Wednesday 19 June 2013

Screencast uploaded to Youtube

I have uploaded Youtube : Tatura Trove my first Youtube video, the screencast using Explain a Website.

Sunday 9 June 2013

Screenshots I wanted to add to the Prezi, or a journey through photos


Edmdo community

Hosts and participants

Flipboard

Twitter community

Scoopit, great but where is the time?

Facebook for professional networking
iCentre


OZ TL Net collaboration, contributors, problem solvers

IPad tools like Explain a Website

Evernote for everyone!


Children's Book Council of Victoria committee for 2013-2014

Face to face opportunities

My VicPLN journey

Well the journey continues, technology and switching devices frustrates and wastes time for me.
I completed my Prezi (first time) on the iPad, but there was no animation but I had my screen shots in. Completed Prezi (second time) animations but couldn't easily get the photos from iPad onto PC and into Prezi.

Prezi Journey click the arrows at the bottom of the screen to see my progress.


And on I go.......

Friday 7 June 2013

Screening a Treasure Trove

All the staff at school have been provided with iPads for them to learn their uses and to develop programs for their students. I thought it was important to use an iPad screencasting tool to see if I could make a screen cast that could be shown on the iPad or through a PC.

I chose to use Explain A Wesbsite.  Things I learned:

  • turn your washing machine off before recording
  • turn other noisy background noises off
  • think about what you are going to say prior to recording
  • check the screen for relevant information to highlight before you begin recording
  • despite being called "Explain a website" you can't highlight or write anything in the URL bar so I had to point from below to the URL address.
  • possible to save to iPad
  • possible to save to Dropbox
  • able to view on PC
  • emailed link and another person was able to view it without being logged into Dropbox
  • it gave me the option to save it to my iPad, I did I don't know where it is saved!

It was good to have the task to complete for the PLN on screencasting, as I had tried this before and had become frustrated.  This time I could create, save, export and show it off, success!


Monday 3 June 2013

Technology and my professional life, Unit 6

When I studied for librarianship back in the 80's we used  punch cards for a statistical assignment. Our group wrote a proposal for how a country municipal library could promote and inform the borrowers about how a computerised library circulation system could assist them and allay any fears they may have.  Fortunately by the time I was in the public library system computerised circulation systems were operating.  I loved that I could tell the borrower yes we have that book, it had been returned half an hour ago and here it is. On the old card system all you could say with certainty was that at a point in time the library had purchased that title.

As I am married to a computer boffin we had one of the first "portable" computers.  It was about the size of a sewing machine and more lugable than portable and lightweight.  I saw more of the insides of the computer - the circuit boards, the heat chip -  than I ever saw the use of it or the basic programs of the day.  Technology has always been important and present in my personal and professional life.

To keep up to date I subscribed to print magazines, attended any conferences or cluster group meetings that I could attend  that my employer would allow me to be away from the library for. I am still a conference junkie I love hearing authors speak and to hear from people exploring all the possibilities available to us in libraries to promote books, information literacy and to help the people who use our particular sort of library.

Currently elists like OZTL Net, Facebook groups like iCentre, VIC PLN allow me to sit at home or work and join in the conversations or even just be aware of the issues being raised in libraries. Twitter is becoming useful but it isn't my first port of call.  Flipboard and Scoopit are also tools that I use to raise my awareness and challenge my thinking.

I really appreciated how technology has changed our learning when I returned to university in 2011.  All the articles I wanted available online  I spent some time learning how to use the citation service provided by the University, taking a library class to learn how to do it and then teaching others in my course. The uncertainty of the elements, capitalisation gone!  I was even able to consult with a university librarian about a particular issue while I was at home.

It was also frustrating to be in uni classes being taught "multi media". The lecturers remonstrating others saying THEY only use the Interactive WhiteBoard as screens and yet that was what they were doing showing us Powerpoints and Youtube clips.

HITTING HARD
Technology has impacted us in a big way. Teens around me at home and in school cannot be without their mobile phones. They expect to be always available to their friends, to be able to "Google it" to get an immediate answer. 

