Some quick thoughts on technology:
At the end of the school year, I used some money the school received from a magazine sales for the library to purchase a Mobi and a set of 16 clickers to use in the elementary library. Thoughts: new technology-scary, but I need to take the time to figure out how to create answer keys, have the worksheets ready, but need to go back and label things appropriately. Really looking forward to using these in the classroom. I can have results immediately-saving hours of grading, I cut back on the amount of paper I use which the administration will be happy about, and the students are the real winners here, being able to use technology that was not readily available to them.
How far has technology come and where exactly are we going? I attended a data retreat with teachers and administrators from my school and other schools within our educational service unit and was grateful that we had laptops there to access information that we needed to compile data about our school. But with all the apps on the cell phones, kindles, ipads, being able to store just about anything on the Internet gives me reason to be concerned. Don't get me wrong here, I think it's great and I wonder if I could go back 10 years and live now without a cell phone like we did back then...don't think I could do it. It's amazing what we can do, but how secure are we in all reality? Who's to say that someone hacks into your flickr account and deletes all your pictures after you clean you personal hard drive to make more space. Students today are more tech savvy than ever before and I think we need to be cautious about putting our full trust into all technology.
Earlier this week I attended the Heartland School Library Conference in Omaha and being able to review the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner with Cassandra Barnett, President of AASL (American Association of School Libraries) on Monday made me think about how I need to be implementing this in my library classroom, especially with Standard 2 Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge. I'm trying that this year the clickers in the classroom and hopefully as the year goes on tie in the standards to my lesson plans. Yesterday, Pam Berger spent the day talking and showing us different Web 2.0 tools that should be used in classrooms. I hope to show students in both buildings some of the things I learned, incorporating it in Palmyra with my technology tidbits and giving students the opportunity to work with the technology. And the elementary kids need it too, so I'm working on incorporating some aspects as well.
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