Thing 16: MnLINK

It's official. I am in LOVE! MnLink Gateway is my favorite 'thing' so far. How have I gone so long without knowing about this resource?! I have been playing around with the basic and advanced search options. I am amazed that I can access libraries throughout the state. This has been a real eye opener for me. I didn't realize how everything is networked. Wonderful! I always thought I had to ask a media specialist to guide me through the ILL process, now I know how to take care of this on my own.

I have already included a link on my teacher web page for the kids to access MnLink. I am planning on showing it to them today. I am going to do a really vague search like "Jackie Robinson" vs something specific like "Minneapolis teacher strike" to show them how a tool like this is effective with a specific subject. I also want to show them how to do an advanced search for a title since many of them found titles in the works sited pages of other resources they have been using.

I am nervous that they won't have the sources in time for History Day in a month, but it is worth a shot. It will be very helpful for kids who make it on to the next level of competition.

Next year I will have to show them MnLINK right away in November when I introduce history day. This is the perfect kind of long-term project to use ILL.

Thing 17: One New Thing

While exploring the world of databases, I discovered Historical Newspapers. (Thanks, Jeanne!)What a powerful tool to use in my classroom. Especially when it comes to the kids finding primary sources for their History Day projects. When I introduced this to the kids they were SO excited. To see newspaper articles the way that they actually appeared so mnay years ago was really cool. There is also a timeline that shows the context of that time period.

I also like the "this day in history" feature. I have seen this many times before but Historical Newspapers shows the article that went along with the story. Like today is the day that the Roe V Wade decision was handed down and the New York Times article is there to read.

Unfortunately, this is a subscription that we may have to let expire because of lack of funding. So, using what I learned in my administration program (it's hard to say no to kids), I asked a couple of my students to write a letter about what the Historical Newspapers database has meant to them. A very "cheesy" technique to be sure, but if we are truly interested in doing what's best for kids then we need tools like this to assist them in the research process.

More things 7 and 8...

I used the relfection sentence starters that I found with the RPC to monitor my students' progress on HD. I used a variety of senteces, but the one I liked the best was "I need help with...so, I will..." I thought this was a great sentence because it got the kids to identify an issue and then how they will solve it. They didn't just complain but they had to think out how to solve the problem. Many of the kids' solutions were things like..."I will blog about it"..."I will try ask.com" or "dogpile.com"..."I will try the media center databases"...I was so pleased that kids were referring to the tools that I had demonstrated for them. Without this reflection I would have never known how they wer using the tools. This showed me how important reflection is as a part of the research process.

Things 7 and 8 combined

Right now I am in the middle of History Day with my students. I seem to mention this in EVERY blog, so I think you can see how all-consuming it can be. So, I did some initial browsing of the RPC and Dribbling lessons to see what I could include to make HD an even bigger success without creating more work for my students or myself.

After examing the 5 steps, it seems as if between info from national history day, minnesota history day, my own teaching bag of tricks, and collaboration with my gifted and talented teacher and LMS, I have the first 4 steps firmly covered for history day. I am lacking in the area of evaluation. It seems like both the students and I are so relieved when it is over that I just ignore the final step. But I found a couple of tools that I am going to try out. There was a "student self-assessment rubric for research module" that I am going to have the kids hand in at the end of January with their 5 paragraph research paper. This should give them direction on what they need to work on for the Feb 19th due date. I also found a series of sentence starters that I want to use for reflection at the very end.

This may appear to be a very superficial use of these tools, but I am going to get my feet wet with history day. When that chaos is over, I may try the tools again with the unit that I do at the end of the year on the Medieval period. Time to collaborate with my LMS! Yahoo!

Thing 12: Other search engines

What?! There are other search engines besides Google! OK, so I am just kidding....kind of. I use Google for 100% of my searches. I think because I have an iGoogle home page it is just so convenient. I like the way the results are displayed. None of the mapping tools like KartOO appealed to me. As someone who is VERY linear, I just want a list of hits. I did not find the mapping of sites helpful to me at all. Maybe some of my students would enjoy using it, but not me. I didn't really find the sites that compare Google, Yahoo, and other search engines very helpful at all either. Maybe I went into this "thing" thinking that google was the best and nothing else would do.

