Students are getting their laptops

Tech Department leads Student Technology Orientation during the first week of school in the library. It's important to prepare students to use laptops as tools rather than toys, especially in a one-to-one computer environment. 

Students take ownership for their learning and equipment. 

Transmedia as a new method of telling stories

A library media specialist describes her experience of using technology to engage students in reading and writing. As a teaching method, Laura Fleming uses transmedia, the way to tell stories across multiple platforms. In her blog, she offers an example in which a story is told using text, sound, images, and games and students become active participants.Laura Fleming also provides resources to help teachers use transmedia storytelling in their own classrooms (Edutopia - http://www.edutopia.org/blog/transmedia-digital-media-storytelling-laura-fleming).

Google Search Engines

There are many Google tools that we know but yet there are some that are new!  Joyce Valenza, a librarian guru, describes them in her "Re-framing Google Search Options" article in Tech & Learning.

My recent discovery was Google Squared, Google Sets, and Google Search Video Creator. These search tools are effective, and  your students can benefit from them when "googling" for worthy links.  

When your students work on a research project and you feel like reviewing search and web site evaluation skills but would rather a librarian do this, feel free to arrange a search skills session with your librarian. The library services are no longer confined by library walls.

Web Cafe

This Wednesday, August 25, we started a new season of our professional web café gatherings.

Both, sharing with each other features that we use in our just-started moodle courses and chatting at the table with a plate of cookies and dates made us feel welcome back to school.

In the library, teachers join for discussions of  issues on using technology in education and showing what they do with web tools  in their classes.

Foreign Language: Technology

Teachers and students... Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants... How to overcome the gap? What language should we speak to be understood and understand? It should be the same but isn’t English enough?

Technology became the language in which teachers should become proficient in order to communicate educational content and expect to be heard and understood.

What does it take to master a foreign language? Teachers of Modern Languages and from ELL department know it better than anyone else! Commitment, determination, and practice are the factors that lead to success. Your foreign accent and lack of fluency will always betray you as a foreigner and be areas to bring to perfection through the whole life, but we can do something about it.

Why do we need to bother? Technology does not replace the instruction. Web 2.0 tools are just new delivery mechanisms that are used to present the instruction to the individual learner! The reason is that technology is a part of students' life, the language they speak, and the environment they live in. Technology helps us find the way to conduct educational content that students enjoy and be gladly engaged to studying the subject. Why not to use it?

Technology integrators, once also being beginners and intermediate, threw themselves into the ocean of technology and immigrated to Second Life.
They have built some sites that connect us with others who decided to learn more about technology in education:
Classroom 2.0 - an online network of those who are interested in using digital tools in education;
The Educator's PLN (The Personal Learning Network for Educators) - a ning that encourages teachers to communicate with others and get an update on technology tools;
ISTE Community Ning  comprises a number of group that can be of your interest (like Moodle group,  1-to-1, etc.)
Don't ignore our local connections as well - we try our best to let you exercise your new skills and learn new vocabulary words:
WBAIS Staff ning (WebCafe group), Library Buzz blog,  and MBtoolbox wiki. Feel free to add your tools and participate in professional discussions.

Do you spend some of your summer time on technology?

 I  hope that your summer break is wonderful and by now you feel a little bored and ready to browse the web for something new and extraordinary to use next school year...

From my experience, first days of vacations are usually a prelude to a productive professional time. It is a time for preparation, building plans, accomplishments, and dreaming big visions. First days devoted to passions like reading, swimming, hiking, touring, and spending time with the family, children and grandchildren, (add here yours) awake our professional desires and cause a thirst for new challenges.

In the age of technology integration, the problem of finding time becomes more acute than ever. Teachers can't teach the way they taught. The new generation of digital natives requires them to use technology in classroom to prepare them for future, like in this song by Kevin Honeycutt:

Technology becomes an essential factor that defines students' success in learning. Appying technology tools to education puts subject contents into a new perspective and helps teachers present their material the way kids better understand and learn . That is why to spend some summer time on learning about web 2.0 tools and on the list of the links describing the use of technology in education is worthy.

Last year proved (and you see some examples on the WBAIS staff ningNing, Tech & Learning @409 Group and AIS-sharing wiki) that for many teachers technology is an excitement. At the same time, for some technology still stays a fright,  and not because they don't like it or don't want to use it in their class. In many cases the problem is a lack of time teachers experience during the school year. A good news is that it can be gained during the summer!

Below is the list of the sites that bring technology into focus: they talk about tech tools, web resources, practical ideas how to use these tools, and alike. Feel free to add the sites you consider beneficial to the AIS-sharing wiki or say about them in the ning.

TeachersFirst.com - a collection of lessons, units, and web resources; professional and classroom-ready content along with thousands of reviewed web resources, including practical ideas for classroom use and safe classroom use of Web 2.0.

Teaching and Learning (Apple Interchange)
It's said that curriculum must support active, authentic, and engaged learning, leveraging technology innovations that profoundly affect our daily lives, but what are the ways to apply these principals into practice? Apple Interchange presents their view on the classroom of tomorrow and in the Challenge Based Learning document describes what collaborative and hands-on learning should be. Read about this method and see some examples of challenge based learning units and integrated technology into their core curriculum. Other sections of the Apple Learning Interchange are of interest to teachers. Check it out.

Free Technology for Teachers is one of the best individual blogs recognized in 2009.

Summer break is a good time to join  a professional learning network (PLN) on Twitter. Twitter is a very popular source to share ideas and sources with other educators. You can join Edchat - a Twitter channel that provides professional discussions twice a week. Set up a free Twitter account and type #edchat into a search window at the appointed time each Tuesday. Use your opportunity while you are in the states and you don't need to stay overnight to get connected because of the time difference. These blogs will help you appreciate Twitter: Blogging About the Web 2.0 Connected Classroom by Steven W. Anderson and Teaching Around With Web 2.0

Sites to build vocabulary, to learn about words or make up your own - 50 Coolest Online Tools for Word Nerds by Kathrin Rives.

EdTech 21. Topics, Tools, and Skills for the 21st Century

Credits: picture cflparents.org