Ravelry

Ravelry, originally uploaded by ex.libris.

Public library knitting programs bring families and neighbors together sharing in a creative manner. Knitters can join together and create hats for newborns, afghans for the homeless, and sweaters for needy children. Now these programs can incorporate social networking within their group and with other knitters and crocheters. Ravelry.com provides organizing tools to make sense out of the chaos of your stash along with a wealth of patterns and yarn sources. I can post my collection of pattern books, chart my needles and crochet hooks, join groups of interest, and locate the yarn shops nearest to me. Check out Ravelry's blog at http://blog.ravelry.com/.

SMARTboards

Many of my classmates who are or have been teachers have made comments about the use of SMARTboards in classrooms. My daughter's new high school has them. Because I was unsure how they worked, I viewed this brief tutorial to give myself an idea. The possibilities for teaching use seem almost endless and give kids a chance to demonstrate their answers with just the touch of a finger. (I can remember when it was a treat to be chosen to clap the erasers)

This video came from YouTube. This was the first time I have posted a video to my blog. Like most media tools it is simple to do, but it took me quite a while to figure it out (frustrating!!)

Librarian Skills

Today was the first meeting of my summer Storytelling class. I was struck by the contrasting skills I am learning in my Online Resources for Youth class and my Storytelling class. The online class is a little daunting for me as I struggle to learn to use media tools and think of how to implement them in library instruction. In storytelling class today we were reminded of simple fingerplays and poems, some of which I learned as a child myself. Both classes are teaching invaluable skills for librarians to be used to teach very young children through teens. I will be thrilled if I ever get to the point that media tools are as easy and comfortable for me in instruction as a simple fingerplay. Somehow with the ever changing technology, I doubt that will happen. The Itsy Bitsy Spider is still the same as ever, and I love it!

Research Teaching Models

Today I read about a variety of research models including the Big 6, Super 3, Pathways to Knowledge, Cornell University Library's Seven Steps of the Research Process and 2Learn. Having never been a teacher, all of these were new to me, even though I had heard of the Big 6.
These models provide the structure for answering any research question no matter how basic or how complex. Mike Eisenberg's Big 6 research steps are Task Definition, Information Seeking Strategies, Location and Access, Use of Information, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The various media tools can play a part in each step of the research process. Email, chat sessions and blogs can be used to exchange ideas with project partners. Students must decide what types of resources to explore (using internet search engines, databases, catalogs) and determine how to access them. Once information is found students must use their skills to download, cut and paste in compiling their notes. They may use word processing software, powerpoints, wikis or spreadsheets to compose and present their finished work. Students will reuse helpful resources on future research. Each step in this research process does not need to be followed sequentially.

I also set up my first wiki at http://bookmobilefan.pbworks.com/ using pbworks. Currently this wiki is a list of media tools that I have recently explored.

Sink or Swim???

Learning to create a blog, a wiki, a social networking page, etc. can be a challenge for someone who has made it through 50+ years without. But continued success in communication and teaching depend on my using media to add interest to lessons and projects not possible before. This blog will document my explorations with various media tools.

Kali, originally uploaded by jpughmorgan.

Today I'm using flickr. Flickr (available at http://www.flickr.com/) is a website that allows you to upload photos and videos. The steps are minimal. One click and flickr opened my collection of pictures on my computer, allowed me to select one, give it a title, tag it and write a description if I so desired, and set it to public or private. To upload it to my blog, the setting needed to be public. This is a picture of my daughter's cat Kali. We have three cats and this one thinks she's the boss, although she is terrified of the ceiling fan.