It's only 2 days after Christmas and I'm already thinking I want to be back at work. Not so much because vacation isn't fun, but more so to have a little peace and quiet. That may sound kind of odd, but since Santa delivered several new toys to my children, I'm constantly being asked to play with them. Don't you think they should be able to handle that duty themselves? Nope, instead, they want dad. Dad wants peace and quiet. Dad wants time to read. Dad wants time to blog. Dad wants time to do whatever he wants. I have some ideas for "deeper" blog entries in the next few days when I actually get a chance to sit down for more than 3 minutes.

On a happier note.....

By the way, at last check the first video has over 400 views - something the girls are extremely thrilled about! We've since added a second by Lexi and Maria and another by 3 other 3rd graders.

Yesterday, we set up blogs with a sixth grade class. I figured it would go fairly smooth since I had a good handout that I stole borrowed (thanks Lou) and everyone would be on task since we were doing something fun and new. Poor assumption. For the most part, things did go fine, but there were some technical difficulties I didn't plan for. For one, not everyone wrote down their password when the website assigned them one. Now, we can request another one, but it's time consuming and I don't see the kids more than once a week. I would like everyone at the same point in the process while we start, but I'm going to have to meet with some of the kids at another time to make sure they are ready for next week. Another problem was the lack of listening skills some of the kids have. This isn't new, I'm taught for a while and I should have known, but for some reason, I was overly optimistic. For the most part, everyone's ready to go. We'll see what happens when we try reading other blogs and actually blogging next week, but I certainly can tell you one thing - I'll be hoping for the worst. That way, if something better happens, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Now, a great tip from the Four Eyed Technologist suggested that I have students read and read and read blogs prior to writing their own. This is a great idea, but I'm looking for some help. If you know of any students blogs that my sixth graders would benefit from, please leave me a comment. If you have students who are blogging, let me know. The more the merrier. I want my students to starting thinking about what they're reading and coming up with thoughtful comments. Once they see good examples of this, their blogging will be better. Thanks in advance for your help.

Permission was granted from parents, so here's the video described in the previous post.

The past couple of days brought some technology related excitement to a couple of my students. Two third graders, Lexi and Maria, are working on a podcast project with me. During center time in their classroom, they are coming down to the library. Our plan is to create a weekly podcast where they review a book they've read. It's actually going to be a booktalk/book review podcast. They've completed the first podcast and we are really excited about it.

I'm not sure how many people are using podcasts with their students, but I see great potential in a project similar to what we are doing. For this project, the students are first reading a book, then they are writing a short summary and booktalk. This time, I wrote the script with them, but my hope is that after we do a couple together, they will be able to do all the writing themselves. I see this project really motivating the students to read and write. In addition, creating the podcast will improve public speaking skills and increase technology skills. The first time we did the recording, we used Audacity. This was a pretty simply program to use, but I was hoping to take the podcast a little further. I wanted to submit the podcast to iTunes so people could search for it there and subscribe to the weekly podcast. I didn't know how to do this with Audacity and since we don't have Macs in our school anymore, I brought in my MacBook and used that. Down the road, I think using my Mac and GarageBand may be the way to go. Submitting the podcast to iTunes was simple and now we have an RSS feed for "Lexi and Maria's Weekly Podcast." If you are visiting the iTunes Store, search for "Lexi and Maria" and you'll find their work. At our school, we have over 70% of our students on free and reduced lunch, which leads me to think that not a lot of people will even be checking out the podcast through iTunes or listening it on their iPod, but who knows? Those who do have computers, will probably check out the podcast through our school website. Either way, I guess one of the goals is to share the work of the students to as many people as possible. Perhaps you want to share their work with some of the students you work with. I think the link listed is correct, if it's not, let me know.

Where is this project going to go? I'm not sure, but it's already grown. When I was using iMovie to edit the video they made (see next paragraph), I wanted to try and add a little music introduction, a sixth grader was watching. She's really into music and plays the guitar and drums. I asked her if she'd be interested in creating some introduction music for the podcasts. She liked the idea and hopefully her talents will be added to future projects. In addition, after I emailed the staff about the project, I had a fourth grade teacher ask if there was room for some of her students to do something like this. My answer - OF COURSE! It appears that what started with 2 students could grow to much more.

One of my next goals is to create a video of each book review. We already filmed the first one, but I'm hoping to share it with the world. I'd like to post the videos not only on our school website, but also on TeacherTube. I'm not going to go the YouTube route with third graders. I've sent permission slips to both girls' parents for permission for the video to be posted online. Knowing the parents a little, it shouldn't be a problem. I will certainly update this post to add the video if I get permission. I think it would be pretty powerful if the students noticed that hundreds of people have seen their work.

