At our state library conference (SCASL) in March 2007 we had Alan November as a keynote speaker. He wanted to demo skype, but his contact wasn't there to answer. So from the audience I skyped him, and the next thing you know, there is my great big face on his screen asking him to accept my call. Of course he does, when he realizes I must be in the audience AND I'm a quick solution to his slight dilemma of the contact not answering. I forgot that i was using my new mac with its built in webcam, so when he accepted the call, there's my great big face on both huge screens. Kind of embarrassing, but he is now in my contacts list in skype. And best, we have chatted frequently since then. It's just one of this year's memorable experiences anyway.
All teacher websites in my district must be on an approved site maintained internally and us school webmasters are told not to link to any external teacher websites. This breaks my heart as there's no functionality for blogs, nor even a discussion board at this point! I know they're working on expanding it, but I really don't see it moving in the web 2.0 direction. That being said, I had my library science students first semester keep their daily journals on pbwiki.com, until that was blocked. (It's now unblocked, but all formatting of the page is lost.) Second semester, I created a blog (well, it's really a web portal with each student having their own blogs) for my yearbook students (all two of them) and then another one for them to keep reading journals through 21classes.com. It's awesome! I can control things that I couldn't on any other blogging site (if those weren't blocked, of course) and we have a little virtual community getting started where we're reading each other's insights. I've invited a few teachers to join us, as I see their interest, and I'm hoping this takes off and others see the potential that lies there. I'm trying to nurture it now and hopefully, it will continue to grow. I know this is such a simple thing, but it's a big accomplishment in the environment that I'm in where teachers are concerned about staying on track with their pacing guides and don't want to step outside of the box much. I'm also nervous about linking to it from the school website because of the district policies, though I would like more of our community to participate with us eventually. Right now, it's really just a matter of getting teachers on board with creating their own websites, let alone some of the awesome things you guys are doing with the technology!
Considering that I haven't yet mastered the ten steps and three remotes needed to turn on our television, I am most proud of the fact that I started a wiki for my 7th graders and three blogs, one each for 6th, 7th and 8th. I just decided that I wasn't going to be intimidated by technology anymore and I jumped into the deep end. Thankfully, it wasn't too hard...I even figured out how to add anchors on my own. The blogs are used to respond to literature and research prompts and I will continue with them next year. We are thinking about using them for our summer reading responses. The wiki was great because students in three different classes were able to combine their research and use it as a common source for their web pages that they are building in Language Arts. The wikki actually has more input from me than from the students...it will be structured differently next year to avoid that. The student response has been positive. Students have started their own wikis. Unfortunately, they are using them like web pages but it was cool to see them use the new technology on their own, outside of class.
Rosanne Zajko > Rosanne ZajkoApril 18, 2007 at 2:49pm
That sounds so cool! How long did it take everyone to get on board with the use of wikis? We had a faculty presentation on the capabilities of web 2.0 yesterday and while they thought it was interesting, I don't know that they realize how it can enhance their curriculum. Are your teachers using it with their students, or just with each other? Another teacher and I were talking about having the faculty use wikis or blogs as you are doing, so they can feel comfortable using the technology, but even with that "low-level" approach I think many of them will not give it a try. What's the solution to teaching old dogs (even young dogs) new tricks?
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the first thing I did was take down all of the "DON'T" signs.
Actually, that is the most exciting thing I've heard in a while. What a great attitude and change for the library!