11.5 Thing #11.5-Evaluation

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises?

• Glogster - Two World Geography teachers have already signed up for the library when school starts. They want the students to create posters on world religions. I would love to show them Glogster. My first step is to contact our technology department to see if this is possible.
• Wordsift - for use with the ESOL students.
• Facebook - I never would have thought that I would create a Facebook page. Now that I'm there, I have found two college friends and a friend from many years ago when our children were young. Added benefit, I can see the posts on my daughter's Facebook page!
• Screencast - Hoping to use this to provide instructions to the classroom teachers.

2. How has this program affected or assisted your lifelong learning goals?

Although the course was a lot of work, I loved it and look forward to exploring the topics in greater depth. After taking the 23 Things last summer, I was excited about taking this course when I saw it offered. If you can think of more things to teach us, I will definitely sign up! Years ago my very young daughter showed me the difference between my computer and my computer monitor. Now there are things that I can show her!!

3. Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

• Facebook - as I mentioned above, I love this and spend way too much time on it.
• Second Life - I was surprised by this and my negative reaction to it. Despite all the excitement about it and the possibilities for education, I am not comfortable with it. I was the same way about the microwave oven 30 years ago, so I am likely to change my mind!

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept?

In the 23 Things course, you required us to read and post on the other blogs. I didn't see this instruction in the 11.5 Things, but I did it anyway. It is a tremendous help and great opportunity to share information and ideas.

Thank you for providing this course. It was an amazing journey of hard work and play. My hope is that our technology department will let us use some of these tools with our students. I agree with Rhondda in Rhondda's Reflections (Thing 11) when she says,

Many educational systems and/or schools are ignoring the existence of much of the on-line digital media, by banning outright, filtering and heavily restricting use. This leaves our students alone to use and figure out the media on their own, outside school, with varying degrees of understanding about the intricacies of the best, appropriate and safe use. Studies are continually showing that more and more of our young people are using digital media in their own time without any guidance. Ignoring the digital media in the hope that students won’t be interested in or use most of it, isn’t working and it is dangerous.

11.5 Thing #11-Digital Citizenship

I read all of the links provided even though the assignment said to choose about 3. I'm so glad I did. All were excellent and informative. I am fired up over a concept I previously didn't know anything about.

Even though my library orientation packets are already printed for the start of school, I will definitely work in a discussion about digital citizenship. Subjects I would include are manners, safety, evaluating information, copyright, and the AUP. Regarding the AUP, I would engage the students in a discussion about why we have the rules rather than just posting the rules.

I like this activity that I accessed through the Ning in item 4 of this assignment. It's titled, "Digital Citizenship and the 21st Century Digital Compass Activity."

http://www.educ.ksu.edu/digitalcitizenship/CompassArt.pdf

Something I will do more of having read these articles and suggestions is model how I evaluate the websites I find for the students. There is never enough time to devote an entire lesson to website evaluation, but if I and other teachers model our use of technology, eventually the students will become better at it themselves. Having said that, I must admit that many of our teachers need to learn and model better technology use! I hope my principal will let me provide some staff development on Digital Citizenship.

11.5 Thing #10-Virtual Worlds

Thank you for the option of looking at other virtual worlds if we did not feel ready for Second Life. I read ALL the links providing information about SL and the more I read the more I dreaded joining. Cool Cat Teacher emphasized the importance of NOT entering alone. Someone posted to her blog additional advice that indicated we should immediately change our clothes and purchase advanced walking skills so that we would not look like newbies who walk like ducks. The reader said that if we didn't dress for success we would be indicating that we do not take the game seriously and would look like tourists. Who needs that? All this judging of people by how they look and dress along with not accepting newcomers is something I see all day in the high school where I teach. I sure don't want that in my second life!

I looked over the list of 200 virtual worlds for kids and found several of interest. One was based on Legos, another was Hello Kitty. At Hello Kitty one could chat, farm, build a house, battle opponents, mine and cut timber. The tutorial for building a house said that one would use up his energy by working, so be sure to eat. Of course, the food had to be purchased with Kitty dollars! These seemed very similar to Second Life but much safer and less judgmental. The downside to most of the ones I looked at is that they are still in the developmental stage and not ready to play. Some were being beta tested and would allow users to sign up for emails to be notified when the game is ready.

I did join Zwinky where I got an avatar, dressed her in the "free" clothes and got a free dorm room at ZSU. I furnished it with furniture I found at the department store. This was all part of a newcomers quest and I racked up lots of points by successfully completing the quests. My clothes didn't fall off and no one asked me for sex which happened to another participant in the 11.5 Things when she was in Second Life.

Lots of people are certainly excited about the possibilities of using Second Life in education. At the ALA Convention I learned that the Chicago ISD has an island in Second Life! I think our students could see land forms, waves, the inside of cells, and other things that they might not otherwise see by using the subscription databases, Flickr, Google Earth, and other tools we have learned about through 23 and 11.5 Things.

11.5 Thing #9 - Slideshare

Looking at all of these presentations was inspirational. I think it would be important for students to use Slideshare and similar sites so that they could see examples of good and not-so-good presentations. I have felt for a long time that PowerPoint is overused in classroom assignments. However, using Slideshare makes the process more collaborative and current. Students could access their presentations from any computer; currently if the presentation is stored in their documents on the school district's server, they cannot access from home.

Here is a great one from Slideshare called "Death by PowerPoint":
(This presentation just would not load as an imbedded file, so I created a link.)

Death by PowerPoint

11.5 Thing #8 - Screencast

Wow! I am excited about this. My first attempt was to create an instructional video to show teachers how to reserve the computer labs. This is an ongoing thing and being able to send them this clip would be much easier for everyone. I realize that I need lots of practice as was suggested in the tips and I need to speak MUCH louder.

I would like to try this method for showing students how to use the subscription databases. I usually demonstrate with a projector attached to my laptop, but the light in the library is too bright and the classes are so large that those in the back of the room cannot see.

Here is my first attempt. I may replace it when I produce a better one!