Janice’s Adventures in Web 2.0

I have enjoyed this course and have learned an incredible amount in a short period of time. Much of it is overflowing in my brain right now. But, now that I know the basics about how to do these 22 things I can now spend some time polishing up some of the skills I have learned.  I will take some time over the next week or two to downsize my RSS feed to a more manageable size, so that I can keep up with it better. As I said in my Voicethread,  I will be exploring the possibilities of doing some type of wiki or blog at school connected with our Media Center webpage where students can chat about books they are reading, or have read and have either liked or disliked. The challenge for me will be trying to find the time to do that with my cut in hours at school.

There are lots of photos on Flickr in the Creative Commons related to Israel that I will keep in mind as students are working on Israel projects this year at school. I want to start actively using my Delicious account more to make my favorite websites more accessible to me and my colleagues at school. I am actually adding books I have read to my Library Thing collection. I have joined a Ning group and hope to be able to follow the discussions somewhat. And, finally, I have begun to use Googledocs at school and at home to work on documents with others. So, there is a lot that I will be thinking about over the next few months and I can honestly say that this was a very worthwhile course for me. It is great to be more knowledgeable now when people talk about Web 2.0 and to actually know what they are talking about! Thanks to Shelley Paul for her awesome class-your Jing videos were very easy to understand and helpful. Thanks also to our fearless mentor for the Epstein group, Patty Nathan, for her insightful comments. All in all, this Web 2.0 was a great learning experience for me-the first real class that I have taken in quite some time!

It took a while to get started on Thing 21, because two days in a row when I tried to access the teacher edition of pageflakes it was down when I had my window of opportunity/free time. But, I finally got signed in and got to explore.

Wow! What a neat concept-being able to put so many different web 2.0 tools on one page! I was able to add some of my favorite blogs to my custom start page, as well as an RSS Feed to the Jerusalem Post newspaper. I also imported my bookmarks from Delicious.  I did a Wikipedia search with the link from Shelley, but could not figure out how to clear the search once I was done with it. There was no clear key to clear the search like in the dictionary. I put some items on the to-do list and added a message to the message board. I also put a few notes on the notepad. So, I got to try out a lot of the gadgets and added a few of my own. I also dragged and dropped and rearranged things on the page.

I came up with a few ideas for new pages to add. I might want to do a page with all of the resources that I use related to Jewish and adult books-websites, podcasts, blogs, etc. for my own professional use. I also think it would be neat to make a custom research/reference portal on Israel, and perhaps a page for the Jewish holidays with links to informational websites, games, photos from Flickr, etc. Now I just have to find the time to do this!

I did not realize that podcasting could be so easy.  Of course, to make it really interesting, I am sure there is a lot you can do to jazz up the podcast with music, etc.  Recording the actual podcast was the easy part. I found the experience not quite so easy, though, because the sound recorder on Windows would only record a 60 second podcast and mine was longer. So, I tried to use Vocaroo, recorded and went through Steps 1-3 only to find that the podcast did not work because my computer did not seem to have the correct software to use the WAV file I saved from Vocaroo.   So, I redid the whole process and went back to Plan A, shortened my podcast and used the windows sound recorder, which worked for me.

I will need to explore further the many possible uses of podcasts in a media center setting.  I definitely like the idea of having students produce podcasts of reviews of books they have read and having those podcasts available for their classmates to listen to, to get recommendations on books to read. I know this has been done in some of the middle school English classes in my school, and I would like to pursue that idea further, as well as finding other ways to use podcasts to promote reading and get kids excited about books.

Wow-Classroom 2.0 is yet another resource that one can learn from and go to to share ideas with other educators. This is taking listserves to a whole new level.  As I explored Classroom 2.0 I found some interesting discussions going on related to libraries. This would definitely be a good place to participate, if one had the time. That is the key-what will one focus on? Between RSS feeds, blogs, etc.-where is the time to do all of this great networking?

One discussion of forums that I found interesting was on having a library blog to discuss new books or materials. The concept of creating a “book club without walls” was introduced. I found the Blogging Libraries Wiki where there was a list of various school libraries with wikis around the world, with links to their blogs. I plan to look at these links further, to see what is going on at other libraries. I would love to see us in our media center expand our library webpage to perhaps include a blog with children’s book reviews, book suggestions, etc.  or other such ideas. If I get some of my lost hours reinstated, this may be something I can work on. I learned that there is a Tech Conference called Internet Librarian, that I might want to find out about. There was an interesting discussion going on on Document Sharing Applications, as well as YA literature ideas for summer reading for 7th graders.

When I looked at groups, I found a Library 2.0 Group, but there was not a lot of discussion going on yet within this group.  I found Media Specialists Unite!  , a group where media specialists can share ways they are incorporating Web 2.0 ideas into their libraries and lessons. I did learn about a group called Darim, that I will explore, that is apparently a Jewish Education place to go for all things 2.0. Someone also mentioned that there is something out there called Jew.0 that I will explore further. Sometimes people did not provide links to things that they mentioned, which was not as helpful.  I found the blog of Noemi Szoychen, a Jewish day school educator, where she did a project with Bible rap, which was neat. http://jewlearn-it.blogspot.com/  Bible rap idea

I looked at some of the videos as well and found a few interesting ones, though there was a lot more of Jewish interest on You Tube.

