Final Summary of PA Online Web 2.0

This course was thoroughly entertaining , enlightening and challenging! Going through the various steps reminded me of those very early days of the internet when I had one dial-in internet computer in the library at school, text only, but I went home every day just bubbling with excitement over the newest thing I discovered as I "practiced" using the internet. Not everything I found in this Web 2.0 course was thrilling, but each step got my creative juices flowing. Some of my discoveries I shared with other teachers, some with my husband, some with our local historical society members, some with friends. Some I tucked away for possible use when the need arose later.

I hated setting up this blog. What's a blog good for anyway? But little by little, as I ruminated on the various steps, I came to see that a blog might be for sharing with others, but a blog is first for me, a place to sort out my thoughts, a place to try out ideas. Yep, this blog was a good idea. And now I'm ready to pass along the idea; just yesterday I recommended to my superintendent that mentor teachers and inductees could use a blog or a wiki to build a rapport, to share plans, to invite thoughts on all aspects of the teaching profession.

LibraryThing, as I've mentioned before, has the greatest value for me. Even before this course I entered most of our Historical Society's library collection into LibraryThing to give the Society's library an online catalog. That activity was worth every hour we put into it! LibraryThing gives us a slick, professional-looking online catalog that our members can search from home, and visitors can search long before they enter our doors. Patrons at the local public libraries doing genealogical or local history research can check the historical society's online catalog from the public library--thus saving research time and steps.

Some of the things I want to take away from this course:
Using a wiki as an electronic handout for our students. When I find good websites for a particular assignment in the library, I type up the URLs, copy them in large print to half-sheets of paper, and leave the half-sheets between the computers in our library. But then students have to retype those URLs, often making mistakes, getting weird results. Good plan, but not great. By using a wiki, I can easily copy and paste the URLs into a library wiki under specific assignment headings, save the wiki, then point the students to the wiki site where they can just copy and paste the chosen URLs into their browsers. Slick! Far less frustrating for students and for me!
A second take away: Using a wiki as a way to gather local history information for our historical society, letting all the locals who are computer-savvy contribute their memories to the wiki. It would probably be good if I did a program on how to contribute to the wiki--either live and in person, or in a podcast on the historical society's website.
Now that summer break is here, I need to take the time to set up these two wikis. The small effort involved could have huge payoffs later on.

As for the course itself, I liked the Web 2.0 course plan. I got a kick out of exploring the sites, I liked the freedom to work on the course whenever I could, I liked journaling in a blog (that's a surprise to me!). My only suggestions for the course are that someone should keep it updated, and that a Web 2.0.1 should be devised wherein we discover newer sites. Now that we've started, we must keep up-to-date. Everyday someone publishes new free software; we must explore what they've provided!

I would very definitely sign on to another discovery program like this one. Thanks bunches for giving me the opportunity to take this course!

Audio ebooks

Well, I've clicked around the various recommended sites for free audio ebooks, and wasn't too impressed. It's not that I don't like audiobooks; my husband and I have dozens at home--on tape. He drives 40 miles one way to work each day. Often he has a student riding with him. But when he doesn't, he can only listen to so much Rush Limbaugh. Even ESPN radio isn't always satisfying. So, over the years, he's gotten used to listening to audio books, and we've taken audio books with us on vacation. A good audio book shortens those long drives across the prairie or through endless corn fields (orange groves, cane fields, tundra....whatever).

But our new cars have CD players, so all of our wonderful books on tape are packed away. And we just haven't purchased the portable equipment yet to download audio ebooks. When I walk, I want to talk to my husband, or listen to the birds. I have used audio books during the summer when I'm home alone washing walls and ironing drapes. Maybe I'll download an ebook to our laptop this summer, and listen to it while I work. Just for the experience. Maybe I'll get an ipod for Christmas.....who knows?

Ebooks

I am absolutely THRILLED with ebooks! I love netLibrary; what a blessing that we have it as part of Access PA POWER Library. Because of my delight with netLibrary, I've started purchasing ebooks for our school library's collection. I've been pleased with the ebooks from Follett and Salem Press, but I'm most impressed with the Gale Virtual Reference Library. Their federated search engine is awesome (and I rarely find the need to use that word). Furthermore, I've learned that when I purchase these ebooks for our high school library, they can be used throughout our school district--a sort of electronic interlibrary loan. Talk about spreading the wealth!

Just now I've explored some of the "Best Places to Get Free Books" sites. What a treat for a book lover! My niece showed me BookCrossing last year. Cool idea; kind of a hidden treasure search for curious book lovers. I shared WOWIO with my comic book-loving husband. WellToldTales appears to have some interesting stories; I need to go back there.

And then there's the British Library Online Gallery....oooo, rich! Every library has fragile but valuable books, pamphlets and other resources that should be shared with the world. But letting so many sweaty hands turn those crumbling pages over the years is dangerous to aging print. The BL has found a way to let the rest of us handle original print books safely. Once, long ago, I saw a facsimile of the original Alice's Adventures, and I promised myself I'd go back and read it some day. But before I could, the book was lost. (I suspect tossed out by someone who just wanted to clean out the space--I've never forgiven that person!) Today I saw the original of that book in the BL Online Gallery--oh, yes, I must go back and read it!

Podcasts

It's been a while since I added to this blog--Springtime is nuts! Way too much to do! Anyway, I finally got around to checking out podcasting. I actually took a little podcasting course through my school district, which was a nice introduction. But I still didn't get the point of podcasting. Today, however, I lightbulb flicked on. I read Forever Geek's Beginner's Guide to Podcasting and Creating Podcasts, also Jason Van Orden's How to Podcast. Finally, it made sense! Before today I didn't understand the difference between just listening to a file on YouTube and using RSS. Now I see that when I ask for an RSS feed, I expect to get regular or semi-regular broadcasts from the same person or group on a topic similiar to what first attracted me to the initial podcast I heard. This is a place I can return to regularly to get my fix of a favored kind of music, or an intriguing talk personality. So, if I enjoy listening to movie reviews, I can subscribe to a movie reviewing podcast. If I like hearing someone offer instruction on music improvisation, I subscribe to that podcast. Podcasts, then, are briefer, less elaborate versions of the pirate radio web broadcasts that I used to hear about back in the 90's, right? And mostly they're produced by far less radical people, like me.

YouTube

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!

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.

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!!