Thing 3: Online Communities & Personal Learning Networks

I decided to re-explore this topic to see if there was something more I could glean from it.  First I looked at Twitter is Stupid. (until you realize)  Jonathan Barrick makes a good point.  There is something good in Twitter, but the problem is finding it.  He compares Twitter to television to make his point.  The only problem is… I’ve all but given up TV for the same reason.  I don’t want to give time to something unless I’m sure it is worthwhile.  Maybe it has to do with reaching a certain age, but every day is so hectic.  There is so much I have to do, that I want to do, that I wish I could do.  I don’t have the patience to wade through a lot of junk to find the diamonds.  I have a Twitter account, but the only thing I have that is still active is WTEN Steve Caporizzo’s weather alert.  It sure was great when the tornadoes came through last spring!  Still I should take another look.

So I explore #tlcchat and find:

• ·        emaze.com looks like a good presentation tool.  I want to show my art teacher the Piet Mondrian presentation on emaze.com.  Short but interesting.  Too bad it requires a login.  It looks like it might be a nice way to have kids do presentations, but the login is problematic.  The whole issue of having the kids register is problematic, notwithstanding the fact that they always forget their logins!

• ·        Playing the Mystery Skype Game  really sounds like fun.  It certainly involves higher-order thinking skills, as well as geography or math.  The problem is getting teachers to give up enough time to do this.  Everyone is so stressed about covering CCSS that they are hesitant to do things like this.

• ·        It reminded me to look into purchasing El Deafo, the graphic-novel memoir about Cece Bell’s experiences from losing her hearing at age 4.

In general it seems like a time-consuming way to get new ideas.  It may be an idea for when I am stuck somewhere with no book, just my phone to amuse me.  I can’t see myself using work time to sift through all of these posts.

And then http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/

Here I find several discussions that I could join in, but not much to inspire me or my students.  Maybe I just don’t see the point, or maybe it just duplicates what we have locally in the BOCES listserv.  When  I have a question, I just ask the listserv.  I almost always get several responses.  Maybe not as many responses as I’d like, but usually enough to have different perspectives on my dilemma.

The idea of having an online book group is interesting, but being an elementary librarian, I’m not sure where I could host it.  I am personally a member of goodreads, but I hesitate to recommend it to my students as there are so many adult-themed books and comments on the site.  Maybe it is because my rural school is so conservative, but I know that parents would not be happy with using it as a hub for discussion.  Still, I checked out JoCo Library Teens.  Maybe I’m missing something again, but it doesn’t seem like there is all that much activity on the site.  There are a lot of members and I’m sure that people get lots of book ideas from the site, but I don’t see much back-and-forth like I would expect from a book group.  It reinforces what I’ve seen with the book groups that I belong to on Goodreads.  I tried to start a site for our district’s professional book group, but only 2 people even joined.  The BOCES elementary book group has a site, too, but it seems like more a repository to me than a discussion per se.  We discuss the books when we are together and use the Goodreads page to remember books from previous sessions.  

So, does anyone know of a good kid-safe way to run a book group.  I could start a wiki I guess.  Has anyone ever run a book group that way?

Before I left Online Communities & Personal Learning Networks, I decided I should check out #slscooltools!  

• One of the first things I ran into was I Love to Read: ConnectEd Classroom BINGO .  I love the idea!  I would have to water it down for elementary school, but still it is an idea worth pursuing.

• ·        Then, I saw a reference to the Bifocals and Buns blogpost about coding: http://t.co/MltROdAxnc.  I think I will definitely follow this blog some to see where she goes.  I admit I felt jealousy and confusion when reading the post.  I’m jealous that she has computers, iPads, AppleTV and SMARTBoard tables!  Wow, I literally can’t imagine that.  Except for the 2 computers at the checkout desk, every computer in my library is a cast-off from the state or some other school system.  Basically our entire school is full of cast-offs.  I’m also confused by how she makes her lessons.  Doesn’t she follow a curriculum and coordinate with the teachers?  Maybe it is because I am not a special, but anything I put in or take out of the library lessons during the year is done in consultation with the teachers.  I couldn’t just take 3 weeks out to explore coding, no matter how much fun that might be, because it would affect all of the research all year long.  Maybe I could do that with pre-K, but we are trying to teach them about the value of reading, so lessons in coding wouldn’t really fit the bill.

• ·        I saw the reference to the nice Dewey Decimal Infographic.  It was great.  I decided to even comment on the blog.  Inspiring. I have to get to doing the Infographic Thing…

So, of what I explored and the hours I used, #slscooltools seemed the most useful.  I’ve saved some links, but I’m not sure that I will explore any of the hashtags regularly.