Positively Productive: Thing 21

There were so many great tools to explore in this first thing that I have spent way more time on it than I expected.  There have been both personal tools discovered, and tools that I can see using with my students.
The tool which I am most excited about using personally is Workflowy. I am a big fan of list making, but now that I live mostly in a digital world I struggle between where my lists are and where I am working.  Although I wish they had a mobile app to make it totally available I can see myself using this consistently to stay organized.  I have created three list categories to start with (Work, Personal, and Church).  I have already been using and loving the work category.  Personal would be more accessible if there was a mobile app, because I would use it "on the go", but I can still use it for project management in my life.  I am excited to start using the collaboration aspect with our Curriculum Team as we plan professional development.
I also explored the Buffer App and One Tab for my own organization, but they did not seem as appropriate for my needs.  With One Tab I didn't like the way the tabs collapsed into a list- what I would have loved would be to collapse them into "Sub-Tabs), although I understand that probably wouldn't have the same impact on computer space saving.  The Buffer App made me feel guilty that I don't have more social media posts lined up to share!
The tools which I am planning to implement with classes are Scrible and EverNote.  I have explored EverNote several times in the past for my own organizational needs, and it just has never clicked and felt natural, but I see real potential for it in two places within curriculum.  The first is as a portfolio for seniors, which is a concept that I have been discussing with our Advanced Government teacher, and which I would love to see used across curriculum areas.  The other teacher I would like to use this with is our 7th grade math teacher, who would like to create an interactive math lab notebook.  I think a lot of the functionality, and flexibility of what you can gather within EverNote will be useful for each of these purposes.
I am really excited about using Scrible with our 10th grade English teacher, who does a lot of close reading and annotating activities with students and has been looking for a versatile and flexible tool to use for these activities.  Scrible could ultimately be useful for any students doing extended research.  The functionality of these tools are so practical that I can really anticipate sharing them with many teachers, and will most likely share them at our next professional development.

Hunger to Learn

I am so excited to be back in Cool Tools, with opportunities to learn and explore in new ways.  This class has been great for me in the past, encouraging the application of a variety of tools that I wanted to use "someday".  Well, someday is here again, and I can't wait to get started!!

From my past participation with Cool Tools I was able to build my knowledge and experience with Blogger (among other tools), and now I use it with students.  In fact, as I write this post, I am getting ready to work with tenth grade students to create their own blogs.   We will use these blogs for sustained writing projects on their own topics of interest.  We implemented this ongoing project last year, with some exciting results.

This year I have a group of book club participants who would like to consistently provide book reviews for their peers, and the obvious answer for this is to create a Library Blog, with shared authorship.  There are just so many possibilities for shared learning experiences!

Thing 5: Infographic Tool

Over the last couple years I have been really excited to do Infographic projects with classes.  Two years ago we expanded the 10th grade English research project to include the creation of a Website, with an Infographic.  It didn't go so well, mostly because we were forcing tools to do more than they were intended to do.  Unfortunately, after that I haven't gotten to do another Infographic project, but I am determined to get back to that.  I knew that since that rough attempt there have been many new tools created specifically for this purpose.
I have gathered some resources, one of which is a LiveBinder full of ideas and tools, and explored a few of these in the past, but I wanted to expand on that this summer, so for this final project I worked within easel.ly to create an Infographic.
It was a super easy tool to use, with templates to use for beginners and plenty of options.  The templates themselves will help students understand what Infographics are and give them some direction.  You also had the freedom to expand on what they had by uploading images, etc.  My only warning would be to make sure you create an account (free) before creating a visual, because if you try to create your account at the end you will lose what you did.  This is the Infographic that I created for our Classroom 21 teachers to explain the process of questioning to their students.
One of the things that I really appreciate about easel.ly is that you have plenty of options of how to save your visuals.  Sometimes I get frustrated with tools because they make it difficult to extract your creation from their site.  That was not the case here, you can download to your computer, embed, or create links.
Another tool that I have used, which also gives these options for using your images is piktochart.  This is another very usable Infographic tool, although I didn't find it to have as many options for beginners (templates, icons, etc.).  It also gives you a canvas larger than 8 1/2 x 11, which can make using the final product more difficult.
Having explored these tools I am confident that we can do some successful projects with students.  In fact, I already have two teachers on board to test it out this fall.  We are preparing a project for the 7th grade math classes, and another round with the 10th grade English class.  I look forward to sharing the results!

Thing 4: Mapping and Geolocation Tools

So, this topic has taken a whole different path than I expected, and has led me to try soooo many new tools!  I decided to create a QR code scavenger hunt based on The Daring Librarian's.  I would love to do something with Geocaching, but I haven't found something relevant yet, so I will try to come back to that later in the year.

This has been a project that led me to many mini projects.  Some of the new tools I have used are:


goanimate: Avatar creation
Toondo: Avatar creation
Photoshop- Layering pictures
Flickr- Created an account for the first time!
Blabberize- pulled things I had already created
Smore- Created quick poster
Jing- Another round Screencasting with this tool
Handbrake- File conversion (Jing creates Flash)
YouTube- First time uploading here!
Voki- Past project pulled in
bit.ly- Creates shorter URL links and QR Codes

I created a Google Doc based on Gwyneth Jones' scavenger hunt, and have been gathering all of the clues, which I am now working on creating QR codes for.  It is still a work in progress, but I have had a lot of fun with it.

