The Journey Continues...11.5 - Thing 1

I enjoy this simple style of video that is found in Common Craft videos. Love that the author of this video gives credit to Lee LeFever of Common Craft and mentions that he asked for permission to use this simple design idea.

The video is gives a great view of the “ideal” Networked Student. The idea that students become more responsible for their own learning and use 2.0 technology tools to reach their learning goals while being guided by their teacher is very exciting. How will it work in the real world? That remains to be seen…

The Student: As I mentioned earlier – this student is “ideal”! Who wouldn’t love a student like this?! The roles and responsibilities of the student in this learning model are very great indeed. The student basically is taking responsibility for their learning all the way from developing a knowledge base, to creating wikis or websites about what they have learned. The video mentioned several roles of the student:

1. The student takes control of his own learning.
2. The student creates a personal learning network.
3. The student must be self-motivated to seek out sources of learning and information.
4. The student must be critical of information in order to sift out the accurate information from the inaccurate.
5. The student must learn how to organize this information in order to create new knowledge from what he has read and discovered.

Wow! This is a lot to ask of students – especially from a society of kids who have not been taught to do this and who like instant gratification. I don’t know many adults who would be successful in this type of learning environment.

The Teacher: I love the descriptions this video gives to the teacher: learning architect, change agent, learning concierge, modeler, connected learning incubator! These are great and require teachers to think differently about their role. I think the role of teacher in “Connectivism” is tremendous! Keeping students on track for one thing, would be a great undertaking.

The Librarian: Can the librarian play this role – absolutely! I think we are already taking steps in this direction by helping students learn how to locate and analyze information and by helping teachers learn how to facilitate projects that focus on “Connectivism”.

Playing with Technology #4

Last exploration today was images. I love using the image generators that we learned in Library2Play. This was created in Big Huge Labs - so much fun! The picture came from SuperFantastic on Flickr Creative Commons. Love the dog!

Playing with Technology #3

This exploration was focused on video. We could either use TeacherTube or Discovery Education. I chose Discovery Education because TeacherTube was taking a long time to load. However, when I uploaded my video into Windows Movie Maker, I had trouble with the audio. The audio would play fine until I placed it on the Storyboard and then the audio played much faster making it sound like chipmunk talk! I tried several things to see if I could change that, but haven't discovered a fix as of yet. If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know! Until then, enjoy the chipmunk talk!

Again, this only took minutes to load from home and it would NOT load at work. Maybe there were too many of us clogging our super highway at work!

Playing with Technolog #2

Our second exploration today was Photostory. This is a program I was already comfortable using. However today I explored images from Discovery Education, one of our online databases provided by our district. There are some great images here! I attempted to load this during our meeting today, but it would never load. I left it loading for over 2 hours and never got it to load. I am now trying it from home! I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will work!

Yea! It worked. It finished loading in less than a minute. Wonder what the problem was today?

Playing with Technology #1

I have been wondering what direction to move with my blog. I have composed many post in my head (mostly in the car). Today I was given direction. In one of our library staff development meetings we reviewed and focused on some different technology skills so that we can better help our students and teachers with these on campus.

The first was audio:

Here we worked in Audacity and downloaded free music from Incompetech. This was a new sight for me. I definitely want to spend more time exploring this site. I also learned that you cannot post an audio file on your blog. I would have to post it on a wiki and then link my blog to it. Instead, I have chosen to use Photostory, add a few pics and import my music. Here it is if I can get it to load. (Getting things to load today took a long time!

A New Look

I decided since the Library2Play and my journey of my first "23 Things" was over, I would change the look of my blog. Therefore, I have spent the last hour, not posting mind you, but choosing a new template, picking fonts and colors, and checking and rechecking to see how it would look. So far I like it, but you never know, I may need to change it tomorrow!

I have been thinking about posting and have composed several posts in my head on the way to work. (It is about the only time and place I have to myself these days!) I even have some good ideas for future posts! I have also been spending some time looking at all the other blogs. (Everyone who was in the Library2Play!)

At our Monday librarian's meeting, those of us who were able to muddle through all 23 Things got a certificate and the promise of a new toy! Plus, we have been told that there will be a new adventure for us in the fall: "11 & 1/2 Things." It is the 1/2 that makes me worried! However, I look forward to that adventure as well! Some teachers at my school who completed the 23 Things received their certificates in the mail today. They were just as excited as I was and we have all felt a little lost since completing our 23 Things. I think at the moment we are just aimlessly wondering through the blogs to see who is still posting and hoping to find something new! Give us a few weeks and we will be back with new posts of our own!

I'm now a graduate!

I just logged on to see who else finished their 23 Things and I found my blog listed under "Congratulations Graduates!" Wow! What a thrill! There were times I didn't think I would make it and now I am a 23 Things Graduate! It will be sweet dreams tonight! Thanks VMB for updating me on Library2Play!