Take a peek at their work and let me know what you think? How can we make it better?

I mentioned in an earlier post about making the switch to del.icio.us for students links on my school website. While I'm nowhere near complete making the full transition, I'm loving the result. We used to have links for the students all ove the place - on 3 different pages of our school website and in folders all over our school server. Now, they are going to be in one place, organized well with easy access. I introduced the new list to a fourth grade class today and they picked it up quickly. To me, the best part is going to be the ease of adding new sites to the list. In a matter of seconds, I can add a new site and have it ready for the kids. I no longer have to be at the one computer in our computer lab that allows me to update the school site. I no longer have to go through multiple steps to simply add a link. Now, with just a few clicks, we can add more great resources for our students. The thousands three of you reading this probably know quite a bit about del.icio.us, but if you don't, I came across an outstanding video about social bookmarking that describes how social bookmarking works. I have to check out more of the videos this site has to offer because from what I've seen, they are pretty good.

As far as the blogging goes with students - we introduced the concept of blogging yesterday and later this week or early next week will get one of our sixth grade classes blogging. Hopefully setting up their blogs won't be too troubling. If any of you have your students blogging and are looking to expand the conversations, please let me know by leaving a comment. We should have our first blog entry in the next week or so. I'd like to get the kids up and running so they could possibly add entries over Christmas Holiday break that is coming in a couple of weeks.

Okay, I've decided what to do first. In an earlier blog, I noted how overwhelmed I am with the abundance of Web 2.0 tools that are out there. Taking some advice from a comment Bud the Teacher left me, I've decided to start slow and pick one tool to focus on....blogs! Now, I've been blogging for a little less than a year and am really enjoying it. When I first started, one of the things I did to keep up with some of my fellow bloggers was to list their blogs on my blog page. If I came across a new blog I wanted to read, I copied the URL, went to my blog, edited the layout and added the blog to my list. Then, I'd visit all the blogs and see if they wrote anything new - some did, some didn't, but I checked every one. I ran my total up to 29 blogs listed on my blog page as "Things I Read." Some of you might be thinking - hey dummy genius, there's an easier way!

You're right, there is. I discovered Bloglines and have been using that as a great way to keep track of the new feeds from my blogging friends. This has really been a great tool for me. Earlier this week, I made another discovery - Google Reader. Sure, Google is behind a wide variety of 2.0 tools, but some of them are pretty good. Currently, I've divided the blogs I read and subscribe to into 2 groups - Educational Technology and Other Stuff. I'm using Bloglines for one and Google Reader for the other. I figure this way I'll use both for a while and then decided which one I like better. Perhaps I'll like them both and continue with my current plan. Either way, I'll have to agree with a comment from Darren at Drape's Takes that these tools can make your online time more efficient. I now have way more than 29 blogs I'm keeping track of and I'm probably spending less time doing it now than I was before. In addition, when I come across a new blog that interests me, I can simply click on a button in the toolbar of my browser and it's instantly added to Bloglines or Google Reader.

Now, my next tool to learn more about is going to be del.icio.us! I've played around with this personally and have an idea on how to use this at school.

Please give me your thoughts on this. I'm in charge of our school web page. Among other things, I manage lists of links for our parents and students to use. Every time I want to add a new site, I either add it to the general list of links or put it on the specific grade level page. We use Contribute for creating the web pages and I must do all updates from the computer in my library. This can be a pain the butt because sometimes I find things to add when I'm not at school. If teachers want something added, they tell me about it in the hall (wonderful stupid idea) or email it and then I add it when I have time. I was thinking about using del.icio.us as a better way to keep track of the links we use. I could create a link to a del.icio.us page I've created for our school from our school site. Updating or adding links could be done from anywhere. In addition, if I properly trained the teachers, they could also add links to the list. We could label grade level specific sites with specified tags for better organization. Teachers, students, and parents could narrow the list to the grade level or subject area they need by selecting a specific tag. This sounds like a great idea and just might work, but perhaps I haven't thought of everything. If you've got a thought on this, let me know - I need your collective brainpower!

I'm getting overwhelmed. I'm finding so many outstanding blogs that I'm having a hard time figuring out where to start. There are tons of teaching blogs out there and tons of Ed. Tech blogs that I'm really starting to enjoy. However, I'm finding out this world is much bigger than I imagined. My bookmarks on del.icio.us are growing by the minute. The list is still very small compared to what's out there, but I guess I better start small - there's only 24 hours in the day.

I have to start narrowing down my interests. There's so much I want to learn more about - RSS feeds, Google Reader, Twitter, Ning, and others. I haven't even touched wikis yet. I'm using Bloglines - and I find it very useful. I'm in the very early learning stages of Twitter, recently signing up. I have no idea, at this point, how it works. If you have an idea, let me know. Look me up or something - if that's possible. I'm pretty sure my user name is imcguy. Should I learn more about this before moving on to something else?

