Thursday, July 30, 2009

Thing #23

I'm here at the end of my journey, and I can't believe it! This has been a great learning experience. I'm amazed at how much I have learned in less than four weeks while also having a lot of fun!

1. I can't just pick one or two of the discoveries as my favorite! The discoveries that I liked the most were: Photo Story, Lulu (Aspiring Authors), all the Google products, Rollyo, LibraryThing, and Flickr Creative Commons. I definitely plan on continuing to use thse programs as well as a few of the others.

2. One of my life-long learning goals is to always accept responsibility for my own learning. With a program like "23 Things," I am able to learn on my own at my own pace. I was able to really focus on the products that would be most useful to me while still learning about all kinds of 2.0 programs.

3. I think I am most surprised about how much I enjoyed writing this blog. I've thought about starting a blog before, but just never did. I hope that I can transfer this enjoyment from this blog into one that I could create for my library or even personal life.

4. I didn't have any trouble with this program. I would not change anything!

5. I would probably choose to participate in another program like this, once I finish graduate school. I'm glad that this was an assignment for class because I am not sure if I would have participated on my own at this time. Once those last few classes are finished, I could see myself doing something like this again.

6. My one word to sum up "23 Things" - WORTHWHILE.

Thing #22

I visited two Ning sites: Teacher Librarian Ning and Texas School Librarian Ning. I thought both were great places for librarians to get together and share ideas. Both also had places for networking for jobs or author visits. I was fascinated by Doug Valentine's Video Book Reviews he did with third and fourth graders. I have to figure out how he did that!

Since it is a great place for librarians to get together to share and network, maybe students could use one for a class also. Maybe students from other schools could join. Students already are familiar with social networking sites, so I think they would really enjoy sharing ideas and projects for their class in this manner.

Thing #21

Photo Story is fun! I had heard of this program before, but I had never used it. For my first time using it, I made a slide show of my family's vacation to San Antonio. I'm thinking about using Photo Story to make an orientation video for the library. That way, I don't have to say the same thing to 40 different classes!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Thing #20

This is a YouTube Video promoting the NYC library, but also libraries in general.



This is a TeacherTube video where students created a video of their research on a Native American tribe. What a fun product to create from research!

Having access to video sources is valuable because it increases the students' interest in the material they are learning. It is also valuable because it begins to eliminate the need for purchasing and storing videos, DVDs, etc.

Thing #19

I was pleasantly surprised at how many Web 2.0 sites from the 2008 Web 2.0 Awards List I was already using either from class or from my personal life. There were still quite a few that I had not even heard of, so I had to check out some of the "fun" ones first before I looked at a site that I would actually use in my library.

I thought Lulu was a really fabulous site for all the services they offer. For an elementary school librarian, I especially liked the Aspiring Authors page. Students in grades K-8 can publish their own book and get a free copy of it. Then the school can sale more and make a percentage of the sales for a fundraiser. What a fabulous idea for a collaborative project with the librarian and a class or grade level!

Thing #18

I chose to look at Google Docs. I could see this being useful to share documents for collaboration. I could also see this being useful in a school where forms need to be filled out for everything. I made a Materials Request Form that teachers could access and send to me when they wanted me to add an item to our "want/need" list of materials. It would be an advantage to me to not have papers coming in from different directions, but instead have all the forms in one place. I really like how the form responses are shown in a spreadsheet so everything is together.

Think #17

I created my own Searchroll in Rollyo on Texas Native Americans. I know that when I taught fourth grade, it was so difficult to find good kid-friendly resources on the Native American Tribes of Texas. I found an extensive list of resources just on Texas Tribes.

Using Rollyo was super easy. I can see this being beneficial when doing research with students, but I could also see using it with teachers or other librarians to create a list of searchable sites for different content areas.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Thing #16

I feel comfortable using Wikis after creating one for my midterm project for class. (Treasures in the Library Scavenger Hunt) I think Wikispaces is user-friendly and self-explanatory. I do get a little frustrated when trying to format items. Sometimes it just doesn't seem to want to cooperate!

