Week 9 Thing 23 - Copyright and Creative Commons

For Thing 23, I viewed the very clever video "A Fair(y) Use Tale". This was a unique way to convey the meaning of copyright law, how long copyright lasts, public domain, and what constitutes fair use. I visited the Creative Commons site and was impressed that it is a nonprofit organization, and that everything they do is free. I logged on to Lawrence Lessig's blog, and learned that he is moving on from ten years speaking to audiences about free culture and copyright to focusing on corruption in Washington. I watched his recent You Tube video on Governor Sarah Palin's experience. He used a lot of research to back up his position. I found it interesting that the portraits he used of the vice-presidents came from Wikipedia.

As far as the School Library Learning 2.0 course, the top of each of the "Thing" pages has the statement: "An online learning program for CSLA members and friends". The home page for PA Online Web 2.0 gives the following statement: "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." Along the way during the course you could see places where content was change to address Pennsylvania curriculum (eg. Week 7 Wikis - adding an entry to PA Curriculum Connection.)

Week 9 Thing 22 - eBooks and Audio eBooks

Today I checked out http://worldebookfair.org/. At first I was surprised to see that joining the World Public Library costs $8.95 per year. (I was thinking that this was a free resource.) However, I scrolled down and found the Project Gutenberg catalog. Here, I could search 30,000 ebook titles, and download them for free. I was curious about the top 100 titles. By clicking on the Top 100 link, I saw the top 100 titles downloaded for yesterday's date. The number one title was Manual of Surgery Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition by Miles and Thomson, with 885 downloads. I looked for children's books, and didn't find one until The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures by Lorinda Munson Bryant, with 172 downloads.
I also checked to see which titles were added recently. I could only find two for children - from Laura Lee Hope's Bobbsey Twins series.
I think the ebook library is a great idea. However, I searched the Project Gutenberg catalog for "classics" such as Dr. Seuss, Curious George, and Beatrix Potter. I didn't find any of these titles. Perhaps this will be more helpful to me when more of a children's collection develops (for free downloads).

Week 9 Thing 21 - Podcasts

To explore podcasts, I first went to I-Tunes. I have been using this site for a while, and have a library of songs that I carry on my I-Pod. It was interesting to explore the Podcasts there. However, I was more interested in the National Book Festival that took place in Washington, D.C. yesterday. I was unable to attend, but found a list of 20 podcasts from different authors. Here is the link:

http://www.loc.gov/podcasts/bookfest08/index.html

I listened to an interview with Jan Brett. She created the poster for this year's National Book Festival. The poster features the capitol, as well as animals carrying books. These characters represent the state animals of the U.S. Jan Brett also encouraged parents to give children time and space to create. Many children are very busy with activities, but need quiet time to find their own creative talents.
I think podcasts are a useful tool for lesson planning. It gives the students a chance to have a virtual field trip.

Week 9 Thing 20 - You Tube

Of all of the sites to explore in this course, I was most familiar with You Tube. The video I selected was Abbott and Costello performing the classic "Who's on first?" baseball sketch in their 1945 film "The Naughty Nineties". The reason I selected this video was that today's students are often unfamiliar with popular culture from the previous generation or two. My own 7th grade son was describing something to me last year, and we went round and round before we finally understood each other. I mentioned that it felt like the "Who's on first?" routine. He had no idea what I was talking about. It was great to be able to go to You Tube and find Abbott and Costello's original performance!
As far as application to library websites, I think that anything visual is a hook for students. You Tube is wildly popular, so watching any video related to libraries would be appealing if presented on this site. There is a pair of ladies who do a video each year for the PA Young Reader's Choice Award books for the middle school level. I could have students work on a video promoting this year's elementary lists. You could have students do videos on any library topic. Our fifth graders focus on Newbery books. This could make for interesting video productions.

Week 8 Thing 19 - Library Thing

Library Thing is definitely a highlight for me from the whole Library 2.0 course. Last spring the faculty at my school started a book club. We have read three books so far, with our fourth group meeting in a couple of days. We found that we needed help choosing books to read next. We used a Newsweek magazine article about 100 books not to miss, and it has been helpful. We found several book club websites, but I wish I would have known about Library Thing!
I entered nine books in my library, three of which our book group has read, and six are coming up in the months ahead. I plan to share the site with my faculty. Perhaps those readers who were a little unsure about joining will enjoy reading the information available on Libary Thing.
Here is the link to my library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/bacorcoran
I was able to find discussions for all nine of the books I entered. The lowest number of comments was 41 for the book The Best of Friends: Two Women, Two Continents, and One Enduring Friendship. The highest number in my library was 15,359 comments for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
This website is very user friendly. I particularly enjoy the connection to others who also have these titles in their library. You can get many new ideas for your next great read.

Week 8 Thing 18: Zoho Writer

This is the first I have ever heard of ZOHO. Two features are really exciting to me. The first is being able to access documents from anywhere. I constantly use my thumb drive or email myself documents between home and school. The second feature that I think is a great idea is using tags as folders. Instead of trying to remember how I saved a document, I can pull it up using a tag. Tags also allow documents to be located in several folders at once!
I played with the tools on the menu bar. It's great to have so many features only one click away. My students would like the emotions button. I like being able to quickly find what I am looking for without a drop down menu.

