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Articles By Mary Ann Bell |
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With the advent of Web 2.0, our options to connect with colleagues online have increased dramatically. Each environment has vehement detractors as well as loyal fans. Mary Ann and her survey respondents weigh in!
In her previous column, Mary Ann talked about some nuts-and-bolts, practical steps educators can take to help cope with shrinking budgets. This time she broadens the topic to talk about how we can use the internet to mitigate negativity resulting from any type of hard times.
Mary Ann's topic this month is backing up your important files. Are you faithful about this? She used to be. But, she says, recently she has grown careless. So this article is in the vein of, "Do as I say and not as I do," … or did.
The results of November 2010's elections coupled with the ongoing financial woes have brought threats to schools, libraries, and educators according to Mary Ann. What can teachers and librarians do? She's got lots of ideas.
Not satisfied with how her 2010 was going, Mary Ann decided to reboot and upgrade last September to 2010.2—giving her a jump-start on New Year's resolution-making.
There is a dirty little secret out there in school land, and it involves money and time wasted due to poor purchasing. Far too often, supplies, equipment, software, books, consumables, and other materials are bought (frequently in bulk), but they turn out to be huge disappointments that see little or no use. Enter Mary Ann Bell, with “one of those ‘do as I say, not as I do’ missives,” to advise you and address this situation.
With the advent of spring and, now, summer, Mary Ann got the museum and botanical garden bug … which got her to thinking about the beauty, value, and educational efficacy of virtual museum visits, and, further, visits to "virtual gardens"—i.e. websites maintained by actual botanical gardens around the world. Take a tour with her in this month's Belltones column.
Early this past fall Mary Ann Bell got tired of hearing other people talk about Twitter and feeling left out. She had been mentioning it as something new to the Web 2.0 world in presentations and with students, but felt a little hypocritical for doing so without participating. So, as she reports in this month's Belltones, she paid the site a visit and signed on. Follow her journey from skeptic to convert, plus how and why Twitter won her over and what it can do for you as well.
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