"A Few New Things" by Joyce Kasman Valenza

Valenza, Joyce Kasman. "A Few New Things." Library Media Connection April/May 2008: 10-13.

This article was based on Joyce's NeverEnding Search post from SLJ.

One of the things she's suggesting that I want to think more about is using wikis to create and maintain pathfinders. I think this is a wonderful idea and it's one I hope to implement with some future projects. Our music teacher did a webquest for her composer project and I suspect it could be the basis for the start of one. They're supposed to be re-writing the guidelines for this project over the summer and have asked that I be allowed to sit on the curriculum writing committee to offer suggestions and support. My exploration of Oxford Music Online yesterday will definitely feed into this project and curriculum writing.

There are so many ways that web 2.0 engages students and forces them to become creators rather than consumers of information. I hope that I find others in my school who will be interested in bringing students into the 21st century as learners.

Wiki Webquest

In Joyce Valenza's podcast, she mentioned that any pathfinders we create should be in the form of a wiki so they can be edited by the teachers and students who are using them. In looking at WikiSpaces Blog today, I found this post about a wiki webquest done by 7th and 8th grade students on popular musicians.

My music teacher does a project with her students on composers which has slowly evolved to include or allow popular contemporary performers as well. We've been talking about how to revise the project so she gets a better product and the kids aren't just regurgitating information. I like the interactivity of the wiki and the fact that there's an opportunity for discussion and critique of classmates work, but it certainly would need to be monitored to be sure that kids aren't being abusive. I've forwarded the links to Marisa in hopes of adding to our list of potential projects for the future. I really like this idea!

#10 Online Image Generators

I used Big Huge Labs fd flickrtoys to play around for a while today. I had wondered how to make a replacement image for my wordpress (AKA "other" blog) and found one of those as well as a few other cool tools.

I used to do yearbook advisor in my "spare" time in my first library job. It was more like my life it seemed at times. The class of 1997 had a great vision for what they wanted their yearbook to be. We met with an artist from our publisher and talked about it, but it never really ended up being what the editor-in-chief had in mind. He wanted something similar to Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe prints: fd flickertoys will do it. That cover came out okay, but it really just didn't measure up to Peter's lofty plan. This absolutely would have done it for him--and I bet there are schools using many of these tools for just that sort of thing. There are so many tools that would have made our lives much easier back then!

Other options that would be useful from this image generator are the poster, badge, magazine cover, mosaics, CD cover and movie poster makers. Some of these would be especially useful for a project my music teacher is planning with her students (involving research!) I will be sharing this with her for sure.

I tried to use the Comic Strip Generator and while the main page was accessible any of the links were blocked, so I can't use this from school without bypassing the filter. I prefer not to do it; the kids use vtunnel and some of my colleagues do too. I've got an administrator password, but it's not my own, so I'll skip testing this, at least from school. I am frequently disappointed by our lack of access to web resources due to overblocking.