Thing 6--Productivity Tools

The Cool Tools for Schools program is flying by!

This week, I sampled two productivity tools.  The first one, Dropbox, is very useful.  It can be frustrating to be in one place with one technology, and not have access to a file on another.  With Dropbox, you can access your files from anywhere on various devices.  I don't necessarily see using this service with students, but rather for my own work, or for collaborating with teachers.  If I start something at work, and want to continue later while my car is being serviced, I can drop my file in Dropbox and access it later, or have other teachers look at it and provide feedback.  Handy!

Next, I tried Workflowy.  This speaks to me, since I do love a to-do list!  I think this would be very useful for myself, and my high school students as well.  The students could keep a list of their outstanding tasks on Workflowy, and cross off or delete the items as they get done.  I imagine the students listing and organizing their tasks on Workflowy--for example, read, highlight, make citations, check citations, etc.  In addition to tasks,  the students could add due dates.  A useful place for notes to self!

Thing 5

For Thing 5, I checked out Pinterest and Scoop.it, two services I had never tried before.

I was really interested to try Pinterest, since I had heard so much about it.  It sure is fun, and I could see allowing it to suck up much of my time.  I think this would have great value in a school library, creating book boards.  I especially liked  Pinterest for personal interests, too.  What great visuals!

Scoop.it would be a good place to set up resource for research projects.  I set up a topic entitled Escapades in a High School Library.  The students could follow me, and I could set up a topic for each project.

So many resources, so little time!

Thing 4: RSS

This exercise was relatively easy for me, as I already have iGoogle and Google Reader accounts.  I appreciate taking advantage of one easy feed for all the things in which I am interested.   Right now, I have my personal and professional subscriptions all in one feed, but if it gets unwieldy, I may break it up into two feeds.  I explored and played with features of my iGoogle page, and deleted and added some widgets.  I could see using an RSS feed in my library for blogs related to literature or other interests of my high school students.  The blogs would be together in one handy list, and could easily be checked for updates.  Or, maybe if a class of students had blogs, the teacher and I (and others) could subscribe to their blogs via an RSS feed.  Google Reader and iGoogle simplify, organize, and update me, which I appreciate!

Thing 3

This week, I chose Option 1, and explored Twitter.  Actually, I already  have a Twitter account, which I created in one of Polly's workshops, but I rarely use it.  I think, that in the future, Twitter could have a place in my life when I get a smart phone.  When I get the phone, this spring, I think I will follow various people and educators on Twitter.  For now, it is just another thing to check every day on my home computer, added to personal e-mail and Facebook.  I could  see using Twitter with a class, and having students Tweet their comments about a particular book or project.  Something to think about!




T

Thing 2

I had fun exploring Glogster, Animoto, and Prezi.  Glogster is fun and easy, and is way more exciting than old posterboard.  I liked Prezi, and would used it as a slideshow in place of PowerPoint.  I would use Glogster or Animoto with the students to have them create and collaborate on book reports or social studies projects.  I made a very brief Animoto video about Travel, and here it is:

http://animoto.com/play/oIzIzqhBb9uDfo1O1V1fAA

Thing 1: Blogging

Hello, Fellow Cool Tools for Schools Participants,

I am Sandra Gollop, the librarian at Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High School, in Ravena, New York.  I am taking part in this program because I would like to enhance my lessons for my students, and am still striving to keep up with educational technology.  Hence the word "striving" in my blog title.  In this lesson, I have learned how to set up a blog.  Through Google Reader, I already subscribe to and read many blogs--some for professional reasons, others because they address my personal interests.