Should I focus more on my blogging and less on other Web 2.0 tools? Should I focus more on reading the good stuff that's out there commenting on it rather than worry about how many people will comment on my blog? I'm upset when I don't get any comments - should I even care? Should I continue learning more about del.icio.us and how to share my bookmarks? What tool should my students start using? What would they benefit from first? So many questions.

This learning environment is huge. There is no way I could get this information from the teachers in my building, my department, or even my district. This is truly incredible. Now, how can it benefit the kids? How can I get classroom teachers to see the value of this? How can this increase test scores - or can it? While we need to prepare students for a future that most likely doesn't exist yet, how can we teach these skills when there is so much focus on getting our students to be proficient learners. These tech skills will help them as they get older, but I'm not sure how they will get kids to pass the test now!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Time to give thanks for:

Good families,
Good jobs,
Good friends,
Good blogging!

Yesterday wrapped up our third evening of parent teacher conferences. Spending three evenings at school followed by a day with students can be very exhausting. Now that I'm out the classroom and working as the Library Media Specialist, my thoughts on conferences are a little different. During the time we have for conferences, I get to get work done that I don't have a chance to do during the day. What a concept - uninterrupted (almost) time to work. Classroom teachers do get a little jealous when I tell them I had a chance to get some work done, but I guess that's just part of the job.

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There's been a lot of blogging about Web 2.0. I'm just starting to catch up with some of the great ideas that are out there and how these technologies can be put to use in the classroom. I've podcasted, use Flickr, GoogleDocs, del.icio.us, Bloglines, etc. and have some experience working with these great tools. I need to learn about wikis, but Andrew's Web 2.0 tutorial for Teachers is one place I'll look. Obviously, I've created more accounts on a variety of sites, thanks Clay, than I thought I would. If I had a classroom I know I could put these to use. However, in my position and Library Media Specialist, I have a little bit of a problem. I've blogged before about the lack of collaboration between classroom teachers and me. Sometimes it's good, most times, it's not. Yes, some of the problem can be contributed to me, but I'm going to put most of the problem on the teachers. Now, I'm not throwing them under the bus. The problem isn't the lack of interest, it's the lack of time and knowledge. It's also the pressure put on them to make sure they have a balanced literacy program, 90 minutes of math, and other crap they have to do to try and get all students to be proficient. I truly believe that if there was time built into our schedule on a weekly basis to meet and plan for upcoming projects, we'd be doing more. We don't have this time and I (we) need to find a solution. There's so much I'd like to do with the kids that can help them become better writers and readers, but since I only have the students in the computer lab for about 30 minutes a week, my time is severely limited. The other huge problem is the lack of knowledge of Web 2.0 tools. I guarantee that if I asked my staff, especially third through sixth grade teachers to tell me what they know about Web 2.0, all 9 would say they knew very little or would say nothing. They may have heard about podcasting and blogging, but as far as how to do these tools or incorporate it into their lessons, they'd be lost.

It's not their fault - or is it? Many teachers keep up to date with new reading strategies, classoom management techniques, and new ideas related to instruction. Should teachers also be on the cutting edge, or at least be up to date with technology? Should the school district put more emphasis on new technology and how to use it? If some can become competent with "what's new" in education, shouldn't everyone? I think these are all good questions that may have different answers. Those of us who have more knowledge about new ideas, such as Web 2.0 tools, need to step up and start teaching the teachers more about this. We need to get the kids excited, we need to get the teachers excited. You know we don't want to leave any educators behind!

This isn't going to be education related, but it is technology related and made me realize I better monitor my four year old a little closer when he's on the computer.

My son collects Disney diecast Cars characters of which there are many. We've visited the Wal-Mart and Toys R Us stores around us to gather what we could. Hey, at $3.50 I don't mind spoiling him a little. Anyway, we've had to pick up a few on eBay since some are hard to find. My son loves looking at the list on eBay at all the Cars for sale - the list is usually well over 1,000 available. He likes to see what new Cars are available and compare those to the 40 or so he has.

This morning, he wanted to look at the list again on the computer in the basement. I went down to say good bye to him before heading off to school and found him BIDDING on a car! Wow, a four year old doing a little shopping. I'm sure this isn't the first time it's happened, but when I gently told him he couldn't do that, he started to throw a slight temper tantrum and question why he couldn't buy a car.

Technology is really taking over the lives of our children. Just think, five years ago, who would have imagined that a four year old would do a little shopping on eBay!

And then there's the Webkinz World!