know that I am behind...I discovered a wonderful tool I may have overlooked because I have gone to this website years ago and felt it was more elementary. BUT, after going to it today, I found a great website for anyone looking at and comparing the issues between the candidates for the election coming up...YEP FactMonster. Here's the site...I have forwarded it to a teacher in our building who has been working with her students on the issues during this election.

http://www.factmonster.com/ I'm going to put this in my favorite websites to come back to from time to time on other research topics.

Just this Friday, I had a teacher come to me for some basic current events reading materials like the Scholastic Weekly Reader type articles...I just found "Basic Current Events" also in "FactMonster" as well as some great "Halloween" stuff just for fun. I'm going to have to place this website on my webpage as well. AND I'm going to share this site with my teachers who work with "Reluctant" Readers...good, basic information that I think will appeal with lots of graphics and not too much detail.

I also found in Google for Educators, some great lesson plans that any teacher's teaching Election 2008 might draw some good ideas to use with their classes: http://www.google.com/educators/6_12.html

Also Great...Can Join Student Mock Election: http://nationalmockelection.org/

Checking on URL's for credibility!

I found an Ah HA which I did not know existed when I prepared to teach and Introduction to Research for an Academic Writing class last week. If you have not discovered www.alexa.com...you need too TAKE A LOOK! Did you know that you can go to this search engine and research the background of a website found on Google or any other database just by clicking on the URL and pasting in the website in their search field. YOU or your students can find out who is hosting, information about the person or organization that created the site giving you an overview...great way for determining whether the site is credible and worth your time.

RSS Feeds

Yeah...It is working and it is at least somewhat comforting to know that we have all been very, very busy and not had time to blog. But we'll catch up. At least I now know how to use the RSS feeder, as I never really figured it out last year when I began Mili. I'm so glad we are doing this MILI thing. And it is so fun to know all the great things that are being implemented by teachers in my building, and from the blogs I've read, in our district. I think we are pushing the technoology button to the MAX and I think we are so busy trying all these new things that there isn't a lot of time to blog.

THING 2 Blogging

Set up blogs with classroom of Academic Writing with the mission to respond to th 5 traits of writing - what they know and didn't know about that topic. Found some difficulties with our District 112 network and needed to enable blogspot which seems to be working. When I had students email their blogspot address, many went into a quaratine file, or junkmail which never got to me. Our technology coorinator and district network administrator are strongly recommending "MOODLE" instead so we will have to investigate this tool for our users before I do another blogging experience with a classroom of students.

I have begun a "CHS Teen Readers Advisory" group which meets once a month during Options and once a month for "CHS Bagels and Books". We had our first meeting this week and students who attended are really liking the idea of having a blog set up for interaction, book recommendations so I will be creating an additional blog for that club. I have also used a blog in the past when we did a "Community Reading Event at PRC for The Kitchen Boy: The Last Tsar which allowed for an interchange of comments and discussion as we read the novel. I will be starting a CHS Staff Reading Group this next week and I think I will create a blog for that as well which will allow for exchange and discussion for all members -- and should prove to be an enriching experience for anyone interested whether they attend the meetings and discussions or not. Stay tuned...I have lots more to do.

THING 1

The new year has totally swept me up and I am finally getting back to business. I needed to go back and begin at the beginning. As I experienced all the information in Thing 1, I read about the incorporation of Web 2.0 tools in everything we do and feel that our skills and abilities in technology continually challenge us to spend time learning. And our students are much more prepared and technology literate that we are. Creating realtime and valuable information literacy learning experiences for our students requires continual change in the way we do things. I feel like, as a Media Specialist, I am always treading on new territory - teaching new things. AND this requires vast amounts of time. Teachers I work with must feel it too, and coupled with the intensity of curriculum delivery in the High School is a very real challenge. I believe ALL teachers want to use the new technologies, but are held back by the time constraints of learning them. At least, our involvement with MILI will give us the opportunities to explore things we haven't even investigated.

I have also changed my ideas about Wikipedia? Can I trust the article entitled "Truth, Can You Handle It" which stacks Wikipedia up against our known and trusted source, Britannica and discover that it holds it's ground. 3:4 isn't all that bad?

Thing 1

How quickly the time passed today. Even though this is my 2nd year in this, I am amazed at how much more there is still to pursue. I am so excited to learn about all the enthusiasm and opportunities to integrate our services in all the disciplines. There is some powerful learning happening here in this group. What excitement and enthusiasm. It is fun to create a new blog with a different purpose. Today, I learned about some brand new tools like twitter and new ways to actually use del.icio.us, google reader, ZOHO work online, meebo and gizmo. Can't wait to learn how to use all this stuff.

Opening Day

The day has flown by, and such fun to experiment and create something new with a different purpose. I am loving the changes and new things that are available. Change is GOOD, just sometimes painful. It is amazing that we have so much energy and creativity in this room today. Very worthwhile experience.