THING 10: FINAL LEARNING ACTIVITY

Well this is the second time I participated in Cool Tools!  My expectations are always higher than what I actually achieve.  I was going to complete 10 Things but I am only completing 5 Things.  How do I put these tools into action at work?  Well I did download the Twitter app on my phone and I have read some really useful articles that have benefited me professionally! I've also kept up on some school events!  I am not a regular tweeter though! I don't blog regularly for work or in my personal life but I do enjoy reading other peoples blogs.  I will most definitely use what I learned about search engines and  I intend to go back and read up a little more on the databases.

Things that I did not complete such as Productivity Tools, Student Portfolios, and Web Design really interested me and I plan to go back and look those over. I scheduled 1 hour for each item on my calendar to look at during the summer.

My biggest challenge is sitting down and making the time to complete a "Thing." You see, I  sit down and I would read and learn about a topic but I wouldn't complete the task (for a variety of reasons - kids, a commitment, etc.) I always found myself saying I will do it tomorrow & here I am at 10:56 PM on June 3rd!!!

I definitely plan on sharing what I've learned. I enjoy learning at my own pace and being able to learn from anywhere.  The convenience is HUGE!  For me personally I wish there were mini - deadlines, maybe one Thing completed every four weeks. Maybe I am just someone who needs a deadline and no matter what I won't finish until the clock strikes midnight - lol.

I would participate in Cool Tools again.  I always learn new information and that makes me happy and fulfilled.  Thank you for the opportunity.

Thing 9: Databases & Search Tools

As I was looking to choose what to complete next "Databases and Search Tools" caught my eye. This year I started working with high school students again (it had been 12 years since I had)!  Topics and search skills will vary from elementary to secondary.  I read Do Your Students Know How to Search?  I thought to myself, no they don't.  What I found out was I don't either!  Yes, I know how to how to search and maybe better than my students but what I found out was that I too could use improvement!
  
I really enjoyed the article and the two video clips included in it!  The article was informative and I will most definitely pass on the  information to my students.  I can say that it made me a better searcher.  I Learned about "Filter Bubbles" and that Google News is a good place to access primary documents!!  This is very exciting!

Although I teach my students about DuckDuckGo and Sweet Search, I hadn't really looked for more search engines to see what they can do. Choosing this topic was a reminder about other options.  InstaGrok is interesting, I think I like it but the presentation is a little different so I have to get used to it. I am undecided if it would work well for my students, I need more time to decide!  And, yes I had to try THINGA and I have to say I really loved it! It's a nice little search tool for the youngsters.  There are lots of videos so it may be good to use as a reward after finishing a project or watch a video and see what kind of questions your students come up with!  From there they could begin some genuine inquiry and that could be so much FUN!!!

Can't wait to check out Scoop.It

Regarding "Articles & resources to Explore," I must say that the save directly option from GALE to Google School Apps is AWESOME!!  It really makes researching and saving articles so much easier!!  I love it and so do my students!

Thing 3: Online Communities & Personal Learning Networks

Twitter . . .

Well I am a Twitter Option 3 only by the definition of time!   Although I signed up for a Twitter account back in 2010, yes I couldn't believe it either.  I haven't completely acclimated myself to this online community.  Why, I'm not sure?  My process has been slow . . .  Cool Tools has given me the opportunity to revisit Twitter and this time it may stick !

I now follow a couple of elementary teachers that I used to work with that I want to stay in touch with.  I now follow TLChat and a few other well known school librarians.  For now that is enough!  I love the wealth of information available to me at my fingertips!  I read some really interesting articles that others posted.  I found some cool apps, and read about some cool things other librarians are doing, like charging lockers (students can charge their gadgets in them)!!!

There really is so much out there to learn about!  For now I will use Twitter as a learning tool!  I just scheduled a weekly Twitter check-in on my Google calendar!

Thing Two: Photo Fun

I decided to complete Option 3, Edit, Create & Share.  I am familiar with Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. & I use Google Photos regularly since my phone automatically backs up all of my photos there!!  I love that I don't have to worry about losing my pictures and videos.  Google organizes my photos by date and creates albums automatically.  I did check out Tumblr and will spend some more time discovering what it has to offer later.

The two sites I checked out were BigHugeLabs & Photovisi.  I found them easy to use and created some cool pictures!   I created a magazine cover, and two collages shared below.

In thinking how I might use these with my students. . .

1) Create a booktalk poster
2) Take pictures of their research/writing process and discuss the steps along the way
3) Spine labels collage of their favorite books
4) Genre poster using spine labels of titles they read in that genre
5) Author highlight