This is a frequent occurrence: I arrive at work and realize to my horror that the materials I need for my lessons are on my computer at home and I can't retrieve them from work. Disaster! Yet again I forgot to send the documents to my work email account or save them on a flash drive. Enter Dropbox and Evernote and my troubles are over. I just set up Dropbox and Evernote accounts and now I can access my files and notes from any computer or mobile device! This is a huge relief because, previously, I could never remember which photographs or files I saved where -  on my computer at work, at home, on my iPad or phone? Constant anxiety and confusion! I am just beginning to understand the advantages of Cloud Computing and it looks like Dropbox and Evernote will solve problems with retrieving my files. Yesterday my school principal need a file I created at home, but I had uploaded it to Dropbox after doing this lesson so I could share it with her at school! I also experimented with the sharing feature and shared one of my files with my colleagues who don't have Dropbox accounts and they received and opened the file with no problems. I can see that Dropbox will be a very useful tool for collaboration and communication. I am still experimenting with Evernote but I think this will be a useful tool for organizing notes, ideas and resources for my work. 
All this sounds extremely good but here's a cautionary tale: I recently discovered that Cloud Computing is a "hot" topic because of concerns about perpetual access to personal files. Here is a feature from NPR that explains these concerns. The solution, according to the feature, is to save your files in multiple ways - even on your own server - in order to avoid any future problems.

I created a Research page on my library website to make it easy for teachers and students to access our databases. The most popular databases at my school are PebbleGo, BrainPop (which includes the Junior edition, too), and World Book (Kids and Student). 
PebbleGo is very kid-friendly, attractive, easy to use and has lots of articles that support the curriculum; the spoken-word audio is a great feature. We use "Animals" and "Biographies" the most, but also have "Earth and Space" and "Social Studies."  This database is also great for English Language Learners, struggling readers, and the youngest grades. It's well worth the subscription cost. 
I use BrainPopJr and BrainPop throughout the school and teachers love this database. The content is aligned with the curriculum and there are lots of interactive features, materials that support instruction, and plenty of humor in the animated video tutorials. I always begin the school year with the Internet Safety and Digital Etiquette lessons. Some of the lessons, such as the Internet Safety and Bullying are free so it's worth taking a look at the database even if you don't have a subscription.
I loved the Database Information Sheet created by Lisa Newton and am going to use it so I don't forget lose all the different logins! I'm a great believer in making bookmarks to give to faculty, students, and parents with useful information printed on them. I make new ones each year with a list of our databases and our remote access usernames and passwords and have a stash of them in the library to give away. I thought I'd also make some bookmarks with QR codes linked to our databases for easy access. I used the QR Stuff code generator because it's easy to use and has a URL shortener option so that you can make better QR codes from longer amounts of text.

When I was exploring the different search engines I thought this would also make a great activity for my students. So, I created an activity where students compared the functionality of three different search engines during their search for information. We had a culminating discussion when students voiced their opinions about which search engine they preferred; it was interesting to hear their preferences. The students compared Sweet Search, QuinturaKids and DibDabDoo. Overall, the students liked DibDabDoo the best and most students found QuinturaKids very confusing. I spent a lot of time exploring QuinturaKids and watched the tutorial, but still found it hard to get a useful list of results. I also explored SweetSearch4Me and KidRex, both of which were easy to use and produced great results. We have a subscription to NetTrekker but now I'm wondering whether we could do without the expense as I've now found free alternatives!

Our 5th graders are studying the American civil war and so I experimented with Symbaloo to create a subject guide and I put a link to it on my library website. Creating a "webmix" for the students' civil war research was very easy but I created two different accounts - a regular account and an educator's premium account (one month free trial) - which caused me no end of confusion! In the future I'll stick to just one account. I couldn't work out how to change the default Google search box to a kid-friendly search widget so I contacted the Symbaloo tech support team. They changed the center tiles for me and now I have SweetSearch instead of Google. 

I love using Padlet as a collaboration tool and it has become more reliable and functional since the early days when it was known as Wallwisher. You can embed pictures and videos in the postings to your wall, plus Padlet gives you a URL link to your wall, embed code and a QR code, which makes it very easy to share your wall with the community.  I recently used it with 5th graders who have been studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights together with the novel, Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. I created a Padlet wall where the students posted their thoughts about the literary elements in Esperanza Rising that related to individual Articles in the UDHR. The students loved posting their "sticky notes" on the wall! I learned a lot from this activity. First, I needed to adjust the settings for the wall to make sure that I could edit and "approve" the sticky notes before they appeared on the wall for everyone to see. Second, the students had to finish their sticky notes in one lesson because the wall doesn't save their notes. Third, I played around with the layout. You can choose either a scattered sticky note layout or a linear layout. I started out with the scattered layout, which looked more interesting and authentic. However, this got too messy and it was difficult to read the notes when many of them appeared one on top of the other. So I switched the layout to the more formal layout. 

