My final thoughts

I mentioned a lot of this in my last post on Warlick and his tips for setting up and maintaining a personal learning network but, for my final post, I wanted to specify a few important things that I will take from this class.

First, I am very appreciative of Evernote and wish I would have come across this during our first semester in this program. What I love about this and all the Web 2.0 tools we discussed is that you can access it at any time or any place. I like adding to it with any new piece of information I come across. Because I will be teaching a technology class, I was constantly keeping several notebooks going at the same time this summer...one for notes from Multimedia, one for YA Resources, one for Ideas, one for Resources, one for my technology class, and one for yearbook/newspaper. It is now a "one-stop shop" for all things I need to refer back to.

As I wrote in my other post, I will continue to follow "weblogg-ed" because I think it is full of ideas, but also great talking points for our line of work. I also love Wes Fryer, Arnie Abrams, and Debbie Abilock. I want to explore Doug Johnson's work a little more. I will be glad to be able to refer back to the texts from Warlick and Richardson. I also plan to follow some of my local AEA people (I've heard Norma Thiese from Keystone has a great wiki.)

As for diigo, I immediately transferred all my bookmarks to my diigo account and now use it regularly to log in to all my accounts. I have not yet made my bookmarks public or used diigo to see what other people's bookmarks are. With a little more time, I hope to do this right away.

I thoroughly enjoyed voicethread and moviemaker and know I will use these for both personal and professional projects. Just last Thursday, I put together a movie for my economic development group that I'm involved with for my hometown. It was very professional looking and I received a lot of great comments.

Although I felt overwhelmed at many times this semester, I agree with Sandy Reishus' post that floundering a bit is part of the learning process. I've felt my confidence improve over the semester...I might not have all the answers but I feel like I can figure it out or seek help. I will continue to consult with my fellow cohort members. As Sam said during our joint cohort meeting, we will be some of the main people in the library and information science field over the next 20-30 years. What an amazing thought. I really hope I can be a person that others will look to for advice or ideas in carrying out the roles of the 21st century librarian.

In my flip video, I mentioned that I want to establish a climate of creating within the school library. I want my library to be a busy place, a place where students are engaged, and a place that they look to seek out the answers they need to be successful. To be successful, students need the 21st century skills we discussed in class. The following is a note that I wrote on my evernote page...
"21st Century Skills: Creativity & Innovation, Communication & Collaboration; Research & Information Fluency; Critical Thinking & Problem Solving; Digitial Citizenship; Technology Operations & Concepts - use this with administrator."

This was a great class. In fact, the two classes this summer were probably my two favorite classes so far...Although I was overwhelmed, I was mostly excited about all the things we were doing and discussing...thanks so much to Kristin and to everyone in the class. I just felt like we shared and learned so much from each other.

Podcast 2: I Feel A Little Jumpy Around You

Here's my second booktalk podcast. Click below to view...
http://libraryhab.podOmatic.com/entry/2009-07-14T14_19_56-07_00

My experiment with Toondo

Warlick: Tips for your Personal Learning Network

Warlick has a great couple pages on managing your Personal Learning Network, beginning on page 167. The idea of PLN is new to me, but makes such good sense. I hope I can get organized and really make this effective. Like Warlick suggested, I plan to follow a few blogs first. I'm thinking weblogg-ed for one because I think there are so many good arguments on there for why "libraries matter". I also want some very practical blogs with lots of examples of technology projects. Just need to decide which are my top ones. I don't want so many that I become overwhelmed. Sometimes I think bloggers need to think quality vs. quantity.

Warlick then goes on to talk about Twitter. Again, I'm afraid of being overwhelmed, but I think it would be very fun and interesting to get into this. I really like the idea of picking of valuable tidbits of information, like when a new 2.0 tool is released or an upgrade or something. Just don't want to sort through days and days of stuff just to get something useful every so often. Anyone else feel this way?

Probably the most useful part of Warlick's PLN suggestions is on "pruning" -- limiting the number of blogs (conduct a Google blog search), use folders effectively (email, bookmarks, etc.), and for me, personally, set aside a limited amount of time regularly to explore the PLN -- key words being "limited" and "regular".

Authentic Intellectual Work

The article about the Norfolk 17 and the digital library reminded me of the program by Iowa Public Television where oral histories were recorded. I went on the website and couldn't find it anymore. Does anyone know what it was called or if they're still doing this?

