Tool 6

Wow! I didn't realize there were so many tools for promoting discussion in and out of the classroom! I am already familiar with several of these, but I wasn't thinking about these as "discussion promoters." I already use Google Docs, which the more I use it, the more value I see in terms of discussion, or at least getting students to express their thoughts. I have had the opportunity to use Today's Meet and Poll Everywhere several times in professional development settings. I have not tried either of these with students, but would like to try Today's Meet - especially with 4th and 5th graders. I have used Skype several times and know that there are many opportunities for using Skype in the library. One time during our weekly Books and Breakfast, one of our teachers was out of town, so she Skyped with her group. The students were so excited and their weekly discussion was great!!

One tool that has been new to me is Twitter. This was something that I wasn't really interested in using, not being one to "put all me business out there" so to speak, or read about what someone had for dinner. However, this summer at the November Learning Symphony, we were asked to create a Twitter account to use during the 3 days of training. They taught us about the power of Twitter when it comes to education. Quite frankly, I was amazed! We learned about hashtags and how to search for educational ones. Another tool they showed us was TweetDeck, which is a separate application that allows you to sort your Twitter feed into different categories for easy reading. I have downloaded TweetDeck and have just started using it. I still have a lot to learn about Twitter and TweetDeck, especially in customizing it for my use, but I have been pleasantly surprised at how useful this tool can be for education. I have signed up to follow CoolCatTeacher and let me tell you - she Tweets A LOT!! Tons of good information, but it is hard to find the time to read it all.

The other tool I tried for #6 was Wallwisher. I have seen this used before, but didn't think much of it until I started seeing some of the ideas the other teachers on my campus were posting for Wallwisher. I created one thinking specifically about Books and Breakfast, a weekly book club at our school for 4th and 5th graders. Each week during Books and Breakfast, students have a different question or discussion starter to answer based on their reading. We create bookmark for students, so they can keep track of each week's topic and their thinking, but I wonder if we could add a technology piece to it as well. Having a question posted each week on a Wallwisher, would give students another opportunity to interact with each other and their reading. All Wallwishers could be embedded into a Books and Breakfast wiki so that all groups would be able to see them. I think I am going to give this a try this year! The Wallwisher I created is posted below. If you have read the book, post a thought!

Tool 2

I have really enjoyed reading the blogs from other teachers on my campus. It is great to share in learning! Different people find different things as they look at other websites. I have learned so much just from reading their blogs.

I already have a Google Reader account. I set it up several years ago when I first did 23 Things with the SBISD Librarians. I have used it quite a bit. I have several other librarian blogs that I follow as well as blogs on children's literature reviews. I also set up a Diigo account and plan to use it to add websites for students to use in the library. I have used Delicious in the past and prior to that the site IKeepBookmarks. All of these are similar bookmarking websites that allow you to add and or access your favorite websites from any computer.

As far as building a PLN, I do have a few blogs that I follow and I have recently signed up for a Twitter account and have learned about following specific educational hash tags. While I do learn things from the blogs that I follow and specific websites that I visit, I also feel like my main PLN is my fellow colleagues right here in SBISD. I am constantly learning things from teachers on my campus as well as my fellow librarians. I can email my fellow librarians with questions and have answers before the day is over. They are a great network!

Thing 5 - Microblogging

Okay, I will admit - I am not a Facebook fan! There - I said it. To be quite honest, I just don't have time for Facebook, nor do I feel the need to tell the world every little thing that I am doing. However, I do see benefit in creating a group page for your library. I am still debating this at the moment since I found out that Facebook will now be blocked on our elementary campuses. I do realize that my opinion of Facebook is not the popular opinion and that many people are on Facebook, so I do see benefit in setting up a group page for my library. However, I am not sure if you can just set up a group page and not a personal page. Something I will look into!
Having a page for your library will be a great way to post quick updates as to what is going on in the library for students and parents.

Needless to say, I feel the same way about Twitter, but do see benefit for groups and organizations to have a page.

Now, I do see educational benefit in back-channeling. I have used Today's Meet and TinyChat at several different professional development venues and I am definitely going to try this with students! Especially 4th and 5th graders!