A couple of things that I did like were the metasearch engines. Both Clusty and Dogpile seemed to hold promise for future searches. I also liked how Ask.com had a bar on the left-hand side for narrowing or expanding the search. I thought this was a very nice tool for my 8th graders who still struggle with the concept of narrowing a search or a topic.

Thing 4: public library visit

After reading Kelly Johnson's blog, I was inspired to go visit the new Minneapolis Central Library. I frequently visit the Chanhassen library, so I was ready for a new adventure. First of all, it is a beautiful building. The arcitecture was amazing. I thought it was very modern and yet very warm and inviting at the same time. It appeared as if many different types of people felt welcome at the library. Chanhassen is very homogeneous, so I really enjoyed observing the diverse people at the downtown library. It was a very unique mixing of cultures.

The library has some really special spaces and collections. I thought the children's area was fantastic. I could see how a young person could get lost there among all the wonderful books. The teen area was very cool. I was surprised at how small it was, but it certainly looks like a place my 8th graders would want to hang out. I thought it was an ingeneous idea to have each floor in a different carpet color. It certainly made it easier to navigate the huge space.

Now that I have returned from this adventure, I need to spend some time exploring the online sources that public libraries have to offer.

I am also making plans with my media specialist to get all of my kids a library card to facilitate their use of public libraries for our History Day project.

Thing 9 United Streaming

I have used United Streaming many times in my class before. Despite stereotypes, as a Social Studies teacher I do not like to show too many videos :) There are times though, when I want a short clip to illustrate a point we have made in class. United Streaming video segments are perfect. I can find quick 5 min clips to supplement a lesson.

I have never done much "exploring" on United Streaming. So, I took some time to do that. I love that the full videos come with blackline masters, curriculum guides, and other teacher resources. I could really see using them during my World Religion unit. I love teaching that unit but struggle finding ways to help the kids understand religions that they are unfamiliar with. I found that these resources go beyond "video worksheets" and cover important concepts, vocab, maps, etc...

I also played around with embedding video. I have a powerpoint presentation about Confucianism and Daoism as part of my world religion unit. I found a 1 min clip about Confucius and I embedded that into the powerpoint. I found it to be very easy to do. In fact, I surprised myself by figuring it out so quickly. I could see doing this a lot more. I have put together the powerpoints to make note-taking more engaging for my 8th graders, now I can improve on them even further by adding the video clips.

revisit thing 5: teacher web page

Cool thing. My tech coordinator helped me to put a shortcut folder on my desk top. I can click and drag any documents, powerpoints, etc...into this folder and they are automatically posted on my web page. I have no idea how he worked this magic, but I think it is going to be a great way to keep absent kids on track. I already have posted a couple of items and have shown it to my kids. I think it will be a success.

more thing 11

To steal an epxression from the kids: OMG! There is so much more to google than I ever realized.

I put together a customized search engine for a world religion unit that I will be teaching. There can be some very misleading web sites out there when it comes to religion. So, I thought this would be a perfect time to put some limits on a google search. While I have not put in any specific web sites yet, I have at least laid the foundations. I see a perfect chance for some collaboration here as my LMS come up with some reliable sites to share with the kids. I will also have to collaborate with my tech coordinator to figure out how to link it to my teacher web page. I am really discovering that technology can serve as a way to bring people together.

I also did a google alert about ancient history. So, I am curious to see what I get about that.

I discovered that the news archives search and timeline are PERFECT tools for history day. My concern is that many of the articles cost about $4. Are there any free options out there? I found some really cool looking articles about the teacher strike in Minneapolis of 1970 (a topic one of my groups is doing). But could not read the whole thing. FRUSTRATING!

Within google for educators I found a lesson plan entitled "flying through the crusades" which uses google earth to show the students the path of the crusades. Looks very interesting. Perhaps too intense for my purposes, but with some tweaking might be great!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Google!

Thing 11: Google, just getting started

I am amazed at all the tools available with Google. I have had an I-google page for a few months now. Yesterday I easily spent a couple of hours playing around with customizing my page even further. I took all of our Metronet blogs and put them into Google Reader. It is so much more convenient for me to see them on my Igoogle instead of using bloglines. I also found what I hope to be some useful history blogs using the search feature of google reader. I also started to look into Google docs. I am so impressed with the range of items available with google. I meant to start working on the core items for thing 11, but it was so easy to get distracted by all the "bells and whistles". So, I will be doing a follow-up blog soon.