Thing #23

Doing "23 Things" for the second time has been more enlightening and fun than it was the first time. Last summer I was still such a "newbie" with 2.0 tools and felt pretty intimidated by them. I am feeling so much more confident and know that I can take things I've learned from playing wtih the 'things' and use them the very next day at school....not many face-to-face inservice workshops have ever claimed that.

I used Wordle today with about 150 7th graders spread out from 8-3:30 and we all had a ball. The kids liked it so much that those who have internet access at home were going to make some more at home. We even brainstormed a great idea for the kids to make one for their Mom for Mother's Day!

And that's what I have loved about participating in this - I learn new things so then I can share and teach the students and teachers at my school and open their eyes as mine have been opened about the cool things we can learn and share using technology.

1. Favorites - delicious, podcasting, rollyo I am using all 3 of these right now at school and have found them so useful. These 3 aren't blocked by my district.

2. Lifelong learning goals - I am feeling not so frustrated with technology when things don't work out instantaneously like I want them to. I used to just throw up my hands and quit - or start crying! Silly , I know but I'd get so frustrated. I'm getting better and better about feeling comfortable about all of my new tools and am actually excited about technology where I used to be fearful of it.

3. Unexpected outcome - Just being able to feel more comfortable when talking to our tech expert on campus, my husband, and others from the 'techie' world. I can actually follow along with what they're talking about when talking technology.

4.Do anything different - No! Perfect as it is!

5. Would you participate in another program - Yes! Where do I sign up?

6. One Word - Amazing! Essential for all in education! Yes, you can quote me!

This experience has convinced me more than ever that the librarians in our district need to band together and lobby our powers that be to get our district headed in the right direction as far as letting our kids use 2.0 tools.......thanks for putting this program together for us.

Thing #22

I was pretty excited about joining the Nings but once I joined some Librarian groups I got kind of disappointed because it looks like no one uses them much. I joined one group for middle school librarians and there are just a handful of members......and no one has written on it in a long while. Everyone is so busy running their library, teaching, etc. and I think people have a hard time finding even a few minutes in the day to get online and share with others professionally. I'm not sure what the solution is but Ning seems like a cool idea - just doesn't seem to be utilized much by some groups.

My husband found some Nings that fit his profession and he had never heard of them. He joined them tonight and they are very active Nings.

I can see creating a Ning for the librarians in our district where we could go online and comment about library 'stuff' in a more private way than sending email through the district. But I really feel like more people feel more comfortable picking up the telephone.

Thing #21

I have a Photo Story ready to go and am attempting to add my podcast and am having trouble with my microphone tonight.....will be running to Best Buy in the morning to purchase a new one.



Got it embedded - despite the fact that my blog is blocked in our district!

Thing #20

You Tube - I loved this book trailer! I am always on the look out for great book trailers for books my kids love......we have done Hunger Games to death this year and 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher is the new 'hot book' at my school.

Thing #19

I spent about an hour going through most of the links on the Web 2.0 Awards page.....found a lot of new and interesting sites.
I have to say my 2 favorites include one that is new to me and one I've used many times before.

You Tube is great! I have enjoyed it in the past for entertainment purposes but not have seen so many instructional videos that help explain technology through doing the '23 Things' , that I hav such a new appreciation for all You Tube has to offer! It has helped me in my job for hooking up equipment as well as for personal reasons. I have 4 dogs and my puppy, a golden retriever, has had me confused on how to bathe and clip him. Believe it or not, there is a You Tube video that shows exactly how to take care of Golden Retrievers. It just amazes me at how specific of a subject you can look for and find something to help you out!

I almost forgot - I love You Tube for book trailers. I'm addicted to watching these things and You Tube has an amazing selection. I can't show them at school on You Tube but sometimes can find through other sites.

I also discovered how much I love delicious - love the organized way to search through my Favorites and liked having them sorted in a logical way to my personal needs.

Also loved the i'm cooked video cooking sharing site.........I'm hooked on this one, too!

Thing #18

Just love Google Docs and think it works perfectly for school projects!

There is one huge disadvantage for using it for group projects and papers......students that do not have internet access at home. Unfortunately at my school we have a significant number of students that do not have computer/internet access at home. To assist students with this situation, our computer lab stays open until 4:30 every afternoon except Friday. This has not really helped that many kids because it seems like the kids without computers/internet are also the kids who ride the bus home from school because there is no car available to pick them up.
The public library is a place where kids can use the internet but, again, there are obstacles with transportation.

