10 Things Every Teacher Should Know About Technology

1. Be willing to experiment with technology. Have an open mind about it.

2. Take some time to learn what is available for you to use, and practice using it. Take classes or ask for recommendations from people you think are "techie".

3. Ask your librarian for help if you need it!

4. Don't be scared of technology- embrace it and let it help make your life easier.

5. Use it to enhance your lessons and to simplify grading.

6. Let students explore on their own, but be available to provide guidance.

7. Get to know your school's technology specialists and be on friendly terms with them- they will be very useful to you.

8. Accept that some of your students may know more than you do- use this to your advantage rather than feeling bad about it.

9. Accept that technology is constantly changing and you will need to work hard to keep up.

10. Realize that not all parents will be on board if you are doing something that they might consider to be risky, such as blogs. Give them plenty of information about what you are doing and why to allay their fears.


I didn't really change anything from my previous list done at the beginning of class- I just expanded on a few things (in boldface). The biggest thing that changed for me was my perception of new technologies- I am now more comfortable in experimenting with different applications, whereas before, I wouldn't even had tried. I am also a lot more aware of what is out there and how I might be able to use it in the library or in my daily life.

Online Public Access Catalogs

This was an interesting week for me. I had never thought much about OPAC systems (other than the one we use at school) until I was forced to look at different types. I never knew there were so many types and options out there. We use Follett Circulation Plus at my school and I felt that it was fine until now because I didn't know what other systems were like. Now that I have seen different systems, I'm not sure that what we have is the best. I chose to research Alexandria and there were a lot of things I liked about it- mainly it seemed very suited to very young users (I work in a K-3 school) with it large, clear icons for easy searching. I also liked that it had cover art for many titles, summaries, reviews, e-books, and related websites. We don't have the web option at the elementary level, but do at the middle and high school. I never even knew about that until this week and I think that it's great to be able to connect to a related website right away. I found out my information about Alexandria from their website and through the listerv on MSLA, which I finally joined. I have to admit that I didn't speak with a rep or find out how much the system cost because the librarian I work with didn't want me to contact them directly because we are not in a position financially to change systems and she didn't want them calling and bugging her all the time once they thought we might be interested in it. But I was able to try it out online and I thought that it had a lot of great features. Like I said, Follett does what we need it to do, but Alexandria looks a lot more fun and exciting and has a lot more great features.

Cataloging, Week 2

After finishing the reading, I am definitely feeling more confident in my understanding of cataloging. Thanks, Barb, for commenting that I don't need to memorize everything. I realize now that the book is there to be used as a reference for those times when we need to make a new record for something. I am glad that I now know that I can go to different websites, such as the Library of Congress one to be able to get a surrogate record if I should ever need one, since as I said in my previous post, Follett makes it pretty easy and I haven't had to get too deep into actual cataloging. After reading this book, I am anxious to get back to school tomorrow to look at records in our library and to actually be able to understand what all of those little numbers and letters mean! Looking at examples will also help me more with my whole understanding of cataloging. Now, on to a greater understanding of OPAC! I guess I never really thought about how the two are so closely connected.

Cataloging

Okay...I'm feeling pretty confused. I never realized there was so much to this cataloging stuff. I'm a pretty organized person and I like order so it seems like this should come easy to me, but it's not, yet. It seems amazingly complicated, with lots of memorization required. I guess once I get it and start to use it, it will become easier. So far, in the school where I've worked, cataloging has been very easy for me- I just need to search by ISBN, title or author, and usually I will find the record (we have Follett) and download it. I've also created a few very simple records myself when I couldn't find one on Follett, but they have just very basic information. I've seen MARC records many times, but never understood what all those tags and numbers mean. Maybe after I finish next week's reading, it will click in my head. I hope so. At least I'm understanding the Dewey Decimal Classification system fairly well.

Internet Safety

This week, it's all about internet safety. Here are some links that I thought would be useful.

1.dmoz Open Directory Project
http://www.dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/Computers/Internet/Safety/

This site has a huge list of links that offer parents, teens and children resources, games, comics, videos etc. The topics range from chatting to cyberbullying to privacy. One could spends days seeing everything on this site.

2. Safekids.com
http://www.safekids.com/
http://www.safekids.com/parentpledge.pdf
http://www.safekids.com/safekidscontract.pdf

This site has the above parent and child contracts that I thought would be a good starting point for parents when talking to their children about internet safety. There is also an online safety quiz, a safety song, and a few safety articles.

