Thing #16 - Wikis

A few years ago I was working on a project for church and we used a wiki to build a set of procedures for starting a new church. We included information on all aspects of starting a church - admnistrative, financial, childcare, legal, as well as spiritual. The wiki worked great because it allowed people to work on their part of the 'manual' on their own time and from their own computers. As far as I know, the wiki is still in use. At least I hope it is. I'm still paying for it every month on editme.com.

School wikis - I think wikis could be a great tool for school. Students could collaborate on note taking, research, studying, and homework. I started a blog for our new 8th grade science curriculum this year but not everyone knew how to use RSS feeds so it didn't get used very much. I think a wiki would have been much more useful b/c we could have easily attached documents and kept track of how we were using them. Hmm. Something to think about for the rest of the year. Definitely for next year.

Thing #15 - Library 2.0

Some of my favorite librarians are K at RCE and T at BHE. I greatly admire the way they have both embraced technology in the name of engaging the students in learning. I am continually impressed with their abilities to apply technology tools to the world of elementary learning. My two girls love their time in the library whether doing research, PGP activities, or just learning about a topic from Ms. Holley and her Smartboard.

In middle school, I am continually impressed by the proficiency of the students with technology. They just know this stuff. I'm more convinced than ever that one of our primary jobs as educators (whether teachers or librarians) is to help students learn to use the web successfully - tell good content from bad, how to build healthy networks, and to facilitate and ask good questions as we let them explore all that is at their fingertips.

I love that video from KSU. It's the real world for our students. Let's stop talking to them.

Thing #14 - Technorati and tagging

Technorati scares me. I could get lost in the web and not emerge for about 3.5 weeks if I get too far into Technorati. Even just losing a few hours at this point is too much. I love tags and feel like they are a great resource for organizing my own items. Using other people's tags leads to a lot of looking and a little bit of finding for me, in my experience. That said, it's way fun to search tags and then link from those blogs/sites/etc. and see where you end up. Fascinating stuff.

I found 1,188 blog posts for school library learning 2.0 and only 9 hits in tags.

In the main part of Technorati - yuck - too much celebrity gossip and sports nonsense. Who cares?????? I'd heard of Technorati because of the ranking system. Some people pay way too much attention to their ranking. But if they are trying to support themselves through their blogs, I guess that matters.

Thing #13 - del.icio.us

My husband turned me on to del.icio.us quite a while ago. He and I bookmark articles and blog posts for each other. I primarily use del.icio.us to keep track of blog posts that I really like and think I might use again. I've saved many great posts about technology in schools as well as some about cool science discoveries or sites. From looking at my list of tags, I also have quite a few religion/philosophy/theology tags. Tells you what I've been reading about.

The ed tech tags will be very useful as I get even more comfortable in my teaching role and learn more about how technology is useful in the classroom. I'm looking forward to applying technology a lot more next year.

Thing #12 - Rollyo

I'm having a hard time figuring out how I would use Rollyo. I have all of my favorite sites, blogs, and podcasts set up on RSS feeds. I also just search using the engines I like the best. I'll have to play with it some more to see if I can find some personal or school use for it. Right now, I'm not likely to add it to my repertoire.

Thing#11 - Library Thing

I signed up for Library Thing ages ago but haven't really used it. I'm getting book recommendations from my husband, the students at school and friends.

I've added a few books that have been meaningful to me over the last couple of years as well as the latest books I've read to my own kids. I also joined the book discussion group at my school's library (Hi, Sue!!) and just completed Project Mulberry so I added that as well.

Thing #10 - Image Generator

I've been stuck on this one for a while. Just couldn't get into it. But I've finally done my image (a sign) and have posted it here.

Too many choices.