Reflections on School Library Learning 2.0

1. Favorite discoveries/exercises: Zoho writer (it will solve a lot of access problems for students at school), and Library Thing ( a way cool site, I want to review books!).
2. Assisting lifelong learning goals: I feel a part of the 21st century. I have been a school librarian since 1985 and it is so refreshing to be able to learn new things every year. This course has shown me that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
3. Take-aways or surprises: I was surprised about how many new things there were to learn. I expected to learn a few new ideas, but the amount I learned was way more than I expected. The material was excellent.
4.Improvements: More feedback would be helpful. Perhaps pairing two librarians up for comments to blogs. Sometimes I was confused by whether I was doing a CSLA or PSLA program.
5. Future participation: A definite Yes.
6. Learning experience: An amazing adventure that all librarians should experience.

Thank you PSLA!!!

#23 (WEEK9) Copyright and Creative Commons

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the video created using Disney films. The short clips of words were a little nervewracking at first, but once I got into the rythm it was fun. The question for today: "Find an example or attribution that shows this program has been modified from its original." was a bit confusing. Does this mean the video or the actual School Library Learning 2.0? The answer to the first is the credits at the end of the video clip listing all of the movies that were used. If the question refers to the second, then the answer is found on the right hand side of the School Library Learning 2.0 page: "Learning 2.0 is a discovery learning program created by Helene Blowers. Content and style for School Library Learning 2.0 and Classroom Learning 2.0 have been borrowed and duplicated with permission, under a Creative Commons License. "

I now have a greater respect for copyright laws, know a bit more about them, and will remember to use them from the adorable and memorable video. Thank you.

#22 (WEEK 9) eBOOKS and AUDIO

So, I mentioned audio books in my last podcast. I just love them. The Free Library of Philadelphia, as well as the Montgomery County Library System, has audio books available for free. However, you can't use Macs or ipods. All of the computers, both desk tops and laptops, in the school library are macs. A large number of the computers in Philadelphia schools are Macs and it's a travesty that this resource is not available to our students.

I did explore the World EBook Fair's site for free downloads from the Gutenberg Project. The amount of resources available is amazing. Actually, I looked at the World's Ebook and found that the ones I checked out weren't printable and needed an authorization as well. Next, I looked at the Internet Archive resource. I searched for Dicken's Great Expectations since this is the summer reading for seniors at my school. It seems that this has to be read online (?) as I didn't see a way to download it, especially since the pages were from an actual book. Then I explored the eBooks About Everything site. This site contained ebooks for sale and the prices are more than the $14.95 I pay for my Audible.com subscription. There were audio books there that are not available on audible.com such as James McBride's newest title. Lastly, I selected imslp which is a music site for sheet music. I chose to look for Chopin (no specific reason) and not only is sheet music available, but there were links to Wikipedia and a list of all of his works.

These are all awesome web sites for different reasons.

#21 (WEEK 9) Podcasts

I had a problem getting to some of the podcast directories listed: podcast.net's server wouldn't come up, nor did yahoo podcasts. I was able to get to the educational podcast directory. I have been using podcasts for several years, starting with audible.com. I download one book a month. It costs 14.95 per month and it's well worth it as I listen in my car whenever I drive. That way, I can "read" an extra book while driving. I also download podcasts frequently from itunes, mostly the free ones like grammar girl, car talk, and slate gabfest. They automatically appear in my itunes account each week since I subscribe to them. Two years ago, another teacher and I collaborated on a grant for podcasting. We received 5 laptops from the district so that our students could make their own podcasts. It was a wonderful experience because the students were so involved and loved doing their podcasts on different topics they had researched. I can see how the rss feed will be helpful to students doing research, especially for senior projects, which involve a longer time period.

#20 (WEEK 9) YouTube

I have known about YouTube for a while; I even learned to crochet from a YouTube posting. I was curious to see if there was anything on YouTube from my high school, Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Social Justice and there was! In 2006, Univ. of PA management students helped our students put on a fashion show for peace. I guess the Penn students made the video and posted it. There are many segments to it and here is the website or maybe the video will appear. One of the things I learned from this is that any cell phone videotaping anything at school can appear on youtube since almost all students have a cell phone! Well, I see that the video is a problem so here is the website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCtRZTx6A4s. I'll have to work on the video part. I hope you enjoy it.

#19 (WEEK 8) LibraryThing

Library 2.0 is getting better every week. Just when I thought nothing could be better than zoho writer (I'm going to encourage everyone in my school to use it and just touted it at a senior project professional development) the next of thing is LibraryThing. What fun. It was so easy to use. Even though I have Follette's Destiny catalogue and circulation program at school, I can see how LibraryThing can be so helpful for those libraries (and there are many in my district) who can't afford an electronic circulation/catalog system. It is so amazing that this is free. I am going to share this with my book club, my family, and anyone else I can think of. A great way to build a community of readers. Here is the link to my personal LibraryThing catalog which will be growing in the future.

*18 (WEEK 8) Zoho Writer

I have to start school this week. Well, not really; it's a three day professional development at Temple Universtiy about senior projects. I will definitely bring up Zoho writer. I can't believe that this is a free program. I hear advertisements all the time on the Grammar Girl Podcast for a program just like this, but of course you have to buy it. This is great.

A lot of times, students will type an assignment at home and then try to email it to school so that they can open it up and work on it. Sometimes, their word processing program doesn't work with the computers we have at school. Zoho writer will solve this problem. Zoho writer is the best. I want to learn more about it!