Thing #7 Video

Thing #5

I have been using Facebook for a while now. It has been a valuable platform for discussion. I love to stay connected with friends and family. I keep up with my little sister on there. We don't see each other much and we can still communicate through this forum. My daughter, who is living in Michigan, has fun with the different game tools on there with me. I have found many professional friends on there. Many since changing schools, and now districts, are such awesome connections to keep.
Twitter is a little different story. I joined Twitter a few months back but just didn't keep up with it. Some of the conversations seemed just trivial in some aspects. But after reading this tutorial, I can see many uses this might be helpful with. I am thinking of the teachers and their busy schedules. This might be a forum where a school conversation can go on. Also, I can see the uses in informing parents and the school community of library happenings. So I have done an about face with my perceptions of this tool and would like to use it in the future.
As far as backchanneling, my mind went immediately to college. I can think of my physics and algebra classes. It would have been so nice to have someone helping to clarify the professors attempts to get some of these more complex subjects to me as I was listening, confused and trying to clarify while taking notes. So I can see how this might help some in the higher education echalons. I also can see ESL students benefitting from this. Many of our classes with needed content could be taught in English, with a person helping to clarify immediately in their own language.

Thing #4 YouTube Video

Thing #4 You Tube Post

Using this venue opens the door for teachers to share their wonderful creations. Many teachers have some incredible creative teaching ideas. They can share these with others to use in their classrooms.
Students would find this venue highly motivating. They could use this to showcase their work for the world to see.

Thing #3

Amazing! Skype seems to be the ultimate professional connection tool. With blogs, wikis, and other online tools the discussion can take place and allow for much growth. But with this tool, you get the voice which would include inflection, feelings, dialect and more. I had pen pals with two classes in France a couple of years ago. I wish we had Skype. One of the classes in France was an ESL class. They were learning English. Having skype would have been an excellent way for the students to help them with our language. As librarians, and also teachers, visiting with others around the world creates a universe of wisdom in whatever field we are in. The only detriment is the naysayers who are afraid or unwilling to use technology. I know of some that will just say, I can't or don't have time. We have to come out of the dark ages as educators and realize our students are ions ahead of us with their use and friendliness with it.

Animoto

Thing #2

I used Wordle in 23 Things. So I tried Wordsift this time. What really impressed me about this tool was the visual thesaurus. I put an article about being a new librarian in the box and the visual thesaurus brought up some amazing connections and extensions on some very important and profound concepts of librarianship. So a student who is looking at speeches for instance, could see some interesting connections and added depth in the implied and unimplied expressions shared. This is an awesome way to get the students to add more depth and complexity into their thinking about a subject.
I love VoiceThread. This has been one of my absolute favorite 2.0 tools. I wanted to use this last year, after discovering it last summer, but was blocked by my district. Students can do some really high level thinking with this site. You displaay a concept, image, or text. Then you allow the participants to chime in with their own thoughts, which is their actual voice. You can see a running conversation on a subject. The students can read others opinions and bounce off of their ideas. I just went to thread on Readicide and the thoughts of educators across American on how schools are killing reading for students in so many ways. The ideas of each person's contribution really made me think about this sad dilemma and what to do about it.
Yeah! I made my first Animoto! It was fun and surprising. I can't believe how easy it was to create such a fun visual experience. It was a bit tricky in having too many pictures, and being cut off at the end. But with practice I feel this is a great tool to use with students. They could use this for Social Studies (primary sources, time travel photos), Science (photos showing scientific concepts), Language Arts (poetry, Book Review) and the list goes on.
Bookr looks like a fun site. The students could use this to create a picture book online, for publishing their writing. This also would be a great alternative to powerpont to showcase their projects.