3. CIESE- The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education
http://www.k12science.org/internetsafety.html

This site realizes the need to balance student protection with the need for students to utilize technology to its fullest potential. The site advocates for the need for an Acceptable Use Policy, appropriate classroom websites, and contains a list of useful links, such as parent, children's, and librarian's internet guides, acceptable use policies and a k-8 curriculum guide with lesson plans.

4.AT&T Internet Safety Connections Game
http://www.att.com/Common/images/safety/game.html

A simple but informative game that asks kids to decide what to do in certain situations, such as what to do when you receive a request for personal information, when you are asked to meet someone in person or you receive a scary message.

5. The FBI's Parent's Guide to Internet Safety
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm

A comprehensive guide that gives an overview of internet safety, gives a list of signs that your child might be at risk online, answers the question of what to do if you suspect your child is communicating with an online predator, and tells you how to minimize the chances of your child being exploited by someone online.

6. Common Sense Media- The Internet Survival Guide for Parents
http://www.commonsense.com/internet-safety-tips/tips-for-kids.php

I like the straightforwardness of this site- it is clear and easy to read. I also like the page that gives recommended internet usage by age and stage. There is also a page with links to more resources.

7. Internet Safety Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZHq4CQekTY

I found this video to be very scary- I don't know that I would let really young children watch it, but it gives parents an idea of how quickly and easily a child can be fooled by someone online.

8. LoveToKnow Internet Safety Facts
http://safety.lovetoknow.com/Category:Internet_Safety_Facts

A comprehensive list of sites for a variety of internet safety facts and information, including a list of social networking games appropriate for children, information about cyber bullying, and lesson plans.

Professional Development

Since I have never attended any professional development workshops, it has been a little bit difficult to figure out how and what to present to teachers for this week's assignment. I've heard lots of complaints about PD, so hopefully, the presentation I prepare will be interesting and useful to teachers. I work in a K-3 school and maybe I'm not ambitious enough yet to try, but I feel that many of these Web 2.0 tools that we have looked at would be a little bit difficult for children so young to use. Or maybe it's not so much that the tools are difficult to use, but that it seems like they would be very time-consuming to teach to very young children, since they would probably need a lot of help and supervision while using them. Therefore, for my presentation, I am mostly showing teachers some of the tools that they themselves can use to make their lives easier, such as Delicious and TeacherTube. Maybe after teachers get comfortable with a few tools such as these, we could move on to tools that they could use with their students.

Web 2.0

The assignment this week was really tough for me. I don't have a lot of experience with curriculum yet, so it was a good learning experience for me. I like the idea of collaborating with a classroom teacher in a long-term project. It's not something I have observed yet and I can see how it could be a really meaningful experience, for both the students and the teachers. It is hard to choose only five favorite Web 2.0 tools, but I guess I would say StudyStack, Flickr, Blogs, YouTube, and Jing. All of them have such learning potential.

My experience in Module 2 was a positive one, though at times frustrating. I like to explore, but often don't feel like I know enough to even find all that is available. I feel like if I don't know what to look for, I certainly am not going to find it. But I got better at figuring things out and liked learning about all these new tools that we can use. Now we just need the time and the computer access to be able to share all this knowledge with teachers and students.

The only chance I had to look at an e-reader was last summer- my aunt owns a Kindle. She said she really likes it. I was intrigued by the ease of use and the fact that you can download a book so quickly, yet I have not purchased one for myself yet. I'm in no hurry. I would probably love it once I owned one, but for now, I'm happy just checking out books from my local library. Cost has been one of the reasons I haven't purchased one, but I would probably make up for that after just one trip to Barnes and Noble!

Online Social Networking and Gaming

Okay, so I finally had to make a Facebook. I've been resisting because I don't want to get addicted to it and have it be a big time-waster, especially when I have very little time to waste. But I realize that I am in control (right?) and I can check it only when I feel like it and it doesn't have to be every day. Actually, I'm also kind of excited about it because it will give me a chance to connect with people that I haven't been in touch with for a long time. It's fun to see what everyone looks like now and what they are doing in their lives. So it will be a good thing. I feel like I am really part of the modern world now. My kids are thrilled, though only one daughter will friend me. That's okay. The daughter that won't friend me was very eager to help me set it up anyway and to show me around, which was very helpful. It's going to take some getting used to, all those chats and status updates and walls, etc. but it will be fun.

