Thing #23

I have completed the 23 things and I have to say its a little bittersweet. I have enjoyed learning about all of the tools and actually looked forward to each new thing. I even have friends asking me "what new stuff can you tell us about this week?" But, there are many other projects to be completed, so I am happy to check this off of my list. If there were another opportunity like this, I would definitely participate (even if I didn't receive any credit for it!) Because of 23 Things, I feel comfortable with blogging, but never would have tried it before. I had fun with the image generators, Library Thing, mashups and Teacher Tube. I have already used many of the other tools such as wikis, Google Docs, Google Calendar and podcasts in my personal life. This has shown me that I continue to be a life long learner and that I will have to constantly be learning if I want to stay up to date with technology. It has reminded me that there are many, many new things out there and that learning them can actually be fun. I was surprised by how easy it was to just jump in and do all of these things. I was very intimidated when I began, but have gained a new confidence through this project.

Summing it up in one sentence isn't a simple task. But, I would say the experience is very hands-on and effective. It got even the least "tech-savy" of us to blog, didn't it? We all embedded video, contributed to a wiki, tagged, created a podcast... I think that's pretty impressive considering most (if not all) of us remember when the internet didn't even exist!!

Thing #22

I explored several nings. I saw some familiar faces on the Texas School Librarian Ning! I think nings for librarians are a wonderful idea. Because we are usually the only librarian on our campus, a ning would be a great place to generate discussions with other librarians. It is a place to get new ideas and share things that have worked in our own libraries. While exploring a post on one ning I learned about "Book Trailers" which are like movie trailers, only for books. What an awesome idea! I'm sure as I explore more nings I will discover many other ideas that I had never thought of. A ning could be used in a school among teachers or students to share ideas. I also like the social aspect of it. What a great place to meet new people with similar interests. I have no problems with MySpace or Facebook, but I am not interested in being on either one. I would, however, join one of the nings I explored. I feel more at home there.

Thing #21

My group created a podcast for our Mid Term project, so that is the one I am showing. But I have created others with pictures of my family. I really enjoy using PhotoStory because it is so easy and everyone loves seeing the podcasts. I also had Kindergarten students create podcasts about insects they had researched. They absolutely loved seeing and hearing themselves in their "movies." Podcasts are a fantastic tool to use with students. If you haven't tried it yet, you should. It is so simple and the kids love it.


I also created a podcast for my niece's "Flat Stanley" project. She was very excited and couldn't wait to show her class at school.

Thing #20

Teacher Tube and You Tube can be awesome resources for the library and classroom. The videos are simply one more "tool" for a teacher. The great thing about videos online is that you don't have to worry about checking them out or if another teacher has a certain video when you need it. We know that our students are excited about videos. If we want our kids to get excited about what we are teaching, showing short videos can be one way to do it. I thought the video I embedded was interesting and so true. Web 2.0 gives anyone with a voice a place to be heard. Maybe one of our students will be the next to start a radio broadcast out of their bedroom. Only it will be a "podcast" using Web 2.0.

Thing #19

I explored thinkfree. http://www.thinkfree.com/main.jsp It is similar to Google Docs in that documents are stored online. Multiple people can view and contribute to the document. I like this tool because you can control how much each member is allowed to modify the document. This would be useful in an education setting because the teacher could "lock" some parts of the document that she wanted to be static and leave the rest of the document "unlocked" for the students to manipulate. Another feature that I really like is that there is a setting to receive an email update any time the document has been modified. So, you don't have to keep checking back to see if anything has changed. (I could not find a feature like this in Google Docs.) This tool is similar to a wiki, but it is free and, as far as I could tell, there is no advertising on the documents. There are so many uses for documents that are stored online. They are convenient because they can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. They could be used among staff for planning lessons or used among students when working on collaborative projects.

