It is really tough to get psyched up about developing my own ICT Skills and Pedagogy when our District is going through a switch from Mac (read: awesome and user friendly) to PC (read: a complete disaster with constant problems) and I can't even upgrade things on my personal school laptop, let alone be a leader in my Library when my computers in there aren't even functional yet. I'd have better luck teaching students how to use a card catalogue to find books!
That being said, this course has certainly opened my eyes and pedagogy to new ways of connecting with others and ways of developing my practice. From the start, I thought Screenr seemed like a cool tool I could use to teach students about using programs so I created an account, but as of yet have not created a video. I'm thinking I will make one for the project students will create using the program Scratch after Spring Break. I'd like to see how using a video from Screenr to teach something compares to me doing it "in the moment" with my laptop and projector when I often have little post it notes about what to "remember" to tell the students.
I have already invited the District IT teacher in to our Library to work with Intermediate students on projects using PhotoStory 3, which has been great and engaging for everyone, except when our network crashes and our laptops have issues that I cannot solve or help with after she leaves. I have to admit I also enjoy reading other people's blogs and can see that as a way to sustain my learning and continue connecting with my LIBE 477 colleagues, especially the ones in my District with whom I have been grouped. Once our technology "upgrade" gets completed and more stable I plan on having a Library Blog for our school attached to the Library page of our school website.
Speaking of our school, I will continue to use the resources of our staff that are also involved in an inquiry project to help me during mine. After watching this week's video, I would say I am more inclined to use Delicious rather than Diigo as I found the interface way more user friendly. I should also utilize Twitter more as a way to connect with other educators, and while I have an account, I rarely tweet or do more than follow others in a superficial way.
Photo #1 courtesy of:
http://mnkusi.com/images/ICT%20Pic.PNG
Photo #2 courtesy of:
http://images.wisegeek.com/library-card-catalogs.jpg
Photo #3 courtesy of:
http://digitallearningmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/screenr.png
Photo #4 courtesy of:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3130/2836828090_67d4900ab3_o.jpg
Photo #5 courtesy of:
http://cdn.pamorama.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/the-perfect-length-of-a-tweet-is-70-110-characters.png
Good overview of some really great tools and strategies to implement in your practice. I can definitely empathize with technology issues at school. Our district is completely Linux based and we have a set of laptops that is very tempremental. Some days they work, some days they won't even boot up. Super frustrating and difficult, but I keep working with IT support to try and find solutions to help students. Good ideas for you to explore social bookmarking and screenr videos to help your students and happy to see you identify a goal of using twitter more to connect with other educators and T-Ls! Good job labelling your blog post!
ReplyDeleteThe set up of our new technology system does limit what we can do within the school. I would also like to give screenr a go and have used the district technology teachers to learn new technologies. I have also had them come in to team teach a lesson.
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