THING 11.5 Evaluation

Time to pack up from my beach trip and go back to work. It was fun to work on the 11.5 web lessons this summer. I enjoyed being able to work from home or on my trips using the computer.

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I liked several of the sites and will share them with my school. I liked wordle and wordshift because they are great ways to share new vocabulary. Glogster is a great way to have kids do on-line posters which they will love. Animoto allows kids to make videos from pictures. Skype I already knew about and have used. My family uses it to talk to our kids that live in Kentucky. I think teachers will love to use sites like Hulu, PBS video, and National Archives Video Collections.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

I think that there are so many things to learn and so little time to explore everything new that comes out. I was amazed at the number of things out there that is avilable to all of us. I was so glad that I was able to do the 11.5 things because someone else did the searching for me on the new technologies out there. I think that being able to learn in this manner is great.

3. were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I thought second life was interesting but I don't think that I would really ever use it. I know the kids will love it, but it really didn't grab me. I have known about facebook for a long time but I had never joined. I was surprised how quickly people asked me to be their friend. some of the people I had not heard from in a long time. Now I am hooked. Several fo my teachers have expressed interest in doing a facebook project next year.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept.

I likethe format and I can't think of any thing that could be done any different. I especially like being able to work from home to get the necessary inservice hours I need. Also this course is so revelant to what I need to be able to progress in my job. As always, it took way more than 11.5 hours to complete the course.

THING 11 Digital Citizenship

I looked all of the sites on digital citzenship and found it overwhelming to say the least. There was lots and lots of information to sort through. I liked the TEA sites but several of the links didnot work. The Texas School Safety Center was great. It had 3 sites that I thought were very good and I bookmarked them. they are: Stop Cyberbullying, Cyberbulling Prevention Tips handout, and Internet Safety Blog. I plan on sharing these with my school.

I learned that since 87% of all kids use the internet it is key that they learn how to evulate sites since their opinions are usually formed from the first site that they use. Students need to learn how to know if material is valid. They need to know how to use the deep web searches instead of always going to google. I looked at several of these deep web sites like Clusty, Intute, and Informine from the on-line education database. I know that these are on our Library Resources Page under find it, but I confess that I don't use these enough and I need to make an effort to teach them.

I will need to form several lessons on digital citizenship that include:

What is a digital citizen

Proper internet behavior

Cyberbullying

Copyright and plagiarism (have a lesson)

Valid websites

Evulation websites

Safety on the internet

Citing sources (have a lesson)

THING 10 Second Life

Second life is an online virtual world that is imagined and created by you. First you have to create an avitar that will be you in second world. I did create one but I just did some basic things to mine so that I could play. I learned how to walk around in steampunk victorian caledon. I learned how to fly and sit. I talked to 2 people. I really don't see myself doing this too much, but I think kids would love it. I can see how you could get lost in here for hours. I looked at some educational areas and liked the physics and astronomy place as well as the second china idea which I thought was great. I can see how people could experience things in another country without actually going there. I think teachers could use this to let their students experience many different things. My son said that he would go in with me so that I could experience doing something with him.

THING 9 Slideshare

Slideshare allows you to share powerpoint files online. I like it because you can also view other powerpoints. I think it would be great idea for librarians from all over to be able to share the different presentations that they make. This would be a great way to either use the presentation or adapt it for your own use.

Students could also upload their presentaions and that way they could work together from anywhere. Plus students could get ideas for their own presentations from other students.

I got some great advice from one of the sites we had to view to help me with my own presentations, so I will share.

1. Use both words and graphics----65% graphics and 35% words.

2. Don't use pictures that dont relate to the topic.

3. Adding audio is effective.

4. Use an on screen host to engage the viewer.

THING 8 Screen cast

A screen cast is a digital recording of a computer screen. Atomic learning uses screen cast to teach their lessons. I have used atomic learning a lot. I have had Camtasia for quite a while as we got it included with snag it, but I had never used it. My son worked with me to get my microphone to work as it was having problems. I had 2 ideas to make my screen cast, but the first one didn't work as I wasn't connected to the SBISD network and the second idea would have given away some library codes and I realized that I couldn't do that. The screen cast that I did was my son's idea---it is silly, but it showed that I learned how to do it.

THING 7 Video Resources

I listened to the codes of best practices video and just learned that the kids will be confused about what should be copyrighted or not. Having the book would be a good idea.

I looked at all of the video sources shown and learned that there was more out there than I was aware of. They were all good and I plan on sharing several of them with my staff.

Hulu was the first one I saw and I found the section on Farah Fawcett. While not so educational, I was interested because I went to high school with her. I was so sad that she died and I have been keeping up with all of the news items on her.

PBS video is a great site. I looked into several of the history sites and I liked how you could filter so that you could get just where you wanted to go. I looked at some cold war videos.

THING 6 I phone and I touch

I have used my friend's I phone to play with some of the apps. It was fun to use and I would like to have the same phone from Verizon when I am able to update my phone in November. I thin teachers would rather the kids have I touches than allow I phones because of the trouble they might have with students wanting to text their friends all of the time while in class. Someone called the I touch mobile learning which is how the world is moving today. We cannot be without our mobile devices. Still the kids will be able to benefit from using an I touch. I know that the library will be getting several for use next year and I will be interested in seeing how well they do. I know that there will be many uses for them such as the calculator, using google, brainteasers, on line lessons, a calendar, gps, taking notes, and being able to work together from anywhere.