Thing 23: Makerspaces

To start my exploration of Makerspaces, I decided to read Deb Collins post about them.  I liked her rules for the MakerSpace:

1. Be safe at all times!
2. MakerSpace Materials stay in MakerSpace unless you have permission from Mrs. Collins to remove them!
3. If you bring in materials for a project for you to make, be sure you put them in a labeled container. However, be aware that if you bring materials, you are responsible to keep track of them…
4. Before using materials for a project, think about what you are going to make and have a plan – we have limited resources.

I was glad to hear of her enthusiasm and her successes, but she didn’t really discuss how she got the money +/or the materials.  

Then, I went back and read Joyce Valenza’s SLJ post which referenced a MakerSpace-to-Go.  It was good to get an idea of what people thought were important for a MakerSpace.  I had always had the impression that they were mostly tech oriented.  It turns out that I have many of the MakerSpace-to-Go materials already in my library.  I have staplers, paper, pencils, and erasers available to all classes.  I also have a supply station (that I point out to every student in September) with drawing paper, graph paper, lined paper, crayons, colored pencils, markers, rulers, and scissors.  I regularly give kids who ask glue, colored paper, etc.  If I have it, you can usually have it.  I don’t think I will move the glue to the supply station any time soon or add Duct tape as the younger students (starting with pre-K) really aren’t responsible enough yet to use it unsupervised.  (Popsicle sticks would be a good idea though.)  I have some things that I’ve never figured out just how to put out like rubber band bracelet looms and crochet hooks.  

I knew that I have had students making things in my library for years: plays, poetry books, “reports” on unexplained phenomena, games, power point presentations (that have nothing to do with school), even pan flutes!  I also knew that our library has tons of books to inspire creativity: drawing, knitting, crocheting, origami, science projects, paper airplanes, Lego, books on making things that go, bridges, even books that describe how to make trebuchets!  

I have links off my website to Khan Academy and Coding, but it would be nice to see what other software options I could pursue.  We have things like drawing programs.  I have been wondering about Minecraft in the library, but I’m afraid that it would distract students from the education mission rather than lead them to independent learning.  I guess one of the pieces that I am missing is the electronic things, like MakeyMakey kits.  I have wondered about circuit kits like I used to see at Radio Shack and magnet kits before.  The problem is keeping the pieces.  Does anyone have a solution for that?  How do you avoid the theft?  When I got my SMARTboard, a student took one of the pens!  Fortunately, a good sob story later and it was returned, but still…  Teachers have had cell phones stolen and don’t get me started on how hard it is to keep erasers in the library.

I also should probably promote my supply/MakerSpace more.  It is the more assertive kids who think to ask me for help locating books on their area of interest or who ask for glue, etc.  What with the staffing situation, though, I really can’t handle more kids at this point.  Not that I don’t want them to come, it is just that it is awkward to either interrupt my lesson to supervise or chastise other students or to ask the teacher whose class I am teaching to do it.  Despite the fact that I REALLY emphasize my behavior expectations, kids will be kids and get carried away.  Likewise, although I try to show the adults that anyone is welcome to talk to misbehaving students in “my” library, only some of them feel comfortable speaking up.  Starting a MakerSpace club would be an interesting idea, but again I need more staff so that I am not spending my afterschool time doing jobs that an aide or clerk could easily do.

The Caine’s Arcade film was unbelievable!  Everyone should watch it.  The The Global Cardboard Challenge that came about as a result of Caine’s arcade is certainly an interesting idea to consider participating in.

Further investigation of the links of Joyce Valenza’s post led me to a page on www.pearltrees.com.  It made me wonder why it isn’t mentioned as a productivity tool.  It seems to have potential, though for me the disadvantage is that the default is a public collection.

I liked the link TinkerSpace: Library Learning Commons as it seemed among the most practical, especially for an elementary school.  I will definitely look into more of these links for more ideas of how I can expand what I have already without spending a fortune.

