Thing #23--I'm finished!

When beginning this journey I was not 100% sure what Web 2.0 was and was pleasantly surprised that I used many of the items without knowing how advanced I was. My new favorites though are the mashups and teacher tubes. I now know that I can do and find many things whether for fun or for professional use!

This summer I have had the opportunity to interview for a couple of administrative positions; technology was always a question in these interviews. I could proudly share my new knowledge...but I am realizing that perhaps the best avenue for sharing my knowledge was not in an administrative position, but using my library position to teach students! I am excited about infusing some of these ideas in school with students, teachers, and administrators!

I have long been a fan of on-line learning and feel this was set up beautifully for me to do on my own time and schedule. It seemed somewhat overwhelming at first and then I realized the pattern to each Thing and I created a method to move between Library2Play and my blog. I would definitely do another on-line program via this venue or another. Actually I was planning on sharing this with our educational technology department so they could perhaps adapt this program to one for our district.

TRY IT YOU"LL LIKE IT!

Thing #22 Nings

After previewing all the suggested Nings I decided joining a Ning would depend on my needs at the time. Ning in Education and Teacher Blog Community would be more beneficial if I was in the classroom. I will keep them in mind to suggest to teachers looking for a network. When trying to keep up with technology I may want to join The Future of Education. For my needs at this time I chose to join Teacher Library because I could find issues on everything that I am dealing with. I was already a member of Texas School Librarians, but I had not posted anything since joining in 2007 when Shonda first began the Ning.

Communication and networking ideas seem to be the goals of Nings, but none are useful if one does not check back in from time to time to see what is available.

Thing #21 PodCasts and Videocasts

Check back in with me later. I will be posting a Photo Story as soon as I come up with a good idea!

Thing #20 You Tube and Teacher Tube

Students can create story boards and practice their fluency with their favorite books. This video based on the book The Mixed-up Chameleon by Eric Carle was created by second graders.

Reading Video Deep in the Heart of Texas

This video has a great song about all the things you can read about. It was created for the summer reading program, but the song is so catchy I think I will use it for a warmup!

Thing #19 Web 2.0 Awards List

The task was to have fun so I did. I started with Twitter because everyone seems to be all a twitter about Twitter. I am in the camp of I just don't get it. I don't want to know about every little thing someone is doing...and what I do want to find out I generally get from my friends on Facebook. I read somewhere that Twitter was "out" and something else replaced it! I am not sure what that was but in my opinion it is for the better. If this is a communication tool, I would prefer that teachers communicate with me via e-mail or wikis.

As you can see I also played with widgets, and posted a calendar here. This widget can help with organization, as items can be posted to it. For the most part widgets were just a fun diversion as was the hairsite I played with for a while.

Lulu and Biblio were 2 sites about books that were more useful than the hairstyling site. Lulu is a site available for individuals to become published authors. There is a cost involved, but they also sell the published books. They have an offer for teachers and librarians called "Aspiring Authors". This offer is for students in Grades K-8. Teachers register their classes and students who submit their writing gets the first copy free.

Biblio is another book site designed to locate and purchase books. Personally I am going to encourage my college age son to use the textbook finder.

Thing #18 Online Productivity Tools

I checked out Google Docs because I know of several people who regularly use this tool...I am biased toward Microsoft Office because I feel comfortable using these tools. I noticed Google Docs was similar to Word, the thing I missed most was instant spell check. I have been told that people who use Docs often type in Word and then paste into Docs. It was fairly easy to do a spell check at the end of typing; I would just need to remember to use that feature. I liked the collabortive aspect of Docs, sharing was easy with the email option, making comments was just a click away. I wonder though if all these tools overlap, since you can get the same type of features in a Wiki.
If time allows I may explore Google Docs some more, but until then my needs are met with Microsoft Office package.

Thing #17 Rollyo

After a few trial and errors, I finally watched the video to clearly understand the use of Rollyo. I patterned my rollyo after one of their suggested reference Rollyo and created Ref Search Simon. You can search it from my sidebar, just look under my wordle tags from Delicious and you will see a search box. Put your search term in the box and from the drop down menu select Ref Search Simon. I searched George Washington and found some tidbits and trivia about Washington. He raised marijuana which was a common crop in the 1700's for hemp and to stablize the soil...it was many years later that it became an illegal crop. George Washington was also succint in his second inaugral address only using 135 words.

Rollyo seems to be a very useful tool for limiting searches to useful and trusted sites.