In summary, Google Docs and Open Office are great - just need to figure out how to get computers and the internet into the hands of ALL students.

Thing #17

This 'thing' has come in at just the right time because I am helping 8th grade Lang. Arts teachers the first week of May (after TAKS) with their research projects on the Holocaust - mainly focusing on Anne Frank.

It wa very easy to set up the Rollyo account - I really liked the video made by a player because I just LOVE step-by-step instructions. We need those - especially after a CRAZY day at school!

I set up my search roll for Anne Frank. I found that I only received one hit when I searched Anne Frank but when I broadened it out to Holocaust, I found a lot more rolls.

Thanks for adding this one - this will help out immensely for my teachers as we collaborate on research projects!

Thing #16

Using a Wiki has been great for our group projects for this class. One of our group members, Trina, suggested it and it has been very easy to use and is a great asset for distance learning.

I also can see using this for my students who read the Lone Star list books every year - we could have a wiki so they could comment on each of the books and perhaps vote on their favorite.

I can see many possibilities for using these for posting group work on research projects.

The ideas are endless for schools , teachers, Librarians to incorporate wikis into their bag of tricks.

Thing #15

I really am amazed after watching the video and also reading Dr. Schultz's article....technology is moving so fast it almost frightens me in a way - do I have what it takes to live in a 3.-0 and even 4.0 world as seen by Dr. Schultz? The virtual world idea seems odd to me ...first of all, who has time to take part in Second Life? I checked out the website and can see the attraction but after putting in a full day at work, taking care of family and all that offers, and trying to stay healthy by exercising, when would I have time to use and take part in a 4.0 world?

Librarians I think are for the most part embracing the 2.0 tools to make their libraries more accessible and relevant to their patrons. I think some school districts - like mine - are very slow to see the value of 2.0 tools and are only focused on protecting kids from the internet. Unfortunately our students are being left behind as the world moves forward.

Thing #14

Okay - I'm officially confused. I did a search in blog posts, and in the blog directory for School Library Learning 2.0 and got zero results. Not at all sure what's going on there.

I did some searches for things that interest me like GoldenRetrievers, Jack Russell Terriers, Scuba Diving, etc. I got quite a few hits on these.....more blog posts hits than blog sites hits which is logical.

I enjoyed a very cute video of a man being tackled by about 10 little Golden puppies. It was fun to watch.

I also think Technorati is a good place to go if you are looking for some blogs to follow and get interested in........tagging gives you more chances for your blog to be found. I did try to claim my blog on Technorati but couldn't get anything to work.

Thing #13

I spent a lot of time using Delicious for personal interests and had a great time organizing lots of information. I took all of my multitudes of websites out of Favorites and moved them into Delicious and tagged each one using several different tags. The anal, organized side of me just had a grand time getting this task done. I made a tag named "Matthew" for my son and put all of his guitar, music, surfing, skateboarding and sports websites in Delicious. No more digging through such a huge list in favorites to find my sites! Delicious was something I can see myself using a lot at home AND at school. No more going to each computer to find the website you saved and looking for it at your school computer and then realizing you saved it at home.

For students, especially if they were working on research, it would be a great tool for keeping up with all the websites they were using for a specific project and tagging it as such. This would be applicable for K-12 as well as college. I added UHCL's home page, SBISD Library Page, and Library2Play websites to my Delicous account to make it much easier to find the sites I use again and again while taking this course.

I am also excited to use it to share bookmarks with teachers and other librarians. I have found great sites for YA books that I would like to share and could put them under a tag such as Books and BISD so they could check out what I found.

The Delicious icons are now on the Toolbar so I can find it easily at my home computer. This one is fun!

Thing #12

I follow these 2 blogs - one is hilarious and one is informative.

www.itsnotallflowersandsausages.blogger.com

www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/burkablog

Commenting needs to add to the discussion and not just a generic "I Agree" statement.

I've also had to get used to making my websites I'm checking out hot links so others can access the information I'm finding....the only way to share and encourage others to look up what I've found.

Thing #11

I added books to my Library Thing account and then reviewed 2 of the books I added. I feel it could be so helpful for me when I have a question about recommending books for students who want a book "just like The Hunger Games" You can go into a group related to middle school books and will get responses from all over the country with some great suggestions. I also liked the way you could share your lists with others. It's a great way to keep track of all the books I've read - especially when I'm trying to think of a title or author and can't quite remember it!
I'll definitely use Library Thing and will encourage my students to set up an account of their own.

