THING 28. PHOTOS & IMAGESLuang Prabang -Laos-

Luang Prabang -Laos-
Originally uploaded by pepealcaide

It's 9:19 pm , I finally am able to post this photo of my dream home town of Laos. It's been a long long time since I've been away from it. I wish for this new year of 2008 to be back to Laos in the near future to visit some of my relatives that I left there.

I feel so rewarding after hours of experimenting with "flickr". Thanks again ANN, my soooo nice and extremely intelligent intructor. You've enlighten me quite a bit. May the spirit of the Holy Season bring you good health, peace and joy through out the year of 2008! you, your family, your colleagues, and to all of my MNMilli.INSTRUCTORS!

Happy New Year 2008 to All!

Ivan
Originally uploaded by NicaMom

Tonight December 31rst 2007, I'm home looking at hundreds of photos from flick that I registered to. I hope this picture may make you feel warm at heart.

Thing 21. YouTube

I registered to TeacherTube, and watched several videos pertaining to my work. I watched how to make a snow flake video. I was thing about my beginning classes ESL.I clicked on the selfless teacher , and watch characteristics of an effective teacher such as to be passionate,fair, knowledgeable,caring, well-prepared, enthusiastic,approachable, has sense of humor, be warm & sympathetic...and more. I liked the most was the video about basic science terms on anatomy:the pictures,words and the sounds are awesome. I was very amazed and very entertained by the technique used to presend information to me.

Thing 20.Podcast & Audio Books

I was looking for the meaning of the term Podcast from Wikipedia ,and it was a digital media file. Since I have two weeks of winter recess ,I spend most of my time reading blogs and experimenting things about Information Literacy.I need to practice a lot for proficiency. I start to like to listen and watch the podcasts more than reading form books.

The audio books are fun and interesting. I downloaded some of them to share with my class during the DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read). Many of my new comers do not know how to read by them-selve.Most of the time I read to them. Now that I have AudioBooks at all levels of readability.With my large project , I showed the audio books illutrated with animated pictures of the characters to students .I am so thankful to the inventors!

Thing 18 One Student Thing

I notice things that my students expressed or reacted to when I used information literacy with my teaching. They were on task , and very preoccupied with their work. Some students did not want to leave the computer lab. Bob, OUR MEDIA SPECIALIST and I shared this observation because we teamed work on this project.
For any week that I did not take my students to the computer lab at all, some students would ask me , "Why can't we go the the computer lab to do our work there?"

Thing17. One New Thing

As I've learned about the things on the list that Ann has organized, compilled,and elaborately displayed in a way that I could learn, I did discover new things that were a wonder for me. But one thing that I like to share is that I finally am able to create my own library on my web page. I visited many reliable websites that Ann has suggested, and I added several interesting books relating to my career in teaching to my library.To me , it was a real discovery because I didn't know how to do this before.CREATING MY OWN LIBRARY on my web page will save me a lot of time from navigating , and searching again and again for a specific book to read and do my work.I have plan to teach my level 2 students to create their own library, but first of all they must learn how to create their own webpage properly.Some students have their own webpage already.

MnLINK Thing 16

Our students need indeed to know that the world of information is open to them. The MnLINK, ILL Interlibrary Loan ... is wider and deeper than Google and their local libraries.With ILL , we must agree to lend. Finding the information I need? Ill is a staple of academic libraries as they assist students complete their studies. MnLink portal into nearly all of MN 's library resources.

Thing 15 Collaboration

I agree with the idea that Teacher/media specialist collaboration gives students the best of both worlds-subject specialists combined with research and information specialists.I have been working with my school building media specialist, Bob Pederson, since the beginning of Fall till now, and I will continue to do more with him .Both of us helped/guided students to do work in the computer lab delegently. Our students seemed to do well and love their work. They called on our help constantly at the beginning, but less lately. Once they know how to use the tools , they be come a little more independent.Last year when I worked with Middle shool, I collaborated with the school media specialist too daily for the whole year. That was the reason why I got hooked with "teaching literacy by incorporating technology information".But it takes a lot of time, patience and ways to teach students this "New Literacy of this Time"

Reliable Online Resources Thing 14

I'm so glad that there are reliable resources available free on the Internet.I am so thankful to those who worked for these to assist the learners.Especially the "Librarians Index to the Internet, Internet Public Library,DocuTiker, DMOZ & Complete Planet.I love the explore more about the NGO activities. I was involed with this Non Governmental Organization sometimes ago when I went the 4th World Conference in 1995 in Bejin China. If we do not chose the right/reliable resources and save them to help students use the correct websites, our students could be influenced by negative ads.We could lose our students interest in working with the proper websites. I have a plan the show and introduce my level 2 ESL students to use the websites I mentioned above before they get caught by negative and tempting websites that will keep them away from learning what is good for their life.

Subscription Databases Thing 13

I took some times from my winter recess to read people's blogs , and looked for subscription databases that provided reliable resources. I navigated on ELM, MELSA...
My first step when approching new databases was to read carefully. It was new to me. The exploration would help me to understand things I did not know or see before.Some databases offer multiple search levels, search tips,tutorials, help section.Others provide thresaurus, dictionary and teacher resourses.Teachers should use this database as tools for teaching.Sometime , you got hooked to it, you want to know more. It was amizing!

Other Search Engines Thing12

I tried the Metasearcheye.com, and I found several web.site relating to my teaching job.I bookemarked this , and I transported it to my reading feeds.
The meta-search engine sent me to several other search engines and databases and returned the results from each one.
I'm posting this link for my future use: Vitual Learning Resources Center- websites recommended by teachers and librrarians(http://www.virtuallrc.com)