My Reflective

I say "learning is the most exciting thing there is!" and I have thought of myself as a lifelong learner grabbing classes here and there wherever I was. When this opportunity came up, I jumped in with a great deal of enthusiasm. Working with the dynamic young teachers on our staff was a great deal of the appeal. Throughout the undertaking (and I use the term advisedly) of this course, I have felt like it has been the most difficult thing I have done in a long time...but no less rewarding in the final analysis. The formalizaiton of the research process and the standardization of this process and the three R's is exhiliarating as a concept that is not only past its infancy but well on its way to being recognized. The technical part was what was most difficult but the learning all that more dynamic as a result of it. The two parts of this that were most frustrating had to do with the introduction of these concepts whether in a District-sponsored class after school at 1930 Como or in one of our monthly sessions, I felt I needed everything to have been in such slow motion and it seemed as if the concepts were discussed but not while we could work along. Learning on my own had some promise as I could go at whatever speed I wanted but the little parts of using some of these technological concepts had so many little slippery slopes even in just creating an account and working your way though the website which might or might not have been all that user friendly. My decidedly poor form in trying something new militates against some success in that I try something and it doesn't work. Thus, I try it again, and do nothing different, and....guess what...it still doesn't work. The third time I do exactly the same thing with exactly the same results, I am shut down. The human interactive part is essential for me in learning experiences. Once I am shown a concept and I successfully use it, no problem.
So, despite the whining, I must say that I have been stretched in my technological capacities beyond belief. I would truly like to shadow a participant next year without the homework so as to get it all again having gone through it a little and being better able to take it all in.
I think it had been a long time since I had taken a class and this was a great opportunity for which I am very grateful.
Finally, working with the awesome staff members that I did made it truly "special." They have done great projects with their classes. They were already very competent young teachers but they have now added this exciting and potent media appreciation factor to their bag of tricks and I am lucky to have had this opportunity with them.
Thanks,
MM

More for Thing 16 - MnLink

A staff person was wanting a book for her daughter doing a college course. I decided to try MnLink and got into the resources held to discover that there was not only the book but a video of the book. My colleague was very interested.

Neither was I able to access on MnLink this time but I knew what was where in order to call and find out if the video were able to be loaned. It was at Augsburg and the Librarian was very helpful leaving me messages to call her back that regrettably she was working that night and yes the video was loanable through ILL.

I went to the St. Paul Public Central Library and requested both the book and the video at Augsburg. The paperwork was initiated there.

As I was leaving dinner with some friends that Friday night, I called Augsburg and got the same Librarian and we discussed the speed with which the loan could be consumated and assumed it might not take but a week.

Some problems: I had reserved the item in my name and with my library card number. With an ILL it is IMPOSSIBLE to change checking it out except with the person's card that reserved it. Luckily, I had given my colleague my card and she was able to check it out. With the online reservation system, there is no way to discharge the request without checking it out on the card with which it waas reserved.

I will have to give the online option another chance.

Thing 21 You Tube

You Tube and You Tuge are a lot alike except for the spelling! Especially late at night or early in the morning.

Thing 32 Wikis

I think Wiki has to be a resource with which to be reckoned. When looking up any general piece of information on Google, it is often one of the first of the resources listed. Although it can be manipulated, bad manipuations do not tend to linger. The information is indeed encyclopedic in the way in which it scatters a wealth of potential pieces of information relating to any one topic.

It has a series of news events such as: A series of bomb blasts in Jaipur, India kills at least 80 people.
An earthquake (epicenter shown on map) measuring 7.9 Mw strikes Sichuan, China with over thirteen thousand people reported dead.
Sudan cuts diplomatic relations with Chad, blaming it for helping rebels from Darfur to launch an attack on Sudan's capital, Khartoum.
An international relief operation begins after Cyclone Nargis strikes Burma, with at least 100,000 people reported killed or missing. The Burmese military regime conducts a constitutional referendum days after the cyclone's strike.
A tornado outbreak in Oklahoma and Missouri, United States kills at least 23 people.

It has the day's featured article such as :

Super Smash Bros. Melee is a crossover fighting/action game released for the Nintendo GameCube shortly after its launch in 2001. It is the sequel to the 1999 Nintendo 64 game Super Smash Bros., and the predecessor to the 2008 Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl. HAL Laboratory developed the game, with Masahiro Sakurai as head of production. The game is centered on characters from Nintendo's video gaming franchises such as Mario, Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda.

It has the things that occured on this date years past such as: May 14th

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition led by explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (pictured) left Camp Dubois near present-day Hartford, Illinois and began the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back.

It has a featured picture such as the one above beside the Wikipedia symbol which is the lights along the fire line shown in 2007 to memorialize the Rotterdam blitz which took place in 1940 during German's invasion of the Netherlands.

These are only a few of its general features not to mention the lengthy articles on most any subject.

Thing 31 - Bibliogrpahic Tools

Bibliographic Tools - In going on Google to find some bibliographic tools, there was one

http://www.noodletools.com/tools/index.php

which caught my eye for a couple of reasons:
1) you had to pay for it; and
2) one of their catchy advertising ploys was that it "Teaches evaluation and analysis; not simply a "machine" that automates the process."

There are so many good resources that don't cost a thing that it seems somewhat foolish to think that the only way you can learn about these tools is to pay for them. To its credit, it does seem as if this course is a a veritable notetaking system not just a bibliographic citation device.

Nevertheless, who wants to analyze citation formats? I have always explained to the students that it is the most boring and tedious of tasks but unfortunately essential in writing a research paper. Furthermore, you have to know this at the onset of your paper as when you get to the end of your paper and then make ready to use the resources you have dig up and cannot find their sources, you have none!

One of our great English teachers utilizes Citation Maker which is a formulary to enter the information that you need and it creates it in the style you want. I like this although it does take a little getting used to it.

http://www.carmun.com/easy-bibliography-formatting-APA-MLA.php?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=bib&utm_campaign=apa

is one of these devices but her tool seemed less obtuse. Contact Bonnie Bellows at Humboldt Senior High for this.

Thing 26 - Digital Image Collections

I think the most interesting of image collections is the Minnesota Historical Library Collections.

After getting into the Minnesota Historical Society's website you can look under collections and find a photo and art database

http://www.mnhs.org/collections/index.htm

which has the most amazing of photographs. Under James J. Hill there were 167 images and although the rather formal and ordinary one is amongst them, I was able to detect the one that was a favorite of those of us that worked at Hill Library and had access to the more personal collections of his pictures and was that of one of him holding a cat.

It was 133 in the pictures and is a very warm and human picture of Hill as opposed to the majority of them that make him appear quite untouchable.

Thing 29 - Online Learning

http://www.iclasses.org/res_main.cfm was just one of the many online learning resources that came up when "googling" online learning. This one had math and science free online classes. I have a student that should have graduated last year but hadn't passed reading or math skills and think that something like this could be a good resource for him to use with access to a computer either at home or at the Public Library.

http://gtcni.openrepository.com/gtcni/ is an online access to research resources for teachers which provides scholarly articles on all sorts of research topics that would be specifically of interest to teachers.

http://www.ehow.com/ looks like a lively and multiresourceful fund of "how to's" such as how to untangle hair or ripen green tomatoes or raise a child alone which probably share some common elements I am sure!