Parking Lot Reflections

We are having a great time talking about blogs. We reviewed some vocabulary and some history of blogs and then we dissected the “parts” of a blog. The group is made up of Librarians and Friends of Libraries of SBISD.

Now we are investigating different types of blogs to see what they have in common and how they are different. It is a noisy activity, but they are having a great time looking and learning!The PPT that introduced the subject is available here. Some participants search thru blog rolls on sample blogs for blogs to review and some decided to track down “new” blogs by searching the WWW.

All agreed that the blogs are all as different as the people who create them. Personal taste and personal needs are reflected in the posts and in the blog rolls and other link lists that appear on the side bar!

Some of the blogs reviewed include:

A Library By Any Other Name & its mirror site

Librarian Philospher thought-provoking topics on librarianship 2.0

Book Book Book Title says it all! bunches and bunches

The Fidra Blog Edinburgh, Scotland book seller, reviewer, book lover!

Charlotte’s Library archaeologist, Friend of her public library and a book lover

Blue Skunk Blog long-time, well-established blog + LOTS more!! website

TechBlog Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle

New Scientist blog for magazine of same name

Super Students Blog classroom blog, more by other students

4K Class Blog very clean format

Toolmonger all about power tools!

/Other blogs covered in the class discussion:

Just One More Book podcasts galore!

Room 9 Nelson Central class blog 6-7 yr. olds from New Zeland. Ccheck out their video about blogging.
A Chair, A Fireplace & Tea Cozy graphic novels list noted, but there is o-so-much more!

Cool Cat Teacher super blogger (when does she sleep?)
We talked a little about RSS and readers like Google Reader and the types of things that you could use one for–groups of blogs, web pages, news sources…anything that you want to keep up-dated on.

We also reviewed how a blog gets started, looked at some basic information to think about when creating a blog and briefly looked at the two services, Blogger & edublogs that are open in our district.

The afternoon flew by and we had to leave some topics on the table for another time.

[If you would like to read the comments regarding this class, please go here--a "mirror image" of this blog. The participants made sure to comment...an essential ingredient for a proper blog!!]

[this post was originally created Tuesday, June 19th as a part of a "blogging live during a blog professional development workshop" experience and  posting has been delayed due to the service's upgrade issues the past 10 days or so!]

Last week a group of librarians and teachers spent an intense week collaborating over lessons and infusing them with various types of educational technology. Elementary and secondary teams came together for a whirlwind tour of technologies, Web 2.0 services, and other online resources.

Beginners and advanced alike all learned something new to make lessons more student-centered and real-world relevant while using technology to make the delivery of instruction more inviting and the culminating activities different learning experiences for their students.

Subjects included Greek mythology, food groups and good eating habits, the water cycle, career exploration, and good behavior habits. One way the group made sure the lessons were student-centered and true collaborations between librarian and teacher was to deconstruct the lesson by making lists of teacher, librarian and student responsibilities.

Everyone had opportunity to learn PowerPoint tips and tricks, how to create a Photo Story, how to work with videostreaming, how manipulate photos, how to add music, and create podcasts. A special presentation was made about the ActivBoard and all the great teaching and learning tools available with that special technology. There was lots of looking for the sign-up list to get one! The group learned how to create a rubric using Rubistar, an open source software available to all who want to use it.

Lots of work time was built into the week so that each team could present a good representation of their lesson to the whole group. Even during this time, there were exchanges of ideas and expressions of “O, I can do that too with mine” or ” Gee, I can add that to my lesson.” So much so, that the “final” lessons will not be posted for about another week so that all the good ideas can be incorporated and added.

Comments from participants include: [will add -- left the notes on my desk!]

One participant, my friend G, also blogged her thoughts.