Technology does allow us to be global citizens.  I feel like the author John Green is a friend as I have read his books and watched his weekly vlogs.  The internet has drawn the world in closer. I have been part of 2 schools involved in the International Baccalaureate.  I have been part of wiki discussions about aspects of the Primary Years Programme (PYP) relevant to librarians, shared ideas, plans and even organised overseas visits to see other PYP libraries.

CITIZENS
My daughter is about to turn 18 and to cast her first vote. She is planning to create a video post about the candidates and issues that are relevant and important to her as well as her peer group and share that video through her own Youtube channel.

I spoke to a year 12 student about the issues of online privacy and she was very aware of the issues and made a point that you had to be careful with who you hung out with in cyber space as much as in the face to face world.  She said they (the students) had set up a private Facebook group for study purposes, a place where they could upload documents or pictures and discuss the work to be done. They might invite teachers but it was just to make them feel included.

The availability of information and the immediacy of event notification makes us feel like we can do something and make an impact as a citizen in our world.  And yet you have things like the petition to catch Kony or more recently the posts about bring back the death penalty after the awful hacking murder of the British soldier.  Does clicking on a button really change the outcome?  We need to teach our students how to assess what we are being asked to do and by whom.

To inform our students librarians or teachers need to have a time or role to play.  It is frustrating at my current school that it is not apparent who has the task to promote the skills of cyber safety and thinking about how we all use the Internet and other forms of technology like the phone.  It is coming but some of our students will have graduated without the skills and issues being clearly outlined to them.

DIGITAL TATTOO
I loved the video from the Jenny Luca Amazing mind reader reveals his 'gift".  I prefer the term "Digital tattoo" to "digital footprint".  A tattoo is permanent or very hard to erase, whereas a footprint seems to imply that it will be only visible for a short time (unless you step in wet cement).  Our students need to be aware of their presence on the web and who might view it now and years in the future.

This leads into our role as models and thoughtful users of technology. We need to be constantly learning and sharing  with our library staff and  our teaching staff the issues we see and the cool tools (so many of them) that are available to enhance our teaching. We also need to be able to learn from the students and acknowledge the strengths and insights that they have.

I was recently pleased to be informed by some year 11 students that they had looked me up on Facebook, they had found me but not been able to see any of my posts! Whew reviewing my settings and being aware of my output had paid off.

TECHNOLOGY AND THE MYP STUDENT
As I am at a IB school using the Middle Years Programme (MYP) I have decided that I would broaden the brief and look at how technology can support the 10 learner profiles that we as a school are trying to develop and encourage in each secondary school student.

Inquirers: Students need to have a range of materials, books, websites to draw their notes from.

Knowledgeable students need to have a way of evaluating the resources that they find on the web and not just use the first website they find. The CRAP test and other methods would help them.

Thinkers: The questions posed to students should require more than a copy and paste answer. A student should have to collect information and then be allowed time to construct a response.

Communicator: Technology allows us so many ways for students to share their work and we should be designing assignments and tasks that enable the students to do this. Their work can be shared through blogs, global tools like GlogsterPrezi and many others.

Principled: Plagiarism will not be an issue if students are principled, they can't copy and paste and they would acknowledge the resources used.  At our school we have been demonstrating to year 7's and up,  that Microsoft Office Word includes a bibliographic tool. It is on the document the students are using and it is very easy to use.

Open Minded: In previous generations it was very difficult to get an opposing point of view or contrary view to the dominantly held view of that particular community. Libraries can provide online resources such as EBSCOhost "Australian/New Zealand Points of View", Echo's Issues online and point students to websites which may have a contrary opinion to the dominant one held locally. There are also books which provide insights into different points of view.
This series of books by Kate Petty and Oxfam allow young students to think about how other children play, use bicycles, do their hair, live at home and that what we think is the norm for everyone may not be.

Caring: The culture of our school is to be charitable and to help others. Technology such as planes allow our students to travel overseas to work with others, the internet informs them of people in need and the connections they make through their own personal communities allows them to fund raise and to do practical work to assist others.