I looked at all of the online gaming sites that we were required to look at, but I didn't sign up to try any of them. I really have no interest in them. I'm sure it's partly my age and where I am in my life, but I have so many other things that I would rather be doing. I can understand why people, especially teenagers, like them, but I feel that they spend too much time playing them and I don't like it when the games are violent. Being in a virtual world for too long can make you forget about the real world and how you should act in it. But as a librarian, it is important for us to know what is out there and how our students are spending their time. I just don't like interacting online with people I don't know and I find it a little bit scary that teenagers are so eager to do that.

Online Multimedia

As Barb said, this might be a challenging week, and it was for me. The hardest part was finding podcasts. There seemed to be a lot of good ones out there, but downloading them was a different matter- many of them wouldn't work for me without joining the site I was on, which I didn't want to do. I already have an iTunes account, but I couldn't figure out how to listen to the podcasts without first downloading them to my ipod. Also, I didn't have much luck with Podcast Alley. However, I did finally manage to find 3 podcasts on my topic, which was the solar system for 5th grade.

I had fun making the animoto video- what a cool thing. My kids couldn't believe that I had done that, but really all it took was choosing some photos and some music and they did the rest.

I explored YouTube, TeacherTube and SchoolTube. I ended up liking YouTube the best. I began searching for my topic on TeacherTube and there were plenty of good videos available, but every time I watched one, I had to watch the SAME commercial every time. I finally got sick of that and went to YouTube, where they had all of the same videos I had just seen anyway.

Pandora was cool and I would like to explore that a little more when I have time. Same with Europa Film Treasures.

Online Applications

This was a fun week, looking at all of the different applications and what they can do. I had only heard of a few of them, so it was great to learn about all of them. I did have to stretch my imagination, though, in order to try to come up with educational uses for many of them. A lot of them seem like "fun" applications, but I guess if you can figure out ways to make learning fun, then you're doing okay. My favorites were the sites where you can do things with photos, like BigHugeLabs and Animoto. Kids love that stuff, too.

Online Organization Tools

Signing up for the RSS feeds was really easy because I already had a Google account. And it was fun to add a few things that will be fun to check up on. I will eventually add more as I think of things to add. I ended up signing up for LibraryThing because it seems like it has the most users, but I am going to look into Shelfari again because so many people seem to love it. As to signing up for either Delicious or Diigo, I had a hard time deciding. I like the look of Diigo better and was going to sign up for that, but didn't after all because I couldn't figure out how to do it without changing my toolbar. I am a creature of habit and didn't want to change it. I have a fear that changing something like that will mess up everything else. So I signed up for Delicious and only added a few bookmarks for now because I have a hard time sitting there and trying to figure out what to add. These tools are all very new to me and I have to admit, I still haven't quite figured out all these wonderful things I am supposed to be doing with them. I am not very good at the exploring part because I feel like I don't even know what to look for. I feel I do much better when someone sits with me and shows me exactly what I can do. But I guess I will eventually get better at exploring as I increase my knowledge of these tools.

Setting up a Wiki

Setting up a wiki was really quite easy. It was probably a little easier because I was familiar with the format from using a wiki in Barb's class last semester, but I think anyone could do it without too much help. I was proud of myself because I was even able to figure out how to do different pages. (Thank you, tutorials!) Anyway, after some consideration on what to make the wiki about, I decided on a wiki to help teachers at my school get information about the library. (I chose not to make one that students would use because after reading everyone's discussion posts, I can see that there are a lot of issues. My school is K-3 and I am only the assistant and don't feel ready to jump into something as big as a student wiki.)

My hope is that the wiki will be a place for teachers to turn to when they have questions about the library and no one is available to answer them. I feel that the majority of our teachers do not know the huge amount of resources that are available in our library and I want to change that. My plan is to add the basics of the library to the wiki, then share it with the head librarian and she can add to it in any way she feels would be helpful. Teachers could even add to it if there was something they wanted to share with other teachers, such as a great book they discovered that their students loved. I am excited about the wiki and I hope that the teachers will take the time to look at it and get something out of it.

Setting up a blog and Twitter

I didn't have to set up a blog for this class because I had already set one up for Barb's Children's Literature class last semester. Thanks, Barb, for letting me use the same one! From what I remember, setting it up was pretty easy, even for someone who has never had one. The only thing I found a little bit difficult was posting pictures, but I finally managed to figure that out.

