Capture to Cloud

This seems to be a very handy tool, not only for research, but also for collaboration.

Offers a basic free version with pay options for premium usage. Includes:

• Build workspaces
• Drag and drop desktop files
• Add live webpages
• Public and private sharing
• Live activity stream
• Mobile apps
• Google and Dropbox integration

Why use it? Collaborative team work which includes media, webpages, and documents can be discussed in real time with a project team on any device - desktops, tablets, laptops, and mobile phones.  

While the CaptureToCloud app runs on the iPhone, it’s much easier to use on an iPad.

You have to be willing to sign in with a Google Account and then  Capture to Cloud requests permission to:

• Manage your contacts
• Manage your calendars
• View basic information about your account
• View and manage any of your documents and files in Google Drive
• View your email address
• Perform these operations when I'm not using the application

I used a school Google account to register because it tracks everything you do which is quite unsettling.  But it seems that Google tracks everything you do no matter what.  Hopefully I won't be targeted for more ads. The interface reminds me somewhat of Evernote, but it seems to have much more social functionality.  I also enjoy the "slideshow" view of all the items which are saved.

The help feature is robust and the first thing I will experiment with is organizing content into collections.

This is what makes me crazy re: education 'reform'

How can we ever 'reform' education with principals like this?

Buffy Hamilton Shared This One on Twitter today: Brainstorming with Edistorm

According to CrunchBase "Edistorm is a social brainstorming application empowering friends and coworkers to rapidly brainstorm and make better decisions."

From the Edistorm website:
"Edistorm allows you to organize your ideas in a real time interactive wall. Each sticky note can have its own color and the users decide what the arrangement means to them.This freeform method of collaboration will feel familiar to anyone that has thrown stickies on their walls."




Edistorm is always free for anyone adding ideas to a brainstorming. Invite anyone.
Creating public or solo brainstorms is, while creating private invite only storms requires a subscription. All accounts have a no credit card required 30 day free trial. You can even follow them on Twitter (edistorm)to keep updated as the product develops.

New Tools Wiki is worth more than the price of admission

Newtoolsworkshop, a collaboratively built site can serve as an introduction to social media or as a continuing education venue for the more advanced user. Suitable for all ability levels.



Contributions to http://newtoolsworkshop.wikispaces.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 License.

This was shared on Bright ideas , a blog by the School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV). This is an extremely active blog which I read almost daily. It is well-worth subscribing to; I discovered it because it was a 1st runner up for the 2009 Edublog Awards: Best Library/Librarian blog.

Using Library Experts Wisely

Please take a few minutes and read about "sell it, know it, think it, show it" in "Using Library Experts Wisely", by Rob Weir, just published in Inside Higher Ed. A few favorite quotes:

"We [librarian and professor] munched, brainstormed, and hammered out a work-in-progress whose basic premise was: do less, but do it more often until less became more."

"This time the accompanying assignment was titled "Why My Database Rocks, and Why it Wobbles;" in other words, assess its strengths and weaknesses. The follow-up was to e-mail Dave [the librarian] with the name of the database they consulted, tell him why it was "wobbly," and ask him to suggest others. (These exchanges were copied to me [the professor].)"

"I can’t emphasize this enough: contact your library specialists."

And from the comments: "librarians (myself included) need to do a better job explaining the various possibilities of library instruction."

This article could easily be part of Library Departments' package/handouts at new teacher orientations. At a minimum, it's worth some discussion about different perceptions and changing roles.

Gulf Oil Spill Information Center

Librarians at the University of South Florida are creating the Gulf Oil Spill Information Center.

YOU can help -- suggest a resource on their form, share the K-12 lesson plans, or modify their guide to fit the needs of Social Studies or Science educators and the students you know. According to Springshare/Libguides, "permission to copy 'Best Of' guides [like this one] into your system is granted by their librarian-creators ahead of time." What a important opportunity for collaboration.

Teacher - librarian collaboration

Listened in tonight: Teacher-Librarians Cafe event on a general discussion on Web presence. Guests: Buffy Hamilton, Carolyn Foote, Barb Jansen, Christina Bentheim
Hosted by Gwyneth Jones and Joyce Valenza

One of the main things I took away from the webinar is that we need to empower ourselves to use the web presence we need and not have it dictated to us by the technology department. Using wikis, or google sites or blogs as our MAIN website could potentially happen if we fight for it. Another idea I took away was using Meebo for live chat for office hours --Ask a Librarian.

The Unquiet Library uses Google sites and subscribes to Lib Guides and it works well as pathfinder support. They are totally customizable. Rss feeds, widgets, and all the web 2.0 tools that we love can be embedded. See the research pathfinders page which are a combination of Lib Guides, Netvibes and Pageflakes pages. The library's social media presence is awesome! This is all with 2 librarians.

After hearing Buffy Hamilton at the TL Ning webinar this evening I decided to check out her library site and first came across this wonderful piece she posted with 3 videos linked describing her digital literacy project (Media 21 Capstone project)with English teacher Susan Lester. These firsthand account video reflections on Buffy Hamilton's blog discuss the dynamics of the collaboration. Students viewed them as equals and co-teachers. It happened because of how their personalities meshed.

