Amanda's Blog

Final Thoughts

2011-12-08T21:38:00.000-08:00

I really liked this class. I thought the activities were wonderful because they were so much different than what other classes require. It was really nice to have a bit of variety and they were fun projects to do. I think I learned a lot in this class and I would definitely recommend it to other students. Thank you for a wonderful semester.

Second Last Post

2011-12-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

The Story time strand was much more interesting than the Team Captains. They were kind of boring but interesting as well because they contained a good amount of information. Not only did they provide useful information but they also gave me ideas that I can use for presentations and reminded me of things that I do not want to do in presentations. I may watch a few more if I have time. I am working on the iSafe certification and hope to finish it by tomorrow.

Social Networking

2011-11-20T18:37:00.000-08:00

I am still not convinced by Richardson that social networking like facebook or twitter has a place in education. Someone brought up a great point about the impact that social networking can have on teachers. Everyone must be careful what they share online these days, especially on facebook. It is even more important for those in the education field to protect themselves because even the most innocent thing put up on facebook or twitter can have bad consequences. Personally, I am very careful with who I am friends with, what pictures go up, and what I put in status updates. I also have my account protected because I don't want the wrong person to stumble upon something that they may find inappropriate even if I don't see any problems with it.

Professional Development Workshop

2011-11-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

Finally, Sunday is here! I am so happy to have finished everything for my professional development workshop. I decided to go with the Windows 7 tools. I was able to learn a lot about the tools that I presented on. I hope that this is a workshop that teachers would find helpful/useful for their classrooms or even at home. Many of these tools are tools that I overlooked for a long time until I had to use them for something or they were shown to me by various people. After learning how to use these tools I use them a lot more often for a variety of tasks. The only tools that I do not use on a regular basis are the Math Input Tool (but it is really cool) and the magnifier unless I want to look at something very closely.

Professional Development

2011-11-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

Trying to figure out what I want to do for the professional development workshop is proving difficult. My original idea of looking at databases may not work. I was looking around for free databases that may be useful for teachers to use for students but I'm not finding the quality that I was originally looking for. My other thought was windows tools but can i really spend enough time talking about the different windows tools and applications? My last thought comes from the suggestion in the syllabus in web 2.0 tools. Blogging and video sharing sites are becoming more and more important in the classroom and a focused professional development on one of those topics could be very useful to some teachers.

Pictures of students

2011-10-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

One of the important things that I think was brought up this week about obstacles we may face is that of pictures on our library website. I believe that posting pictures of students and their work will prove difficult. I think it will be important that we are careful with what we share on our website and that we respect the wishes of parents who do not wish that their children have their pictures online. I think we can find a balance between posting pictures of children and just sharing their work online.

TPACK

2011-10-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

I really liked the post from Emily Richards this week. It was very thought provoking. I could see librarians going into classrooms just like she and her father talked about to analyze teaching styles and what come up with technologies that would complement them. This could even go as far as being a profession in itself (I don't know if there is one out there already). Consultants or analysts that went into schools to observe teaching styles and then could recommend technologies or changes in teaching styles to become more effective could be worthwhile for schools.

Google Docs

2011-10-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to make a few comments from the podcast this week. This week at work our department was talking about emailing around a spreadsheet to each other every time something was updated on our tour/presentation schedule. I asked if anyone had use Google Docs before and no one had (we are a relatively young group - everyone between 22 and 32 and all teachers/librarians), I was very surprised. Now everyone has a gmail account and we are sharing many documents. It is so much easier for everyone especially with some people working from home a couple days a week, they now have access to documents that they would have had to save or email and it is much easier to work on projects, schedules, etc. in our department.
You also mentioned something about not having a computer at home or at school and what do you do, accept it or try to change it? I think this is where dedication comes in. If you accept it, you are settling and not helping your students at all. If you try to change it, you are trying to better prepare your students for the future. This is dedication, even if you have to bring in your own computer/laptop from home to help better prepare the students. You can also look for grants for your school or donations from big companies that may be discarding their old equipment.

