I have used Prezi only once before and it wasn't horrible. I had some trouble keeping the presentation in order and a few spots where I couldn't figure out the zoom feature. A few sections were either too close or too far away to read the information clearly. I lucked out with this presentation because my group was the first to present so the professor wasn't as harsh with grading. I am not making this up, she actually said "because you were the first group to go, I am going easier on you. You would not have received an "A" had you been second". I was grateful and horrified at the same time, I was mostly grateful.
I sort of decided that Prezi was not for me at that point and really never looked at it again... until this class project. I thought to myself that I could do this, I had some experience with this program so I should be able to improve from what I did last time. Nope. I messed up. For some reason my topic pages would show up in presentation mode but not when you were zoomed out, does that make sense? When you looked at the main Prezi page (fully zoomed out), you would see three main circles, one of those circles was blank, but when you clicked through the presentation you could click through and eventually see my work. It was like my work was hidden behind the blank circle. I have no idea what happened. It was embarrassing and my ability to edit was revoked. I do not blame my group for this, it was the right move. I was destroying this presentation. One group member in particular (Stav), was amazing and used my information to salvage the Prezi.
I did my best, I provided the information, and my group was very understanding. I am not sure how I feel about Prezi at this point. My first experience was just "OK", but my second experience was borderline rage inducing. I am not sure if I need to spend more time with this program or just set it aside as something to refer to as "not for me". There are plenty of other mediums to choose from(like Google), I think it would be best for me to explore some other options. That last line sounded like a breakup, so yeah, I think Prezi and I should take some time apart.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Friday, July 21, 2017
VLCs
Recently we had an assignment in school to play around with adding information to a web page. I enjoyed using Google sites for this project. I have used Google sites in the past but I went straight for the new sites. I was not incredibly pleased with the new sites I must say. I am not sure what the problem was at the time. I remember thinking that I couldn't do enough with it and I felt like my site was too plain. I gave up on ever using these sites again and moved on to Weebly.
I am not sure if I just like the old sites better or if I liked having other people to bounce ideas off of. Building a site or adding to a site is time-consuming. When we first opened the page and started editing, I could feel my heart rate rise and my mind was filling with thoughts like "How are we going to get this done?" and "Where do we even start, this is too much!". Being in a group helped to keep things focused and moving fast.
At one point, one of my team members erased a bunch of the sample text, and I couldn't help but flinch. I think if I had been working on this myself I would have left the sample text until I knew exactly what I wanted to replace it with. I also wanted to come up with ideas on how to set up everything before I started changing things but my group members jumped right in. Even as we were getting ready to submit the link, I heard someone say "shouldn't we look at it just one more time?". Another group member reassured her that we can still make changes if needed. Nothing was set in stone.
I think that was one of the things that calmed me down a little when thinking about building my own site for a school library. It is not set in stone, I can continue to play around and take out or add things as I feel necessary. I just fear that I will try and make a completely new website each summer for the start of a new year.
I appreciate the opportunity to just explore. I learned about adding google forms to the site, something I never would have done before. I think I might make a sample site for myself and just use it to make "test" pages so that I can see all that can be done.
I am not sure if I just like the old sites better or if I liked having other people to bounce ideas off of. Building a site or adding to a site is time-consuming. When we first opened the page and started editing, I could feel my heart rate rise and my mind was filling with thoughts like "How are we going to get this done?" and "Where do we even start, this is too much!". Being in a group helped to keep things focused and moving fast.
At one point, one of my team members erased a bunch of the sample text, and I couldn't help but flinch. I think if I had been working on this myself I would have left the sample text until I knew exactly what I wanted to replace it with. I also wanted to come up with ideas on how to set up everything before I started changing things but my group members jumped right in. Even as we were getting ready to submit the link, I heard someone say "shouldn't we look at it just one more time?". Another group member reassured her that we can still make changes if needed. Nothing was set in stone.
I think that was one of the things that calmed me down a little when thinking about building my own site for a school library. It is not set in stone, I can continue to play around and take out or add things as I feel necessary. I just fear that I will try and make a completely new website each summer for the start of a new year.
I appreciate the opportunity to just explore. I learned about adding google forms to the site, something I never would have done before. I think I might make a sample site for myself and just use it to make "test" pages so that I can see all that can be done.
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Why this blog?
My reasoning for choosing this blog platform is quite simple, it seemed the easiest to start with. I have seen and read some amazing looking blogs and the thought of starting at that level scared me. Many of the blogs I have read have started on a platform such as this and at some point moved over to something a little fancier.
So far I am happy with my blog platform choice. Blogger is easy to use and I think it looks nice. It feels no different than when I use a word document.
I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog to make connections with other teacher librarians out there before. My only problem was on what to write about. I always thought that I would eventually start a blog when I had my own classroom and simple blog about the activities (good or bad) that took place. I figured there would always be plenty to talk about and even if I have a few posts about how badly a lesson went the worst that could happen would be that no one reads it, but the best would be that not only did someone read it- they also have some advice for me.