Thing #10

This is what I came up with using Wordle - it was a lot of fun! I brainstormed words affiliated with my library at Lake Jackson Intermediate and learned to change the colors through the HTML Color Codes. I wrote the Wordle in my school's colors. I am planning on using this Wordle on my Library's Homepage and also will have it blown up into a poster...I have the perfect blank wall in my library and it will look perfect hanging there!!!! Absolutely loved this.

We are doing Wordles next week with my 8th graders - they will make a Wordle for their favorite book they read this year.

Thing #9

I have found a few new blogs and added them to my list I had made last summer.

Professor Nana's Blogspot
http://professornana.livejournal.com/.....Dr. Teri Lesesne (love her - you definitely want to follow her blog if you are in a middle or high school library)

Goodreads

Mrs. Hill's Book Blogs

A Year of Reading

Blurberati

Nerdfighters.....written by John Green - a little strange


I have been trying to find a website that posts Book Trailers for YA lit that has a RSS feed but so far no luck finding much of anything. Did any of you find anything?

Thing #8

RSS has been really intereting and a little confusing for me. I had added several sites to my Google Reader account last summer when I set it up while doing 23Things the first time. I can honestly say that since school started in August, I haven't checked it once. So.......lots and lots of updates I hadn't read.

This time I decided to concentrate on RSS feeds from websites that were important to me personally. I have added a few but have had trouble adding some that are very mainstream and definitely have the RSS icon. Two that I haven't seen on my Google Reader page are the one for Texas Monthly magazine and the Houston Press. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I have added several successfully last night and they appeared on my list instantly but these 2 haven't.

RSS feeds are a great way to keep up with your favorite bloggers - especially good for keeping up with book reviews and new book trailers - I'm addicted to watching book trailers! Some blogs are so 'out there' and weird that it is like you have had to be in on the beginning of them or you just don't get them.....John Green's blog is the one I'm thinking of here. I have enjoyed his books and thought his blog would be interesting but it has not been a good one to read. I think I'm going to drop that one. I have enjoyed Dr. Lesesne's blog and of course, Vaughn's and Dr. Bishop's blogs.

Anyone that works in a school knows that time is in short supply so RSS feeds and your reader are very valuable tools for keeping up with the latest on all types of topics that affect us.

Thing #7 Cool Google Tools

I didn't intend to spend the last 3 hours playing around with all of the Google tools but .....here I am at 10:30 pm still having fun.

I first checked out Google Earth. My students showed it to me first and found my house. I was pretty impressed. Next, my brother in law, who has been working in China, showed us the exact location of his hotel and the job site - now I'm really impressed. My son will spend a semester in South America next year so we will be able to check out exactly where he is without actually being there. This is definitely a cool tool.

I then set up a Google Calendar and shared it with my husband...I'm adding family activities and birthdays. I'm still working on that tonight.

I did an Advanced Google Search for a power point on using databases for research. I found some good ones and really liked that it was able to narrow down the type of file you wanted.

Google Docs would be so helpful for students in a group project - each one being able to access the document and editing it without having to have a face to face meeting. This definitely has applications for a school and university setting.

Overall, Google has some really great and easy to use tools to make communication more efficient and fun!

Thing #6 - Mashups, etc.

I finally (!) figured out how to make a Trading Card using Big Huge Lab. This was a lot more time consuming than I planned on it being. I had in mind that I wanted to try again to use the image of Katniss from the book The Hunger Games that I had trouble uploading from Flickr to

my blog in Thing #5. I really wanted to make a Trading Card of a favorite book character because I would like to have my classes at LJIS do this as a project when they come to the library next time.

Everything seemed to be easy to do and I browsed to the photo I wanted off of Flickr (the one you see at the left). I wrote my description, chose my background and then when I clicked on "Create" - nothing happened! Many frustrating attempts later I figured out that I had not clicked on the picture of Katniss first before I clicked on Create. Whew! I had to remember my Lifelong Learning pledge and not get too frustrated!!!!

I also explored "If you dig straight down, where will you end up?" That's a kid question if I've ever heard one. That one was a lot of fun but not really applicable to the library...

I also looked at Avatar Photo and liked all the different ways you could change a photo.

You could spend hours playing with mashups!