Thing #16 Wikis

Here is the link to my wiki that I have been playing with this summer http://resourcesandmore.wikispaces.com/. My original intent was to post information about resources available in the library and ask for collaboration from those using the resources. I envision others posting ideas on how they used the resource; thus it becomes an interactive resource for teachers. I have since added a page for students to reflect and summarize books that they read. One idea I had was to post info about a book and then allow students to comment about my comments.

Thing #15 Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries

Mmmmm...so much to think about when planning for the future but often we must look to the past to help us figure out where we are going. As someone who has been around to see trends come and go I think we are handling some of the change as always. A few brave souls are leading the charge to bring these news trends into education, but as always we hang on to trends of the past. As one trend ends in general we let go of what doesn't really work and keep the beneficial aspects and all blend together.

Web 2.0 is another trend but one that brings with it new challenges that make it difficult to incorporate into the educational world. First, technology has a financial cost that historically we can not keep up with. I have found I am just beginning to buy "new technology" when it is actually outdated and other things are available. Second, students have surpassed many of the adults in the school and thus have different expectations. Third, we can not avoid the fact that children have different needs at different levels and economic situations in families determine what we can expect them to use for homework and presentations.

That said, the video was a powerful tool identifying the needs of today's students. Few teachers do not recognize that the students are different, they are just lagging in how to meet the needs of today's students. I personally feel that we are ethically required to make sure that our students who may not have technology access at home can keep up with those who do have complete access. So what does this mean for libraries? How about the level of the library; is the elementary library going to look different. As an elementary librarian, one role is to provide books to help develop readers. Do we replace all these with e-books? I have taken the role of technology leader by trying to blend the need to teach a skill with hands on material and teaching children how to use technology to access that material.

One article discussed the 3 icebergs, 2 spoke to me. First, "just in case" colllection development. We have long discussed the need for a reference section in an elementary library. I think a more appropriate use of funds is the purchase of databases, and a better allocation of our time is in teaching children how to access these databases and how to evaluate less trusted sources. The third talking point is the "come to us model". This is such a perspective, elementary kids don't have choice; they are definitely a "captive audience." Our perspective is that everyone uses and loves the library, and we are surprised to hear that many students make it through high school and college without ever using the library. If this is really the case we need to quit asking those that regularly use the library what they need and begin asking those who don't use the library how we can better change to meet the needs of everyone.

Courses like this helps keep this a hot topic...we become aware is the first step, and once that awareness sets in then we can add to what we do daily to help incorporate new technology into our programs.

Thing #14 Technorati and Tags

In my past posting I quoted that tags are "creative organization"; well it is a creative outlet that I seem to lack in. I understand the use and purpose of tags, but I still have a difficult time locating what I need via tags. This is something I feel will improve with use and practice especially now that I am aware of several programs and actively use Delicious that use tags to locate and group information.

Technorati provides a service to those who wish to follow blogs. The service helps in locating blogs and grouping blogs into favorites and topics. I am not sure how interested I am in following blogs either professionally or personally. I do appreciate those who publish book reviews or book trailers on their blogs, but I can find those pieces of information elsewhere. I do follow 2 librarian listservs and find information on blogs in that arena that fills my need to read blogs. At this point blogs are in my peripheral vision of professional need...that may change as I grow more comfortable using tools such as Technorati.

Thing #12 Tagging and Discover Delicious

I first discovered Delicious at this past TLA (Library in Black presentation) and it quickly became my lifesaver. I had 2 libraries and of course all bookmarks were posted at the other library or at home. Delicious quickly created a spot where I could access my common sites from anywhere. If that was the extent of my use I could be happy, but as this Thing has taught me Delicious has a much broader appeal than just my personal use. The video divided Delicious into 2 parts how to DO delicious and how to USE Delicious. I have always found Delicious easy to DO, plugging in and bookmarking sites but didn't realize how easy it was to use and share with others.

The 3 hints given in the video were to check out popular tags to see what others have bookmarked, this makes the site invaluable to locating new sites. Sharing tags with others was a second hint. The one that I felt had application to research and sharing with colleagues was using "Unique Tags". By sharing this unique tags with others, they can share their sites via the tag. Teachers, librarians and students can create an assignment in which they must post via Delicious and under a certain tag. Research can then be generated from the material bookmarked to those tags.

Tags or as they called "Creative organization" is an important aspect to this site and I must say I have not used them properly. I have locked myself in to the idea of keywords that I learned about in library classes and how they need to be proper and limiting. I need to remember that the tags are for me to remember how to locate my increasing lists of sites and so far it is manageable but without the use of tags I can see how I could begin to lose what I have in the myriad of things I am bookmarking. I have been through this scenario earlier with my favorites and had to discover a folder and filing system to manage them...now I must learn tagging to help organize my sites.