I do love reading other teachers blogs and finding ideas to use in my own classroom and I do feel that having my own blog would help with conversations with these other teachers. One of the posts that I see often are these "tagging" posts. The blogger will have either a theme or a set of questions to answer and then they "tag" a few other bloggers to do the same. I have always liked these posts because not only do you get to know the main blogger you already follow a little better but your find new bloggers to check out based on the "tags".
I also like the idea of a blog as a way of staying in touch with my students' and their families. I would like to have a blog that shows off what has been going on in the library but also I want to be able to share thoughts about the books I am reading. I have students ask me about what I have read or that I am reading and a blog would be a great way to let them know if they didn't have time to ask or if they were just too shy to ask. I think a book review type blog would be where I start when I start a school library position.
The only problems I have found with blogs is keeping up with them. I sometimes end up following too many and I don't have the time to read through them all.
So far I am happy with my blog platform choice. Blogger is easy to use and I think it looks nice. It feels no different than when I use a word document.
I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog to make connections with other teacher librarians out there before. My only problem was on what to write about. I always thought that I would eventually start a blog when I had my own classroom and simple blog about the activities (good or bad) that took place. I figured there would always be plenty to talk about and even if I have a few posts about how badly a lesson went the worst that could happen would be that no one reads it, but the best would be that not only did someone read it- they also have some advice for me.
I do love reading other teachers blogs and finding ideas to use in my own classroom and I do feel that having my own blog would help with conversations with these other teachers. One of the posts that I see often are these "tagging" posts. The blogger will have either a theme or a set of questions to answer and then they "tag" a few other bloggers to do the same. I have always liked these posts because not only do you get to know the main blogger you already follow a little better but your find new bloggers to check out based on the "tags".
I also like the idea of a blog as a way of staying in touch with my students' and their families. I would like to have a blog that shows off what has been going on in the library but also I want to be able to share thoughts about the books I am reading. I have students ask me about what I have read or that I am reading and a blog would be a great way to let them know if they didn't have time to ask or if they were just too shy to ask. I think a book review type blog would be where I start when I start a school library position.
The only problems I have found with blogs is keeping up with them. I sometimes end up following too many and I don't have the time to read through them all.
Biggest Digital Literacy Challenge
After reading the article School Libraries Cultivate Digital Literacy for LIS 724, I took some time to think about the 5 different digital literacy challenges that were discussed. If I had to choose one of these challenges as the biggest challenge, I would say that access to technology would be it. Why? This is your foundation, this is the ground floor, your starting place. If you don't have the technology for your students, how to you plan on teaching them about technology? And it's not even just having the technology, you need to have up to date and in working condition technology.
In my past courses, there have been discussions about what types of technology to bring into the classroom. Each time there are these types of discussions there are always a few students who bring up the topic of budgets. Of course, schools want to have the best for their students but this is not always possible.
My school, like stated in the article, has a computer lab in the media center for classroom use. Similarly to the article, my school struggles with scheduling time for students using the lab. It is stressful for teachers, students, and media center workers when we need to send students back to classrooms due to lack of open computers.
Some schools have tried to off set some of the costs by implementing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program.
With this program, students can bring in just about any device from smart phones to laptops to use in class. Although this would save the school money it would be difficult to create smooth lessons when you need to make sure that you as the teacher are able to help each student navigate the device. You may want to have the students take a screen shot, to do this you need to make sure you are able to help out students using iPhones, Chromebooks, Samsung Galaxy, MacBooks, iPads, and other tablets both old and new.
There are even more and more schools starting one-to-one device programs. Keeping all students on the same page with the same device is wonderfully helpful. It is hard to keep these devices in working order. I have been to schools with laptops that have missing keys or iPads with cracked screens because the school is waiting on funds to fix them. My own school had over 100 iPods stored in the back office waiting to be used. They were rarely touched becase they could no longer be updated.
I understand and 100% agree that there are many other challenges when working with technology like the article described but I think the hardest part is getting that technology into the students hands.
In my past courses, there have been discussions about what types of technology to bring into the classroom. Each time there are these types of discussions there are always a few students who bring up the topic of budgets. Of course, schools want to have the best for their students but this is not always possible.
My school, like stated in the article, has a computer lab in the media center for classroom use. Similarly to the article, my school struggles with scheduling time for students using the lab. It is stressful for teachers, students, and media center workers when we need to send students back to classrooms due to lack of open computers.
Some schools have tried to off set some of the costs by implementing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program.
 |
| techandscience.com |
With this program, students can bring in just about any device from smart phones to laptops to use in class. Although this would save the school money it would be difficult to create smooth lessons when you need to make sure that you as the teacher are able to help each student navigate the device. You may want to have the students take a screen shot, to do this you need to make sure you are able to help out students using iPhones, Chromebooks, Samsung Galaxy, MacBooks, iPads, and other tablets both old and new.
There are even more and more schools starting one-to-one device programs. Keeping all students on the same page with the same device is wonderfully helpful. It is hard to keep these devices in working order. I have been to schools with laptops that have missing keys or iPads with cracked screens because the school is waiting on funds to fix them. My own school had over 100 iPods stored in the back office waiting to be used. They were rarely touched becase they could no longer be updated.
I understand and 100% agree that there are many other challenges when working with technology like the article described but I think the hardest part is getting that technology into the students hands.
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