With Social Media and the Internet, The World is a Bit Smaller

Assemblyman Gary Schaer
and me at last night's
Board of Ed. meeting.

It's always amazing to me how many new people I know from all over the world because on the Internet. I am a child of the 60's, so the first time I used a computer was to type a report for my masters thesis. I had borrowed the Apple computer from the school I worked for, and saved my report on a 5" floppy disk. It never ceases to amaze me how far we have come over the last 25 years since the Internet was brought into our lives. Even State Senator Corey Booker follows me on Twitter! 

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by my teachers' union president that our local Assemblyman, Gary Schaer wanted to recognize my accomplishments at a Board of Education meeting in April. Me? How does he know about me, I pondered. How much information was there out there on me that I didn't know about? Time to Google myself and my blog. (Every so often you should do this; interesting results can come out of it.) I chose SEARCH TOOLS > PAST YEAR so I would get recent results.

So here's what I found out: The Pentagon (yes, that one) Library Intranet  lists my blog  as a "useful link for an eBook search". The AASL blog did a recent post about my 2013 Edublog Award for Best Library Blog, and said "Please check out this awesome resource and you will see why it was voted Best Library Blog in 2013!" American Libraries Magazine mentioned me and the list of poetry resources I had posted for National Poetry Month. eSchool News put me on a list with 10 Follow-Worthy Educational Blogs.

Now I know I have strayed a bit from my original idea, and thank you for allowing me to boast a bit. Last night at our Board of Education Meeting in the school library, Assemblyman Gary Schaer recognized my contributions as a media specialist and educational blogger. My administration all attended, including the Mayor of our town, who said some very nice things about me. (I'm not used to this, but it felt great!) The best part of the evening, is that two of my Library Council students came to the meeting! With the horrible weather, I couldn't believe they were there (it was raining buckets) with my assistant, a young blind man from the town who looks after the library and makes sure things run smoothly when I am not there. (He is not a full-time employee, yet he gives 110% every day) I was so happy to see their smiling faces when I arrived. Wow. How things have changed since the Internet entered my life.

NJASL Video Says it All!

Here's a wonderful promotional video produced by the N.J. Association of School Librarians. (NJASL)

Links to Hundreds of Virtual Field Trips

100+ Virtual Field Trips- Simple12

CARE Virtual Field Trips Archive- visit Guatemala, Ghana, Peru, Bolivia, Haiti and more

Clay Middle School Virtual Field Trips

Digital and Virtual Field Trips- from TeacherTap

Geology Field Trips

Google LitTrips- covers grades K-12

Historical Tour of the White House- click "Interactive Tour"

A Hotlist of Virtual Field Trips- mainly for grades K-8, this list covers Internet Resources and subject areas of math, social studies, science, the arts and language arts

Internet4Classrooms Virtual Field Trips

Introduction to Electronic Field Trips- from NASA

Mapwing- students can create and share their virtual tour with others

MiddleSchool's Field Trips and Exhibits

Mountain Visions- interactive tours of mountains and national parks

National WWII Museum

Online Expeditions and Virtual Field Trips

The Supreme Court Interactive Tour

Take a Museum Field Trip--Without Leaving the Classroom- from Education World

Take a Virtual Field Trip Day

Teaching with Historic Places- contains lesson plans, virtual field trips, this site is set up by the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places.  Organized by place, theme, and time period; highly recommended.

TechTrekers' Virtual Field Trips

Tour Colonial Williamsburg

Tramline Science Field Trips- grades are labeled

Vicki Blackwell's Virtual Field Trips List

Virtual Field Trips- from Lee's Summit R7 School District

Virtual Field Trips- from the Utah Educational Network; 12 categories, including library-media, technology and professional development

Virtual Field Trips and Web Museums- nice listing

Virtual Marching Tour of the American Revolution

White House 101

Let's Talk About the Cloud

The other day, I was asked by an administrator to explain in simple terms what cloud computing was. I thought about it for a second, and then said this: Your files are on your desktop computer right now, right? Well, imagine if they were out there (I pointed to the sky) and you could access them wherever you had Internet access. I further explained that using their servers instead of ours would be much more practical and safe, given that a company like Google has their own huge group of tech people and thousands of servers with secure encryption. The cloud would be like a big bubble protecting all our files. Web 2.0 is a big part of cloud computing as it involves online programs which we allow us to collaborate with others. I personally like cloud computing. I use GoogleDocs and I am trying to interest my school district in Google Apps for Education. (After all, it's good enough for Brown University...) I know that people feel very concerned about personal files being out on the web, and I never store anything that sensitive in the cloud.

Here's a short video which explains cloud computing:

The ABCs of Web Literacy

The University of Pennsylvania's Penn Libraries have designed a super interactive tutorial on web literacy. The step-by-step tutorial covers five areas: authority, accuracy, bias, currency and coverage. Students using this guide will be able to properly evaluate a website and decide whether or not to trust the information on it.




Here are some other resources to help evaluate a website:
Evaluating Web Pages Pathfinder
Evaluating Websites: Criteria and Tools
Kathy Schrock's ABCs of Website Evaluation

Evaluating Websites For Learners

View more presentations from Maggie Verster