Learning Gems

Discovered Animoto yesterday…signed up, uploaded images of book covers and created a very cool video clip in less than 10 minutes. I can imagine it being used for all sorts of learning activities. Some that immediately spring to mind are:

• A visual reflection on a text’s themes (particularly useful for musical and visual learners)
• A pictorial essay
• Creative ‘writing’ (digital storytelling, poetry)
• Student Presentations (great for advertising projects etc)
• Adding ‘cred’ to teacher presentations.

I get very excited when I discover a ‘learning gem’ with so much classroom potential. Let’s face it, anything with the potential to engage and revive ’sluggish’ students is worth a look.

I am still exploring the web looking for ideas to help with my Book Week Literacy project, a story book using the prompt “Imagine if I discovered…” In my travels I found Big Universe Online Children’s Books and created a small story using the prompt myself. The book was easy to construct using illustrations provided on site although I did have to watch the demo first. It was approved for online publishing in a few hours. I decided that Big Universe has huge ‘learning gem’ potential. I can imagine teachers and parents using it as a literature and writing learning tool. Hopefully, it will also help me to create some excitement for my Book Week project!

The books are free to create and read online.

I used image chef to create the banner above. I can see lots of potential for teachers and students. It is great for others like me…I can’t draw but at least I can use technology to create visually appealing stuff.

I like the idea of using polls to encourage students and teachers to think about their attitudes and behaviours when using a particular resource, whether it be a blog, a library, textbook or other learning technology. This type of reflective thinking can be very powerful because it forces us to focus on learning behaviours and challenge our thinking. I discovered PollDaddy while visiting my local library’s web page and thought I’d try my hand at it!

My Poll question is: How do you use blogs for educational purposes?

surveys - Take Our Poll

Retraining as a teacher-librarian has reawakened my love of teaching, learning and technology. However, after 2 years in the role I am still surprised that T-Ls have such a tough time convincing others of their worth. Other teachers seem to ‘forget’ the vital role that a T-L may have played in developing a unit of work, offering up-to-date advice and ideas, or finding the right resource to spark students’ interest in learning. Unfortunately, inspiring students and teachers is a difficult thing to measure and I worry that T-Ls are marginalized because of this.

‘Invisible’ achievement is not good for the profession! T-Ls need to stop being the quiet achievers in school communities and set about actively reminding other teachers and administrators of their central and vital role in teaching and learning. This blog is my attempt to do just that…I will use it to share the ‘learning gems’ I have gathered, and continue to gather, as a lifelong learner and teacher.

What better place to begin than by sharing my favourite learning gem discovery for this week…ript. Access it via ript.com It is a great organizational tool that would probably suit both students and teachers alike.