Her presentation: Transforming Information Literacy for NowGen Students yesterday is now available. Links to the planning process will help you visualize the process.

New Collaborative Writing Tool

MixedInk Demo from MixedInk on Vimeo.

Drop.io

Steve Dembo recently blogged about his top 10 free favorite Web 2.0 tools at the NECC Conference. One that I find that would be particularly useful for group projects at New Trier is Drop.io. Its online collaboration and file sharing service that would provide our students with a simple, real time and private way to chat and share images, video, audio, documents and other digital content through sharing points called 'drops.'

Each 'drop' is non-searchable, non-networked, does not require any type of account registration and can be password-protected and set to expire after a period of time after the project is completed.

Flashcard Exchange

With over 21 million flashcards, contributed by thousands, organized by tagging, these web-based tool has become a study aid to "absorb information efficiently and permanently".

View this Internet application where you can create, study, print and download flashcards.

Today was the first day of introducing the blogging feature to Ms. Plank's two AP American History classes. Thirty out of 50 students enrolled immediately. Ease of use does not yet seem to be a problem.

I posted useful database links right to the blog, so there is no "class links" page that we usually create. I also posted some helpful primary source websites. A senior SILC student is assisting in the 8th period class; I will give "admin" permissions to both Ms. Plank and the assistant. That way they can play with the features of the blog. Ms. Plank seemed to be happy with the blog concept so far. We are leaving it open for anyone to read. It can be restricted to only registered blogger students. Comments to posts can also be restricted if desired.

Ms. Plank likes the idea of the collaboration as well as the fact that she could continue to use the blog for collaborative activities even after the end of the research project. So far I am hopeful and I like the reflective aspect of it.

Blogging is like the Nike ad, you have to "just do it".

Web 2.0 and Librarians

I just finished an excellent article from the Educause Learning Initiative--How Choice, Co-Creation, and Culture Are Changing What It Means to Be Net Savvy, by George Lorenzo, Diana Oblinger, and Charles Dziuban:
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=ELI3008. It does a terrific job of explaining Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, as well as giving excellent statistics on undergraduate use of the Internet from OCLC (the Online Computer Library Center). The statistics are a little scary; 72% of college students rank search engines as their first choice for finding information, with only 2% using library web sites as their starting point.

One of the major points I got from this is that our job is ever-changing and collaboration is the key. Where we once had to worry about collaborating just with teachers, now the opportunity is there to collaborate with students. And as Judy commented earlier, our best teaching is done one-on one. Using Web 2.0 tools such as blogging and Blackboard make that collaboration a bit easier.

A second major point is the question, "Do students possess the information literacy to recognize valid information from the rest?" This is something we try to teach repeatedly; sometimes we can see the results and sometimes we can't.

Much of this information echoes what I got last year from Stephen Abram. The Millenials can find information. Learning how to evaluate it, synthesize different points of view, and create new information are the skills librarians need to be teaching. Web 2.0 tools can help us do this.

Collaboration in a Web 1.0 World

We now have documentation about positive effects of librarian/teacher collaboration from many sources. Planning cooperatively with teachers has a "sustained positive impact" on ACT scores according to the Illinois Study funded by ISLMA in 2005. One of the key findings was that "Students achieve academically when their visits to libraries bring them into contact with librarians as teachers and co-teachers”. The Illinois Study Fact Sheet also points to evidence that librarians in exemplary schools “perform the instructional role more often” than in less recognized schools. That seems like common sense. At New Trier High School Library we have 9 librarians and so each of us has the time to meet with teachers, talk about the next research project, and find appropriate resources to ensure that students are able not only to fulfill the project requirements, but also able to formulate thoughtful questions and thesis statements.

Collaboration at New Trier has evolved in part from the library liaison program; each librarian attends departmental meetings of academic departments. In addition, librarians are often included in summer curriculum work. We work with one-teacher-at-a-time who spread the word that we are able to “add value” to student research projects. Newer teachers are brought into the fold by more experienced teachers.

Responding to student research journals on BlackBoard has enabled us to “get our feet wet” with some of the features of Web 2.0 tools. One of our most successful collaborations in the Web 1.0 world has been doing direct instruction with students on formulating essential questions for Jr. Theme research.

Student comments from research journals on BlackBoard have given us insight into the potential of using Web 2.0 tools such as blogging. “I began to realize the importance of my journal and began to really use it to my advantage near the end of the first quarter. I can’t believe how much the journal taught me how to read. Putting my thoughts down on paper showed me the changes in my reading and the levels of sophistication I was managing to achieve. Without question, the reading journal was the most important element in my growth as a reader this year. It pointed out the nuances of what it is to read critically.”

Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World

Why not give each student a blog? Why not be able to connect with each student one-on-one? Last year Will Richardson, blogger/education guru did some staff development with our teachers. As a result of keynote, I experimented with pbwiki and a China provinces project , Furl, Flickr and my stickies. But I think the really powerful tool is the blog because of the comment features and the "read/write-ness" of it all. The social, collaborative nature of the blog is key; teaching is not really instruction, but more like a conversation. No one is the ultimate expert. As Will Richardson says, "contribution not completion" is the ultimate goal. This is just the beginning of more intimate connections with students. Web 2.0 promises to enable more reflection and more participation with students than ever before.