A wiki would be a great tool to use with a team of teachers and the librarian to coordinate a collaborative project. Since time is the biggest constraint on collaboration, a wiki could be used at home and whenever the user has time. As shown in the Common Craft video, Wikis in Plain English, a wiki is much more convenient for making plans than trying to email everyone involved.

Thing #15

In his article, Into a New World of Librarianship, Michael Stephens states, “This librarian bases all planning and proposals for services, materials and outreach on user needs and wants.” “This librarian understands that the future of libraries will be guided by how users access, consume and create content.”

That is the most important aspect when thinking about the concept of Library 2.0. A library gives the users what they need and want. Users want and need to access, consume, and create information from anywhere they choose. This is where Library 2.0 becomes vital.

I think the prospect of technology and its use in libraries is exciting and convenient. There is so much more that can be accessed by so many more people.

However, I still love books and a quiet, comfy place to read. I want to see technology continue to emerge and grow in libraries, but not replace everything. I still want the joy I get from opening a new book, and I hope future generations will also experience that joy and value it.

Thing #14

I'm not as fond of Technorati as I am of the other sites we have explored using tags. I just did not find it as user-friendly. There was a lot of type on each page. This made it distracting for me.

When I searched for "School Library Learning 2.0" in the different type of searches, I did get different results. When I searched in "tags," many of the Library2Play blogs came up. That was interesting!

Even though I find Technorati more difficult, I still think that tagging has value. I agree more with the creator of the delicious site. I read an article where he states that he believes that users should do the tagging instead of publishers because it is more authentic. (Of course, I can't remember where I read this, but when I find it, I'll link to it.) When I performed searches on delicious, I thought the results were more relevant to what I was looking for. This is where I think that users doing the tagging has benefits.

Thing #13

Delicious (and social bookmarking in general) is a practical idea. I don't know how many times I have been at work and needed a site I had bookmarked at home or vice versa. Now that problem is solved!

I like the feature where you can search by tags and then narrow it even more with additional tags.

This site is an excellent resource for all individuals in a school to share information. It could also be useful to use with students to share Web sites to use at home. It would also be useful to have students create tags for sites that they use related to the content/subject area.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Thing #12

I never really thought about the need for rules of etiquette when it came to commenting, but I guess that it makes sense that everyone follow some general guidelines. I thought that it was important that the comment be meaningful (as suggested by Cool Cat) and heartfelt (as suggested by Blue Skunk). I also liked Cool Cat's tip of adding a real world example to your comment.

I have made comments on 5 Library2Play blogs: Check This Out!, Cheryl's Library2Play, Excel in Education, In Rachel's Words, and Is the Dancing Librarian a 2.0er? Maybe.

I commented on a blog discussion on CafeMom. In Google Blog Search, I searched for toddlers since I have a two-year-old, and this site looked interesting. The group's blog that I commented on, After Pregnancy, was a member only group. I had to join the group before I could leave a comment. That ended up being alright because I found other discussions in that group that I commented on also.

I also commented on a blog, BookWorms Book Nook: Our Journey with Books. This blog was created by a former preschool teacher who now homeschools her children. She had some reviews on excellent resources and picture books with lessons for early childhood. I was looking for blogs to help me with storytime and this one had picture books with summaries, reviews, and lesson ideas. I really liked it!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Thing #11

LibraryThing is a wonderful tool. It was simple to use. I decided to catalog 6 of my professional resource books that I own. All 6 titles were found. Then I tagged each title under a category. I plan on eventually doing this for my entire collection of professional resources. Now when I need a resource for a certain subject or topic, I can easily find it without trying to remember what I own. I did check out some of the groups. There is a wide variety! I'm thinking about joining the graduate student group or the Librarians Who Librarything.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Thing #10

I love Wordle! I was introduced to it several months ago at a librarian meeting in my district. I used it to create a Wordle of Dr. Seuss Quotes in honor of Dr. Seuss's Birthday/Read Across America Day. I also used it to make Wordles for all the Bluebonnet nominees for 09-10. I plan to post them somewhere in the library to create interest in reading the Bluebonnet books. What else that's great about Wordle is that you have free access to the images you create and other people's images.The only downfall is that you can't actually save the image on your computer. Students could use Wordle to make an autobiography or to write a summary of a book.

