I still haven't found what I'm lookin' for....

Experience has shown us that our students may think they know how to do research on the internet but in reality they're pretty clueless - and many of their teachers aren't much better! Here's a great starting place for improving those skills -

Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research

View more presentations from SweetSearch.

Check out some of the other offerings from Sweet Search while you're at it.

Refresher course

I learned how to do all these things this past summer but I haven't done some of them since. Guess I need to practice so I can help when someone else gets stuck. After dithering about the Flickr website, I finally remembered what to do: click on your picture, go to the Share tab at the top of it, select Grab the HTML/BBCode, copy the code, insert it in your post.

Here's a soothing image that I grabbed from one of my favorite webcams somewhere in Tennessee -

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Greyhound 2.0 - the next phase

In all my previous posts I was the student. I enjoyed working my way through School Library Learning 2.0 so much that I have volunteered to become the "teacher" for Classroom Learning 2.0. Lucky for me, the program and the learners do all the real work. I'm just here to encourage and smooth out the rough spots.

We have 33 Lyman teachers who will be going through the program from now until March. I expect great things!

Relaxation

A quiet moment in my greenhouse/back porch. (But not completely quiet - turn on your speakers.)

Google game

Guess the Google is promoted as a game but it could also be considered a test of how good you are a tagging things. It presents a montage of images and you have to guess what search term they all have in common. You might need to try terms as both singular and plural. Have fun!

Add this to your Delicious list

A site that is on my Delicious list and that others might want to include is All My Faves. They have gathered links to many of the most popular sites in a wide variety of categories and organized them for easy access. I like looking at the Weekly Faves where they introduce new sites, often related to current events.

It's fun to look it their international versions (Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, and United Kingdom); just click on the arrow by the flag at the top of the page or see the list at the bottom of the page. You will find that some of the resources will be the same for every country, some will be regional variations, and some will be completely different.

Thing 23 - Completion!

“Creative energy boost” would best describe my learning experience with Library Learning 2.0.

The need for a significant number of recertification points led me to it, a fortunate chain of events. The situation both forced me and allowed me to take the time to investigate a lot of things I had been hearing about but had not gotten around to trying. The format worked well for my learning style and for working when time was available. I like the way it guides without the pressure to use or adopt everything mentioned. I have found myself stopping anyone who happens to come through the library to share my latest discoveries. Each tool or resource has made me think of someone who could use it, even if I might not.

I would love to see SCPS Professional Development make Classroom Learning 2.0 available to our teachers. No matter how much we preach, model, etc., some of our colleagues just cannot be convinced that they have the time or need to explore new technology on their own. If we could lure them with points (the next best thing to money), we would have a better chance to convert them.