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About the Author

Sally White

I am a teacher librarian at Edward Harris, Jr. Middle School in the Monterey Trail High School/Edward Harris, Jr. Middle School Library. I am interested in promoting digital learning, digital citizenship, love of reading and life-long learning.

Web 2.0 Tools for Remembering

August 17, 2012 Google - Remembering 0 Comments

During Tuesday’s Trainer of Trainers Inservice on Gradual Release of Resposibility, I couldn’t help but notice the exclamations of interest in the Wordle produced slide.  I knew about Wordle and have played around with the application but I had forgotten about this fun Web 2.0 technology application until today. With Wordle you may design your own word set or if you are in a hurry you can find one made by another user.

Another cool tool for school is Visuwords.  With Visuwords students and teachers can explore words, build vocabulary and reinforce parts of speech.  Although I haven’t tried it, I think Visuwords would be great displayed on a Smartboard. Other applications that assist with vocabulary are Wordnik and Ninja Words.

Free flashcards programs and quiz programs to assist students with studying are  Cobo Cards, Flashcard Exchange and Quizlet. Creately allows the user to create diagrams that would be useful for studying and remembering.

If you know of other great Web 2.0 tools that will help our students study or remember, send me the links and I will share them here giving you a shout out in the process.

My next post will cover understanding .  These are all tools that were shared by Samantha Penney in an interactive Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid.  I’ll be sharing more from this wonderful resource later.

Library Wordle

Image from: M. Fisher 2009 digigogy.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

Olympics XXX Animated Infographics

August 13, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Comments

 

I came across this interesting  animated infographic on one  of my library groups.  It comes from the The New York Times.  I thought this would be useable for Physical Education and Math classes.  “One Race, Every Medalist Ever” compares results of the Men’s 100-meter Sprint, Men’s 100-meter Freestyle, and the Men’s Long Jump over the last 116 years of the Olympics.  Even if you don’t use it with your students, it is definitely a cool comparison piece.

Google Docs

May 9, 2012 Google - Uncategorized 0 Comments

I am a part of a Professional Learning Network, a PLN.  The library world is changing and to keep on top of these changes, I am always learning.  This year Elk Grove Unified School District Librarians formed a PLN.  We get together once a month and learn something new about technology available for libraries. Sheldon High School librarian, Karin Ledford, taught a session on Google docs.  I had heard about Google docs before through my other PLN on edweb.net “Emerging Tech: Using Technology to Enhance Your Library.”  Michelle Luthala, New Canaan High School’s Librarian, uses it regularly with her students and staff.  But it was just a mention in a webinar until Karin Ledford demonstrated Google docs and explained how it is used on her campus.  After her demonstration, we played around with it a little, and I found docs easy to use.

I started hearing more about Google docs.  A basketball coach using docs to set up parent help for food and coverage for a tournament. EGEA used them to set up our protest schedule and for coverage at the Western Festival. I used them with other librarians for collaboration on a document for one of our committees.  And I have to say I loved how we could work on the same document and not have to physically meet.  One less meeting to attend, and yet the work was completed and all who wanted to include input were able to do so.

Google docs is a wonderful tool to use with your students.  It does require that all students acquire a free Gmail account.  Once they have that and access to a computer, students can collaborate on documents with each other.  You can provide feedback from any computer to their work.  You can see how often students work on assignments. It is a time and paper saver.

So if you think you’d like to try out  Google docs, check out Google Docs for Educators. There you’ll find tutorials and ideas of how to use them with your students.  Google docs can definitely make life easier when collaborating with colleagues in your department.  And if you need any assistance, I am here to help if I can.  If I can’t, I’ll  find out how.

Of the many things I’ve learned this year about technology available for educators, Google docs has the most potential. As a former Language Arts teacher, I highly recommend this application for teaching the writing process. As a writing coach, you can leave comments and suggestions right on the document for your students.

Check out this cool tool for school!  It should make your life easier.

Giddy Up!

March 23, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Comments

The Urban Dictionary defines “giddy up” as the new “you betcha”, “let’s go”, “I’m in”.   Over this school year, I have presented many Web 2.0 free sites that can be used in the classroom.  As a staff, many of you have joined me in using these technologies with your students either in the library or in your classroom.  Each week in the Library Communication Bulletin, I share websites that support student learning and curriculum taught on our campus. But the Library Communication Bulletin isn’t the most effective way of sharing this information with you. One of my colleagues in the library world, Karin Ledford, the Sheldon High School Librarian, started a blog for the teachers at her school.  She posts useable websites, free Web 2.0 sites, links to tutorials, etc.  She does what I do in my Library Communication Bulletin in her blog.  I decided that this would be an improved format over my bulletin.  In the blog format, I would be able to provide links to helpful websites, just like before in my weekly bulletin, but here I can tag information allowing readers to find it later, more easily than in the old newsletter format.  I’ll still send out a shorter version of the LBC with the notifications of who is scheduled to use the library and if there are available days.  But as for the useable links to Web 2.0 technologies, I’ll be posting a link to this blog.  So continuing with the theme of my other titles for our library wiki, Research Trail and our library book blog, Book Trail, our library blog will be titled Giddy Up!  Digital learning?  Let me hear you say, “Let’s Go!”  “I’m in!”  “You betcha!!”   Giddy Up!

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