Blogging again

I'm getting started again because I am going to cheer on some of the new participants in Winter SLL2.0. I needed to get reacquainted with the whole blogging thing. I also wanted to save the Information Revolution video. I think I might use it with my Cuesta students in my online class if I can figure out how to post it to Blackboard. It's kind of wierd to be writing blog posts when no one will be reading them. It's more like a journal to myself. But it is a good place to store the Youtube video until I figure out how to use it.

Information R/evolution

Week 9 Activity 23 Boo Hoo

I am not ready for this to be over! My one word that best describes this learning experience is...

transformational.

I am a life-long learner and SLL2.0 has been a motivational guide this summer. My favorite discoveries are using avatars and graphic captioners because they are fun and my students will love them. The most difficult tool for me to grasp was tagging using del.icio.us and now I can't imagine how I functioned without it.

I am anxious to get back to school to see how much access our district allows to blogs and wikkis. If we are able to use them with students, I will have lots of suggestions for how they can improve the research projects my collaborators traditionally do each year. And I have tagged some excellent podcasts and videos that will demonstrate to teachers the power of these tools.

I am sorry to have reached the end of this course, but of course, it is just the beginning of my new journey into the world of Web 2.0.Thank you, thank you, thank you to the creators and faciliators of the course. And another thank you to fellow participants who have made comments and suggestions to me and whose clever, creative blogs gave me ideas for my own.

Week 9 Activity 22 eBooks & Audio eBooks

I tagged all three sites explored in the exercise. While I would not enjoy reading a book on my computer, students may think it is just great. And I would not want them to print a free eBook using my library printer, they may not mind doing that from home. I can see great advantages to having these titles freely available to anyone who wants them.

I especially enjoyed the audio eBooks. I listened to parts of Walking by Henry David Thoreau and parts of "Jude" from the Bible.

Finally, the free books site is an excellent resource. I will explore this further with the language arts department in my school. We are always looking for ways to get more books into the hands of the students.

Week 9 Activity 21 Podcasts

Podcasts were my least favorite of the online tools I have learned this summer. I see many uses for the video podcasts used at tutorials, but I did not find any of those in the directories I explored.

I chose to search travel podcasts and was disappointed to only listen to information about places I might want to visit. The Yahoo directory did not offer travel as a category. Perhaps they agree with me that if you want to explore places, you might do better with a video.

I do see educational uses for podcasts and there are a few student podcast projects going on in my school. I hope to learn to create podcasts like those presented in Library 2.0 where there is a PowerPoint presentation, narrated, and posted online for others to view.

Bypass School, College, Myspace Censors Filters Firewall

Week 9 Activity 20 YouTube Experience

I learned that there was a video contest regarding school libraries and many of the videos posted were clever advertisements. I also found a very funny video advertising a Library Workout that made me laugh out loud.

But I selected a video teaching viewers how to bypass school, college and business filters because I learned more from it than from any of the advertisements. This video by Jimmy.com has been viewed more than 28,000 times! There were several videos of this sort to choose from. The one I selected to post wasn't particularly entertaining, but very informative, offering several options for people wanting to view MySpace from a school computer, rather than just one. It was clearly narrated, while others just showed the screens and typing, but no narration. As educators, we have a lot to learn from YouTube.


I was actually a little disappointed in the quality of videos I found on TeacherTube. Most of the library videos were made by someone whose sense of humor just did not appeal to me. And their videos buffer, causing a little viewer frustration. I wonder if the buffering would show up if the video was posted to a blog?