Thing 20: Final Reflection

Well I am sad that this is the last entry for this session.  I tried to stay with the same track as I will hope the course will be offered again and I can move onto track 3.  I find the topics engaging and interesting.  I loved this session as I plowed through each topic and found a lot of new material that I could use.  Now to put it into practice.  Maybe we can have a session or discussion on what we have taken back to the library classroom and put to good use!  Would love to hear and see what others are actually doing with these materials!  I know I have ideas, but I don't always get a chance to put them into practice.

Over the summer my plan is to review all the topics I have done on this blog, including the first two sessions to see what I found engaging and see where I could use them with students.  and see if and when I have used the past materials.  Plan forward and see what I might like to try with different grade levels.  I actually used the ABCya Word Cloud maker with my fifth graders last week.  They had just finished a newspaper information project using Printing_Press from ReadWriteThink and I had a few finishing up, so I had the ones who were done look over their project and pick important words or phrases from their topic or look it up on the World Book database and create Word Clouds.  They had a great time, plus asked if they could use it for other projects as well.  Quick and easy with big results!  I also plan on using it myself with my son.  I want him to come up with words to describe his teachers, then we will make a word cloud and print it off to give to them.  He did a great job with the last one we did together on the topic he was learning about with his class.

I have also signed up for several webinars.  With 2 small kids at home and summer coming, I thought this might be a way for me to work in some PD without leaving home.  I checked into how it would work with getting create for my district as well.  Most have a certificate to print off to submit or if we take notes and submit those... either one will work.  I have already looked at two webinars this month and submitted them to the district for PD credit.  One was on one of our databases, FactCite, where I learned a bit about how they set it up and some quick highlights.  It was great.  I took notes and have been recommending it to my teachers this past week who are working on biographies and Civil War.  I used it with my scholars group and showed them the Topics in History and we looked at Civil War as well as generals in the biography section.  Great to put something small into practice as this!  I have a growing list of webinars that I plan on watching including TeachingBooks.net and several at WebEd.  I am excited for my summer learning and continual path.

Oh I love learning this way.  From my first online class during my Library Science degree to today, online is a comforting place where ideas and places are easily shared.  I have enjoyed each of the Cool Tools sessions and learn a great deal each time.  As I stated earlier, I hope this is opened again and I can do Track 3 as there are several topics I would have loved to jump on and may if I have a bit of extra time this summer.  So thank you foe being organized and introducing us to all sorts of topics that will excite and transform our teaching!

thing 19: social reading and book stuff

I am a huge user and lover of Overdrive.  For years I had tapes then cds of books I would listen to, but with Overdrive and the digital world... it is heaven and so much easier.  I talk Overdrive up with my students every year and encourage them to try it out.  Many do, but don't stick with it.  I will keep talking it up and showing the students and teachers where to find it and how wonderful the service is.  We have it for our district as well as the public library.  I tell them about both and use both myself.  I saw a comment on the blog about using NYC's overdrive.  Oh man I will have to wait until summer vacation to really look into this as I already have a library card for the library and was using it for other resources.  This news is worth the entire online class to me!

I have looked at several other resources on the class site and loved seeing the NY resource site with a book a day along with many activities to do with children.  I shared this with my faculty this week along with http://daily.tumblebooks.com/ which just recently started.  What a fantastic idea to get people on the site every day to see what is going to be shared!

I also spent some time looking and enjoying a few book trip with Sail the Boat.  What an interesting idea.  Wish I had a thought on how to use these ones with my students, but it does give me a few thoughts on what I could explore with parts of history and even local history.  The Civil War or the Revolutionary War would be interesting to come to life on the screen with a connection to the books they are reading in the classroom...

Oh my if I look any longer at http://libraryreads.org/ my reading list or TBR pile will reach the sky.  What a wonderful resource!  This will encourage my own reading and selections for book group, but what about a similar site for children's books?  Does it exist? I would love to know... 

Updated: I did find this site:  http://www.bookologymagazine.com/.  Not exactly what I was looking for, but interesting all the same.  Not quite an online bookclub but, http://www.windingoak.com/bookclub/chapterandverse.php gives out there selection of books each month.  Can join if you lived close enough.