Thing #18

I explored Google Docs. I had actually used Google Docs for our Mid Term group project for this class. We shared documents and were able to modify the documents individually from home and share them with each other without having to email attachments. I really liked that aspect of it. However, I experienced several problems with creating a power point presentation in Google Docs. The program has limited capabilities and kept unexpectedly quitting every few seconds (making me lose any changes in the process). Google Docs is still relatively new and I feel certain they will make improvements over time. The fact that the documents are stored online is their best feature in my opinion. That allows access from anywhere at anytime and makes them extremely easy to work on collaboratively.

Thing #17

I read all of the postings in the Sandbox and made a few comments of my own. It is great to see that everyone is having fun with this learning experience. If we are liking it, won't our students like projects like this, too? I wrote about possible uses for wikis in my last post. I also have been using wikis with my friends, especially when planning outings. Before using them, we would send up to 20 emails about where to meet for coffee. That's too much email about one thing! So, we started using wikis after I learned about them in this class and now our in-boxes are free of clutter. Wikis could be used in the same way at school with fellow teachers and administrators.

Thing #16

I explored many library-related wikis. One wiki had programming ideas. It would be great for a group of librarians to contribute to a wiki like this to share programs that had been successful in their libraries. A wiki would also be a great place to conduct a virtual book club. Students could add their thoughts about the book and respond to what others had to say as well. A wiki could be created for teachers to post their "wish lists" for books and supplies. If a teacher had an item on the list, he/she could share it. If not, the librarian could order it. A library could also have a wiki where students posted book reviews. The other students would love getting recommendations from classmates instead of teachers. There are many, many opportunities for using a wiki in the library and school. Plus, they are easy to use and maintain.

Thing #15

Wow. The video "A Vision of Students Today" was very powerful and inspiring. We as educators must somehow catch up with our students technologically in order to remain relevant. I liked the "icebergs" article because it talked about how we need to be open to changing our perspective of what a library is and what it does. I also like that it says this may have to happen "one little boat at a time." Each library will have to adapt to its patrons' needs. I liked how another article suggested libraries use features, such as tagging, that are on Amazon or Google to make them more user-friendly. Several articles referred to the library as a "conversation" or a "community." These things are true now and will remain true as libraries evolve. School libraries will have to adapt as well. In order to meet the needs of our students, we will have to be willing to be more than just a collection of books.

Thing #14

When searching Technorati for "School Library Learning 2.0" I found a blog from one of our players! That was very cool to see and know that people all over the world could see it, too. The videos and article for this exercise were very intriguing. I am still amazed by the blog phenomenon and can't really comprehend that people out there might want to read ramblings from someone like me. When searching the Technorati site I kept thinking that there is so much information out there. I like the favorites and top 100 blogs, etc. because it gives me a place to dive in. When you are new to all of this, it is very overwhelming. These tools as well as tags help narrow the information into categories I am interested in and give me a place to start. As I become more advanced in Web 2.0, these tools will help me organize the vast amount of information I am taking in.

Thing #13

I explored Digg and Del.icio.us. I set up an account with del.icio.us and started tagging all of my bookmarks. This will help me find sites that I have bookmarked and help me remember what my bookmarks are in the future. I think this would be a great tool to use in the classroom or library. If sites are tagged, the students can easily know which sites to explore when researching a particular topic. It will also be great for a librarian to tag sites that can be used across the curriculum. This tool will make it easy to access all the sites that pertain to a particular topic in a matter of minutes.

Thing #12

Here is a link to my search roll. Book Search I created it to use when I am looking for new books to read and buy. I like the idea of Rollyo, but I had some trouble with accessing the searchroll once I created it. I'm sure I will get better at it as I create new searchrolls for new categories.

Thing #11

I have created my LibraryThing account and have started adding books to my library. It could take a very long time to add all of my books, but I plan to take my time with it. I love that LibraryThing makes recommendations for me based on the books I have read and liked. I am always excited about a new book recommendation. I found the group "Librarians who LibraryThing" and read a few interesting and funny threads from their group. I plan to explore other groups to read what they have to say about different books. This will be great for my school library as well as my personal one. I also am excited about sharing LibraryThing with my Book Club. Hopefully we will create our own group on the site!