While searching the web, I did not realize all the other resources available from IPTV for schools and the specific content areas. I had looked at this when my daughter was doing her Iowa History Project. Now I realized there's an area for Library and Media too. Might be worth adding to our list of resources.

Anyway, back to the article...

I think the real power behind primary source documents is the word "perspective"...for so long the majority of the history that our students learned was through textbooks...content that is edited and filtered over and over. The more our students are exposed to different perspectives, the more successful they will be...in our global society.

My Windows Movie Maker Video on Immigration

My Itsy Bitsy Spider Video

A Booktalk on Fat Kid Rules the World

Check out my second podcast. This is one of the required podcast booktalks for my Resources for Young Adults class on Fat Kid Rules The World by K. L. Going.

http://libraryhab.podOmatic.com/entry/2009-07-12T14_58_11-07_00

Digital Storytelling

I've talked about this before, but my daughter had a huge Iowa History project due last year (like a lot students do)...there are just so many applications for digital storytelling within this type of project. While trying to help her with parts of the project, I just wanted her to really get into the lives of these people who walked on this ground before us. After watching the first example in Wes Fryer's video, I immediately thought how this would have had so much more impact than the project did as it was assigned. She ended up with a series of typed reports on 15 or so topics, one of which was the typical "Interview With An Older Iowan". If she could have taken some of the old photos from my grandma and told her story in a presentation like this, she and her classmates would have learned so much more and enjoyed it so much more. Oh, the skills that could have been incorporated.

I like the word "storytelling" - we all have a story to tell!

Webinar - Digital Photographs

Arnie Abrams' webinar was very practical and useful. I love the way it had ideas for all ages and all stages of learning. Lisa Snitker has a great list on her blog for those interested in a summary. The flash card idea was very simple but very appealing...I want to share that with our foreign language teachers. I just really believe that when you create things, you learn better...just like Abrams noted about the 'phoetry'!

Two good points I liked: 1. It's not the product, it's the process!, and 2. With most of these projects, there is as much writing going on as if the students had written a paper.

I also think I want to incorporate the 'Each Teach' concept from Janie Schomberg's class. Let students explore a little and then teach others. Provide a framework and rubric and let them create. A big part of the Iowa Core Curriculum is moving away from sit-and-git teaching to "facilitating" learning.

This all fits so well!

Flickr

I want to like Flickr, but I'm still uncomfortable with it for some reason. I like all the creative products you can make from your photos, but haven't had a chance to see how expensive things are. I like some of the editing tools, but find they are limited. And I like the tagging/organizing capabilities but don't know if I want to do that for every picture. And the creative commons / copyright still seems overwhelming to me. I just need time to explore, but I want someone to really sell me on this...

Photo Editing Tools

I've commented on few other people's posts already, but I'm very interested in finding the right photo editing tool to use. I love Photoshop. There are so many things to do, though, that I'm sure I'm barely scratching the surface of it. I feel like it is more of a 'one-stop shop' for publishing. You can crop, change colors, add effects, add text, etc. My concern is the price for schools. We have it on 7 computers right now that we use for yearbook. This year I'm teaching a technology class and I want to know how Photoshop Elements compares. It's likely that it does everything I want it to do. Anyone know for sure?

As for Irfanview, I need to explore this more but it seemed so limited compared to Photoshop. It is on all the school computers now, though, which makes it appealing.

Did I miss the true cropping capabilities of Picasa? Picasa reminded me of the photo stations at WalMart or Walgreens to print my digital pictures. While it's very easy, I wanted more.

Any suggestions?

Let It Snow

This is a perfect article for those naysayers out there that resist project-based learning or integrating technology. Our principal has a poster in his office about how students learn, with the top two items being 'by creating' and 'by teaching others'. The project described in this article crosses so many curriculum areas.

I'm reminded of Kristin's checklist for multimedia: 1. Plan, 2. Create, 3. Publish, and 4. Promote. Following these steps makes it so much easier to incorporate technology into learning.

Visual Literacy

The quote in the box at the beginning of the article by Debbie Abilock is very powerful..."A photographer who is out to persuade you of his "truth" will make choices to support his view rather than reveal the truthfulness of the moment."

What necessary skills that need to be taught to our 21st century learners: visual literacy and critical evaluation -- whether it's photography, websites, commercials, magazine articles/ads (like airbrushed models!)