July 18: Accio Deathly Hallows

ITEM 23!!!!!

Thank you, CSLA, for this exercise. Indeed, this has been a voyage of discovery for me since I have been to sites I have not heard of before or have heard about but had no real reason or incentive to try them out. Following your directions has taken me to these sites and given me goals to achieve with them. Previously I have been hesitant to log onto new sites and download things because I believed each new connection created cookies on my computer slowing it down. Consequently I never explored very much. Either that isn't so much a concern any more or I have a better computer than I thought (thanks to my husband).
I really appreciated learning about Zoho and Library Thing. I had never heard about these before and I can't wait to share them at school. I will definitely keep my own account with Library Thing. It will be fun to try and remember all the books I've read. The Learning 2.0 Sandbox wiki will be added to my school favorites list and I promise to add any projects that might inspire others.
The other sites I have learned about will sit in the back of my mind waiting for an opportunity to pop out and be shared as a teaching tool.
I hope I will have an opportunity to help a teacher or department set up a wiki and maintain it for them.
I will also add more links to ebooks on our OPAC and find a way to make the students more aware of them. I want to track down the hand held readers and see if we can incorporate them in our program.
Since I have not been committed to a learning project for quite some time, it was fun buckling down, following a syllabus, and completing exercises. The format was well laid out and I appreciated the flexiblity to start when I was able to and proceed at my own speed. The only pressure to finish was from myself and I am proud I followed it through to the end. I now have the confidence to pursue more classes. I would jump at the opportunity for more learning from CSLA!

Like Mikey in the old cereal commercial - I tried it and I liked it!

Item 22

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, I created links in my school's OPAC to all of Shakespeare's plays. The copies on our shelves were old and yucky looking. I also wanted to see if our students would use them at home. I used the MIT site, The Tech, since I felt the pages were easiest to read. I am a big fan of books on tape, but I don't know if I could sit in one position anchored to my desk and read a book on line. Since I don't have a laptop, I couldn't take it outside with me or to my favorite reading place, my bathtub. I had an opportunity to try a handheld reader which was OK but I would hesitate brining it in the tub with me. I liked how one could choose font size making it ideal for students with impaired vision. I'll have to try them again.

Item 21

My daughter attends one of the New Technology high schools and I could definitely see daily podcasts at a site like that. They could produce a tech tip of the day that would be fast to produce. I wonder if public libraries could post podcasts with excerpts from audiobooks to promote new arrivals.

Week 9, Item 20

Time is ticking down to the release of the Harry Potter movie and book, so I posted a trailer of the movie. Looking around YouTube showed me there are many talented people out there. Besides the trailers for the movies, there were some very funny puppet videos people made to satirise the series. Since these videos are such hogs with band width, our students are discouraged from watching any videos that aren't school related. They are allowed to access videos that are curriculum related only. The video called "influential/favorite books" had a very eclectic collection of books. It was fun watching while wondering how these books have influenced the video's creator.

harry potter and the order of the phoenix trailer HQ

Week 8, Item 19

Library Thing is lots of fun and I can see this coming up on every school library's website! I have added a widget to my blog page with no difficulty. Our school uses School Center to manage web pages. I hope that it accepts Library Thing.

Wk 8, T18

OOOOH! Finally a solution to the problem that has been plaguing our students since the advent of computers. Hardly a day goes by that a student needs to print something they have saved on a disk or emailed to themselves and they can't open it at school. Yes, I have fliers and posters about Rich Text Format but here is another tool that we can introduce to them! And to be able to create spread sheets and presentations, too! Sweet!!!
This post was generated with Zoho writer and was posted by their site. I added this comment with the blog editor.

Thing #17

The Learning 2.0 Sandbox wiki will be a fabulous site when more ideas are posted. I added Idea #5 to the blog page about students starting their own blogs to post comments about books they have read. I think it would be so cool if they started a blog when they are freshmen and add throughout high school. It would take an amazing committment from the teachers (across the curriculum) to support this, though, for four years!