I've played with YouTube and TeacherTube a number of times over the last 2 weeks. I'm just delighted that real people who know "stuff" can record and show others what they know. After I took my first 6 classes in how to play the mountain dulcimer, there was NOBODY within an hour's drive that could show me how to do a hammer-on or how to flat-pick. I was thrilled that I could request books and tapes on interlibrary loan on how to play the dulcimer, and I thought I went to heaven when I discovered a dulcimer listserv. But I still couldn't SEE how to do something.
On both YouTube and TeacherTube I found dulcimer champions, professionals, and just plain folk who demonstrated their own playing styles. By watching them, I saw flaws in my own playing style; I saw techniques I'd only read about; I learned skills faster.
Our students will also find visual/auditory ways to learn skills and concepts by using the Tubes. Many learners can visualize something as it's taught to us, but many learners can't. Many learners have the patience to reconstruct a process in their minds, but many don't. I see the Tubes as being a way of having a personal demonstrating instructor nearby throughout the learning process. And you can slow down the image if you need to catch all the nuances of some skill--slick!
TeacherTube teaches teachers, too. Professional development right at your computer. Not all of the entries are fantastic. But sometimes teachers need to see a bad demo to learn how to do it properly. What a wonderful time for teachers and learners alike!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
17. Pennsylvania Curriculum Connection
I tried adding a comment to the Pennsylvania Curriculum Connection--twice! But I didn't have the key (username/password), so I emailed the administrator....twice. No response. I just emailed again; we'll see if I get the key. I noticed that no one has posted to the wiki in six months...could be a problem.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
LibraryThing
I love LibraryThing!!! LT is absolutely incredible! I discovered it sometime last year (probably someone mentioned it at one of my librarians' meetings), and I sat on it for a few months. Then last summer, as I was working with a college student majoring in Library Science, I decided to give it a try for our local historical society. We now have a working, fully-functional online catalog for the society. Sign up was so easy, set up was so easy, entering titles was so easy, editing our entries is so easy--it's simply a delight to use.
So I 've had so much fun with LT that I decided to share the wealth. At a librarians consortium meeting last Fall my friend and I did an hour-long program on LT, which was very well recieved. Recently I've offered to do a program for another group of librarians. And last month I did a demo at the English Department meeting in my school.
My friend and I started the Historical Society's card catalog years ago. We added 25-30 books to the catalog each year. But it was such a struggle locating programming to create the cards, maintaining a computer with the programming installed, then the old DOS programming would no longer work with our newer equipment. And after all the effort our historical society members still didn't know how to use the card catalog.
But LT is so intuitive. It's like God's gift to little libraries. Thank you, thank you!!
So I 've had so much fun with LT that I decided to share the wealth. At a librarians consortium meeting last Fall my friend and I did an hour-long program on LT, which was very well recieved. Recently I've offered to do a program for another group of librarians. And last month I did a demo at the English Department meeting in my school.
My friend and I started the Historical Society's card catalog years ago. We added 25-30 books to the catalog each year. But it was such a struggle locating programming to create the cards, maintaining a computer with the programming installed, then the old DOS programming would no longer work with our newer equipment. And after all the effort our historical society members still didn't know how to use the card catalog.
But LT is so intuitive. It's like God's gift to little libraries. Thank you, thank you!!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Zoho
Today I tried Zoho, and I'm not impressed. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it appears as though the producers of Zoho haven't kept up with it. The writing aspect of the site appears to be working fine. But when I switched to other applications, like spreadsheet, the page comes up incomplete. And Creater wants me to pay for the plan.
I've used Google Docs with other librarians to create common documents to share with our employers and staffs. That programming didn't take long at all to learn. Making changes together was pretty simple. I'm sure we'll use that service again.
My husband writes a newsletter for his church. The pastor types his articles, prints them out, then hands them to Tom to be re-typed for the newsletter. Maybe we can teach the pastor (a computer newbie) to use one of these online wordprocessors so that each article need only be typed once.
And I think I'll show this (or Google Docs) to my Aide. She types our memorial letters, prints them out, gives them to me to proofread, then goes back to the computer to make the changes. One of these online writer programs could streamline the process, and maybe save a small tree.
I've used Google Docs with other librarians to create common documents to share with our employers and staffs. That programming didn't take long at all to learn. Making changes together was pretty simple. I'm sure we'll use that service again.
My husband writes a newsletter for his church. The pastor types his articles, prints them out, then hands them to Tom to be re-typed for the newsletter. Maybe we can teach the pastor (a computer newbie) to use one of these online wordprocessors so that each article need only be typed once.
And I think I'll show this (or Google Docs) to my Aide. She types our memorial letters, prints them out, gives them to me to proofread, then goes back to the computer to make the changes. One of these online writer programs could streamline the process, and maybe save a small tree.
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