MAPS More Things

Has been difficult to give More Things the attention that it needs this time around. I have worked with several teachers to set up blogs for student projects. Students are enthusiastic to see their voice on the web. One teacher required a 350 word entry – may be appropriate for a written response to “To Kill a Mockingbird” but took up too much space on the screen and those students who were commenting had to read tooooo much. We learn a bit every time we try the blogging concept.

I mainly read blogs through iGoogle Reader. I can take a few minutes once a week or so to read a lot of subject lines and read what is of interest. I’m trying to figure out how to include my starred items on this blog.  

I don’t often comment. Seems like my writing takes some time to compose and respond intelligently and by then others have said it better. 

This is a different blog than used for the first round of 23 Things on a Stick. In our district some media specialists did not participate in the statewide 23 Things last year so we spent the fall exploring the 23 Things as a professional development activity. 

Also, we are currently using EduBlogs in our district as the approved blogging application for classroom projects so I am using it for this blog and also as the sandbox that I use when a teacher has a question or an idea about how to use the site.

EduBlogs has added ads to the free site so we would like to purchase the pay subscription for the district, but so far no approval for that from the accounting office. 

Book two is Twisted. Use the comment area to add you comment about this book.

This is a test of the category area of edublogs. 

These are the sites that were shared at the District Technology Committee meeting:

VoiceThread

What’s a VoiceThread Anyway? 

VoiceThread – Catcher in the Rye

Gcast

Gcast Language Sample

NOTE: in a classroom setting it would be best for the teacher to set up one Gcast account and provide students with a PIN for student access. This PIN can be changed frequently based on assignments.

Mrs. Cassidy’s Classroom Blog

The Electronic Pencil Classroon Blog

Other tools that listed: Flickr, YouTube, yackpack, rockyou slideshows, pictaps, Pivot, Super Duper Music Looper. I don’t know much about most of these, but you may want to explore and comment for 23 Things.

Some are currently blocked by the filter, but if you have classroom uses, let me know and we will get the sites allowed.  

These are the sites that were shared at the District Technology Committee meeting:

VoiceThread

What’s a VoiceThread Anyway? 

VoiceThread – Catcher in the Rye

Gcast

Gcast Language Sample

NOTE: in a classroom setting it would be best for the teacher to set up one Gcast account and provide students with a PIN for student access. This PIN can be changed frequently based on assignments.

Mrs. Cassidy’s Classroom Blog

The Electronic Pencil Classroon Blog

Other tools that listed: Flickr, YouTube, yackpack, rockyou slideshows, pictaps, Pivot, Super Duper Music Looper. I don’t know much about most of these, but you may want to explore and comment for 23 Things.

Some are currently blocked by the filter, but if you have classroom uses, let me know and we will get the sites allowed.  

If you need some RSS feeds to library-related blogs any of these at SLJ might be of interest. I read Joyce Valenza’s Never Ending Search regularly. She is a secondary media specialist, but always has some good Web 2.0 ideas in her blog posts.

Media Specialists in the Moorhead Area Public Schools will be working on the 23 Things on a Stick project over the next few months. See the blogs that have been set up by participants in the blogroll on the right.