beccablog, teacher-librarian » 2.0

KASL Presentation, October 2009

beccablog — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:06:57 +0000

Presentation Notes from Friday, October 16, 2009

I presented using CoolIris and then uploaded to Slideshare. No audio this time. My colleague, Amanda Davis, led the Widgets presentation – I will post the link below as well. Look for “how-to’s” with widgets from Amanda soon!


Library 2.0
View more presentations from Blue Valley West High School.

Widgets http://prezi.com/ctt8owlrfx_f/

Links:

Library 2.0 Session

Widgets Session

Top Ten Tools

beccablog — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:32:09 +0000

1. iGoogle: A great place for all my feeds. For students, they can easily customize the page for their needs AND place our widgets on the page.
2. Twitter: I receive so much information from Twitter. New ways to get information into the hands of students by posting on our website too. twitter/bvwlibrary      twitter/beccamunson
3. Google Reader: Makes my life easier. Would like students to use it more – but we are getting there.
4. Audacity: Great for student projects. Free. Easy to use.
5. Edublogs: We have several blogs – for students and staff. BVWest Reads, BVW Productions, BeccaBlog, Jag Stacks
6. Delicious:  Keeps me sane as I organize my finds and research what other people are doing. Next year, we are moving all our links for the library projects to delicious.
7. Voicethread:  A tool our teachers have really embraced especially our social studies teachers.
8. Widgetbox: Love this site to create widgets and apps for iGoogle and Facebook. However, it is now fee-based.
9. Slideshare: Collaborative. Takes a powerpoint inside the walls of the school and makes it available to anyone, anywhere. I think students get that…
10. Wikispaces: Way to publish projects, easily collaborate with others.

Others to add: Animoto, Toondoo, Wordle, iMovie, Voki, Ning

Click here for the real Top 10 List of Learning Professionals.

Web site and advocacy

beccablog — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:30:23 +0000

I added a Twitter feed on the library web page. Why? Well, I was reading my blogline feeds today and saw a recent post from Hey Jude, a powerpoint from Nathan Wright and Hilary Brown discusses Library 2.0 . Although a lot of the information is directed to public libraries, the examples of how public libraries are using twitter stood out to me. The Wabaunsee Community College Todd Library not only includes quotes, links to helpful sources, but also usage statistics. How could this be used in the school library?

1. Post usage statistics in a way to get students to use the site (see current post) and to make others aware of the sources used most often.

2. Instead of shouting out, “this is the best source” or reminding students of a specific link – post it on the Twitter which then shows on the front web page.

3. When students set up an iGoogle account, have a twitter badge ready for them to post on their page – you can provide updates, new books, instructional information, etc. This one seems pretty easy to set up and if you have younger ages, you could provide a fun picture too.

I posted the code on our library web page, so students would easily see it. Hopefully, we will receive some feedback from students and evaluate the usefulness of this tool.

Now I need to ask myself if the site is too busy for the 21st century learner – or do they appreciate polls, librarything, wikis, gadgets, widgets, and other links…

TagCrowd & Wordle – Educational

beccablog — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:43:34 +0000

This is a double-post from the JAG Stacks newsletter blog for teachers at staff at West.

With new 2.0 tools, there are new ways to visualize text that can possibly enhance understanding and engage students.

Tagcrowd and Wordle provide visual representations of words.

How can it be used? Go to SIRS Researcher, Election 2008, and copy-paste the text of the two candidates. Wordle or Tagcrowd will provide visual representations of the topics or keywords the candidates emphasized. Want to see the bias of an author? Copy-paste the text from a journal article into Tagcrowd and again, you can visualize the important concepts stressed by the author.

Tagcrowd and Wordle can work with any text document accessible through you computer including Word, Powerpoint, and Internet Explorer.

How-To Video

Presentation @ KLA

beccablog — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:52:03 +0000

My colleague, Amanda Davis, and I presented at the Kansas Library Conference this year. Our presentation, Power of Publishing, addressed how publishing students work through Web 2.0 tools can motivate students and truly impact their learning. Information from the presentation was posted to a wiki http://power2publish.wikispaces.com/ . If anyone uses these tools, please let us know – we would love to hear any feedback.

Thoughts on KLA:

1. There were so many wonderful presentations this year & a lot of us are incorporating 2.0 tools. For me, the presentations that showed examples of students using these tools captured my imagination. Just like students, a good model of how something can be done is inspiring and motivational.

2. I always feel like this at most conferences, but it would be great if everyone could bring a laptop or conference provided laptops or labs. The presenters could have everyone log on to the site(s), try them out, have online discussion, etc.

3. I enjoy going every year. What a great opportunity to learn from each other!