Twitter

Twitter is definitely something that I need to find time for. I just feel overwhelmed whenever I log into my account because I'm bombarded by tweets. I'm sure they're useful but I just cannot go through that amount every time I log in. It's gotten to the point where I loathe logging in. Isn't that sad? I made the effort to join last year and created a school library account so that I could start tweeting about things that happen in the library to get students interested. Unfortunately, maintenance became an issue when I started to hate logging in...That vicious cycle.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great tool. The ability to connect with people around the world and build a PLN is superb. I just need to know how to filter it so that I can use it without feeling guilty that I don't read every message and click on every attachment whether it be a photo, video or article...

Luckily, after last week's session, I learned about the combination of Lists AND TweetDeck...

These make accessing Twitter so much easier when I have columns to separate everything so that I can see things all at once. The best part is that I can add lists as a column so I don't have to follow certain people and still see their activity at my own leisure. This way, I can enjoy Twitter in a less stressful manner...

The other reason I hesitated about Twitter is because I don't feel that I contribute to the community very well. I want to be able to share meaningful messages that can be appreciated. Now, I think it's ok to just retweet messages that I may find important as a starting point and when I do come across interesting things, I can tweet to share my own thoughts.

I want to finish off a video that Twitter made about sharing photos on Twitter using hashtags! I didn't even think about that. Lots of new changes happening and it definitely foreshadows what our world is going to be  like soon enough:

Digital Footprints and privacy

When I give a lesson on research, I try to touch on the subject of giving credit to photos we take from the internet and where we should be taking these photos. For this, I like to use Facebook as an example of how unsafe our personal photos are. Many of the students do not realize that FB can use our photos for whatever purpose they see fit. They don't even have to give us credit for it. Imagine a photo they took that belongs to you for some sort of ad. How would you feel about that? It's nice to point that out to them to bring awareness to what they post on their FB.

This leads to the talk about how nothing is impossible and that anything we put on the web stays on the web regardless of whether we remove or secure those moments. I always encourage students to not put their last names on the web and try to avoid any personal information especially if it is not required. Always be aware of what they put online because it can backfire.

I really enjoyed the video about digital dossier. In this age, it is inevitable to have a footprint, we just need to make sure how we make it. Make it a positive one.

Social Media: Edmodo

My social media is Edmodo. I wanted to share it through a video with me and Edmodo together. Unfortunately, technology is not with me today and I discovered that I do not like Windows Movie Maker, Voicethread and my laptop currently...They have all successfully made me very upset for different reasons. And it's days like these that I can understand why teachers would rather write something out than change! So mad!!! I just uploaded a simple video of me reviewing without any editing as I was unable to do so with my current effectiveness. Hope it's still helpful:

There are also other great social media out there like Facebook, which most of us know about. I also joined the BC Teacher Librarians Ning. It's a great source of information and connection. I found some good slides about the Learning Commons and some great ideas for promoting the library. Another great source worth sharing!

Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

The first time I came across the term "web 2.0 tools" was when I first started my diploma for Teacher-Librarianship. It's funny because now I'm at the end of the trip and I'm revisiting these memories. The specific tool that was introduced to me at the time, 3 years ago, was Glogster. It was Angela Monk who told me about it and showed me some samples of student work while I was interviewing her for a course. I remember how fascinated I was by this interactive posterboard and created my own class project when I was teaching Science shortly afterwards. Below is a quick video I made of the main tools I've come across and use today:



Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.


Out of the blue, I decided to use Audioboo for the next portion of my post since I haven't used it since I did my podcast post a long time ago!

listen to ‘Web 2.0 tools’ on Audioboo

Finally, I mentioned Storyjumper in my audio track and so I'm sharing this link because the students in my school in Gr.8 and 9 really enjoyed this tool and I think it works! It's also very secure for the younger kids so that we wouldn't have to worry about publishing.

I had to use Screenr to show you how the book works because I don't know how to embed it!!! Sorry. Quality is lacking but you get the gist of it




That's it! Thanks for reading

Wikis

To be honest, I don't personally like Wikis. These very simple web pages are just not that appealing to me. They are essentially a page on the cloud where I can organize files and writing to mimic a website in its simplest format. The best part of them is that I can use them to collaborate with multiple users on a similar topic.

However, since this opportunity to research them is here, I will look into them. I found this Slideshare presentation that explains the advantages to having a Wiki and I would like to share it. It seems to point out some very important factors that I think do work well for us educators of the 21st Century. Perhaps I will be able to overlook its simplistic view.

Did you know that wiki-wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian. I didn't know that. It seems appropriate considering how quick and easy it is to make one!

A Wiki Guide For Teachers from cfinnegan

PBworks

As I already have a Wikispaces account, I thought that I would try PBworks. It is easy to sign up an account but it took me a while to get a hang of the layout. I suppose that it could be because I'm so used to Wikispaces that it threw me off for a good 10-15 minutes.

What I realized is that PBworks has a very standard layout that looks exactly the same for everyone for the free features. It has a right side margin for the menu which includes:

1. Navigator: list of all the pages
2. Sidebar: flexible space for descriptions, websites, resources, etc
3. Recent Activity: keeps a history of changes

I can add/delete pages and these pages can be blank or set templates made by PBworks. Users can be added to my page or I can create accounts for my students if they don't have email accounts to make life easier.

Having said all that, I don't like it. It's so boring. I thought Wikispaces was boring, this seems worse. Maybe I'm tired and I'm not feeling it right now but it looks pretty boring to me. See below:

I don't think I can work with this format. At least with Wikispaces I could move my side menu to the other side...I had more colour choices. I can make my title bar nicer. Am I asking for too much? Anyway, I gave up after half an hour of fiddling. Just not for me.