School Library Websites

2011-10-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

This week has been fun exploring the different website options. I really like both of the websites that our group picked out! I am a little worried about the two group members that we have not heard from as of Saturday, I really hope they join the group. If not, the rest of our group seems really good and I am not concerned about us picking up the slack. One of our group members, Beth, did an excellent job of creating the google docs group/document and I am very thankful to her. I think this will be an enlightening project. After reading through the organizers I realized how much there really is to consider when creating a School Library website. I saved a copy of the organizer for future reference and hopefully I will remember to consider all of those items when I create my own someday.

Searching & Communicating

2011-10-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

This week has been a lot about search methods. We had to do an IL mini-lesson and I chose to use Jing. I wasn't quite sure how to go about doing a lesson with Jing but after watching the tutorials I was able to formulate a plan. The only thing I had trouble with was actually getting it to upload which turned out to be pretty easy. I recorded the lesson several times because with it being recorded I wanted it perfect. I never got it perfect and I hate the way my voice sounds when I listen to the playback. I thought Jing was definitely an easy tool to use and I used a similar tool just recently for work recording a powerpoint presentation about taking photos and how to take better photos of the animals for our website. This was definitely a practical application to learn how to use.

Classroom Blogging

2011-09-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

Thank you for splitting the discussion board! This week was so much easier to read and consider what others were saying about the topic, before it was a little overwhelming. Talking/reading about blogs has given me many ideas for now and the future. So far this semester has been very beneficial to me. I am finding and considering new ways to communicate with others and think that I might be able to incorporate blogging or a discussion board into my current job. It is very important to remain in constant communication with the many volunteers at the SPCA who take pictures and videos of the animals, I am trying to encourage more communicate between them as well through emails but this may be a better idea/way for them to communicate and get feedback.

Assistive Technologies

2011-09-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

This week we had to create the Assistive Technologies Newsletter for our fictional SLMC. I created mine based on the fictional Holiday Elementary School. The assignment asked that the newsletter be written using MS Word or another open source program. I was unsure as to whether or not I could use MS Publisher but it is my fault since I did not ask. I prefer to use MS Publisher for these types of projects - newsletters, flyers, posters, almost anything that besides writing papers. Since I have not created a newsletter in MS Word in a long time and have enjoyed the ease of Publisher I am a little disappointed with the layout of my newsletter. I think Publisher has some great templates that can be used and many more options are offered to make the project more creative. Anyways, I thought this was a really good project as it made me really think and read about particular devices that could be used in my future SLMC. I think I learned a lot about devices with this project.

First Week Reflection 568

2011-09-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

So far I really like that this class does not use UBLearns as I really dislike how slow and annoying it can be at times. I am still getting back into the swing of school and I've never taken an online class let alone three at a time so I am have a bit of trouble finding balance and trying to figure out all of the different discussion boards and homework guidelines/due dates for all three (I'm trying not to screw up!). I am sure it will just take a little bit of time and I will have to keep up on trying to figure out a good schedule. The readings so far have been fine. I like the podcasts so far, they are short but definitely let us know what we are thinking about for the week and they have been very helpful so far. I prefer listening to the podcast than just reading what the assignments are for the week, the podcast is much more effective! I also like that you will be sending us emails letting us know how we are doing, I believe that will be very helpful especially with this being an online course! I think this post is over 100 words but I hope I included the correct things in it for this week!

LIS 568

2011-04-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Now my blog may actually get some use.

2011-04-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

Tech Talk

2011-04-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Today our tech talks are due in LIS 505. This is also the last day of class and the Sabres play in Game 7 against Philly tonight. LET'S GO BUFFALO!!!

Week 8, Lab 2

2011-03-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

Just created my first blog. It was really very simple to do and seems pretty easy to use. I am really glad that I have finally made one because I have to do a "tech talk" on blogs for another class.