Liberry Lady

Rickshaw Girl book trailer

2009-09-01T08:04:00.001-07:00

Book trailer - Annie's War

2009-08-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

Animoto book talk - Edward's Eyes

2009-07-05T13:40:00.001-07:00

Thing 11.5 - Evaluation

2009-07-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

Kudos to another wonderful guided tour to new web tools. It was amazing and I thank you for putting it together for us.

1. My favorite discovery has to be GoView screencasts. I have wanted to do that for so long and thought it was much more complicated than it turned out to be. I just wish I had my school software so that I could have created a bunch of them before school started. I also like Bookr to create concept books for K and PreK, but will not post the actual books, just the links, on my blog in the future as they are slow to load. Animoto is also a favorite and I will most likely end up with a paid version when school starts so that I can make longer films. Oh, and Tinychat also looks like it has great interview potential.

2. Last year's program got me started and fired up. This program further assisted my learning goals. I am now following three more blog posts in my Google Reader which I discovered along the way. I have learned to do screencasts so that I can clarify learning for students and teachers at school. I have sticky notes full of new learning to pursue as days go by, lists of software to download at school, and new assignments to propose to teachers when we collaborate. Plus second life stories to make people laugh.

3. I was surprised by Twitter. I had looked at it last year and though it was kind of a waste of time. Now I have a much better idea of how and when to use it, and how it's changing the world. And I have a burning desire for an iPhone now which I didn't have before which isn't going over well with my husband! I was also surprised by how much more confidence I have in just trying things out, and not panicking when I'm not sure how to do something. Last year I was not a big fan of Wikipedia, and now I have given in and allow the students to use it for certain applications, and I often check there for things I don't understand, like deep web, but I really like makeuseof, which I didn't know before. I will definitely go there in the future.

4. I think it would have been better if I had gone in for face-to-face when I got to Second Life. It was not intuitive for me, so I think it's great you included times to meet face-to-face this year . Maybe there would have been some iPhones around to play with as well. Mostly it's about giving us just the right information, but not too much, so we really have to do it ourselves and make it ours. I think you have just the right balance here. Please do another one next year if you can.

Thing 11 - Digital Citizenship

2009-07-03T07:33:00.000-07:00

First, some framework: I work with elementary students in a highly filtered environment, so many of the fun things I am learning here will not be accessible to my students. That's why Rhonda's Reflections blog on digital literacy resonated with me. Access is an important roadblock for us with so many sites blocked. And yet, it is so important to have access to teach.

Next, something to look into: Deep_web resources:"As much as I love Google, to depend entirely on Google is akin to our total dependence on Microsoft in the late 1980's and most of the 1990's. I believe that variety and diversity is an important part of the Internet. I have as an objective of mine to integrate more deep web resources into my classroom and teaching. " Vicki Davis in her Cool Cat Teacher blog on interview with Robert McLaughlin. That is probably for middle and/or high school students, but for me as a teacher as well to look into.

Finally, the lessons I teach: I did see the Digiteen project by Westwood schools on Woogi World which we like as well. It does a good job explaining safety, passwords, what to do if you run into something you don't like, etc... The kids like it,and our IT people are comfortable with it so we have access. I also use lessons from CyberBee on plagiarism, fair use, citations, web site evalutations, and Big 6 model research. I also have students get their Internet drivers license from pbs kids. usually as a review of etiquette lessons. I have the both sets of the ISTE standards posted above my desk to keep me on task when I am creating lessons in the library, as well as AASL's info literacy standards. Every year I try to incorporate more standards as I collaborate with teachers on different projects during the year, but I am doing fewer "library lessons" as time goes on, so some of this gets abbreviated and/or integrated into the projects. I am trying to find a scaffolded approach from grades 2-5 so that we just keep building on skill sets each year.

Thing 10 - Second Life

2009-07-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

Talk about a steep learning curve! My first day of Second Life (5 hours!) was spent downloading, creating my avatar, trying to figure out why I had two sets of hair on my head, learning to walk without walking through walls, learning to chat, learning to teleport, and trying to be just the right amount of friendly without giving the wrong impression. I was VERY uncomfortable with the degree of eroticism all around and I sincerely hope that the teen area is less overt. I did find some amazingly helpful people and a Tolkien exhibit at Imagination Island. That's a pic of my avatar looking at hobbit holes. I could even check out a children's book which appealed to me as a librarian. It's in my inventory now.

My second day (another 5 hours!), I explored Info Island (very quiet place to try things without an audience and with reference librarian on duty to help), Ivory Tower of Prims (great tutorials on how to build which I will try out later, too many annoying people at the sandbox there), and ISTE Island (where I learned about many educational groups). I joined a virtual group (ISTE, since I'm already a RL member) and made note of its coming SL events, socials and speakers. The RL conference is in session this week, but I couldn't find a way to follow it virtually in SL. There will be a speaker on July 7th I intend to go back to hear. From an avatar standpoint, I have started to beef up my profile since I was told by several that it was very sparse. I added interests, slurl's for the places I'd been, and Married with Children for personal. That seemed to help.

