A Reflective Journey Through...
The "Is Google Knowledge?" video embedded within Monica Fuglei's "Content Curation: Tools and Strategies for Teachers" article was fascinating! I love the the Lego metaphor, as it demonstrates how single facts or ideas (a single Lego piece) mean nothing until joined together with other facts and ideas to create knowledge ("the 5,922-piece Lego Taj Mahal"). The need to sort and filter all of the information that bombards us and to take the time to see how the various pieces of information fit together in a way that's personally meaningful definitely makes the case for the importance of curation!
For my curation activity today, I tried to think of a problem I've had lately that could be solved by gathering and organizing ideas. As I'm working on book orders this weekend, I decided that it will be a time-saver throughout the future to organize the different sources I use to find new books into one quick, easy-to-consult format. Finding the right curation tool turned out to be the tricky part. This process started with a few sad minutes mourning the loss of Jog the Web, which used to be my favorite curation tool for organizing websites because instead of having to click on one site at a time all the way down a list or throughout a bookmarked folder, you would simply press an arrow to flip from one site to the next (much like we flip through Google Slides). After trying to make sense of how something as useful as Jog the Web could really be gone, I started delving into new curation tools and was delighted to discover that Diigo, one of the tools presented in this Cool Tools lesson, had a "Play as Webslides" feature! To investigate this feature, I signed up for the free version of Diigo. Unfortunately, I am not able to find the "Play as Webslides" option (as featured in some online tutorials) in my free account. I'm not sure if that's because it's only included in the paid accounts or if the feature is in the useful tools graveyard along with Jog the Web. While I continue my search for a free curation tool with this capability, here is the "Books- New Releases" list I created within Diigo to help me keep up with book orders throughout the future: https://www.diigo.com/outliner/f4jk29/Books--New-Releases?key=rzmz13n0if . It is nice to have the sites together in one place, but flipping easily from one to the next would make the process much more seamless, especially as I continue to add more sites throughout the future!
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I have always loved Animoto, but lately I've felt as though I'm overusing that site and am ready for new ideas. After using Animoto for book trailer projects with students, to share author visit photos with parents and sponsors of the visits, to capture photos of various units in class, and even to make lesson introductions more engaging, I was elated to be able to learn some of the "Explainer Tools" in this lesson!
Recently, my students were captivated by a Grace Hopper video we watched in class in conjunction with the book Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code by Laurie Wallmark. As we watched the video, I remember wishing I could draw so that I could create movies like that one. I love how tools like Powtoon and Moovly make that dream a reality! After playing with Moovly a bit, I was able to create an author visit announcement. With the free trial, I am not able to download my video, and it is not currently playing through its gallery link, so here is a rough version in the meantime so that you can see it (I am able to access the real one in my dashboard anytime by logging into my Moovly account). This first attempt is far from fancy, but it gave me the confidence I need to delve more into both Moovly and Powtoon throughout the future as I expand my repertoire of teaching tools! I took the leap and finally joined Twitter! After several hashtag searches, here are a few of the feeds I’m most excited about following:
-Colby Sharp @colbysharp: Love, love, love his enthusiasm as a teacher and reader! I always show his "Mr. Sharp LOVES Reading" video to my students when I promote Jennifer Holm's Babymouse series, and it’s great to be able to see Mr. Sharp's other recommendations and ideas. -Melissa Taylor @ImaginationSoup: Awesome children’s book lists on a variety of topics -Nerdy Book Club @nerdybookclub: So many incredible discussions of children’s literature and how it can be used to open minds and change lives! I also loved exploring Paper.li, as the newspaper format is very reader-friendly! To keep up with children's literature news, I used #kidlit to create this paper: https://paper.li/tag/kidlit#/. I'm thrilled to continue to add new feeds to my Twitter account and to use Twitter as an outstanding source of daily professional development! |
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