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!