With this being our final sandbox activity, I have to admit that this has by far been my favorite class this semester. I am engaged every week and always look forward to the next tech tool we will learn about. As a teacher I am always trying to bring the latest technology trend to the classroom, last year it was Gimkit. After using all of the tools introduced this semester, my kids are going to love our math technology driven classroom even more. Alison Denisco Rayome lists 10 ways to stay up to date with Technology. The ones that influence me the most are: set time aside, tap your network, and experiment with personal projects (Rayome, 2017). Being a continuous learner myself, I understand how important it is to set time aside to stay up to date on technology for myself and my students.
Heather Turner has many tech suggestions that can be used in the library but also for teachers. What attracted me to this site was how easily it was designed and the fact that her bitmjoi is used heavily throughout the site. I love bitmojis so just her initial homepage captured my attention! My favorite post that I read was titled “Google Squiggly line: Game Changer”. I have used google in my classroom for years, however, I never know if students actually open the document. Turner says “under view trend you can see the dates it has been opened which is helpful for seeing how long (days) a student might have worked on a particular document” (2020). This tool can be used for not only google docs, but slides and sheets as well, it would also be extremely helpful in a flipped classroom setting. I also liked all of the resources that she explored and posted about what we used in class such as canva, piktochart, bitmojis, and flipgrid. I love escape rooms and she shares a digital escape room. This was my favorite to read this week.
When exploring tools this week I almost always went to the ones listed who had Youtube channels because that is my ease of access to just subscribe to a channel. I decided to try a different route because I personally do not use TikTok. However, I know how many high school students are addicted. I can see the value of having a Tiktok channel for a high school library. This quote from Kelsey Bogan shows how effective and useful a TikTok channel can be “In a little over 2 years I’ve grown our library’s tiktok account (@gvhslibrary) to an inexplicable 45,000+ followers, and I’ve found the platform to be a singularly powerful tool for advocacy (& securing additional funding), community building, collection development (especially diverse collection dev), readers advisory, and more” (2021) Librarians are using TikToks for marketing books, collection development, professional development, advocacy and community building. I also learned that you do not have to actually have a TikTok to browse all of the video’s. Bogan also shares other fellow TikTokers that have channels of their own that would be useful for libraries such as @thenextgenlibrarian, and @miggle.reads. My mother in law always asks me when I am finally going to join TikTok and this might just be another example of why it is beneficial.
Again, I have shied away from social media but I loved this group on Facebook. The best part is that I don’t need Facebook to access the thread and resources. This is a group created by Kristina Uihlein Holzweiss titled “Hacking the school Library (and other classrooms!)” (2022). This is more like a tech community that has multiple posts a week, not just a few times a year, they are all recent! Some of the posts within the last month that caught my attention were themes for the library, reading corners, and reading incentive programs. Some of the contributions were encouragement, special planners and ideas for the upcoming school year. This could be a very useful group hub for a beginning librarian. I have already bookmarked it!
References:
Bogan, K. (2021, October 25). TikTok 8 ways libraries are using it. Don’t shush me! Adventures of a 21st century librarian. https://dontyoushushme.com/2021/10/25/tiktok-8-ways-libraries-are-using-it/
Holzweiss, K.U. (n.d.). Hacking school libraries (and other classrooms!). Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/HackingSchoolLibrariesAndOtherClassrooms/about
Rayome, A.D., (2017, September 7). 10 ways that IT pros and developers can keep their tech skills up to date. TechRepublic. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-ways-that-it-pros-and-developers-can-keep-their-tech-skills-up-to-date/
Turner, H.A., (2020, June 4). Google squiggly line: game changer. Tech 4 school librarians. https://www.tech4schoollibrarians.com/
TikTok is a social media app I have also shied away from. I know my son loves it but I fear I am too old and not hip enough to “get” it. I’m afraid I’ll just make a fool of myself, lol! I agree this was a really interesting and engaging class. I learned so much more than I ever thought I would. It challenged me, but in a good way!
Hey, we chose a couple of the same resources, Heather Turner and Kristina Holzweiss! Totally different websites but both great. I’ll have to check out Google Squiggly line and Hacking the School Library. Thanks for sharing.
I really liked DeNisco Rayome (2017) and her tips on how to stay current in technology. I too made a comment in my post about how important is to connect to our network and look to colleagues for ideas and tech tips. Think about it, as educators, we work in a building with 30-50 exceptional minds, we need to take a little time in our busy days to step out of our rooms and visit others to collaborate. I know our days our busy but this has really lifted me up in my experience and inspired me to stay curious in the profession. Thanks for sharing! I have resisted TikTok… your post is giving me a reason to give it a chance. 🙂
I like the Facebook group you talked about also. I don’t have a TikTok account either. Lately there has been so much talk about what the TikTok agreement no one reads says. They have the right to a lot of your information and even information on connected devices. Not sure I want to agree to that. Many in the government are warning against having TikTok.
I have refused to ever download TikTok and I feel the age where downloading it might be necessary. Thank you for mentioning the Facebook group I will definitely continue to check it out in the future.
While I have gotten my accounts on Facebook and other social media (aside from my Instagram, but I rarely use it), I do like TikTok. I used to say I would never use it, but I caved during the pandemic because my high school students kept talking about it. I have to say, their side of TikTok and what I see on my feed are totally different as you can fine tune your algorithm. If you don’t want to see certain types of videos (like the dancing ones a lot of students make), there’s an option for that. All the people I follow are millennials like me! There are some really awesome creators on the app, but to each their own! I do miss my Facebook groups, but I won’t ever make a new account. It’s just not my thing anymore.