Here is Alan's "What Can We Do With Flickr" image -- hover over the boxes in the image to get more info and links:
I have been using Creative Commons Flickr photos with 4th graders to write animal poetry, which we will then record to VoiceThread, but I had also wanted a fun way for students to post the text of their poems onto my Blackboard site...the discussion boards and blogs provided by BB just don't do the job I want! This could be another option...
I was asked to present to our School Board last week regarding my use of Blackboard in the library. This was my first time speaking in front of that kind of an audience and I was so nervous! I think it went pretty well -- they were asking all the right questions about privacy, creativity, maintenance, etc. I felt like I connected. Still, I couldn't help wishing I wasn't using Blackboard in the first place, as it's really not my favorite tool. It could be so much better, but you end up jumping through about 15 hoops each time you try to post something!
The most frustrating aspect right now is that I have trouble providing direct access to the course -- unless you have a login ID, you cannot always get to where you want to go! It makes it tough to get parents, teachers, and administrators the information they need. Regardless, my site is slowly but surely coming along. I have made as much of my own content as possible public, but have protected everything with student content. Check out what's available by clicking on the icon to the right Or you can find it via http://blackboard.ocmboces.org, using my course id: wg_koch.
I just learned about this great charity -- Ethiopia Reads -- which provides books and supplies and builds libraries for children in Ethiopia. There are a number of ways to donate, but here are just a few:
$1 buys one book;
$500 provides an Ethiopian with a scholarship to receive library training;
$6000 provides a fully-functional library!
There are also great ideas for teachers and librarians to bring the program into their schools -- from penny wars to raise money for books, to planning reading nights at school, to sending student-created books to these libraries in Ethiopia. Check it out!
On my first snow day of the year, I spent the morning finishing the book Extras by Scott Westerfeld. I loved the Uglies trilogy and this book is a great continuation of that storyline, but I am not writing a book review here. This futuristic book made some great connections to current times and really got me thinking.
The story takes place in a futuristic Japanese society, not long after the government's ploy to make all adults "bubbleheads" was uncovered and set to right. It has only been a few years since humans regained their autonomy, and of course, thinking for yourself has its downsides. Societies of people are left confused and uncertain, turning in many different directions looking for answers. Standard economies no longer exist and must be rebuilt from scratch.
The Japanese society that is the focus of the book has found answers in a "face ranking" society, where people gain access to goods in only two ways: either by earning merits for good work and deeds, or by their face ranking, which is basically your level of fame. The society is a crazy hybrid of past and present models. Face rankings go up and down by the minute and are maintained by a city interface. Each time someone mentions your name, your face ranking improves. Each time someone links to a story you put up on your feed, your face ranking improves. Good press and bad press are treated equally in terms of access to goods.
So that's the basic idea. But what got me thinking was the use of feeds -- from a young age, all citizens are given their own individual feeds in which to post information about themselves, stories they've written, etc. The whole point is to get noticed, to get linked back to, to get discovered via your postings to your feed. It's like the movie stars of today, but optimized for cyberspace. When you start to think about it, we're really not too far off from this kind of a model right now! Nameless, faceless people can be famous based solely on what they post to their blogs...and when you reach a wide audience, what do you get? People stumbling over themselves to get you to try out or advertise their product, invitations to fancy dinners, etc. It's just taking the way fame works today and turning it up a few notches!
To sum it up: a must-read for all YA lit fans, futuristic society junkies, or RSS feed followers. I guess. Let me know what you think.
The most frustrating aspect right now is that I have trouble providing direct access to the course -- unless you have a login ID, you cannot always get to where you want to go! It makes it tough to get parents, teachers, and administrators the information they need. Regardless, my site is slowly but surely coming along. I have made as much of my own content as possible public, but have protected everything with student content. Check out what's available by clicking on the icon to the right Or you can find it via http://blackboard.ocmboces.org, using my course id: wg_koch.
I just learned about this great charity -- Ethiopia Reads -- which provides books and supplies and builds libraries for children in Ethiopia. There are a number of ways to donate, but here are just a few:
On my first snow day of the year, I spent the morning finishing the book Extras by Scott Westerfeld. I loved the Uglies trilogy and this book is a great continuation of that storyline, but I am not writing a book review here. This futuristic book made some great connections to current times and really got me thinking.
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