Librarians Lead Learning

The video on copyright was very informative.  The Disney clips may make it appealing to students.  I found it also posted to Teacher Tube and sent it to some teachers at my school. 

I’m glad I watched the video on Creative Commons.  I have seen websites and photos with CC licensing, but didn’t understand what it meant until now.  It has brought up my awarness, and now I am noticing it a lot more on websites and photos online. 

The comic book was very detailed, and explained a lot I didn’t know about copyright.  I think I will recommend it to a teacher who is making a documentary on our new Arts Academy. 

The CTAP cite has some good resources.  I have bookmarked it in my del.ici.ous account for future reference.

Conclusion

1.  What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

The most useful tool for me was del.ici.ous.  I use it everyday!  I have also found it useful to search other people’s tags when researching a specific topic.  I wasn’t able to use it with students, because some unsavory suggestions came up.  For example, one of the research topics was Date Rape, and several “how to” sites came up.

The wiki portion came just in time for me to use it to prepare for the CSLA conference in November.  I found the wiki to be a great collaborative tool.  There were so many great resources I would not have discovered if not for this tutorial.  I took me a year to complete, but it was definitely worth it.  Here’s my wiki:

http://riyl.wikispaces.com/

Blog.  I helped a language arts teacher get set up with an edublogs account and have book discussions for their reading of Animal Farm.  She has a very low group of 10^th graders who mostly failed 9^th grade English and she wanted to get them motivated about the assignments.    Instead of answering questions on worksheets, they had to post answers in the blog and then respond twice to other students.  It took one class period to get everyone signed up.  Almost everyone posted, and the students were more engaged than they would be in a traditional class.    The assignment can be viewed here:  http://denisedare.edublogs.org/  The only drawback was that it was difficult to get time in the computer lab, and the amount of set up time.  Edublogs now has a way that teachers can set up whole classes with blogs.

Photos & Images: photo mashup sites and photo hosting services like Flickr are blocked at school.  I have used it professionally to share photos of my bulletin boards with other librarians.  I love to search library tags to see what other libraries are doing.  They even created a section for Banned Books Week.  Here’s my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsgteach/

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.  How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

This experience really taught me what life-long learning is about.  Even though it was a lot of work and took me a year during nights and weekends, I kept at it without any other reward than the knowledge obtained.  It wasn’t for school credit or anything.  It was just for me. 

3.  Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Definitely.  One of the ideas I posted in the Sandbox wiki ended up being a published article in CSLA Journal.

4.  What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

Nothing!  Anything more would be overwhelming.

5.  If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

Yes, definitely!

6.  How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote CSLA learning activities?

I have a lot more in my “toolbox” so that when opportunities arise, I can say to teachers, why not try this?

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