Risk takers: The number of tools that our students now have available to them means that instead of just showing their class they can show others in the world what they have learned. A blog post may read overseas, a Snapguide may instruct others how to do a mathematical problem or create a piece of clothing. Others are then free to comment on that piece of work.  Not all comments are positive (as my own children keep reminding me, don't read the comments in the Youtube posts).

Balanced: Perhaps a lesson our students and I need to learn is how to step away from technology. Incorporate outdoor activities, social face to face interactions, creative endeavors into our lives. I even find that to be unavailable from Facebook or the phone can cause me concern, not stress. As all staff were given iPads this year, I have found that reading is not my first choice when I have free time, I will choose to update Facebook or to read online resources. 

Reflective: Our students are asked to be reflective but I think we as staff need to scaffold a lot more about what that means and give broader options.  Rather than a written printed journal entry why not encourage the students to use a blog to record their thoughts?  Use Voicethread to allow students to respond to an image or discussion. I like the suggestion that on the return from a school excursion,on the bus pass around the iPad and allow the students to make a video response to the activity they have just done. This could then be used in the classroom to prompt the students to discuss further the insights they have gained because of the excursion.

FUTURE:
Perhaps it will be continuing with the mobile learning, students able to learn, teach, share, collaborate with any of their cohort or others in different countries.  Perhaps flipped classrooms will become the norm, and countries like the United States will see that standardised testing narrows the teaching and learning opportunities. Perhaps Google glasses will bring the learning straight to your face on an individual basis.  Whatever the future teachers and librarians will be there, thinking, challenging, creating opportunities for sharing and collaboration for their students and themselves.

Technology!

Have been spending time with elderly parents in Shepparton, so I am behind in my blogs. I thought I had spent 2 hours on the draft blog for unit 6 last weekend, no not saved! Luckily my notes are in Evernote so back we go to the beginning of my thinking on unit 6.

Saturday 4 May 2013

text and backgrounds

So I have learned if I copy and paste any text into my blog post, it brings the formatting with it. Only way I can retrospectively fix it, is to change the background colour.  Then my text looks a little blurry.  Moral of the story, don't copy from one document into my blog!

Instagrok table

a nice way to display the information and to restrict the results

Tag you're it!

So now we come to tags and evaluating those websites we use everyday and looking at how we find those websites

I have been preparing for the year 9 science classes to design an energy efficient house so that  was my obvious choice for my test searching on the web.
 Duck duck go corrected my spelling for me and gave me very American results. I went into settings and changed my region to Australia and my results reflected this change.
The search results:lots of commercial sites to design your house, a link to Vicnet site 2009. I checked and there didn't seem to be a way to narrow the search.  Probably not going back to this search engine.
Bing results came up with an Australian emphasis. The image search option looked very like Google.
The search: before I put in the term I restricted results to Australia. The ad box is very pale and not obvious that these sites are ads. Interestingly same results as Duck Duck go in same order, commercial and Vicnet 2009.  Then a relevant and useful site from the SA government.
Instagrok I liked some aspects of this search engine. It is possible to have one tab open with your search and the next tab your notes.  When I went to join, I found I already had last year! 
The search: The image search doesn't appear as good as Bing or Google. Clicking on the circles doesn't seem to do anything, when you click on the key facts that's when you go into the websites. I did like that when you clicked on "websites more" a table appeared and by marking concepts on the left hand side bar the number of results in the table could reduce. It used a tag cloud/preview cloud, difficulty reading level and a paragraph on the website.  For one of the searches where I had restricted the concepts if offered me only 4 websites, terrific I thought but they were all the same National Geographic website.
I might use Instagrok again and sometimes one of the work computers defaults to Bing but I will not be changing from Google to one of these.
So evaluating a particular website.
Back to Google. I looked at the results on the first page, I was still looking for something for my year 9s.  "Interactive" that could be good, from the South Australian Government, that should be authoritative. I clicked into the site, I could chose different options and I could click on the image of the house. Within the house I could click on the lights or water or insulation and be given a little information, click on that bubble and be taken to the website still within the SA government domain for further information.  It also uses a variety of ways to present the information, text, pictures, photos and videos.  The site also has a Creative Commons Attribution licence.
I looked at the site and the information with the eyes and distracted minds of my year 9s in mind. I was looking at the language used on the site and how much information was given, was there the option to go deeper.  Overall it would be a site I would be happy to show and recommend to the students.
Tagging is becoming more of a habit and I installed the tag cloud for my blog and I went back and tagged earlier posts.  Evernote is also helping me to be more aware and deliberate about the tags I use.
So....tag you're it!