I am excited about this as a way to introduce the use of iPads in the library also.  (I am getting 8 iPads for students to use in the library this year.)  Now I just need to work with a teacher to schedule some classes to come in.  :)

PLN

I have spent lots of time with this "Thing 3", although I am just now writing this Blog about my thoughts.  I was really excited about this topic, because I have been wanting to find and participate in a MOOC for awhile, and this was good motivation.  It has been much more difficult than I expected to find something I want to take.  I had not initially expected them to all have specific start and end dates, although in the ling run I can see how this makes them more worthwhile, as you can work collaboratively with other people.  I have decided to do an iTunes U course on iPads in education, as we are going to be getting a set of iPads in the library and I want to ensure I have lots of ideas to get them being used.  I am excited about what I will be learning there, and will try to commit to blogging about that experience.

Here is where I struggle.  I am a very active consumer in my PLN, regularly visiting Twitter (at least during the school year), reading the Blogs I follow, participating in Webinars, however I am not very good about creating new content myself.  This is something I have always wished I was better at.  I love to gather new information, and I regularly put it into action, I am just not very good at creating new information myself.  I have committed to getting better about this though.  I created a new Blog (which I spent a full week trying to decide on a title for), and I am going to make a conscious effort to blog at least once a week.  If anyone would like to check it out I finally decided to call it "An Open Book" (http://sarahsopenbook.blogspot.com/).  

In addition I wanted to share my thoughts on Feedly, which I am loving!  As someone who relied on Google Reader, I was very anxious to find a new tool.  After reading a whole bunch of articles on what is out there I decided to go with Feedly, and I am really enjoying it.  The iPad App is very graphically appealing, and well organized, as is the website.  I actually find myself reading more blogs because the App is so readily available and visually welcoming.  I like the categories and color coding, those are the kinds of things that help me stay organized.  If you are looking for a way to gather your Blogs and RSS feeds this is a great option.

Screencasting

I can't believe I haven't gotten to respond to screencasting before "Thing 3" was released. That is partly due to the fact that we have been traveling for the past 2 weeks, and it is hard to find a quiet place to record with three kids on vacation. :)  

Oh well, I was able to get here finally.  Screencasting isn't the topic I was most excited about, as I have used Screen-Cast-O-Matic a fair amount, and have developed a comfort level with it.  I had hoped to find something to do Screencasts from the iPad, but wasn't surprised to find that there is not a free tool yet.  We have a teacher in our Classroom 21 group who has flipped her 7th grade math class to a large extent, and has been looking for a tool to use with a tablet.  I will bring the tools for App-Casting to her attention though, as it may be well worth it for her needs.  

I did play with Jing, as a new tool to learn, and found it very simple to use.  Once I had it downloaded I pulled out my planning sheet (a nice tool to use with kids!), and had my Screencast recorded and uploaded in under 15 minutes.  It is always nice when things go smoothly!  This was good motivation for me to do something to promote the new library website, and now I have my Screencast all set for orientations in the fall, which feels great.  

In the past some teachers had a difficult time posting their screencasts, but Jing seems to have worked very well, so it will be a good option to share.  Of course those who are using it to Flip lessons, may not  find the 5 minute time limit enough for them.

I really appreciated Kathy Schrock's page of resources, she does great stuff!  I particularly like the labels on her Rubrics: "Awesome Screencast", "Cool Screencast", "OK Screencast", and "Re-do Screencast".  I particularly like that a One on the Rubric= "Re-do", because I think we need to do this more often, so our students learn how to improve their work rather than accepting below satisfactory products.  Her language makes expectations very clear for students.  

Thing 1: Curation Tools

There are so many great ideas to apply here!  I am particularly interested in the usage of ScoopIt with students.  I have been using ScoopIt for about a year to gathering interesting content professionally and sharing with colleagues (http://www.scoop.it/t/inquiry-learning-in-the-library) but I would like to expand on this and inched students in the creation of collections.  I have been working with a 10th grade English teacher on developing an ongoing activity with her students where they each select a region of the world (Global Studies connection), and have a RSS feed with which they gather information, and then blog about their developing understanding of that place.  I think that ScoopIt may be the tool we use for gathering their sources.  I hadn't thought about their ability to add comments to the posts right on their ScoopIt page. This may allow them to interact with the information in a quick and easy way before going to write a more in depth Blog post.  This was something their teacher was looking for.  I created a new topic on Liberia to test out this use (http://www.scoop.it/t/english-10-liberia).  I look forwarding to learning more about this country that I love as I test out this project idea!

Here is another interesting article about ScoopIt to check out as well: http://www.teachthought.com/technology/why-scoopit-is-becoming-an-indispensable-learning-tool/.

Another great person to follow is Gwyneth Jones: http://www.scoop.it/u/gwynethjones.  She has great ideas.

Pinterest is a tool that I am already totally hooked on, but these articles have given me some fresh board ideas, including creating a board for book suggestions for my own children, which I am always trying to keep track of!  

My profile name on Pinterest is lglibrarylady, and I have a library board with some great ideas that I have collected.  I also recently started a board for Infographics, as I want to expand the creation of them in our school.  

EdCanvas reminds me a little bit of Symbaloo, which has been a great tool for our Classroom 21 students to gather all of their commonly used links.  EdCanvas expands on this idea, and has some great additional features, which I am going to look at with our Classroom 21 teachers, as we are always looking at tools to help students keep their resources organized.  (Classroom 21 is a group of teachers who have committed to teaching in an inquiry/ project based environment, using technology to engage and expand student learning).

There is so much to continue looking at here, I feel like I have only scratched the surface, but that is enough to have my creative juices flowing!