As far as how to justify the existence of a MakerSpace to the administrators and beyond, that seems obvious.  The Common Core is all about getting students ready for the real world: learning to problem-solve, work cooperatively, and have “grit.”  Any kind of MakerSpace activity will promote those behaviors.  Even my letting students come to the library during recess to use the computers for non-school uses promotes those behaviors.  The students teach each other how to use powerpoint or other programs.  They are having fun and investigating, but they are learning real-world skills.  We have a tendency in the education world to expect that everything will be taught, but most of the world’s geniuses were self-taught at least in part.  Most tech-savvy adults aren’t “taught” how to use all of the technology that they use; they just try it until they learn how it works.

Thing 21: Productivity Tools

So, I’m looking at productivity tools again.  I did download Evernote last year, but I ended up abandoning it.  I wasn't sure I wanted my home and school life that connected and the tech guy at school wasn't all that excited about letting me have Evernote at school.  I see the advantages of having one go-to spot, but there are disadvantages, too.  Software changes, disappears, or morphs into pay-as-you-go services, not to mention that companies sell off your information, so that putting everything in one place lets them sell more of your information at once.  Yes, I'm being paranoid, but...

So right now I use the Calendar app with Groupwise for all of my appts that affect work.  For other things at home I just use an old-fashioned paper calendar.  I don't tend to use my phone much for the web, unless it is to look for hours, directions, or phone numbers.  I like the Lists and Tasks in the Calendar app.  There was a learning curve when I learned how to sync to the appropriate calendar, but that is not a problem now.  

As described in previous posts, I already have Lookout on my phone and I am increasingly using GoogleDrive.  I’m actually thinking of using Google Classroom for our professional tech group instead of Moodle because Moodle is so intimidating.  I’m using GoogleDrive’s capabilities with my students, my colleagues, and my union.  With the rise of Chromebooks, I think that I will use it more, not less.  

I looked at Zotero because it was already on my Firefox browser at home.  I watched the tour video, though I had to watch it through Youtube.  It looks like a great tool for high school and college students and for adults, but it seems way too complex for my elementary students.  I might show it to my family-history-obsessed sister though.

So I had to remind myself about the difference between browser add-ons, extensions and bookmarklets.  Having explored that, I hope that bookmarklets might be the key to getting some more features out of our computers at school.  Add-ons and extensions don't really work because they slow down the already slow computers so much AND because you usually have to involve the tech guy in their installation.  He helps me when he can, but he is overworked and I hesitate to ask for things that aren't essential.  For example, Clearly looks good, but is problematic.  In addition, since he has to be involved for each one, I would have to commit to a browser, which I haven't.  I probably like Firefox the most, but at school, since you can only be logged into your profile on one computer and I am usually logged into 3 at a time, it doesn't work for me.  Some of the computers default to IE, in fact, our generic library login, that we use to turn all of the computers on, uses IE to automatically load the school webpage and the catalog.  The students can't open IE when they log in, however.  They generally use Chrome as the default browser.  So, I am constantly changing browsers which would require the add-ons to be installed on all 3 browsers.

With that said, I went back and looked at the Readability bookmarklet.  I dragged ReadNow to my bookmarks and used it to look at a web page.  For my reading, it seems to be a viable option because it gets rid of the adds, pictures, slideshows, and animation that drive me crazy!  However, for kids it strips SOOOO much out of the webpage that it makes it less appealing.  A fine line to be sure, but one to consider.  

While still considering the Reading options, I decided to do a Google search to see if I could find a comparison.  I ran into a LifeHacker article comparing Pocket vs. Instapaper vs. Readability, a Mashable article on the 5 Best Read-It-Later Apps, and Best Reading List Apps for Android: Pocket vs. Readability vs. Papermill vs. Pulse.  All three seem to lead to Pocket, so I think I will check it out.  Flipboard came preinstalled on my phone, but it seems to be more for feeds than for marking pages for later reading. 