When I explored the gallery of Padlet walls on the website I discovered lots of new ways to use this fun tool. 
1. Time lines for historical events or literature study.
2. Vocabulary instruction where each student writes a sentence using a vocabulary word and posts it to the wall.
3. Discussions with colleagues about a topic, technology tool, book, etc.
4. Invite interpretations of a picture or short video clip.
5. Resources on a topic, which could include videos and links to documents.

I am still learning all the functions of the Google apps and have been doing some experimenting. I am using Google docs/spreadsheets in several ways: to collaborate with colleagues to support students with their research projects and to collaborate on a shared K-5 technology skills document with colleagues from other school districts that is part of a regional working group on technology education. I set up two circles in Google+ to share the latest news and useful resources in the library with my school. I have found that these tools are potential very useful but their effectiveness depends on the participation of each member of the group! Everyone has to be onboard with using them otherwise it falls flat. So, I plan on providing a workshop to demonstrate the advantages and usefulness of using these tools.

I had a lot of fun creating a short podcast and a screencast for Thing 7 and I've included my creations here. I have been dying to find out how to create podcasts and screencasts for some time and I finally learned how to do them both! I can't wait to share these discoveries with my school community.

AudioBoo: Read Across America Reader's Oath

I used audioBoo for this podcast and I can envision using this easy tool for many different activities at my school. I think it would be good to attach visuals to the podcasts and these could be photographs or students' illustrations. Some ideas that come to mind are:
1. During National Poetry Month students can recite their favorite poems and also attach photographs or illustrations to visualize their poems.
2. Students can record book reviews as an alternative to or in addition to a written review.
3. I could create short book talks and share them on my web page.
4. Beginning of year ice breaker: Students create short autobiographies, descriptions of their interests or what they would like to learn in the coming year.
5. Students can use audioBoo as a presentation tool to share something they've learned about a topic.
6. Teachers can introduce themselves to their new class.
7. English language learners can use this tool to record their speech and develop fluency.
8. Students can create dramatic readings and record interviews.

Screencast-O-Matic
I experimented with Screenr and Screencast-O-Matic and decided to go with the latter because I liked the way the program automatically highlighted what I was clicking on the screen (a circle appears around the cursor when you click on something). I think this makes it easier for people to follow what you are doing. Getting started took rather a long time, though, because there were several glitches before my computer "detected" Java. Polly saved me by giving me a link to a self-help video! However, every time I use Screencast-O-Matic I have to reauthorize the plugin for the recorder, which is a nuisance; the recorder doesn't pop up automatically. When I made my screencast I found out how difficult it is to create a script and keep within a time limit. Screencast-O-Matic allows you 5 minutes for each recording with a free account. This sounds like a long time, but it goes very quickly! However, in the future I will aim to keep my recordings under 3 minutes; I don't want to lose my audience plus you can only upload to Flickr with a recording under 3 minutes. I can see many educational uses for screencasting:
1. I could create mini-tutorials for a variety of purposes: How to use databases, search engines or any other digital research tool; how to use any web tool; how to edit and download photographs and videos. The list is endless!
2. Students could demonstrate their understanding of any digital tool or program.

Searching for Books in the Library Catalog

Diigo
I have been using Diigo for quite a while to bookmark Web sites and other resources that are useful for my work. It's an easy way to keep track of the resources I find on the Internet and I couldn't do without it. You can organize links by creating tags, saving links to folders and posting links to a group that you have created or that you follow. I also use Diigo for compiling lists of useful Web sites on a topic to help students do their research. Once you have created a list of Web sites on a topic you can post the link to those sites on a Web site or share the link via email or in other ways; for example, primary source documents.  I have also found Diigo valuable for professional development, my PLN, and collaboration. I belong to a Diigo in Education, a  teacher librarian group, and a private group for the librarians in my district so that we can share our ideas and discoveries.  Be careful, though, how often you want to received notifications about new postings in your groups; you can choose a daily or weekly email notification - or no notifications. I chose weekly so that I wouldn't be overwhelmed with notifications. Diigo is also a great collaborative tool for a class project.  For example, a teacher can set up a private Diigo group for a project, set up student logins and students can post links to research resources they find on the Internet. This way, students can learn how to work collaboratively and share ideas. 
Pinterest
It seems that everyone is using Pinterest nowadays and so I was curious to experiment with it and created a Pinterest account. Guess what - I love using Pinterest because it's easy to use and is so visual. In fact, it's hard to stop using it all the time - you can become obsessed by it! I find visual curation tools much more appealing and easy to use - I find the pictures help me organize my thoughts. Again, you can share your boards and pins with others. 
Paper.li and Scoop.it
I am exploring Paper.li and Scoop.it and the articles about these tools by Joyce Valenza were helpful in understanding how they work. A question: Is it worth it to pay for an upgrade to these two curation tools?  For example, the free account allowed me to create two topics in Scoop.it and I will need to upgrade if I want more topics. I found this very limiting and would welcome feedback from those of you who use either or both of these two curation tools. I can envision using one or both of these tools for my PLN and with older students - certainly at the middle and high school level. 

