Thing #15

Let me start by commenting on the video "A Vision of Students Today". Many of the comments made by the students I have from my daughters (three of which are in college). All familiar is the one of spending hundreds of dollars on textbooks that are not utilized. I also compared "doodling" in my day in the classroom to them accessing facebook in class while a lecture occurred. I have even seen a teacher do this doing a guest presentation at the Berry Center in Cy Fair ISD. I thought Michael Stephens' article "Into a New World of Librarianship" was very insightful. A library is a place to find, gather and meet user's needs. I also approve of the idea to be careful of techno worship. With the wave of technology today and our students who learn technology skills that I was totally unaware of when I was in high school and even college, a librarian is fortunate to have Library 2.0. It is unbelievable how much I have learned already that I didn't have an inkling about before.

Thing #14 Technorati

Very interesting! I plugged into Library 2.0 as suggested and was fascinated by some of the stories. Technorati is another way to get organized-something I constantly need help in. I also found some blogs that I might like to follow. I was curious about what everyone else is interested in and puzzled at the list of the top items. Some I could understand, but one in particular had me scratching my head (pee?) I like the idea of searching blogs for some shared info or advice. Again, I see this as another resource to add to many others that I have duscovered.

Thing #13 Tagging and Del.icio.us

This one I almost gave up on because of getting a message repeatedly about Internal Error-somethings terribly wrong, blah, blah, blah! Finally I was able to save some of my favorite sites. Notably, UHCL and Library2Play since I'm accessing them so much. However, I searched for a few others for school (national parks-no success, poetry-great success). Since I'm teaching a poetry unit now, I was happy to find some other sites that others had tagged. This would be great for school and the library when I need to find sites tagged by others as well as accessing my own. Overall, this is a great time-saver!! Something I desperately need since it can cut some of my frustration down. The message thing I mentioned at the top is a pain in the neck. I even shut down my computer and restarted it to see if that would help. The process was still hit and miss.

Thing #12 Rollyo

I must confess that as wonderful as this thing is, I grew quite frustrated with it. I really didn't understand some of the ins and outs to it so it took quite a while longer to work with it than I anticipated. I'm still not exactly sure that I did things right. I don't know if it's because of their instructions or because I'm technology impaired sometimes. However, I am hoping that I can get the link on here correctly.

http://www.rollyo.com/share.html

Thing #11 LibraryThing

This is a super way to keep track of my books. Right now I have no way of keeping a record of the books in my classroom. I just trust that I have all the books I've bought over the years. Students ask if they can take them home to read and I trust that they have brought them back. This would enable me to keep a list and set up a better check out system. I'd like to set up one of these at home for all the books I have had to buy my daughters for their classes so that when we get yet another list of books needed for the year, I know what I've already bought without going to look on the shelves. Some times we have been in the bookstore and I can't remember if we already have a copy of something. I visited several groups (What Are You Reading Now?, A Stupid Game to Play, to name a couple.) It was interesting to see what people are reading. I got tickled about some advice to book stores. I liked the easy way to find book titles. I got stuck a couple of times trying to remember how to spell an author's name. I really liked this thing!
I'm going to try to add my book list to my blog. Hope it works.

Thing #10 Fun, Fun, Fun

First of all, this one is the most fun I have had in a while! So much to choose from. I wanted to see everything before making a decision, but got so excited about what I could do that I started making stuff anyway. I can see why the instructions mentioned being tasteful as some of the images were less than that. However, there were many of them that would be suitable for school. Before I go any further with my talking I want to post what I made.






Made with free image tools @ TXT2PIC.com



Yay! It worked. I used Comic Strip Generator and Custom Sign Generator (magnets) for my funnies. They appealed to me the most, although I will use Trading Card too. I kind of like the idea of students generating ideas for certain images as table groups or using it for a contest with the winners getting the posters or magnets. This could even be tied in to a book fair idea.

http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/
http://www.customsigngenerator.com/

Thing #9

I'll admit that this is not necessilarly one of my favorite things.I found School Library Blogs on Suprglu very insightful and giggled when I went to Library2Play on Google BlogSearch and read Mean Old Library Lady's comments on Rollyo. I also liked topix. I did not care for syndic8. I found it confusing. Feedster I could probably use, but it is definitely for adults rather than elementary students. Probably I would check Library Blogs the most often since it has comments by other librarians and would be very helpful to me.

Thing #8 RSS Feeds & Readers

Well I created my reader through Google as recommended. Because I want to stay abreast of library information, I subscribed to several library blogs including A Library By Any Other Name and Library Philosopher. Because of my interest in cooking, I subscribed to a bundle on food which directed me to some great recipes. Also my children keep directing me to YouTube for viewing, so (on a lark) I subscribed to a fun bundle which included the latest YouTube postings. Personally I like RSS and newsreaders because they will give me instant access to information that would be intersting as well as helping me professionally.
On a professional note, I can't imagine trying to run a library without the vital information I have run across in the various library blogs. Of course Library By Any Other Name gave me some wonderful information. I laughed when I saw a picture of myself and my class on the blog! Library Philosopher included a Web Filtering Recommendation that I found useful. I think libraries can use RSS to help teachers access some great sites like Kathy Schrock's Kaffeklatsch (her suggestion of Alltop.com was insightful). News connections to various news sources would be beneficial to students as well.

Thing #7 Google Tools

Wow! So much to choose from. We already have Google Earth on our home computer, so I've seen the possibilities with it. Students would love to see places they are studying. Google Notebook would be great for report writing. I could have used this when I was doing my last report for Dr. Claes' class. It would have been so handy instead of all the notes I was hauling around with me. When I chsecked out the Google Advance Search (Texas Heroes), I found many people who perform in schools. It reminded me that we had a guy who performed as William B. Travis in our school a few years ago. That is something to keep in mind when offering programming ideas to PTO. Google Calendar would be great to stay organized. I thought of using it personally when planning a vacation trip with my parents and sister's family. Students and parents could use it to keep up with assignments and due dates including benchmark tests/other tests. I've decided to use Picassa and iGoogle. I had a little difficulty with Picassa only because of some file management on our computer. Because my husband wanted Picassa too, I set it up so that he could access it. I chose pictures of one of our favorite camping places in Texas-Inks Lake State Park. Here is the link. http://picasaweb.google.com/robjr31/20080323InksLake.

Thing #6 Mashups and 3rd Party Site

Very intriguing! Mappr, Trading Card, Captioner, and Jigsaw were some of my favorites. When I accessed Favorite Surfer (pictures) I couldn't believe it when I chose a random person and he had pictures of Alaska to view. (Background info for my amazement at coincidence: my daughter will cycle from Austin to Anchorage this summer for Sensecorp Texas4000 for Cancer so I have Alaska on the brain lately!) His name is David Cartier and he drives a tour bus in Alaska. I loved FD Toys'Trading Card Maker. I could see using this in the library for teachers and students to access for various projects. Since I teach fourth grade social studies and we study U.S. states/capitals, I thought it would be neat for students to make reports with this. Additionally, I thought of trading cards with characters from a book with character analysis on them. A possible GT project would entail students making up a game with trading cards. Two other sites that I liked were Mappr (seemed best for Geography) and Captioner. The thought I had with Captioner was to get students to create stories into books much like comic books. Jigsaw and Mosaic Maker were neat, but I would want them for personal use rather than educational use. I'll have to try a trading card when I get home. I'm visiting family now and want to get some input on some photos from my daughter.