I made a Pocket account.  You can sign up with Google or another e-mail account.  I dragged the bookmarklet to my bookmark list and I have to admit that it seems easy to use.  I’m torn about downloading the app to my phone.  Just like so many apps, it seems like I am giving them permission to touch everything in my phone: Wi-Fi, contacts, USB storage, and use accounts on this device.  Am I the only person who worries that we are giving these app designers access to everything?!  I’ll have to try Pocket more on my computer at school to decide if the app on my phone is worth it.  I certainly receive a lot of links to sites and articles on my e-mail account that I’d like to clean out of there!

I could really see using the Pocket account with students to keep all of their resources in one place.  I could either have them sign up with their Google accounts (if that works) or sign up with a generic library account and have them use tags to mark their content.  Certainly something to consider.

 

I looked into OneTab.  It looks really useful, but it is an extension, so it won’t work at school where I really need it.  It is available for Chrome as well as Firefox though so that is definitely a plus.

I briefly explored the Setting Up Multiple email Accounts post and saved it in Pocket for later!  As an LMS, the limit of 20 linked accounts means I could never use it with a grade, do it is only useful for clubs or really individual projects, but still…

I took a look at EdShelf which I will definitely put in Pocket to explore more.  I think that I will bring it up at our next Professional Technology Meeting as well.  I noticed however that there are many listed apps that are not reviewed AT ALL.  I think that I would definitely want to look at how many reviews there are before looking at the apps. 

I took one final look at the How We Work series from LifeHacker, but I didn’t really get any pearls of wisdom. 

Pocket seems to be the best tool I got from this Thing.  Let’s see if I continue to use it!

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.

Thing 11: Coding Cool Tools 2014-2015

Cool Tools 2014 -2015

Thing 11: Coding

I really want to work on new things, so I was waiting for Track 3.  In the meantime, so that I can be sure I am registered according to my local BOCES, I am going to talk about Coding.

Last year I went through the lesson on coding (there is a previous blog post on it), but I hadn't used it with students.  Recently I had the opportunity to us it with a group of 8 students in an afterschool computer discovery session.  It really was the perfect opportunity to use Hour of Code.  Since it was not anticipated, I did not create accounts for the kids, which was unfortunate.  Without it, they had difficulty saving where they were in the lessons, but some students learned that they could move themselves forward in the lessons by clicking on the dots at the top.  This proved to be a problem because they skipped ahead without doing all of the lessons and missed how some of the blocks worked. 

Another difficulty we ran into was with the videos.  I don't know why, but the help videos did not work on our computers.  Although I tried to show them all the slide tutorials that you could read through, many of the students did not have the patience to read their way through all of the slides.  That meant that they again were unprepared for how some of the blocks worked.

Still, several of the students earned their certificate and all of the students had a good time and learned a little about programming.  Several expressed interest in doing more coding in the future. 

Unfortunately, probably due to our district's filter, some of the other links to continue learning about coding did not work in our school.  I did send all of the students off with information on how to get on the site from home and I am sure that some of them will.  I feel bad for our students who do not have internet access at home.  (Broadband access is sketchy and expensive at best in these rural areas.)

If I had it to do over again,  I would stress how to do the tutorial appropriately.  I would try to keep a sharper eye out for students that were trying to skip ahead and make them start again.  I would also try to check with our IT person to investigate why the videos did not work for us. 

Thing 18: Digital Tattoo & Digital Citizenship AND some final thoughts

Okay so this is my last "thing."  I think I will explore more of the resources during the summer.
For now, I tried to look at the videos, but had trouble seeing the embedded one.  I did watch the vimeo one.  I think I might show that to my students next year.
I had previously explored Spokeo, Pipl, SocialMention, and 123People.  I find it really scary how much info these sites have on us.  Even my 84 year old father is on them!  I am not a big social media person.  I use GoodReads because it is related to my job.  I have tried Twitter, but was not impressed.  I have a Pinterest account, but it is more for the ability to store links than for the Social part.  I really want to keep my personal and professional lives separate for the most part.  I guess it is really because I am an introvert, although most people say that you wouldn't guess it when I'm with the kids.   Even in my small rural school, there have been several incidents where Social Media has gotten teachers into trouble, not so much teacher-student issues as teacher-parent issues.  I check my school e-mail regularly, so I am fully accessible.