Setting up a Twitter account was also pretty easy, though I haven't quite figured it all out yet, like, what exactly is the point?! But I am glad I have the account so I can see what everyone means when they talk about tweeting. I had an email today saying I had a new follower and it made me feel a little odd because I don't know who they are, but I'm just not used to connecting to people online that I don't know. I also don't know if I can erase the old tweets I receive. The only ones I signed up to follow so far are Penguin Books, The Library of Congress, Google, and 1 friend who is on Twitter. I don't really know how to contact or follow other people yet. I will have to fiddle with it some more.

What Teens Are Reading Now

Little Brother

by Cory Doctorow

I asked the high school librarian in our town what the students have been reading and this was the first on his list. I had not heard of it, but I chose it because the reviews were good. It is the story of Marcus, a smart 17-year-old computer geek who already knows how to work the system. After a terrorist attack, he and his friends are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and imprisoned for days. When they are released, he discovers that his city has become a police state and Marcus decides he must fight back. An interesting look at the surveillance world in which the author tries to depict opposing viewpoints. The book has two afterwords , one by a security technologist and one by a hacker. Also contains a bibliography for teens who are interested in learning more about intellectual freedom and information access.

Cirque Du Freak: Book 4: Vampire Mountain

by Darren Shen

According to the high school librarian, this series is very popular. Personally, I can't see why- first of all, the older covers for the series at the library were all really creepy. That was a turn-off for me right away. (But then again, I'm not a teenager who likes science fiction.) Second, it's another vampire series, which I'm not really into, other than Twilight, since it was more the romance than the vampires that I liked. Anyway, this story is another in the life of Darren Shan, who also happens to be the author. In this journey, his meeting with the Vampire Princes might restore his human side, or it may turn him more toward the darkness. I don't think I'm going to read it to find out.

Lock and Key

by Sarah Dessen

When I asked my daughters (grades 8 and 10) what everyone is reading, they both said anything by Sarah Dessen. I chose Lock and Key at the public library because it is one of her newer novels and because it is the story of a girl who is dropped unexpectedly into a rich lifestyle, which all the girls seem to love today. Ruby has been abandoned by her mother, father, and sister, until her sister learns she is living alone and comes to save her. Her sister's husband is wealthy, so Ruby suddenly has new clothes and a private school to attend. The problem is she doesn't know where she fits in anymore. A moving novel with well-developed characters.

Nutritious Books

Under the Persimmon Tree

by Suzanne Fisher Staples

I found this at the public library and I chose it because it was on one of the YALSA lists of best books for teens. This is the story of Najmah, a young Afghan girl whose mother and baby brother are killed in an air raid, and father and older brother are constripted by the Taliban. At a refugee camp, she meets Elaine, and American woman who is running the camp while her husband is missing. Their lives entwine as they both try to find the people they love. There is a lot of history and politics woven into the story, and also a glossary, map, and background notes. An important story for young adults and others to read since we know so little about that part of the world.

Open Your Eyes- Extraordinary Experiences in Faraway Places

edited by Jill Davis

I found this at the public library and I chose it because I liked the short-story format and the idea that it was about different cultures and countries. The editor has collected 10 travel stories from a range of writers, such as Lois Lowry, Jean Fritz, and Katherine Patterson. Each one shares an eye-opening and life-changing travel experience that they had as a young person. Some funny and some sad, they all convey the idea that if you are put into an unfamiliar culture or situation, you will need to think and grow and change.

Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You

by Hanna Jansen

I found this book at the public library. I chose it because it is about the Rwandan Genocide, something that we as a country know very little about. It would be useful in a high school classroom since it is historical, thought-provoking, and about genocide. This is the true story of eight-year-old Jeanne, who witnessed her entire family being massacred during the 1994 genocide. She is then adopted by a German woman who helps this remarkable girl heal and tell the story of her life to the world.

Scary Books

Shattered Mirror

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

I found this book at the public library. I didn't know that Atwater-Rhodes was a prolific young writer. This was her third book. I chose it because it's about something that is very popular today, teenaged vampires. Some of these vampires drink animal blood instead of human blood. Sound familiar? It was written before Twilight anyway, as far as I know. Hmm...

Sarah Vida, a witch and vampire killer, finds herself falling for a kind and gentle vampire. When she finds out that his twin brother is Nikolas, an evil vampire that her family has been trying to kill for decades, she must decide if she will risk her reputation or her life.