I can see that Classroom 2.0 would definitely be a good resource to find out what others are doing in the world of 2.0, to get more ideas for use in our own media center.

I then went on to explore Ning networks related to education and found one I really liked, TeacherLibrarian Ning-the link I have enclosed is for one forum on an Information Fluency Project, which was very interesting. I found a lot of relevant, interesting groups on this Ning, including YA Literature in School Libraries, Middle School Librarians, Elementary School Librarians, a group that discusses Applying Web 2.0 Tools, etc.  I really liked this TeacherLibrarian Ning, so I went ahead and signed up for it. I can see a lot of potential learning and sharing going on between me and this ning, to enhance what goes on in our Media Center.

I think RSS feeds are a great idea. I know I should be checking mine every day, but by the time I get through my home emails, meals with the family, working 3 jobs, etc. there is not much time left over for browsing through RSS feeds. I am going to spend some time streamlining my RSS feeds, just keeping my favorites and see if that helps a bit.

In the meantime, I do enjoy the posts from Doug Johnson. He had one that I thought was great and that summed up for educators what being a teacher is all about in this age of 2.0. From his blog I found a link to another blog which I thought summed up for me what being a teacher-librarian in this age of the internet and Web 2.0 is all about, and summed up what should be my goals after taking this class. The blog listed what I will do as a school librarian with my Web 2.0 tools, so check out this great link!

Google Docs is a great concept. It worked very well when we used it at Epstein last year. It did not work as well when I tried to use it to work on my Day School Sukkot Service. Needed feedback from my co-collaborators right away and emailed the letter via Google Docs for our service from home to Epstein. Unfortunately, the Epstein network would not give Elaine and Laura access to my Google Doc coming from home. Still have not corrected the glitch. Since I needed their feedback the next day, I downloaded the document from Google Docs and emailed it to them as an attachment. Back to the old method. What I like about Google Docs is how easy it is to access from anywhere, so one can work easily on documents at home and at school.

Then I did a spreadsheet on our Day School students and sent it to someone so she could add her piece. She was not familiar with Google Docs and was not willing to take the time for me to walk her through accessing my spreadsheet. So, again, she sent me that info via email and I added it to the spreadsheet. Conclusion: Google Docs will be a great mechanism once more people buy into the system and learn how to use it. It was great for me, because I was able to access the document at home and at school without having to email it back and forth to make revisions. Emailing it back and forth gets confusing as you update and have various versions floating around.

I plan to keep using Google Docs to work on the Sukkot service I am planning, and hopefully I will be able to get my coplanners to learn how to use Google Docs so we can work on the documents together. Google Docs might also be a great way to work with fellow teachers on a joint lesson, planning it together and sharing ideas. Google Docs is also a great way for teachers and students to interact. A student can submit their rough draft to a teacher for editing, and they can work with each other on the document. We are also using Google Docs at school to work on additions to our Media and Technology Web Page. By sharing documents it is so easy to work together as a team, without having to always try to find the time to physically meet or deal with a barrage of emails back and forth between team members.

I am looking forward to using Google Docs in future collaborative efforts with my coworkers at school and also with my committees that I work with outside of school!

I had seen a few You Tube videos before this course, but never had done much searching. It is absolutely incredible how many videos are available via YouTube. The problem is that there is a very wide spectrum in the quality of those videos. The ratings did help to eliminate some of the very basic home videos from the selection pool.  I tried searching first for videos dealing with Jewish children’s books and did not have much luck with that. I did find one very nice book trailer for the new book, “New Year at the Pier” that I had already heard about in a podcast, which is about Rosh Hashanah and Tashlich.  I never realized that there are book trailers, just like there are movie trailers. That book trailer would be a nice leadin to reading the story to a class. Under “children’s books” I found a very nice short video where Eric Carle talked about the writing of his book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”  It is always nice to share with a class an author talking about how he goes about the writing process and the creation of a book.  I also explored the topics, “Israel Independence Day” and “Rosh Hashanah.” I liked some of the videos that I found for Israel Independence Day and Jerusalem Day that had footage of actual holiday celebrations in Israel. I think it would be great to share some of those with our students. There was a very neat video of people all over the world singing “Hatikvah” together at the same time which was great and showed how the Jews are all one people, no matter where you live in the world.

The “How to” video that I found that was interesting was “How to Make a Book with a Secret Compartment.” And another one that I found interesting was from Israelicious, the Israel cooking show, where Phillis Glazer shared an easy way to make Sufganiyot, jelly doughnuts, which are traditionally eaten on Hanukkah. There are definitely many You Tube videos that could prove useful in a classroom setting, and the fact that many are short is a plus, though you can always fast forward on the longer ones. One can also create your own videos with students to upload to YouTube-I would have to read more about what is being done with this and the safety issues involved with having the student’s images out there on the web, before pursuing this further.