There are so many wonderful tools for digital storytelling and presentations that it's both inspiring and overwhelming. Which one should I choose? For what purpose? Grade? Subject area? Skill? In short, am I a kid in a candy store or am I buried under a snowdrift! One thing for sure, helping students to create and present information using these tools takes time and patience until we have all become proficient. I have had the best results when I have worked with class teachers on collaborative projects, which is always my goal as the school librarian. Another factor is the administration of these tools. We have subscriptions to some of the tools, which gives the teacher control over student accounts including the ability to comment on student work, approve and edit, and control the levels of privacy. While these features are extremely useful, I have found the administration very time consuming. Hopefully, in time, I'll get better and faster with it. 
I've been experimenting with several tools for for quite a while with varying degrees of success and I am showcasing some of the students' work here plus my own ToonDoo creation, which I learned to use yesterday. 

ToonDoo
I can see using ToonDoo for a variety of purposes: to explain library procedures to faculty and students; for students to explain difficult or confusing concepts in a fun, graphic way. For example, different genre of literature, how fiction and non fiction books are organized in the library, copyright and creative commons, and so on. This would be a wonderful assessment tool to see if students fully understand concepts. Plus, I am sure they would enjoy using this format to showcase their research and for any writing assignment in any area of the curriculum. I am thinking about using this tool with my 5th grade students who are currently working on book reviews. First, I want them to write their reviews and then they could present salient points using this graphic format. The 3rd graders could use this tool to explain how the nonfiction books are organized as they have begun a unit on the Dewey Decimal system. 

As I reflect on the usefulness of all these tools, the cost of subscriptions, and on the hours I spend on administering them, I am wondering whether to change my approach to be more selective and just focus on one or two tools rather than using several at the same time. The problem is they are all equally exciting!

Voicethread
I have found this to be a wonderful tool for students to present their research and learn to work collaboratively. Last year, a second grade class made a Voicethread for their research about famous Americans. This year I am working with a 4th grade class who are working in groups to share their research about explorers. I like the way a group of students work together to share their ideas and research and organize the contributions of each member of the team. This tool combines many skills in digital literacy and collaboration.

Educational Glogster
I have worked with 4th and 5th graders to create glogs. The students absolutely love this tool and can get totally carried away with it. So, I learned that it's essential to give students a rubric for creating their glogs. Also, it's helpful to explain to students that the design style conveys information to the reader, too, and should reflect the content of the glog. For example, neon peace signs would not be appropriate for a glog about a Colonial trade. This is a great opportunity for students to learn about citing sources and the ethical use of images, videos, etc.

5th Grade Periodic Table of the Elements

4th Grade Colonial Trades

This was a hard assignment and I am still learning how to create my home page and how to use it in my work. I experimented with a personal home page several years ago using a Google product but abandoned it because it slowed down my computer so much it became a bit of a nuisance. However, there are now many more tools for creating home pages with better technology, which also seems to have solved the problem of slowing down the computer. 
For this assignment I chose Netvibes because I was inspired by the selection of examples Polly gave us, particularly the AISB Elementary School page created by Sarah Ducharme. Her page is useful, colorful and inviting and I am hoping to create a home page that will be equally attractive and functional for my students and school community. 
It took me longer than I anticipated to learn how to create my Netvibes home page, but luckily I had help from my teenage son who is braver about clicking on everything on the screen to find out how everything works! It also took me longer than I expected to work out how to embed RSS feeds and useful Web sites into the page. Another hurdle was how to make my dashboard public after I had created it as a private page; I still haven't worked out if I can change a dashboard from private to public. So, I created a second dashboard with identical RSS feeds and Web sites but made sure it was public from the start! 
I think Netvibes could be a great tool for providing resources for students, teachers, and parents in an attractive format. There can be links to research tools, interesting Web sites, news, and just plain fun. This is a highly visual tool that I think everyone would enjoy using. My site is a work in progress and I anticipate that I will work on it gradually over the coming months. One idea I have is to have a tab for each grade level and align the content with the curriculum. This could take me quite a while . . . 