Thing #12 Creating Community Through Commenting

One aspect of reading blogs that I have found irritating are comments that just say "good job" or "nice". If I post a comment (and yes I want it to be easy, no signing in etc) I hope that whatever I say adds to the conversation in a positive way. I hate to say it but comments that lead nowhere takes up time to go through before getting to the meat of the conversation and my time for blogging is limited.

Lurking and commenting anonymously were both discussed and I feel they are linked for those of us who are not quite sure how this information is spread and shared. In my district we are warned to be careful what is posted via social networking and therefore I tend to take a very conservative role when it comes to anything on the web.

Thing #11 Library Thing

This was a nice new discovery for me. I thought I would suggest a small, old book called "Tisha" that I loved as a young person and low and behold it immediately popped up. The copyright was listed as 1984 and there were others who actually had it in their library and the reviews essentially stated my opinions on this book.

I am a book lover, but I am not a book collector...I much prefer to use a library so using Library Thing as a cataloging system is not the most pertinent aspect of this site. I was surprised by some of the sizes of people's personal collections; they definitely have more space than I do! I found the discussions and groups interesting to read and will check back in periodically to follow several of the threads.

As an elementary librarian I will also look to see reviews of possible purchases, and see if there are names of books that I am not aware of yet. As I get more time I may even look into the possiblity of reviewing books. One thing that I noticed in several of the discussions that the tone did not necessarily sound as if all respondents were librarians so I felt that opened ideas to what the "real world" is reading. Many of the mentioned books were older, books I loved and try to push, I will need to keep reading to see if newer titles are mentioned as well. My only problem with that is the idea that book lovers are responding, and I need to hear from nonreaders as well! I have found that many books that adults push really don't appeal to the nonreaders...perhaps I will start a discussion on just that topic!

Thing #10 Online Image Creator

http://www.happyfacegenerator.com/ This link created the happy face. On this site you will find a happy face for everyone!

http://www.imagechef.com/

Image Chef was used to add my own words to this picture of the beach.

As you can see I had a lot of fun with this Thing; I could have played for hours. I experimented with putting frames on pictures, creating magazine covers, adding bodies etc. Everything was easy; the most frustrating part was my computer...I definitely need to upgrade so I can deal with the graphics easier and quicker.

My first thought was to create signs for the library to talk about book care but my second thought was for students to create comics talking about book care! They will have fun, the rules reinforced, and student created work can become an ongoing display via screen savers or wall posters.

I back to play with some of the other items! More later...

Thing #9 Useful Library Related Blogs

I disliked this Thing immensely, I felt all the search items were too bulky and busy. When trying to locate blogs to read and keep up with I will probably use the advice given in the blog "How to create you circle of the wise" and use blogs recommended by current blogs that I read. I have also found several blogs through the various listservs that I belong too. Perhaps if I had better search terms I could feel more successful but I truly dislike trying to weed my way through the many blogs and sites that deal with the many topics I am not interested in.

I did create a feed to the local newspaper so I can keep up with news of the county I work in but in which I do not live in. I am following the blogs of the librarians from my district who are part of this summer's library2play so hopefully when we are done we can move to a format that allows us to communicate and coordinate activities with one another.

I did like the idea of podcasts and spent some time looking at iTunes to determine if there are any that I would like to spend time with. I am considering using a Learning Spanish podcast. This service is free, so it will only cost me some time. So my next lifetime learning may be a Spanish podcast.

Thing #8 RSS Feeds and Readers

I like the simplicity of RSS especially with Google Reader. I was first introduced to RSS via EBSCO training. We set up an RSS feed for magazines; monthly I received notification that a magazine was available to read. The only problem I never had time to actually read the magazine. Using Google Reader I can scan quickly through the headlines of more than just magazines and decide if I need to read the article or not.

Google Reader puts all updates in one place which hopefully will save time thus helping me to keep up with professional reading. One of the links I added to Google Reader is a feed from the local newspaper so I can keep up with local issues dealing with the school system (professional) and also local news interests (personal).

It seems to me that this is a quick way for teachers and students to locate and share current events. Teachers/librarians could set up a Google Reader account and subscribe to newpapers, news sites etc. to receive a variety of links for class discussion or research.

There are many librarians with blogs that review books or technology. Having RSS feeds to these sites would be useful as a collection tool to read/hear about new must have items.

