Week 7: Thing # 17 Sandbox Wiki

I explored all of the topics in the Raven About 2.0 Curriculum wiki and came away with more ideas of how to apply Web 2.0 tools to the curriculum. I liked the Sharon's idea of having the students create their own Avatar to put on their library cards. What a creative way to spice up a procedural task! Deborah also collected and posted some great links on SmartBoards, which our library is trying to meaningfully integrate into our instruction and model for staff and students. Here they are:

http://www.e-learningforkids.org/
http://its.leesummit.k12.mo.us/smartboard.htm
http://www.kenton.k12.ky.us/SmartBoard/smartboardindex.htm
http://www.ecarter.k12.mo.us/dept/elementary/fourthgrade/ccrites/etipslesson1.html
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/smart_board.htm

Under Image Gererators, Robin described Moo Cards, which I am very excited to try! Moo Cards are business cards that you create and personalize using images from Flickr or other sources.

Here is a short clip on Moo Business Cards:

Introducing the new MOO Business cards
Uploaded by MOO_Crew

Robin's post reminded me of BigHugeLab's blog which shares ideas and applications that could easily be used or adapted for the classroom. In fact, I found a blog post dedicated to BigHugeLabs in Education which linked me to a site called WEB 2.0 Wednesday Challenge, which is a weekly challenge for students and educators to use web 2.0 tools in the classroom. What a great resource! BigHugeLabs is the challenge for Week 8 and along with the challenge was a list of ideas for teachers:

• Use the badges to create name tags for field trips.
• Use the Trading Cards to create Flora and Fauna Cards
• Create an Avatar to use as with your online presence
• Students created National Park trading cards.
• Create Movie Posters to share about a book or time in History.

The movie poster idea would be a great final project for a 3rd/4th grade class at our school who is collecting images from the Alaska's Digital Archives for a historical timeline. Again, I am amazed at how powerful the circuitous route is!

Week 7: Thing #16 Wikis

Wikis are Web 2.0 tools that I was fairly familiar with before taking this class. I contributed to a class wiki as part of the Librarian Leadership Academy in Anchorage this past summer and came away inspired to create and use one to help encourage collaboration between teachers and between students at Glacier Valley. I worked and collaborated with several teachers on a Storytelling unit and initiated a gvstorytellers wiki to document our process. Even though the Storytelling unit involved the integrated efforts of classroom, library, visual art, special education and extended learning teachers, I ended up being the only one documenting the process on our wiki. I think the wiki format was still too new for folks to feel comfortable adding their perspective and lessons to it, so I made sure to act as the role of documentarian for the project. My hope is that this unit will be used by other teachers to serve as a resource and reflection on what did and did not work. Teachers can continue to add to it to refine and enrich the unit.

I just started an after-school Digital Storytelling club and hope to create a wikispace for students to write and share their scripts, as well as edit them after reading comments from fellow club members. It will also help me keep all of their writings in one easily accessible place and allow them to work on their scripts and react to others from their home. I could also see using a wiki for student-generated book reviews.

Of all of the wikis I explored, I found Joyce Valenza's teacherlibrarianwiki space the most useful. It serves as a knowledge base: a gathering space for school librarians to share ideas, lists and effective teaching practices. I particularly liked the book lists for students, including the Must Have Graphic Novels Primary list and Booklists for Elementary Students.