Thing 10 - Productivity Tools

There were so many choices to play with for Thing 10!

I finally settled on a tool I had not heard of before, called EdShelf.  This tool reminds me somewhat of Symbaloo with the design of it.  I really like seeing all the tools in one place.  I also like how you can rate them, and the summaries and educational videos are very helpful.  I created one to represent many of the tools I have discovered this year, with a few other favorites of mine.
https://edshelf.com/profile/scutri/new-from-cool-tools-for-school

I love how you can embed a collection on your website.  I can definitely see using this with my teachers; it looks like a good place to collect subject area apps.

Finally, I compared a few tools.  I use and love google drive, but maybe there's room in my life for a couple other collaborative type tools?  It turned out I had a dropbox I had created at a conference a couple summers ago, so I revisited that.  I also used Evernote again, which reminded me that I really like how I can write short notes that connect to all my devices so easily.  I really must introduce this to my high school students who are always working in groups.  There are so many tools now to collaborate with, there's really no excuse to not be using them so everyone has access, all the time!

Thing 9: Databases and Search Tools

Love it!  A lesson on databases!  Actually, I'm still very much a beginner on a lot of topics, but databases, those I'm pretty good at.  I have both a wiki, which I had created first, and then later, a library webpage for both buildings I work in with widgets on it.  I love widgets!  I believe in anything that will reduce the number of clicks that will get a student to the information they are looking for.  My students know the best place to start their research is at my webpage with all the widgets and links.

I decided to explore some of the search tools I hadn't heard of.  It seems like there are new ones all the time!
Libguides.  What's the deal with libguides?  Why are they so popular?  I did start one; I loaded a catalog search widget, a video, etc, but, in all honesty, I just don't see what makes them any more useful than a webpage with links and helpful classroom pages.  I guess I'll have to work on my libguide a little more.  But I DID see the value in searching other people's libguides!  Wow!  There is a lot of great ideas out there!

Finally, I was very interested in some of the kids search engines that were mentioned.  I knew about kidsclick, which I like and do show to my students.  I did NOT know about kidrex and sweetsearch4me.  I LOVE kidrex.  I am putting my 5th graders on that this week!  I compared it to Sweetsearch, and that site was good too, but I just found kidrex to be a little more intuitive in what I was searching for, and I liked the webpages it brought up, like national geographic, internet public library, etc.  I have added a widget to my webpage; maybe I'll have the kids try both, and see which they like better!