Last week I went to an inspiring exhibit showcasing the work of Art Spiegelman, the American comic book artist. He is most well known for his groundbreaking graphic novel Maus (two volumes) where he uses animal characters to dramatize his parents' story of survival during the Holocaust; Spiegelman won the Pulitzer prize for Maus in 1992. When I walked around the exhibit I was struck by the depth of characterization and emotional intensity Spiegelman communicates through the deceptively simple black and white line illustrations and prose. Although I do not have Maus in my elementary library, I have many other comic books and this is one of the most heavily borrowed areas of the collection. Students love to borrow series such as Lunch Lady, Baby Mouse, Bone, Owly, and Amulet. These books don't stay on the shelves for very long and catch the interest of even the most reluctant reader. Art Spiegelman has also written and edited collections of comic books for children including, Open Me . . . I'm a Dog! (1997) a fun story for very young children which comes with an attached dog leash doubling as a bookmark,  Toon Books, and the Little Lit anthologies. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jek-a-go-go/373550461/

One of the most exciting aspects of technology is being able to instantly share photographs and videos with friends, family, colleagues and students. I remember the days when I would take camera film to a store and wait impatiently for a week to get two copies of photographs. I'd keep one set and then send the other one to my family in England - via snail mail. Now all I have to do is take the photographs, download them onto my computer and simultaneously share them across the Internet. Voila - instant gratification! 

I found the cover image at the top of this post on the  Photopin Web site and I was excited to find another source of copyright-friendly images that I can share with my students and colleagues. I found Photopin very easy to use, although sometimes I came across images with watermarks across them (usually images from Shutterstock), which seem to require payment for usage. Another site I like to use with students is Pics4Learning, which is a free image library for educational use. The site is easy to use because the images are indexed and sorted into categories so students can find what they need easily. The site also has useful resources for teachers including lesson plans that have a multimedia component. My students get very excited when they can use photographs and videos in projects and my students in 4th and 5th grade have created glogs to present their research projects. It didn't take them long to learn how to create these online, interactive posters, which they used to share their knowledge about Colonial Trades and elements of the Periodic Table. One of my goals this year is to provide students with resources and projects where they can take their own photographs and use them in multimedia projects. 

Making students and faculty aware of the different types of copyright licenses is a challenge as I find it confusing, too. The confusion is compounded because the legal profession does not seem to be unified about the rules for multimedia rights, plus there are different laws about copyright in different countries! However, I use the Flickr Explore/Creative Commons page as a visual tool for explaining the different levels of photo rights to students. The icons help students visualize the different types of permissions and they help me remember, too! I find this is a good place to start. 

I created an account at Flickr, which I am going to use to organize and share my photographs about my school library program. I must say I am already "hooked" by Flickr and found it very easy to use. I created a slide show of the work 3rd graders have done in preparing for their upcoming puppet shows. We read different versions of The Gingerbread Man story, including The Bun and The Runaway Tortilla. After we discussed similarities and differences of structure, characters, and plot,  the students worked in groups to create their own versions of this folktale. Some of the new versions were: The Runaway Hot Dog, The Runaway Pizza, and The Runaway Chocolate Chip Cookie. Students planned their stories, made storyboards, and paper puppets. When we return from break the students will be ready to perform their puppet shows - I can't wait!
  

I experimented with the same slide show using Photopeach so that I could add background music.

I found this assignment very helpful because it reminded me of the great resources that are available to share ideas and become more "connected" to fellow educators. I am still shy about giving feedback and sharing ideas online in response to postings on all the various professional networks, but now I will think about ways I can "create" as well as "consume" information.  My new year's resolution will be to give feedback and share ideas on my PLN! I have had a twitter account for a while and tend to post links to articles of interest on my page. After exploring how to use hashtags, I dipped my toe in the water and included #tlchat in a twitter post @NPElibrarian. The mysteries of using hashtags have been revealed! I use Diigo to bookmark and share great resources I find online; plus it helps me to easily access sites I have found but can't keep in my head!
Having a PLN has been a lifesaver for me and I use it for:
1. Gathering ideas for spicing up my library lessons to make them more engaging and creative.
2. Keeping up to date on new technology and trends.
3. Connecting with other teacher librarians to hear what's going on in other school libraries.
4. Learning about how to use technology tools. 
My favorite way to use a PLN is through blogs. I follow several great technology and teacher librarian blogs. For example, Van Meter Library Voice by Shannon McClintock Miller, The Adventures of Library Girl by Jennifer LaGarde, The Daring Librarian by Gwyneth Jones, and Kathy's Katch by Kathy Schrock.  I also follow David Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers blog which I use as a reference tool when I need to find out about a specific technology topic.