Wow! After a looooong vacation from the 23 Things, I'm ready to get back to it and finish things up.
I like using Google docs because it's accessible from any computer and it's free. People working on a group project can have access to the docs they need without emailing them back and forth to each other--wish I'd known about this for those group projects in grad school! It doesn't have quite the functionality of Microsoft Word, but who really uses all the tools Word offers on a regular basis?
There's also OpenOffice.org, which for the most part, is almost exactly like Office, except you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for it. It's great for those people who are on the wrong side of the digital divide and may not have access to Office. I tried out the Word equivalent and liked it very much. It had all the functions that *I* use in Word, plus you can choose which format you want to save in. It's compatible with all the versions of Word. I admit, I'm not a spreadsheet expert, so I didn't really check out that part of it. At least not yet.
When a tool is online, it makes it much more accessible to everyone and "collaboration friendly," for sure.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Thing #17: Rollyo
Way cool! This is one I'd NEVER played with at all, and now I wonder why it's not more "out there." Or is it just that I'm that out of it? I love this tool, especially being able to search any site with the Rollyo roll bar. That way I can always search from the same place and not have to look for each individual web sites search window. Plus, being able to add sites to a search roll on the fly is just awesome.
Rollyo allows educators to create kid-friendly search rolls or subject specific search rolls for their students to use. It's also fun to make subject specific search rolls for your fellow educators. I made one that includes some blogs that do reviews of children's and YA literature: http://rollyo.com/infogoddess2b/childrenya_lit/.
Rollyo allows educators to create kid-friendly search rolls or subject specific search rolls for their students to use. It's also fun to make subject specific search rolls for your fellow educators. I made one that includes some blogs that do reviews of children's and YA literature: http://rollyo.com/infogoddess2b/childrenya_lit/.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Not a Thing, but Pertinent...
There is an interesting conversation going on over at John Green's Weblog about whether Google (and by implicaton, the Internet) is changing the way we think. (John Green is the author of the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award winner, Looking for Alaska.)
He's asked folk to read an article in which the author proposes that our thinking skills are going downhill. Considering what we're doing here with the 23 Things, I highly recommend going over there to check out the article and the comments...and to add your two cents' worth, if you wish!
I'll update this with MY opinion a bit later!
He's asked folk to read an article in which the author proposes that our thinking skills are going downhill. Considering what we're doing here with the 23 Things, I highly recommend going over there to check out the article and the comments...and to add your two cents' worth, if you wish!
I'll update this with MY opinion a bit later!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Thing #16: Wikis
Hurrah for wikis! Getting everyone's ideas down in one place without everyone having to be IN the same place...woo hoo! The possibilities are limitless IF everyone has access to the technology. Teachers can use them for planning within grade levels, across grade levels...heck, in ALL kinds of planning! I'd like to have a wiki to help me collaborate with my teachers and another one set up for students where they can share book reviews and create lists of "must-reads." How about one to collect website resources for student learning? If you find a good educational website, let everyone know...add it to the wiki!
I'd like to have book clubs for my teachers, both for professional development and just for fun, but sometimes it's difficult to get everyone together. Perhaps a wiki is the solution (although I think the face-to-face synchronous interaction is an important part of a book club).
I wish I'd been able to use a wiki back when I was teaching eighth grade langauge arts. I taught three different sections a day, and often, these classes were reading the same shared reading passage. The students of each class would annotate a passage as I recorded the annotations on the overhead. They had complete ownership of the annotations, so as you can imagine, each class's perception of the piece was often different from the other classes'. First period might find something in the text that third period didn't. I was perplexed. How to share first period's observations with third period without seeming like I was pointing out that third period had "missed" something (and implying they hadn't done a good job)? With a wiki, all three of my language arts sections could have worked collaboratively as one unit and put all their ideas together as one shared understanding of the text. Fabulous!
I'd like to have book clubs for my teachers, both for professional development and just for fun, but sometimes it's difficult to get everyone together. Perhaps a wiki is the solution (although I think the face-to-face synchronous interaction is an important part of a book club).
I wish I'd been able to use a wiki back when I was teaching eighth grade langauge arts. I taught three different sections a day, and often, these classes were reading the same shared reading passage. The students of each class would annotate a passage as I recorded the annotations on the overhead. They had complete ownership of the annotations, so as you can imagine, each class's perception of the piece was often different from the other classes'. First period might find something in the text that third period didn't. I was perplexed. How to share first period's observations with third period without seeming like I was pointing out that third period had "missed" something (and implying they hadn't done a good job)? With a wiki, all three of my language arts sections could have worked collaboratively as one unit and put all their ideas together as one shared understanding of the text. Fabulous!
Thing #15: Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries
How exciting it is to be a librarian in this age of technological and informational revolution! What 2.0 means to me...
1. It means the library as a network of people sharing, using, creating, manipulating information. The library is not necessarily about physical space.
2. It means collaboration. Not just collaboration among library professionals to make information more accessible to patrons, but collaboration between library professionals and patrons and among patrons themselves.
3. It means continual re-evaluation of the information needs we information users have and the information tools we have, and adapting our methodology. It is constant evolution.
4. It means the librarian as innovator and integration specialist, a person who can take new technologies and create ways for them to improve the way we find and manage information, and therefore, the way we live.
1. It means the library as a network of people sharing, using, creating, manipulating information. The library is not necessarily about physical space.
2. It means collaboration. Not just collaboration among library professionals to make information more accessible to patrons, but collaboration between library professionals and patrons and among patrons themselves.
3. It means continual re-evaluation of the information needs we information users have and the information tools we have, and adapting our methodology. It is constant evolution.
4. It means the librarian as innovator and integration specialist, a person who can take new technologies and create ways for them to improve the way we find and manage information, and therefore, the way we live.
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