Teacher Tube was not as impressive. I found it hard to use and could not locate much interesting content on the same Jewish topics that I had many hits on in YouTube.

The video that I want to embed and share is “Jerusalem Day Music” where you get to see how Jerusalem Day is actually celebrated in Jerusalem.

Podcasting has been around already for a while and I am really excited to finally learn the fundamentals so I can get started using this great tool.  I previewed several of the children’s podcasts. It is exciting to see students embracing this technology and flying with it. I listened to Radio WillowWeb, Willowcast #33 I was amazed what second graders could do. They had studied famous artists and shared their favorite info. Radio WillowWeb is a “podcast by kids, for kids” and it was a great example of what can be done in a classroom. The children were very articulate. I listened to Cranbrook Composers’ podcasts, where middle schoolers played some of their musical compositions. That was also neat, as students shared some of their music with others.

I then went to the section on English/Reading-where else would a librarian go? I  listened to some of Mugglecasts-The #1 Harry Potter Podcast. I immediately forwarded that one on to my son Noah who was there at midnight when the latest Harry Potter movie came out. I would have to listen to the entire broadcast first, but it looks like a good one to recommend to kids that are Harry Potter fans. The other podcast I explored was one I heard about at my convention, since the creators of the podcast were at my Association of Jewish Libraries Convention in July-it is called Just One More Book. This is a neat website where the two podcasters discuss the latest children’s books. The podcast I listened to was about a new Rosh Hashanah book, “The Bliss of Forgiveness,” which I actually purchased at the convention. I actually met and spoke briefly with the author of the book at convention as well. ”Just One More Book” is  a website that all of us in the media center can utilize to learn about great new children’s books, learn about authors and illustrators, etc. I also subscribed to the Book of Life (A Podcast about Jewish People and the Books we Read).  I have been meaning to listen to Heidi Estrin’s monthly broadcasts, since it is a great way to learn about new Jewish books out there-she discusses both Jewish books for children and those for adults.

I know that in the middle school we have already had the children do podcast reviews of Jewish books that they read during Jewish Book Month. I am not sure if the students were required to listen to each other’s podcasts but I think that should be a part of the assignment as well, so they can learn about other great Jewish books they might want to read, and also,  just to get a chance to sample each other’s hard work and final outcomes. I would love to see more student book reviews done and put perhaps, on the Media Center web page (or on a additional Media Center Middle School page) so other students can discover more books to read that their peers have recommended. If I ever get my lost hours reinstated I would probably like to explore developing further our media center program for our middleschoolers.  I am also planning on going to the AJL website and listening to the podcasts from the AJL Convention for sessions I was not able to attend, due to schedule conflicts.

All in all, there is a lot of potential for using podcasts at school for professional developement and with the students, and there are a lot more possibilities to explore!

As a librarian I found Library Thing fun to explore. It was very addictive, so I had to set a time limit.  If I had more time, I could see getting really hooked on spending time on Library Thing, inputting my collection at home, and interacting with other library members. What I find is that each of these Web 2.0 activities we have been learning about, such as social bookmarking, reading one’s RSS Feed, blogging, etc. can be very time consuming! I already found several  library groups on the Library Thing that I would join-the one for librarians, the one for mystery readers, and the one for readers of YA. I could see spending time in the YA group, learning about new titles that we can buy for our middle school library, since we are trying to buy new, fun titles for our middle school students. I also found some chatting going on in the mystery group about YA mysteries, which is something that we are looking for right now at the Epstein School.  So, I can see how the Library Thing would be useful for collection develpment at school and also for my own reading enjoyment at home.

One has to remember, though, that the book reviews are written by people reading for their own enjoyment, and I would probably follow up the reviews I find here with reviews from some of my professional library journals. I am not sure I would have my students use it, since many of the titles that would be recommended might not be appropriate for a middle school reader. The one drawback I see to this for me is that most of the books that I read I do not own, but rather take out of the library. So, I guess I could use Library Thing more as a book log, to record and rate books I have read, be they ones that I own, or ones that I borrow from the library.

I did set myself up with a Library Thing account and put in my first 10 books today. It definitely is easy to add books. It will be interesting to see if I can find the time and will continue to add to my Library Thing collection. It might be interesting to track the books that I read, and start to catalog my at home book collection.

Wow-every day brings new adventures! I had heard of “Delicious” but had never used it before today. It is definitely very helpful to now have a way to sort my bookmarks by subjects/tags to have better access to them. It is also great that these bookmarks are online and I can access them from any computer. I also am enjoying the ability to see what websites other educators and librarians are using so that I can add more websites to my repertoire. This will definitely prove useful in the future. The other nice feature of delicious is that now I can share my websites easily with my coworkers, students, and others.  It will take some time to input my website favorites into delicious and I will need to learn how to import those favorites to speed up the process.  However, I am looking forward to utilizing this new social bookmarking tool when I get back to school next month! To see Janice’s delicious bookmarks you can just check out my link!