Friday 3 May 2013

Evaluating an online tool

As I scrolled through the list of tools I realised I had played with or used a lot of these tools!



Scoopit  I have used and follow others on it but I have let it lapse a little. Have thought about using Scoopit as a way of showcasing websites to a class and teachers relevant to their assignment
Evernote - I am using more and more, taking notes for the PLN in Evernote and as I participate in the webinars writing my notes straight into Evernote
Skitch  now that I have an iPad have played with but not really used
Voki a colleague was using this for students to use as their book report the avatar would speak their review
Dropbox I have used for my life outside of school, sharing documents for a specific task, committee
Livebinders - I have bookmarked other people's livebinders and can appreciate the way they display and how they are organised but I haven't tried one for myself
Glogster - I have used to complete a uni assignment and think it could be useful to students. Sometimes it takes a long time for all those pink wheels to stop spinning and the images/video to load
Prezi - I have played with and I am interested that now they offer music to go with your presentation
Wiki - our library staff use a wiki to ensure that all our in house procedures are up to date and able to be referred to by all staff and are current policies
Pinterest - a service that I use for professional use and for gathering ideas for parts of my life outside of the library
Chrome - I have started to use but I should explore more in depth (but as I have already done one Google tool for Unit 4 I will not do that for this task)
Goodreads - I use Shelfari and I have started shelves for each of the year 8 classes
Padlet - I have played with Wallwisher but not really with a class and in a real situation
Tagxedo - I have used Wordle and introduced it to teachers who loved it.  Love the example of putting in the inauguration speeches of Bush and Obama and seeing the difference which would then promote discussions
Voicethread - I used this at uni, working with a fellow student we presented a Sri Lankan story.  
Revising and evaluating Voicethread
Voicethread now available on the iPad.
As I logged in after not having used it in over 2 years I found there had been some changes which they alerted me to. One is that you can't control specific security settings.
It is possible to use it as an individual or to pay for a school license which did seem expensive unless you were going to use it a lot. To comment you need to have be a member which means you need an email address. I can see classes have created presentations and different children have commented. If you do have a single educator license the  teacher can create student accounts but they don't need an email address to join (paid level).
The terms of conditions are quite clear.
I had seen it more as a student tool rather than a professional learning tool but in exploring some of the featured Voicethreads I read about how a university lecturer used it for his online students. They could respond and be more than just an email address to other students. Professionally it may be a way to share and discuss ideas across the country, world or workroom.  Perhaps.
I see it as a very useful tool to use with students. One of the examples I saw a Chinese teacher took photos of vegetables and had her students pronounce the word, or write it in Chinese.  Practical vocabulary tool.

I feel that Voicethread does fit within the SAMR model. The task we completed at uni, recreating a Sri Lankan picture book would have been impossible without a native Sri Lankan narrator and translator. I loved seeing the text and not having a clue how to read it, pronounce it or anything and hearing Shyani read it.  A child in a class could read or tell a story in their own language and share it with others who could comment or ask questions about it.


The task was redefined and has the potential to create deep meaningful tasks for students.  The link could also be shared with parents and used as a way of showing what the students have learned and how their thinking has grown.

Our Sri Lankan Story  narrated by Shyani

The winner : a Sri Lankan story

The tool and it's terms....


Working my way through unit 4: Free tools

Loved the look inside the Google data centres,with its vast colour coded water cooling systems. Really liked the infographic about how the companies make money from their free tools.

