Wordle Uses in Education

 

Wordle can be a great tool  for use in the classroom. It can be used for making signs such as the one above which would be posted on a bookshelf for the Dewey Range 400. Wordle can also be used to design motivational posters or posters with numerous ways of saying one word/phrase such as with synonyms or with other languages. Students can also use this tool to show them which words they have used most in their papers and perhaps help them in the revision process. Students can also use this tool to create cover pages for their projects or book covers for favorite books.

Grading

While attitude and behavior count in life, the job of a school is to get students to meet educational standards. Students should be held accountable for their behavior through classroom management, or another set of grades if necessary. Class grades should be based on whether the student met the goals that they needed to meet or not. This will ultimately make the job of the teacher easier, and provide students with a better education.

Check Out My Updated Webpage!

I have been working really hard on creating and completing my media center website. It is now complete. It has lesson ideas and helpful links for teachers, research tips and reliable sources for students, helpful tips for parents, and a community volunteering page. There is no current link to a live library catalog, but that will come eventually. I also have a page about myself with links to my recent projects. Please take the time to look at the site. Any comments are welcome. The website is chsmediacenter.yolasite.com

Thoughts on Technology in Education

Technology can be useful, but we need to take care in how we use it. Students are going to be exposed to technology whether it is included in school curriculum or not. For this reason I believe it is important to teach students information literacy skills. I think it is important, however, to really think about the other uses of technology in the schools. We need to make sure that technology is really helping our students, and not just there to entertain them.

Newsletter Ideas

Constant Contact seems like a very reasonably priced program. I could see it being very reasonable in a school. I think it would be great as a media specialist to have a newsletter that is sent to the staff about new things coming to the media center that will be helpful to them, and ideas for using the media center. I think it would also be nice to be able to send newsletters to interested parents. As a classroom teacher, newsletters to the parents would be very easy if they were done in this way. The only problem I see is reaching those who do not have internet. In this case the newsletter will need to be printed and either sent home with the student, or mailed.
 I will be creating a newsletter using Constant Contact. I will create it for the staff of my building. For one article I will be talking about the new Lexile Levels spreadsheet I am creating to help them find books for their students' reading levels. I will also reinforce the importance of media center rules that students must keep. Finally, I will include an idea for collaborating with the media specialist on a research project. I may include a few other reminders as well.

Brochures

I think brochures can be very useful in the media center. They can help students to use the media center, give parents information about the media center, or help teachers to utilize media center resources. I think some great topics for a brochure could be informing students about the advanced search options of Google, how to use the databases and how to access them from home, and just basic information about the library. I am going to create a brochure on how to use the library databases and how to access them from home. I believe this will be very useful because a number of the classes that have come to the media center this semester at my field experience have been there to learn about the databases. I think a brochure would be something helpful for them to review when they use the databases at home or later on.

Staff Development

I am creating a staff development plan for building websites. I will be teaching how to use the website weebly.com to build class websites and student webpages. This plan will include a powerpoint.

 I have created a media center website. I would have liked it to be more attractive, but this is my first attempt at KompoZer. I did not enjoy using this software at all. My website was built to be accessible and usable for all people. I considered the needs of those with vision, hearing, and mobility impaired, as well as for those with cognitive disabilities. Please check it out and joy.
http://students.css.edu/lwensman/

Blogging: For School or Not?

I think that blogging can be very useful for schools. A number of the articles I have read mention that blogging motivates students to write. I believe this is true. In “Five Don’ts of Classroom Blogging,” Julie Sturgeon mentions that shy students are more likely to share their thoughts on a blog than they ever would face to face. The article by Catherine Imperatore mentions how students feel more ownership over their materials if it is published online. This causes the students to strive to create a better product. Another positive for blogging is that it can help students to build from small sections of writing to a larger essay. In Julie Sturgeons article, she quotes Dubbels, “Blogs are great for transitioning from paragraphs to essays.” Aside from helping students, I really like the idea of using blogging to communicate between professionals both for staff development and communication. This is especially talked about in “Why We Blog” by Sophie Brookover. As long as staff is properly trained on using blogs, updates and important announcements can easily be shared on blogs without the risk of being “accidentally deleted” like emails (Brookover, 29). I think it would be a great idea for a media specialist to use a blog focusing on various ideas of how to use the media center for a teacher's class class. Because of these things I think blogging should be used in schools, but there are things that need to be kept in mind when using blogs.
We need to remember there is a proper time and place for blogs. We need to make sure that we aren’t just using blogs for the sake of making kids like our classes. The blogs need to work toward a standard or objective that will help our students excel in the future. We should also make sure that we, as educators, can successfully use blogs ourselves before we expect our students to use them, as expressed by Julie Sturgeon. We shouldn’t solely rely on blogs to have our students write. Students need to learn traditional ways of writing as well, or we may be hindering their educational advancement. As long as we use blogs with the proper mindset, they can truly help our students excel and build their writing skills.
Personally, although I think blogs could be useful, I don't think I will use them. I have tried to use blogs before and I find myself getting disinterested in them very quickly. I would like to continue to do them, but I can't say that it will happen.

Introduction

Hi, My name is Lisa. I am planning on being a media specialist. I enjoy reading and writing. I like to travel. I have been to many countries in Europe. I spent most of the time in Europe in Italy and Germany. I would really love to go back to Germany. I have also traveled around the Midwest in the States. I would really love to visit Russia and China. I would also like to visit Tennessee, Alaska, and Washington state. (I am a HUGE Twilight fan.) Aside from reading, writing, and traveling, I like to bike and hike. Currently, my bike is broken, and I'm broke so no biking for me. :( That is a basic introduction to me.
As I am planning on being a media specialist this is my blog about all things media center. I hope you get some interesting and insightful ideas from it. Please feel free to comment. Thanks!