Dianne McKenzie, Discovery College. Hong Kong

Although I do not have a scheduled timetable of classes, I have been involved in co teaching a number of units in the secondary where ICT and use of the laptop was an integral part of the lessons. In the year 9 unit “Are they like me” a number of technologies were used to engage the students in the learning of research strategies. Etherpad, glogster, wallwisher, and netvibes and google advanced search were used to help the students consolidate their thinking, create questions and share with each other their thoughts in a practical and reflective manner.

As part of learning Information Literacy students need to be aware of different forms of information and how to harness this information, in many of the classes I am teaching the use of boolean research strategies, google wonderwheel, databases, search terms, keywords, always using an appropriate application to enhance learning. The application will depend on the learning outcome to be achieved.

http://www.netvibes.com/discoverycollegelibrary#Research_Process

I have also been active running professional development on a number of features of the library, using glogster as a platform for delivery http://dclibrary.glogster.com/opac/

The PE, Science, Drama, design and Technology departments all took on exploring the further use of technology in their curriculum as a direct result of the professional develop I was able to deliver and support. The PE department went further to create an opportunity for students to create glogs as an assesment task and were looking forward to the finished product on the 22nd January. May role was to teach the student the fundamentals of using glogster and then support them until they have finished with technical advice.

Although these do not reflect essentially or specifically Apple technology being used - I have used grab, keynote, pages, itunes, iphoto to integrate into the web 2.0 media, mashing everything together.

Other projects I have been involved in :

Voicethread Year 8 camp, http://bit.ly/6DAbFQ

This was created as journal for the student and parents to document the week as well as alleviate fears the parents had regarding their children on camp. It was created at the camp and contributed to on a daily basis by the students and parents.

I created a community wiki for new staff as they had many questions about living in Hong Kong and where to buy what they needed. It has become a community effort in contributing to it.  http://discoverystaff.pbworks.com/

As part of our creating a vision statement for the school, I eencouraged the use of  google docs / scribd for mission statement sharing,

as well as  creating access to digital resources to support units of inquiry http://bit.ly/7A0bSL, http://bit.ly/8CNrRU

I have been active in development of a netvibes site as a school resource sharing while we wait for a VLE to be developed. http://www.netvibes.com/discoverycollegelibrary This has become an integral part of the teachers and students information source.

The use of Glogster to create posters and advertisements for the library and school social events http://dclibrary.glogster.com/

Created a prezi to teach students how to create bibliographies http://prezi.com/2oei2peiipzj/

Use of animoto for Battle of Books promotion, http://bit.ly/92q1bq   and the Year 8 camp presentation    http://bit.ly/5YOX03

Use of screenr to create real time tutorials on how to access different applications.  http://screenr.com/CjN

I also try to reach the student population through a number of applications such as

Facebook having a fan page for the school library, (http://bit.ly/8STJFR)  and a Goodreads page which students can be friends with.

Outside of school

I have also been active in the use of technolgy to help others learn and to increase my knowledge and understanding.

I have a professional blog, Library Grits  http://librarygrits.blogspot.com which has been placed on a list : Online College Top 100 best blogs for school librarians. http://www.onlinecollege.org/2009/07/07/100-best-blogs-for-school-librarians/

I have also been active in second life leading workshops for educators                                           http://internationalschoolsisland.blogspot.com/2008/11/speaker-series-19-nov08-libraries-and.html

and on the uses of Second Life for educators

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW7sJBN93hY

Been a presenter at an online conference in March 2009, creating a voicethread as a tool to deliver the presentation.http://voicethread.com/#u278080.b340877.i1835993

I am also active on twitter http://twitter.com/dimac4  and here is a snapshop of others comments about how I have helped them -  tweets