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| Tonder Bobbin Lace |
Although this blog is usually about the textiles in my life, I also have a "real" job. I am an elementary school librarian at
Great Falls Elementary, a small school in rural South Carolina. Last year, I was selected to be a
Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert and my school is a
Microsoft Showcase School. This is quite an honor for me and I have been trying to include much more educational technology in my library curriculum. One of the most important skills I teach my students (ages 4 to 11) is how to find things - books, articles and facts both online and on paper. To that end, I teach them how to use our online catalog, databases and search engines. I am partial to
Bing, because it has limited advertising and provides copyright free images. I teach them how to use a variety of search engines - including
Duck Duck Go,
Dogpile and the
South Carolina Virtual Library. We also use
Wolfram Alpha for the older students, especially with math and science. Not only does it give you the answer, it shows how the answer was calculated. I teach all of the students how to analyze what they find on the internet - Is it current? Fact or opinion? Attributed? What type of site is it? Is it trying to sell something? Is it biased? These are life-long searching skills for all aspects of my student's lives.
Once students locate useful information, they need a way to organize it. As our school is moving towards a one-to-one environment and away from paper as much as possible, I have been teaching the students to use
OneNote as a digital binder to keep their files, images and notes. Its easy to use, even for very young students, and is available anywhere there is web access. Each student and staff member has an Office 365 account, provided by the school, giving them access to a whole range of Microsoft products. In the library we mostly use Outlook email, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word and Sway, although some of the older students also use Excel.
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| Weaving Tonder bobbin lace |
An important skill I recently taught all 3rd-5th graders was how to use email properly, This fall our students started using their new email accounts and I began to receive some rather unimpressive and confusing emails from students. I taught them how to format an email, create an informative subject heading, and proofread their message for clarity and correctness. I had each student send me an email with a reference question they wanted answered, and chose several to answer in the next weekly class. I pointed out what was done properly in their emails, and we collaboratively searched for the answers to their questions.
For Thanksgiving, I had pairs of students create word clouds about what they were thankful for, using
Tagul. I had them save their clouds to OneNote and email them to their parents. I also printed them out and used them for a bulletin board.
I also use educational technology in my "out of school" life, especially when I teach lacemaking and knitting. I use Windows Movie Maker to edit instructional videos and I use Sway to create promotional brochures for knitting and lacemaking. They are easy to use and don't require a lot of time invested in learning how to use the software. I appreciate that most Microsoft products have an intuitive feel and ease of use.
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| Antique Irish Crochet Cuff |
