Just came across this never-posted draft from 6 years ago. It's never too late, I guess.

Fourteen hardy souls completed the Classroom Learning 2.0 journey this first time around. The other sixteen had a variety of reasons for withdrawing - family issues, pregnancy, conflict with other courses required for certification or advanced degree, coaching season, dead computer, writing IEP's, plus a few who had signed up by mistake. Some of them have said they would like another opportunity, perhaps this summer, so I will be checking to see if that can be done.

For such a relatively small group it was interesting how many different styles they exhibited in their approach to doing the work, their reactions to the different resources, and their presentation on their blogs. They all seemed to like the online presentation and its self-paced nature; most said they would be interested in doing another similar class.

I haven't been here for a while and I'm out of practice.  Plus, they seem to have added some new features that I will have to experiment with.

But first, I'm going to save a link to the 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners so that I won't have to look it up every time we start a new session of Classroom Learning 2.0 -

7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners from Lori Reed

We have a small group this time.  Should be fun!

Where does the time go?

Our first group of Classroom Learning 2.0 explorers dwindled from 31 down to 15 or so, but those who persevered all seemed to enjoy it and found things they believe they will use.  (In all fairness, those who were unable to finish had valid reasons.)   Reading their blogs allowed me to get to know sides of them that I had not seen before and, in some cases, had not expected to see.

A new group has now begun the journey.  We're running into some issues with posting comments but I have confidence that either we'll figure it out or it will turn out to be a Blogger problem and they'll fix it.  I hope so, since interaction between the members of the group can be both helpful and just plain fun. 

If at first you don't succeed

Hmmm... tried to use this as my Profile picture but couldn't get it to work. I pasted it into a blog post but thought that didn't work either, and then I forgot about it. Found it in my Drafts just now and decided to go ahead and publish it and see what happened.

What happened was that it showed up as being published on the date that I first started playing with it in November instead of today. More dinking around was in order!

Took the easy way around and copied what I had done into a new post and deleted the old one. There may be another, even better, way to do it but this worked and was quick.

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.

Thing 23 - Copyright

Convincing students (and sometimes our colleagues) that using information ethically is not optional can be a challenge. There is much food for thought in this last lesson, especially in the Lessig presentation and on the CTAP4 website. I have already added several of the copyright sites to my school Delicious and will try to direct our teachers to the rest of the site.

Print vs. digital - another view

A while back I shared my some of my thoughts on reading from a printed copy rather than from a computer screen. Today's Orlando Sentinel - the newspaper, although I'm sure it's in the epaper as well - included Kathleen Parker's take on the subject. (I used the link to the Sacramento Bee because I felt their headline was better.)

Thing 22

Although I know several people who love audio books and listen to them regularly, I must admit that I have not been one of them. This and the world of eBooks are areas where I need to spend more time exploring. Maybe I'll sign up for an eBook account at Winter Park Public Library. Other options are Kindle for PC or some of these free book sources that I could try using on my netbook.

Today I helped one of our teachers find an audio version of her daughter's required summer reading. Her daughter is one of our many "reluctant" readers and this may make the process less painful. How are other schools in Seminole County using eBooks and audio books?

As for the British Library Online Gallery, all I can say is WOW!

Thing 21

Podcasts might fit in the old category of "if you can't beat'em, join 'em!" We are constantly fighting the battle of the ear buds with many of our students.

Each of the directories that were listed has its strengths and weaknesses. The end result with all of them is that there are lots of interesting podcasts out there but it takes a lot of digging to find what you really need. I happened to come across one on Parenting Your Teen and added the RSS feed to my list; I may recommend it to our Child Development teacher and guidance counselors. I would like to help develop a "new students" orientation podcast for our school and maybe some library how-to's.

I recently noticed a new icon on Kate's library blog and discovered that it is now available as a podcast. When I looked up the source, I learned that Odiogo will convert your blog to audio for FREE. It's a computer generated voice but it's not too bad.

Thing 20, part 2

As you know from my previous posts, my super library sister-in-law has been ahead of me in the Library 2.0 game for some time. Yesterday I sent her the link to one of the videos that I mentioned in my last post and was surprised that it was new to her. Of course, she then sent me a link to her library's Delicious list of library-related videos. Unfortunately some of them require a GALILEO password (that's Georgia's electronic library resource), but several of them are from EBSCO and are accessible on their webpage (down at the botttom - click on Support).

Thanks Kate!

Thing 20

Online videos are another of those mixed blessings. Our students are increasingly visually oriented, so this might be the best way to reach them. YouTube has some very good, educational material, but it also has an abundance of junk. It is understandable that most school systems block access to videos, due to their combination of bandwidth consumption and potential for tasteless garbage.

I did enjoy the videos that were cited in this lesson, especially Introducing the Book and March of the Librarians. Here's a lovely little thing I found on Vimeo -

LIBRARY from singsfish on Vimeo.

Summertime and the livin' is easy

A visitor to Kitsilano Beach reads a book while taking in the summer sun in Vancouver, British Columbia July 5, 2010. (REUTERS/Andy Clark) #

I found this on the Big Picture website, one of my favorites.

Thing 19

LibraryThing will take more time for me to fully explore. My husband and I like to keep lists of our leisure reading, so I began my entries with what we have read so far this year. I may add last year's lists as well, since this should help give us a good variety of recommendations for what to read next.

There are a number of potential uses for LibraryThing in schools. I like the way the CSLA members used it to create their list with disabled characters; we can create lists with Horizon but this makes it easier to keep and share a list (and more eye-catching too). Teachers could use it for their classroom collections. I would love to see our Reading Coach create a catalog of all the resources she has!

Thing 18 - final thoughts

While trying to figure out how to post from Zoho to my blog, I checked out some of the blogs listed on the School Library Learning 2.0 home page. One person suggested that perhaps the problem she had with Zoho would be resolved when it was no longer in its Beta version. That post was from 2007 or 2008; Zoho still says Beta. Hmmm...

Google has introduced its Chrome version of its online productivity tools. Scanning the questions/complaints reveals that the "new and improved" version has lost its ability to post to blogs. At least it's not just me.