Perhaps because of being a small rural school, we are fairly conservative in our work with students.  The older elementary students are given e-mail accounts, but they have historically been local only, not gmail accounts.  We are exploring Chromebooks, so that might change.  Our primary students have logins, but no email accounts.

I read the article about the CO Teacher Librarian who uses Digital Passport.  I use Digital Passport with our students, too, but in a different manner.  Our library catalog has a social media aspect -students can make friends, recommend books, comment back and forth, and review books.  I don't let them access those features until they complete the Digital Passport.  Many students start the process, but not all complete it.  Perhaps if I start it at a lower grade, I can attract more kids to finish it.  Another option is to try to get it adopted as part of their computer lab training, but that is difficult since Common Core sets typing speed expectations and SO many of our students don't type at home at all.  Although they practice in the lab regularly, there is still a lot of hunting and pecking going on.  I actually recently had to ask the Computer Lab to have the students power off the machines when I had some lessons with the laptop cart and, despite my instructions to go to Start and choose Shut Down, I caught the students just hitting the Power button.  I also caught some kids coming in for recess to use the desktops who were just hitting the Power button.  Sometimes there seems like there is so much to teach and so little time to teach it!

I had previously ordered the Netcetera OnGuardOnline materials and while I still put them out for parents, since the "student" book covers sexting and we are a fairly conservative rural school, I am not handing it out!  I will look into more of the links from this thing to see if there is anything more appropriate.

 In other final thoughts...
I really love these CoolTools lessons.  I keep copies of them to refer back to when I want to learn (or relearn) something or when I want to look for a new tool for a project.

I want to follow up on Productivity.  I still have Evernote on my phone and at home, but I decided that I wasn't sure it was the best tool for school.  Again I like to keep my personal and professional lives separate and I was worried that others might see my Evernote notes as I am always logged into one of the computers at the circ desk.  I decided to explore the Groupwise Calendar, tasks, and notes more.  It syncs with my phone.  And that is working fairly well.  I have a calendar to carry with me as well as to-do lists.  The only problems with it is that you seem to have to set the notification every time you add an event or a task and if I check off a task at work on my desktop (after signing into Groupwise), I still have to check it off on the phone.   Annoying!  Still, for now it beats the methods I have been using.

Another new site that seems really great is Quizlet.  Did you mention that in one of the Things and I missed it?  I learned about it in a magazine article.  I used it to make flashcards, games, and quizzes to help our students remember some important vocabulary words.  Then I shared those lessons and the site with the teachers.  People seem pretty excited about it.  I know that there have to be other sites like that, but I haven't found them yet.  I am also looking for a way to make games/quizzes like HyperStudio used to have where if they answered wrong, it was recorded, but you could make the stacks so that it told them they were wrong with an explanation and had them try again to learn the correct answer.  There seem to be a lot of ways to make it so that they get points for being correct, but not so much the teaching why they were wrong.  Maybe there is something I just don't get.  PowerPoint works great for me teaching a whole class, but it really does not lend itself to individual viewing.  A Google form is great for a quiz, but not for teaching.  Quizlet is good practice, but still has limitations.

Well, thanks for the lessons!  I hope that we do this again next year!  I have learned a lot!

Thing 10: Productivity Tools

So I decided to look at these Productivity Tools.  One thing that really caught my eye was ifttt – If This Then That.  I think that I will definitely download the app and join.  I LOVE that I will be able to automatically mute my phone when I get to work and unmute after I am gone.  I certainly will look into getting updates on new free books.  As I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, logging the supposed  wi-fi connections and disconnections could come in handy.  I do wish that it worked with IKeepBookmarks.com though.  I know that everyone seems to have abandoned it for diigo and, especially, delicious, but I have found it to be really very simple to use and I don't want to go through all of the work of restoring the links to the new tool.