Thing #7 Google Tools

Let me preface this by saying that I have never been a Google fan; I much prefer to search using Yahoo,but was glad to have some time to search through the many opportunities in Google. The 2 items that caught my attention were Google Scholar and Advanced Search. I liked these items because they helped narrow my searches to something more manageable. In advanced search you can narrow your search by file type so I searched for Power Points only. In my opinion this then becomes a useful tool since we do have Power Point as an option on all our computers.

I have read others blogging about the power of Google.docx, and I see some interesting aspects to it such as creating your own pictures. The trouble that I have with docx is that I do not seem to be able to open these documents on any of my computers. Is this a user malfunction or is this an document problem?

Thing #6 Mashups and 3rd Party Sites take 2

Since all this is for fun, I didn't want to miss creating a trading card. This is a personal picture that I turned into a trading card. This is truly fun, but if using with students be sure they have a plan for what they are going to say before creating the trading card. The story should come first!

Thing #6 Mashups and 3rd Party Sites

Jim Bumgardner is the creator of a variety of the mashups, specifically the colr pickrs and Flickr Chia Pets. This quote from his website describes his philosophy of mashups "To those that question the utility of this little application let me point out that it is a toy...Its purpose is simply to provide wonder and delight. Nothing more, nothing less. Isn't that enough?" Based on this philosophy I played with several of the mashups and was awed of the skills Bumgardner and others have to take known technology and combine it to create something new. Have some fun and play with Flickr Chia Pet; according to the site you can upload your own pictures and grow your own green hair. I also liked the look of Clockr, created by Marie Klingemann. She created a digital clock based on the pictures from Flickr that has numbers in it.

I have seen Mosiac maker used in schools to manage the many pictures taken by teachers. This is part of a subscription service, but creates a nice look to display pictures of students and activities.

For this "Thing" I used Bubblr a mashup created by Daniel and Anna. In this appliction I located a picture of Dr. Seuss and placed a quote from him in a speech bubble. Although I used a single picture and one quote, but could have created a series of pictures with quotes. I could see students creating pictures of book characters and writing the dialog between characters.

Thing #5 Flickr

How about this image....George Washington's teeth! I was frustrated with the amount of pictures to weed through to find what I was looking for. I originally wanted examples of library signage and found some great examples, but then would get stuck in that person's album. Each album had many other pictures other than what I was looking for. Very frustrating! I then decided to head to the creative commons and located some fantastic historical pictures. Children are fascinated with the story of George Washington's teeth and these will be a wonderful lead-in to the book George Washington's Teeth. I also liked the discussion that went with this photo. Many went with general or political comments but others gave a historical perspective that will be invaluable background information. I will keep Flickr in mind when introducing different concepts in the library. Many images can also be found via EBSCO and Encyclopedia Britannica our online Databases. EBSCO provides templates for analyzing photos.

Thing #3 Blogs and Avatars!

Finally, I finished Thing #3. I have been putting off creating a blog; there are so many blogs available and I just didn't want another nondescript blog. I love to read others blogs, but it seems to me that enough is enough and I couldn't quite grasp how to make mine different, interesting and pertinent to others. The actual creation of the blog was easy, for the most part fear is the biggest drawback and I realized that I could click on any button and search without doing damage. I may have more difficulty when trying to personalize my blog and trying to interest others in being a part of my blogging experience.

The Avatar was also easy to create. It helps that I had played with Avatars and knew the basic layout and process. The difficulty I had was in exporting it to my blog. It was frustrating enough that I finally closed it all out and walked away for a few minutes. Luckily, I have enough background knowledge of exporting items that I went back tried a new direction and it worked. I do feel sorry for those that do not have some experience or are still in a mode of fear that something will break or explode by clicking on it.

Thing #2 LifeLong Learning

Reflecting on 7.5 Habits of Lifelong Learners I am trying to apply habit number 4 "have confidence in yourself as a competent effective learner" in my latest endeavor...learning to play the guitar. The quote "words become your reality" hit home when I discovered myself telling people I am the worst guitar player ever. I am attempting to change my mindset by telling myself and others that I am the best beginning guitar player ever. I have created my own learning toolbox (#5) by choosing to take lessons, set aside times for practice, purchasing the proper equipment etc.

Habit 7.5 is my constant struggle...PLAY. How many times do I expect to be perfect and if not perfect then I don't want to continue. In my example of playing the guitar I am quickly learning that new skills that are not automatic require time, practice and patience and it is okay to have fun learning. Life does not hinge on how quickly I can become competent, but on how I enjoy the learning along the way.