As I use gmail I decided to explore some of the Google services.  Google offered me to the service to search for me on the web, and I found accounts I knew about and a couple that I had forgotten that I had joined. I also found a British me cycling to raise money for charity back in 2009 and a link to phone number in Georgia USA (neither one the real me!) I was surprised when I followed another link to find not information about me but a photo of my mother in law as she is a friend on Facebook.  When we enter information and make connections we don't really know where they will end up and who may search and find out information.

Reading the privacy statements for Google:
I didn't read the terms of use and privacy conditions when I first joined Gmail many years ago but for this assignment I plunged into the terms and conditions. My eyes were beginning to glaze over with all the possibilities for privacy and who is linked through the Google circles but I did find that the terms of service were clearly written. However the following was a bit disconcerting (http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/):

Your Content in our ServicesSome of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.
When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.

So Google can modify or publicly perform my thoughts to promote their service?

As a result of reading the terms decided that I had been lazy with my passwords so I decided to create a stronger password for Google, but of course that automatically means that my YouTube log in and other linked accounts to Google have changed as well.  Perhaps this a big drawback with the linked Google tools.
 The Google dashboard revealed a surprising amount about me and the history of my searches done on my iPad.
Exporting my data:
My back up seems to be in the Google cloud and I can download individual files from the Google Drive. I couldn't see information about the back up of data, but there were frequent references for the need to have a verification back up.
 Closing my account:
It seems to be quite easy to delete and to reactivate with in a set period of time. It is possible to set up an inactive alert so that you or your trustees will be alerted if the account is inactive for a designated period of time.
 Would I recommend this tool?
I would recommend Google it is very user friendly and there is enough information in the legal speak pages to inform people.
I think it would be a great activity to do with my secondary school students. Have them log into their own accounts and see how much information is out there on the web without them even trying to publish or push their profile out.

Monday 22 April 2013

when a favourite author dies you feel like you have lost a friend.


I was sad to hear yesterday of the death of E.L Konigsburg.  One of my all time favourite authors. I grew up knowing and loving "From the mixed up files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler" and thought it would be great to hide in a museum after it had closed for the night.  I re-read "The outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place" after hearing the news, and it is still a lovely read. Eccentric uncles loved for who they are.

Saturday 6 April 2013

Enjoying Coraline, for the third time


I love Neil Gaiman books and as I had a long car journey I selected the audio copy of Coraline to accompany me. I have read the book, seen the movie in an open air cinema in Darwin and now had Neil Gaiman perform it for me in the privacy of my own car.  He has such a way with language and I love that big black button eyes can be a horror feature.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

PLN Networking

Sometimes my input from my online communities is overwhelming. I am getting information from OZTL Net via email (which for some weird reason I can't read on my iPad) and Facebook, CBCA Vic and Australia through email and Facebook, Scoopit links, and other general emails that are professionally interesting. Most times I can manage it, and when I look back and see old emails unread I can now delete them unread without panicking that I will miss something.


I do like Flipboard and will continue to use that and expand what I have in that.  Twitter I joined sometime ago but feel that most things that interest me have come from a network such as OZTL Net and already going around the twittersphere and I don't need to retweet it.  Having said that, I did retweet something in the last week.  It may be that because I follow some blogs which are perhaps not the usual library ones, Boing Boing, and Danah Boyd that I will have something different to offer, we'll see.
I have joined some Facebook groups that interest me professionally, and through one of them I keep in touch with one of my colleagues who lives interstate but also contributes to the group (we are also Facebook friends but I get a buzz seeing her professional comments!).
I have only been at my current school for 14 months and it was so refreshing to see that students were not banned from accessing their mobile phones during the school day (not during class).  Why waste time telling the students to put the phone in their locker?  I am yet to see how we can utilise it fully for the library but we are thinking.  The school has an official Facebook page (not sure how the community interact with it) and the school captains regularly upload talks to students via Youtube (not sure if it is a private link).  These are positive ways of using the social media which the students use daily, if not hourly.
As I have been a lurker for many years on OZ TL Net and occasional contributor I can see many fantastic ways that collaboration and support is offered to librarians all around Australia and overseas through this resource.  
Librarians have always been great at sharing ideas and resources and the online community is another way to do this and to tailor it to what is relevant and timely to us.


