Week 3, Thing #5

One of the first activities I did with EL students in the library was a note taking lesson for a short research project. I had taught EL students for several years, and found them to be very motivated and eager to learn new skills. To make this lesson work, I pre selected materials at their reading level so that the focus was successfully taking notes in a short period of time. We also made a simple Works Cited page. It took me much longer than I anticipated to post this blog and picture; I had to first create a Yahoo account, then a Flickr account, then had fun exploring Flickr. I felt guilty at first about "wasting" time doing this, then realized that School Library Learning 2.0 is all about learning by playing!

Week 2, Thing #3

Working in a school environment poses some challenges in taking this course. Last week I discovered that most of the sites I'll be using in this class are blocked by the school District; I filled out the online form to have access to them at work, but access was denied. I can view my blog from school but not post to it. My plan is to attend the next meeting of the District's Curriculum Council and start planting the seeds for a change in their policies -- we need to catch up to where our students are if we are going to be effective in teaching students to use and evaluate information, and I'm sure I'll be exposed to some "safe" sites for using Web 2.0 in this course. I know from queries in the library every day that the students are reading and posting to blogs, and have their own pages on various social interaction sites. My reading club, the Puma Readers, are excited about the possibility of a Wiki or Blog for online book discussions between meetings, and the other LMTs in my District are interested in having our own online blog to discuss ideas, share books we're reading, and ruminate about happenings in our school District. Being knowledgeable about the specific benefits of web 2.0 will be crucial to getting approval from administrators, so I will also need to do some reading about research in this field.

Week, 1, Thing #2 one step forward

Web 2.0, here I come! One step forward, on my way to learning new ways to interact with others online. Lots of new possibilities for sharing ideas, books, connecting with kids and teachers! After viewing the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners, I concluded that the easiest thing for me is to accept problems as challenges, that seems to be part of my personality (Habit #3). The hardest for me will be to "play" to learn (Habit # 71/2)! I enjoy being very productive, and I'll have to consciously slow myself down and allow myself to follow all of those proverbial "rabbit holes" online in order to become very familiar with these new technologies.