Saturday, August 29, 2015

Tweets from Leaders in Educational Technology

Tweets from Leaders in Educational Technology
       Buffy J. Hamilton, @buffyjhamilton, tweeted about an article entitled, “The Library Transforms to Learning Commons.” This particular tweet caught my attention, because our school district just built three new elementary schools with a design very different from traditional schools. These new schools have grade level pods with very little classroom space. The walls are glass and open up to a central workspace that is shared by all the classes in that grade level. Everything is moveable, changeable, and adaptable for the classroom. These new school do not have a traditional library space as well. The schools books are housed close to the grade level pods and organized by reading levels. Basically, kindergarten and first grade books are together, second grade and third grade books are together and so on. Therefore, when I came across this post I was interested to see the new, initiative ideas for learning areas within a library setting. The idea of four very different environments within a library is spot on, especially in a high school or college level campus. Students need space to be isolated and fully focused. There should be space for groups to work; spaces within the library for collaboration. The floor plan was a great visual to help me see how this could play out in a large public library or college.
      My question is how can we do this for elementary? What about elementary libraries on a fixed learning schedule? Should elementary libraries stick to the traditional fixed schedule to allow students to learn library basics switching to a flexible schedule with setups suggested in this article? Our job as library media specialist is to empower our students with the ability to discover information; research and learn through various forms of media. We can’t expect them to figure this all on their own. I believe that in the lower levels of education, such as elementary, students need the guidance of a fixed schedule to learn how to use the tools of the library. Once they have the basics, then using a flexible schedule with a library commons area such as the ones mention in the article would be ideal. Middle school and high school students should be able to start the exploration of self-learning in this style with support from a knowledgeable media specialist. When they reach college, they will be fully prepared to research, study, and utilized the twenty first century libraries full of technology.

     Kathy Schrock, @kthyschrock, had several tweets about apps that I didn’t know existed. One such tweet was about app smashing. I had never heard of that before. It was interesting. The one that really caught my attention was about a free app called TeleStory. My daughter loves to record herself a pretend that she is making her own movie. We also record a “Morning Show” at our school for morning announcements. We use a green screen to help do this. I am always looking for more ways to add to this or make it easier. This particular app would be for fun or a quick video report. The kids really love to play with it. It adds funny hair styles, glasses, mic, etc…on to the video. It can be edited and shared as well.

     Linda W. Braun, @lbraun2000, tweeted an article on Minecraft. This caught my attention, because Minecraft has been a topic of discussion in my household for several years. I could not understand how with all the gaming technology available to today’s youth that this with almost Atari like graphics could be popular. This article was about a summer program called Connected Camps. They had a summer camp “Summer of Minecraft.” This camp was different from most, because even when campers went home they were still involved in camp activities. Children age 9-13 learned about coding in program language and game design. The creators of this camp say the true value of Minecraft is the friendships that are made and the limitless possibilities to learn through the game. It was an interest take on a video game and yet another way to reach the tech savvy children of today.

      Tony Vincent, @tonyvincent, posted a tweet with a link to his youtube video for finding free pictures for project. This is valuable information to help teachers and students to find pictures for free that will not violate any copyright laws. It was very informative. I highly recommend following him on twitter and subscribing to his youtube channel.

      Gwyneth Jones, @gwynethJones, retweeted a really interesting way to personalize newsletters that you send home to the parents of your students. http://www.alicekeeler.com/teachertech/2015/08/17/create-personalized-teacher-newsletters-for-each-student/ Alice Keeler said the reason most parents don’t read the newsletter you send home is because it is not about their child. I think this resource is a useful one that I will be sharing with the teachers at my school. She also has several blogs that would be interesting to follow.
      The final technology tweeter that I looked at this evening is Jim Lerman, @jimelerman. He uses a site called Scoop it for the majority of his tweets. One such article is titled “20 Ways to Learn with Technology.” Each one of the twenty ideas in the graphic are linked to a video, prezi, or other information to help a teacher incorporate these new ideas into their classroom. *While looking into these people’s twitter pages, I found myself retweeting, sending out emails to faculty on my campus and adding things to my school libraries Facebook page. I could literally spend hours exploring each person’s twitter pages and the attached links.
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1 comment:

  1. Elizabeth GrossSeptember 1, 2015 at 12:24 PM

    It seems like the information is endless. It can be a lot of fun, and the more you know, the more you can share with colleagues to enhance learning for your school.

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