Week 7 Thing 17 - Wikis

I enjoyed reading through the librarian wikis. The other elementary librarians in my district and I communicate about our neat ideas through email. I think the collaborative nature of a wiki would serve us well, particulary as we begin to implement the new standards. A wiki would also give us the history of our discussions, which will be helpful in rewriting our district's curriculum.
For my K-6 students, a wiki would offer a forum for book reviews. It would also be a good place for me to post my book talks. My students vote on the PA Young Reader's Choice Award each year. A wiki would be a fun way for students to discuss their favorites, and try to convince others to vote for their selection.

Week 6 Thing 15 - Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

I read the article "Away from the Icebergs" by Rick Anderson. What struck me was the section called "The 'come to us' model of library service". In the past, librarians did have a bit of a monopoly on information. All that changed with the popularity of the Internet. We now have to be proactive, and seek out ways to serve our patrons. This includes staying current with the latest technologies, and being able to help patrons to help themselves.

Week 6 Thing 14 - Technorati

I checked out Technorati today. I did a search for "school library learning 2.0" and found 896 posts. Under Advanced Search, I used the same search in the tags field, and found only 9 posts. That's a huge difference! I did not find a way to search the Blog Directory as suggested.

I searched popular blog searches and tags. I found that the most popular blog was Boing Boing, with 3, 870 fans. I was surprised that this number was not higher. Boing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies.

The big advantage of tagging is finding information that is of interest to you. Likewise, you can tag your blog to allow more people to find you. Two disadvantages are: the extra step it takes to tag, and that two people might not choose the same tag. As I said in my last post, this would make a good lesson on subject headings used by librarians.

Week 6 Thing 13 - Tagging and Del.icio.us

I can see why Del.icio.us is such a popular social bookmarking site. It is very user friendly. I like the home page where you can see what is "hot" right now. I think having students create tags allows them to think as librarians have to when cataloging. They will like that this is freeform. A good lesson would be explaining why librarians use standardized subject headings.

I think the most beneficial feature is access to bookmarks from any computer. It is also nice to be able to organize bookmarks, because information can become overwelming without a system.

Week 5 Thing 12 - Rollyo

This week I explored the Rollyo tool. I agree that this tool will give students another option, rather than "Google" it. However, I like the Nettrekker search tool that we have in place much better. Rollyo makes money by paid advertisements. That is, sponsored links will appear in your list of sites. (These are highlighted in blue.) When I created a list of author websites, Rollyo inserted sponsored links for booksellers. This is not helpful for student research.

In my view, Netrekker is a better tool. Nettrekker gives students websites that have been checked by teachers, are rated for reading level, and offer a dictionary tool. Of course, we pay a fee for Netrekker, but I believe it is worth it.

I created a Rollyo of author websites:
http://rollyo.com/bacorcoran/my_authors/

Week 5 Thing 11 - Web 2.0 Awards Site

Today I took a look at the list of Web 2.0 Award winners. I tried several, but I was particularly impressed with the Last.fm site. I liked listening to music while I worked. I requested music like Billy Joel. I heard one of his songs, and then Last.fm played more songs from other artists (Don Henley, Little River Band, Hall & Oates, James Taylor). This was enjoyable, because I didn't know what would play next. For each song, the user can post a comment. You can see what others are interested in the same music you like. If they set up a library, you can play songs from their library. Likewise, you can set up a library, and see how many and which people are playing your songs. You can click on events to see what concerts are happening. You can read what people thought of the concerts.

For Billy Joel, I clicked on his Biography. This was surprisingly detailed, with a view of his life through his music history. If a song is mentioned, students can use the same site to hear the music or possibly view the video (although many are amatuer from UTube). I think that this would be very helpful to a student doing research. Last.fm can provide a video and audio component to research while you read.

I also tried the Traveler IQ Challenge. I think students will find this really fun. Teachers can post a "high scorers" list for motivation.
http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq/game1?f235=938e

Week 5 Thing 10 - Online Image Generator

This week I had a great time with online image generators. I found a comic strip generator that was simple to use. Many of my elementary students love to read the comics. This is a great way to get their attention. It's also a great tool to work on dialogue.

Click on my comic below to enlarge.

Week 4 Things 8 and 9 - RSS Feeds and Bloglines

Until today, I had never heard of RSS feeds or Bloglines. It is frustrating when you miss an update to your favorite website, so this tool will be very helpful. Sometimes the information superhighway becomes overwelming. It is good to know of these tools to help organize and stay current with topics that interest you.
So far, I added to my feeds: Publisher's Weekly Bestseller News, NY Times Books, and Library Stuff.

Week 3 Thing 7 - Flickr

It took some time to explore the features of Flickr. I searched for the term "lighthouse" to go with the theme of this blog. The lighthouse shown is from Maine - the Portland Headlight & Ram Island Ledge Lighthouse.

It is incredible how many results are available. I also searched "dog" and found that there were over two million images.

This is a useful tool. For students, I liked the map feature. This incorporates geography in a fun way.

Week 2 Thing 3 - Lifelong Learning

This is my first blog. I look forward to learning more.After reading the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Effective Lifelong Learners, I find #1 the easiest habit - to begin with the end in mind. As educators, we are constantly looking to standards first, and then planning lessons to move students toward the goal. I find #3 the hardest habit. That is, to view problems as challenges that you can learn from. This is an upbeat, optimistic approach, and one worth remembering.