Internet safety/this blog's future

Internet safety is a hugely important issue in the schools. This week's readings have reminded me that I need to give students a "refresher" course on this topic. We have filters in place, an acceptable use policy, and good monitoring but you can never be too safe. My assistant and I will continue to monitor students carefully as well as continually instruct on internet safety.
I plan to continue this blog on a professional basis, discussing how I am using ideas from the web 2.0 course and the results with different grade levels. After finishing instruction on blogs, I will direct students to my blog and have them add their own comments and ideas.

To stream or not to stream?

Well, I've been going through the list of podcasts and streaming video from the assignment list this week and choosing several to listen to and watch. I found the Room 208 podcast really interesting. It has a huge variety of student work, including links to blogs, and the teacher has a blog podcast giving tips and links to help teachers get started with podcasting or blogging. I love watching the video clips as there is such a variety available. I have used clips from Unitedstreaming in my library from time to time. It is really not hard to do, it is just finding the time to sit down and look up what I need, download, etc. I would like to work video streaming into my lesson plans more than I currently do. I've thought of setting aside 20-30 min. each afternoon to just browse what's out there in online videos in order to work in more of this technology.

Wiki Uses

I think wikis are my favorite aspect of interactive technology of all that we've studied so far. I believe wikis will be beneficial to students in the library as we discuss authors, review books and do research. While they sometimes balk at having to write anything on paper, they are always begging to "get on the computer." I feel wikis will motivate them to write and share their opinions. However, I do realize this will have to be carefully monitored to keep students on task and not let them become overwhelmed with the massive amount of information available.

Learning a lot!

Well, I've learned a TON of information this week! I had no idea what RSS aggregators were nor much about blogs or blog feeds. Now I can join in the tech talk:) I subscribed to various book related feeds so I can stay abreast on the latest book reviews, book industry news, author news, etc. I plan to introduce students (and teachers) to blogs within the next few weeks - as soon as I feel completely comfortable with it all myself.

Hello

Welcome to my blogspot! I plan to post my ideas from our current Web 2.0 workshop, as well as my updates on how using this technology is improving my library classes.