Twitter: mmeglib




Saturday 30 March 2013

Webinar catchup

Caught up on the PLN webinar that took place on Wednesday night.  Interesting to play with my blog while Kelly was speaking.  She was adjusting her bog but it didn't appear on the Blackboard screen so I just went and had a play with my blog settings while she spoke.  Frustrating trying to adjust one of my blog links and Blogger wouldn't save the changes, need to go back and see what step I am missing.

I have reactivated my twitter account, but still don't know really what I will tweet about.  Most of what I think is interesting I have found out through OZ TL net or other professional sources so it is already going around the community without me retweeting it.

Really appreciating Flipboard on the iPad.  Adult son is away in America and I was able to add a feed from South By South West while he was there and have the Wondercon feed loaded ready for when he attends that amazing convention on the weekend.


Wednesday 27 March 2013

State Library celebrations

Looking at the State Library of Victoria page and reading about the comedian Josh Earl, then follow on to the Royal Society for questions and curiosity film clip.  I think I recognise the man with the newspaper, Cam?

Tuesday 19 March 2013

Evernote and diigo

I have been using Evernote for some time but not using the tags. Last year, I think because one of our library staff did the PLN 2012 we were introduced to diigo. Prior to this I had used Pearltrees but I could see the power and potential of diigo and the importance of the tags. I haven't gone back (yet) to add tags to my existing Evernote files but I can see the importance to  create them as I go.

We now have a diigo group within our library staff group so that we can easily share great websites.

My reflection for this unit, was that it was good to go back and look at tools I was already using and ensure that I was using all the features.  I also wanted to be at my home PC to install Chrome, though I will check out the situation at work.

Here is the link for my shared Evernote

Sunday 17 March 2013

ALIA schools session on iPads

More networking and learning opportunities, attended the ALIA schools' iPad session in Cooburg.  Great to see a full house and some younger librarians. Different schools shared what their schools are doing with iPads, one school every student had an iPad (own purchase or a loan from the school), the other had class sets of iPads.

Lots of apps mentioned, just need to time to have a play and assess the need for my school.   Some apps I already use like Flipboard, Pinterest and others I need to look at.

Have been wondering how to list apps so that Library staff can share great apps with other staff, do we catalogue them, create lists?  Through practical discussion in final session I am thinking that we might create a Library Pinterest page with boards for each of the different genres of apps.  Will talk at school to see what the other library staff think.

Tuesday 12 March 2013

Meg as an educator

I have been a librarian for over 20 years, worked in special libraries (one person- sending out braille, large print and audio - cassettes! books), public libraries, public schools and private schools. I have recently completed my teaching qualifications.

I would say I am an avid user of Web 2.0 and I love sharing what I find. For example in the first week of my teaching Uni course, I was in front of all 100 students and staff showing them how to use Pearltrees.  Now I would show them diigo!

At school all the staff have iPads. In the library we had one last year shared between 2 staff members (it doesn't work) and now we each have our own. We are trying out different apps and trying to discern how do you pick the right one and share that with other staff.  The students are mainly on PCs but the students in year 11 and 12 are bringing their own laptops more and more.

My current network is a practical one.  I am part of the OZ TL net group and have posted some questions and answers but mainly use it to gain insight and knowledge.  I am part of SLAV, ALIA and CBCA Vic. I chat with librarians I have worked with in the past and share and learn from them.  I love going to conferences and mixing with people and finding out what they are doing and what I might be able to do.

My goal for the PLN is to become more fluent and practiced in the tools available. To share that knowledge with staff and students.

back to blogging

well it has been a while between posts. At the moment I am having trouble getting this current one to save and load. I have enrolled for the PLN with the State Library of Victoria so there will be more regular posts.