Conclusion and Self Assessment

I have learned so much since January.  I am proud of my new skills and I am glad to share them with the other teachers in my school.  I understand there remains a great deal for me to learn, but the new skills I need to learn hold much less stress and awe.  I feel much more prepared to incorporate technology into our school. I am taking several classes  this summer to keep up with the new technology that is out there.  I also plan to do the professional development exercises from the text I did not get a chance to complete during the semester.  I am planning on implementing a 23 things site for our school to help the other teachers and my self be more up to date and tech savvy.  I talked to my principal and I am on the professional development calendar for the beginning of the year so I can take time to show the teachers how to set up the projector to the lap top, how to use the scanner- copier we have as well as the white board we found in the security room.  i will show teachers how to use the database the district pays for to help the children do research safely and I will collect a list of sites  to find free materials and teaching tools.  I have ordered another ELMO machine and we ordered another COW (Computers on Wheels)  for next year.  I am requesting that the technology people install the software so we can use the pod casts for teaching science vocabulary.  This has been a great class and professional exercise for me I look forward to learning more in the technology field.

Tags are great, but does your group have a plan for retrieval of your research?

I can now see what the fuss is about, social bookmarking is great.  I understand how learning a formal system of labeling topics is difficult and not everyone who surfs the web can take the time to learn a formal system.  HOWEVER, someone needs  more formal training if you have a lot of people in your group tagging, and the group wants to retrieve the information from those  valued web sites two months or two years  from now. What tags did you use? It seemed clear at the time but now can you remember after tagging one hundred sites?  I think that tagging is a great way for people working together to narrow down the overwhelming amount of sites to look at on any given subject.  I think that if you need scholarly information, reliable sites and databases, pathways back to the best sites and reasonable, usable organization of the information contained in the sites, some form of subject authority needs to be used.   I am teaching the other teachers  how to use the social bookmarking and they like it very much, but we use the suggested tags .  I think my tags are helpful to my peers as well, but we agree to use the suggested tags for the site  and if we use personal  tags we agree to place them at the end of the list.  I have found that a short list of possible tags for subjects is helpful to students who may not know synonyms and are unclear on how to tag so they can search by tags later.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

I think Professor Wesch gave the video this name because he is trying to make the point  that everyone who uses the Internet is changing the Internet, and the Internet is changing us as a society.  The web has  gone from being "a place to go" to find information, to being "the place to be" and create the information others want.  The web is now an interactive, living, evolving, collection of connections.  For better or worse we make it what it is by how it is used and how we choose to use it.   We made 2.0, we are  making the new version, and the next version as well.

Using Quick Response Codes in the Library

The first way I think the QRC could be used is to connect the reader with reviews of books and magazines, I would offer a way to link to reviews others had written, so the patron could consider if the book was what they were looking for that day.  I would also link book lists to the code.  If you like this book, scan the code  and here is a list of other books and magazines you may enjoy. The list would only include the ones the library had to offer not all of the possibles.    The code could be linked to resources like the times open and bus schedule for the nearest public library,  groups that meet at the library to discuss other topics similar to those covered in the book with the code. The code could also be scanned and sent to other friends as a book suggestion,( this is a great book, you should take a look), recommendation. I also think eventually that the codes created for the books will be similar to the bar codes we have now to check to book out of the library. A reader could scan the code with their cell phone and then the phone calls the library to ask for the book. The library computer checks the book out and calls the cell phone to tell the reader if they can check out the book  or not.
I think the codes could also go with maps of where to find similar  objects in the library where the reader is standing and if the materials are located in a different part of the library the tag would have directions to the stacks. The patron scans the code and gets the directions. The codes could also provide directions on how to check out a book, get a library card, how to renew the library card and other information needed by readers.
Quick Response Codes are filled with potential for librarians to help readers use the library.
Edna

This is the old BLOG please go to ednamooresawey5720.blogspot.com to see the current blog until I figure out how to delete this old blog

Individual Technology Assessment

As an educator my strength in technology is that  I  know I am not very versed in technology.  I understand that the only way to keep up with the newest technology is to experience it first hand  and become proficient in that technology. The best way to be proficient is  to make it meaningful to my students by teaching them how to use the technology safely and help other teachers learn what I know. I plan to learn as much as I can about the new technology in professional development and collaboration.  My weakness in technology going out and finding the equipment needed to learn new technology.  My district is very technology poor at the elementary level and I do not have ready access to new computers or other equipment like white boards or ELMO's or other new machines or new software.  To address my personal weaknesses I plan to seek out librarians in the high schools and other national board teachers with whom I have worked   in the past and who are knowledgeable and ask them to let me come and learn to use the technology.  I also plan to hold technology updates for the teachers at my school one Wednesday a month after school to help me share my new knowledge with other classroom teachers.