Thing #10

Image generators are lots of fun! I had fun sending images to my friends from Image Chef. They even have videos you can personalize. The Mona Lisa comic came from http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/
The students would love using these image generators. As a librarian these would be great to use for a morale booster. You can easily send images with teachers' or students' pictures or names in them. Wouldn't a student love to get an image from you that was personalized with their picture that said "Good work today!" or "I'm proud of you!" I think this will be a fun way to brighten someone's day.

Thing #9

I explored the search tools for finding new blogs to subscribe to. I liked how SuprGlu showed actual articles. I found one so interesting, I subscribed to the feed right away! I was not as sucessful with Google Blog Search. But when I searched for Spring Branch ISD I got a wide array of results- from school bus shootings to apartments for sale. There were a couple from SBISD employees, too. Topix is very interesting since it is all news sources. I read some interesting articles that were very different than many of the blog posts I have found since they are written by reporters, not librarians. I thought Syndic8 was the most confusing search tool. I didn't find any feeds there that I subscribed to. I found a wonderful video on Technorati. I have posted it on my blog. It has nothing to do with feeds, but is worth watching!

Thing #8

I created a Google Reader account and already have so much to read! I really like that the reader will help me save time since all of the information I want to explore is in one place. I am hoping this will encourage me to stay more up to date with my personal interests. I am excited about how I can use the reader for school. This will be a wonderful resource as a new librarian because I can read what is working at other schools. As a librarian, it would be great to share this with teachers so that they can get regular updates from blogs/websites they have found useful in the past without having to go to each individual site. It is so convenient that it is all in one place and can be organized by topic.

Thing #7

I explored all of the Google Tools. I created a calendar to share with my family and friends. It will help us to coordinate events. I also made a homepage using iGoogle. I really like that you get to choose your interests. I also explored the gadgets and added a few. The ladybugs that run around my home page are my favorite, although they have no educational purpose! I could see how these tools would be very useful for school. You could create a calendar for your class to post due dates. You could set up google alerts for the topics you are learning about at the time. Google Scholar and Google Advanced Search would be a good places for students to do research on the web. And Google Earth would be a fantastic resource for teaching Science. Here is a link to the iGoogle homepage I created.
http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en

Thing #6

There were many interesting things you can do with mashups. I created this "warholizer" with a mashup. I also created a trading card. The students could create trading cards of their favorite characters from different books they read. I'm sure they would enjoy it!

Thing #5

Filckr is a networking site where you can upload and share photos. You can also browse photos from many different categories. The tags are category labels that help narrow your search. I uploaded a few photos and used the tags to help organize them by date and subject of the photos. I changed my settings to private where no one can see the photos without my permission. I'm not ready to have them out there for all the world to see.
I explored several groups. Within the groups you can share photos with people who have similar interests and you can also send messages to other group members. The groups I explored were public, so anyone can read anything you write and see any photos you upload. The library groups were interesting. They gave me ideas for arranging the library and displays to have in the library. I liked one idea that posted the order to read an author's books. Great idea for a student who wants to start reading Harry Potter, etc. and wants to read them in the correct order.
I was thinking it would be good to have a Flickr account for my library and post the link on the school's website. Then parents and students could see what is going on in the library. I wonder if the district would approve this? And I also know I would have to be careful not to post photos of students who have not given permission for their photos to be published.

Thing #3

Creating the blog and avatar were easier than I had expected. This blog site seems simple to use so far. I have been exploring others' blogs, but have not posted any comments yet.

Thing #2

I think of myself as a life-long learner. I love to learn about new things from books, people, documentaries and experiences. Of the 7 1/2 Habits, I definitely struggle with viewing problems as challenges. I am a planner and sometimes get frustrated when things don't go according to plan. The easiest habit for me is to begin with an end in mind. I am constantly thinking of new things I want to accomplish and what I can do to accomplish them.

Thing #1

I'm new to blogging. I can already think of many great ways to use blogs at school. I'm ready to learn more.