I also like Big Huge Labs site. It was a lot of fun to play on and the trading cards could be used for character anaylis. It was fun playing with the Make Visual Poetry page on Image Chef. Students could write poems and then turn them into shape poetry.

Thing #9

This "Thing" has been by far the most time consuming one, but I think it is because I have read dozens of blog pages with dozens of posts on each page. My eyes are starting to criss-cross!

Google Blog Search was very easy to use. It was pretty much just like using Google Search. I really liked Bloglines' search tool because it took me to a list of blogs by category. That is where I found a really useful blog - Top Shelf. It is written by a director of libraries in Texas and had important information for Texas school librarians. I also found an additional School Library Journal Blog - Practically Paradise that I liked because the writer included her own book reviews. (I had found a School Library Journal Blog the previous "Thing" that I also really liked - NeverEnding Search.)

None of the search tools were too confusing to use. The School Library Blogs on Suprglu was not what I had expected as far as a searching tool. It did have a good variety of blogs compiled in one place.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Thing #8

I've seen the word RSS before, but never knew what it meant. After watching the video, RSS in Plain English, it made it simple to understand that an RSS feed is like a one-stop-shop for all your internet news and blog needs.

Creating my own RSS feed in Google Reader was easy to do. Then I found some blogs and news sites I was interested in and copied and pasted the URL address to sign them up. I now have one place to read thses new items!

I like that I only need to go to one place to find lots of information. I also like that you only read the new information and do not have to scroll through the Web sites. This will save me a ton of time in my personal and work lives. Now I can actually stay current with current events and trends.

Anyone in a school setting could use this technology to find information in a faster, more convenient way.

Thing #7

I am so glad to have found Google Calendar! Last year, I looked for a way to post my calendar electronically so that teachers can sign-up on an as-needed basis. With Google calendar, I just went ahead and blocked times that classes would not be able to sign-up. Now I can post this for teachers at my school to use.

Check out My Google Calendar!

I wasn't sure if Google Docs would be beneficial to me because I thought it was more like a common drive to share documents on, but it is much more than that. First, you can access the documents from any computer, including home. I also really like the templates that are already created. I could see using them myself or having students use them for projects.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Thing #6







OK - Now I'm in trouble because I just want to play, play, play! Mashups, which I have just learned are hybrid applications that take parts of different applications and mash them together, are really fun! I had a lot of fun on the Big Huge Labs site making my trading card and Warhol-like print. I used my own photo instead of a picture from Flickr, but I could see students using the two together to create projects. The trading cards could be used for a character study from a book or even a biography.

Thing #5


Flickr is really amazing and useful. I'm wondering why I haven't heard of it until now! I can't believe how many photos there are under the Creative Commons site. The symbols make it easy to understand what you can use and how you can use it. These photos could be useful for creating all types of products in the library for students or with students.


Last year, I did a collaborative project with third grade on space. I found a moon picture that we could have used for the students' PowerPoint projects. This picture was found on Flickr, and it was created by janusz l.


Thing #4

Sent my info for registration...

Decided to go ahead to Thing #5...

So far, this is the most fun I've ever had doing an assignment for class...

Thing #3

Creating this blog wasn't too difficult. Creating the avatar was a lot of fun! I spent way too much time playing with it. These tools could be useful next year for me. I will be doing the GT pull-out, and I could see trying this out on a smaller scale with these students before trying it with a class.

Thing #2

Out of the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners, the second habit, "Accept responsibility for your own learning," is the easiest habit for me to follow. I love to learn new things, and when I want to know something, I find it out! I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I definitely take pride in my learning and work. I value knowledge and want others to value it also.

The habit that is hardest for me to follow is the first one, "Begin with the end in mind." I do not have a problem with setting goals, but I do have difficulty when it comes to modifying or changing goals. I tend to think that I am unsuccessful if I do not meet my original goal. I need to retrain my mind to know that it is okay to change or modify goals.