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?