Along those lines I explored delicious a little.  The thing is that I am not into Facebook and Twitter.  I want to share relevant content with my students and teachers I am collaborating with, but I am NOT interested in the social end.  It looks like LiveBinders might work for me.  I can embed the shelves on my website when I want to share.

I already use Lookout on this phone and the previous one.  It has always worked great!   I also have a Dropbox account, but I don't use it much right now.  I think as with GoogleDrive, I am just going to have to make a decision on which way I want to go.  Right now, Dropbox seems more useable because I tend to use Microsoft Office, but if the district really ends up going with Chromebooks and Chromeboxes, it might send me in the GoogleDrive direction.  We have been passing a Chromebook around to try out.  The tech guy and I had a long talk today about the issues we may have with Chromebooks.  The switch to GoogleDocs is obvious, but I think that we could make it.  He is looking into a Virtual Desktop to expand the usability.  At the elementary level, though, I think that we really need to find a solution for printing.  I know that the push is paperless, but it is hard to tell a 7-year-old that he/she cannot get a copy to take home.

Clearly looks like it will be quite useful.  I have Evernote on my new phone and I really need to explore it more.  I think that it could be an awesome tool for me, though the transition is tough because I have been such a paper-based person organization-wise. I use PrintWhatYouLike alot when I print from Webpages, but knowing that there is an alternative for viewing them is great.

I have explored Zotero previously.  I thought that it would be great for my students, but frankly all of these browser add-ons in whatever format are problematic.  First there is the fact that we can't download them all ourselves at school because of the security.  Then there is how much they slow down the browsers.  Given the fact that we already have such old computers at school, anything that slows them more is a real problem.  Scrible has a similar problem. 

Well that is it for now.  I hope do more with Evernote and to create LiveBinders for our sixth-graders research project in particular. 

Thing 16: You Pick!

Well, for my Thing 16, I decided to do two things:

1. Try out the Chromebook that the technology team is supposed to work on.
2. Learn more about Google docs, Google drive, and, especially, Google Forms!

So I logged on to my Google drive which I had for my library website.  I watched a video about Google forms and started to create one.  I decided to use it to check on my first graders progress toward the SLO goals.  I made a form with text and multiple choice questions that I will send to a spreadsheet ultimately.  I wonder if there is a way that the state would accept Google Forms as an SLO test because it certainly would be easier to "grade."  If not, I wonder if they would accept a Moodle test.  I doubt it though since there would be no paper copy for the administration to save.  Still it is a good question for me to forward to the superintendent on my return to school.

I found the process of making the Google form surprisingly easy.  In the midst of it, I had to make a Google Doc.  At this point, I plan to print the doc and give the students a copy, but In wonder if there is a way to refer to the Doc in the form so that students could go back and forth.

Another question I still have to investigate is whether there is a way to change the font size on the Google form.  It seemed very small.  Fine for older students with good eyes, but a problem for younger students who are used to larger print and for those who have a visual impairment.

I am not sure why I never bothered to learn about Google Docs and Google forms before.  I guess I just assumed that I could learn them easily when the time came.  I think that they will come in very handy when I do reading inventories in advance of booktalks.  It will be very easy to summarize results, not like the paper copies I have done.

In my investigation of the Chromebook, I found it easy to use, but I don't much like being signed into Google all of the time.  I feel like I am being tracked, which, of course, I am.  Since I was using my school account to make the form, but I wanted to add this blog post which is on another account, it was just that much more confusing.  When exploring some of the apps that were added for the students to use, I found them surprisingly lame.  They didn't give immediate feedback, either.  Telling a student at the end when their score is on the screen and "fireworks" are shooting off in the background that they got some questions wrong and why is worthless.  I doubt 2 out of 100 kids would really study what questions they got wrong.  Students need more immediate feedback.

So much for Thing 16.  Now I won't be hesitant to make a Google Form.