Thing # 16 Wikis

Wikis are quickies and fun. The SBISD sandbox was certainly effortless. I have these ideas planned for the upcoming school year to introduce wikis in my elementary school: 1) a book club wiki for my fourth graders who meet after school once a month, 2) a book wish list for everyone who would like to make a selection suggestion to the librarian, and 3) a classroom daily learning log. Here's what I have in mind: I'll start with my 50 book club members. This way they can log in and comment when they finish a chapter at home and so forth. It will give us a lot more discussion than we get now because we only meet to distribute the book and then a month later to discuss, eat, have activities, etc. Some kids come to the meetings just for the fun, food, and etc. without having finished their books. Maybe this will help that aspect also. The wish list could start to open wikis up to the brave in my school at any level. The classroom learning log I think would work like this: 20 kids, 6 subjects a day (reading, language arts, math, science, social studies, and either art, music, PE, or health.tech) and 3 classroom computers. The teacher sets up a rotation so that every kid gets to wiki every day about what they learned in one of those subjects. The challenge is that only one student can be composing at a time. I'll bet they'll want to come into the room early, during lunch and recess, after school from home, etc. My school has a focus this year on writing, and in May learning journals with different colored pages for subjects were proposed. I think wikis just might motivate the students to write more than those paper/pencil journals with the pretty color papers. I suppose we'll start the year the tree-killing way, but I hope to TRANSITION a few teachers as we journey through the year. Agrab.

Thing # 15 Web 2.0, Library 2.0, & the Future of Libraries

Wikipedia was most helpful for me because I needed the background knowledge of these terms we've been slinging around. I'm never comfortable saying things my son might ask me about and I don't know what I'm talking about. So that's a relief that I can at least give a brief explanation now without just having a blank look of panic take over while I stumble and make up some lingo mumbo jumbo. I do want to wave the yellow flag of caution as we all charge into the world of library change. Last week I listened to Dr. Michael Chirichello speak in my district about increasing leadership capacity and highly effective teams. The most salient point I took away was to never again use the evil word change. When we tell people we want/need them to embrace educational change to improve test scores or every other wonderful desired result, we DON'T VALUE WHAT THEY ARE DOING NOW. Before we go changing libraries and librarians as we know them, we must admit that the old and current style had/has value, or there would have been no attraction for all of us presently involved. Dr. Chirichello recommends the better way to approach change is to say: "We are going to make some TRANSITIONS, and I'm going to hold your hand as we make this journey together." This way no one feels threatened and devalued, and everyone can begin to appreciate the JOURNEY. The library 2.0 world is definitely a transitional journey for librarians, teachers, and administrators. We've got to take the trip for the students and their futures, because we have to prepare them for a world that does not even exist right now. They need the skills to know how to react to the transitions they will have to deal with... Agrab.

Thing # 12 Commenting Redux

I'm old school. (I'm old in general!) So I was actually holding my newspaper this morning and reading some other selected people's blog comments from my corner of the great state when I became inspired to add my opinions to the outside world. I realized the outside world was really my hometown and this was definitely an arena my opinion counted as much as these other opinions. So I have now gone and let them know how I feel about a local store that might close in our area mall and what should be the replacement store (local trend is we want a Fry's Electronics....could be dangerous with my new affinity for technology!) AND the big discussion about local teacher salaries and stipends and how they compare in the district I live in and work in. I ended with humor in one post, and a question in the other, so maybe I'll get some response, and MAYBE (this would elate me no end) I'll be one of the selections in next week's newspaper for the local neighborhood section. Oh lord, my ego is getting out of control. It's like I'm on blog drugs. I even thought of commenting in the sports section about Ron Artest becoming a Houston Rocket. I have opinions about that too. YIKES! I'm afraid to sit too close to the court...good thing I'm a teacher who can't afford a good ticket so he can't hit me! Oh wait, I'm not on that site at the moment... Agrab.

Thing # 14 Technorati & How Tags Work

I must have been more successful back in thing # 9 than I realized, because when I clicked into Technorati today the blog I tried to sign up for RSS feed last week was waiting for me. Technorati is only blogs, while the RSS could be blogs or news. Maybe I'm starting to connect the dots. I still expected Technorati to come to me like RSS does, but maybe that's not right. I did the different versions of the searches, and got the fewest results from the tags only. I liked looking at the Top 100 lists in the 2 versions, popular and authority. The world's most popular blog? Wow. I'm so unpopular, but I claimed my blog anyway. I saw no need for another widget in my life though. I must learn to ping! Agrab.

Thing # 13 Tagging & Discover Del.icio.us

This is brilliant. I have needed this forever! Haven't we all? Now if I could just go back to all the computers of my past and round up all my lost and forgotten "favorites" or invent a widget to jog my memory of those old gems then life would be yummy. I attended an in-service this week and the instructor gave us guest access to his portaportal account, which is similar to del.icio.us. I will soon be surfing through all of his picks and adding more goodies to my shopping cart. I am looking forward to seeing how the sharing portion of this will work once I get back to campus. I intend to start this with the other content specialists and then get the entire staff in on the sweetness. I think an optional after school session offering called "The most del.icio.us in-service you'll ever attend" ought to get their attention! It was fun to see my personal tag cloud. I was also interested to see the numbers of other people that had chosen the same sites I selected. I expected to see higher numbers on some. In a city of 2 million people the Houston Chronicle had less than 1000 people listed. The Chronicle needs to do a story about del.icio.us!

Thing # 12 Creating Community Through Commenting

I never expected this one to be frustrating, but I am perplexed. I received the message that I should not stick with my natural inclination of lurking. I should clearly explain my situation from the "newbie" point of view, and this would be helpful to all. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but I really have no choice. I felt so guilty that I had not responded to the first people that were kind enough to read and comment to some of my posts with a thank you of some variety that I immediately tried to figure out how to correct the error of my earlier ways. Here's what I did: I went back to the first comment I received (a compliment on my avatar! who'da thunk? and kind words of encouragement as I began this process--- it was a fantastic first comment and I was shocked by the whole experience) So I thought if I clicked on their comment to me I could comment to them, but it turns out that I'm not thanking them, I'm just writing to MYSELF! I tried clicking on the profile, but it doesn't seem to connect me to them. For them to get my thank you, they have to come view their comment to me again? That can't be right. And why do I have to sign in with a user name and password just to leave a comment? It's annoying, since it's all in Blogger. I have now also left comments for 5 others from the uhcl group of players. But if anyone can tell me how to solve my quandary I would be delighted! (Asking for help was another way to get comments!)
Agrab.

# 11 LibraryThing

I thought this was exciting. I think I would like to introduce all the members of my teacher book club to this. I think it would help us when we are stuck for ideas for what to read next. I was startled at all the different groups. I would love to get in on the group that gets the early looks at books. I would like to be in a splinter group that previews children's picture books. I especially liked the local events section that showed the libraries and bookstores within a chosen mile radius. My titles are mixed between picture books, fiction, and one short text book.
Agrab.