Look what I found!

Ok, so some of this may not be really new, but it is new to me! I've been listening to the techchicktips and EdTech Weekly podcasts these past couple of weeks and I'm finding more cool stuff than I could have ever dreamed about. One of my favorite finds this week has been Learning 2.0 If you haven't heard of it yet (I know it's been around for awhile.), Learning 2.0 is a blog started by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County in North Carolina. As I read about it, Learning 2.0 is "a discovery learning program designed to encourage staff to explore new technologies and reward them for doing 23 Things." What a great way to foster independent exploration of new technologies. Through a program like this, we could easily teach students about new web bases technologies, and then use them for enriching classroom experiences. In ways I was reminded of a Webquest, where you give the kids a "mission" and then provide links for them to follow. Anyway, I was REALLY impressed with the idea, and if you take a class of mine, don't be surprised to see something like this pop up!

I don't want to get too windy, so I'm going to wrap this up here in a moment. However, I wanted to add a just for fun site that some of you might like. Being a librarian for preservice teachers leads me to all sorts of fun technologies and websites. This week I want to highlight childrenslibrary.org This is the site for the International Children's Digital Library. At this site you can select books by age group, kinds of characters, even the color of the cover! After you've selected your book, you can read the entire thing online. I like it because it includes a great collection of international titles. These are books my kids might never get to see or be exposed to. Imagine doing a lesson on Brazil or China and being able to present a book to the class from that actual country. Too cool!

I am just amazed at all the possibilities we have to incorporate rich content into our kids' education. I don't remember where I read it, but one point I liked is that not only can we now read about FDR's fireside chats, they've been digitized and we can now actually listen to them and understand why he had such a HUGE impact on the American people. My point is, we can make a lot of this really come alive to our students now if we'll just take some time to really embrace the technology that's out there. Don't get me wrong, I know time is a precious thing that we don't have a lot of to spare. But, I really want us educators to start thinking about how we are going to reach students who are drenched in technology everyday. Are we going to continue to assign textbook reading and worksheets, or are we going to strive to meet them where they're at and bring these subjects that we love to life for them? Just a few thoughts to ponder!

Until next week, here's a laugh to end the day, (I love the muppets and classic Sesame Street!)

Welcome one and all!

Welcome to the first of many posts to my brand new blog. I've decided if I'm going to teach others how to use them, then I should probably delve into the world of blogs too! I hope you like the title. If you don't know, my office at PSU happens to be in the basement of the School of Ed building. So what better title for a blog from work, than Views from the Basement?

I'm hoping to use this blog to share newly discovered books, websites, videos and such from the world of the school library and educational technology. Got a comment or question? Feel free to ask! I might not have the answer, but we can always look for it!