My third day I visited a tornado generator on Tornado Island(fabulous, but I couldn't find quite the right way to get sucked up into the tornado which is possible), The Great Wall of China (amazing), The Alamo (pretty good), The Statue of Liberty (just so-so), and The Empire State Building (couldn't get inside). You really need a guide to SL places who know the ins and outs. I saw some tourist agencies but don't want to pay yet. I also visited my first freebie place, very sleazy, with rude people, lots of shoving. I need to find a better one if I'm going to stay because I want to find some animations to help me move better and look more natural, or smile or something.

In terms of educational use, I am an elementary teacher-librarian. To be frank, I probably won't use it in my library. Youtube has some videos of sl places and events that might be better than actually going there with students. You just don't know who will be there. Plus the lag time would make it difficult to keep interest in younger students. I found myself having to be very patient with uploading time. I think the only place I visited that my students and I would have enjoyed seeing together was the Tornado and that's already on youtube. There is probably more value for students 13 years and up for learning in a peer environment.

From a professional education standpoint, I think I will enjoy my speaker next week and look forward to seeing if chat is allowed (or backchanneling backchat) or not. I think virtual conferencing is much cheaper than going there. Plus I would like to explore other areas, like Rome or Egypt, marine or space environments, and just chat with other educators, so I will be going back.

Thing 9: Slidesharing

2009-06-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Slideshare is a huge boost to my professional development because of its amazing archives. There are so many presentations shared there, and I like the Slidecast audio feature and look forward to trying it out when I get back to school.
authorSTREAM's live presentation application is a huge benefit for distance learning since there is a chat feature for discussion, as well as Skype capability.
I really tried to like 280 slides because of its potential for students, or even for teachers creating PowerPoints away from home. It doesn't feel intuitive for me, because of my Office background, but I'm sure my students will learn it quickly and easily without the necessity for relearning. I do not like the fact that you can't seem to upload existing presentations, unless I am missing something.

I like these three the best so far, and each has its "best used for" potential. When I uploaded the same presentation to two different sites, I found this one from Slideshare went very quickly. But I did have to register.

Christian Growth Final

View more documents from sgiddings.

This one from authorSTREAM took three times as long to upload and convert, although I uploaded as a guest instead of registering.

Christian Growth

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by aSGuest21385 Upload your own presentation

Both presentations were just fine, with all the exterior links working, but only the Slideshare presentation kept all the original colors. On the other hand, the authorSTREAM allowed me to change my title, while the other used the title from my upload.

Thing 8: Screencasts

2009-06-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

I chose to do more reading on screencasting before I began and found this interesting blog post by Jon Udell on O'Reilly Digitalmedia, which gives more tips to help prepare for your first screencast. It helped me build confidence to start.

Then I worked with GoView to create a screencast for my second grade students showing them how to use GoogleImages to find a photo for their animal project. Here it is:

or here is a link to the project:
http://goview.com/?id=aaa8b22a-e657-460d-bef5-804b657f945c

It did require a download, but I found it extremely easy to use, cut out sections, and add titles. I really like the 3-2-1 countdown to help me prepare mentally. I would definitely do this again, at school, with tutorials for databases, Accelerated Reader, using the library catalog, and other software I have on school computers. It could be a huge timesaver.

Thing 7: Video

2009-06-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

Blinkx has some wonderful, educational videos. The only drawback is that most are preceeded by advertising. I watched video on dinosaurs, Mars, volcanoes and other science topics.
I was unable to view or download video selections from the National Archive link, but had no trouble when I searched GoogleVideo directly for individual subjects however. These were wonderful, authentic historical selections which will be very helpful in the classroom.

PBS had amazing video, including this one on the migration of butterflies which would have application in the elementary classroom. Just the introduction to the NOVA program would be enough for the younger students. I also like the fact that you can see the transcripts. It doesn't appear as though these videos can be downloaded, only shared by link or purchased from PBS.

Totlol has some cute commercial videos for the younger ones, including some Thomas the Train shorts which could be used in character education contexts, however, there are changes in the works for this site, with the possibility of fees being charged in the future. Joining is required to view content.

Google video is easy to search, manipulate, and download. Here is a short 1 minute video on the Masai people of Tanzania that could be used in a geography class.

NeoK12 had wonderful, short, educational options like this one on the northern lights which is difficult to explain but has more value for students to see.
SchoolTube had this cute student-made book review on One Potato, Two Potato, the Bluebonnet Award winner this year. It seems to be a good forum for student-published work.

Thing 6: itouch

2009-06-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

This post sent me scurrying to the apple store at the mall. The sacrifices I make... It was a daunting task to enter the store with all those teens during the summer and were those clerks speaking English? It's hard to tell with all those acronyms. Not having an iphone or itouch, or dare I say, even an ipod, I'm not sure my observations will be on the mark, but here goes.

I like the QuickVoice application for recording, and I think that would be useful remembering key points of a lecture, dictating homework assignments and conducting interviews, as well as potential application for foreign language studies.

Googledoc, dictionary.com, GoogleEarth, and Wikipanion applications would have value for research and writing.

winremote is something I would like to use as a teacher with a projector since it is much less expensive than the typical media cart set up or tablet.

Here is the itouch official download video tour, including downloading application instructions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF_8EOJ2o8c

Thing 5: Microblogging

2009-06-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

Just found this twitter from Joyce Valenza that seems a propos to our discussion:
joycevalenzaClay Shirky's TED--How Twitter Can Change History http://bit.ly/9JbOd
According to Shirky, China is trying to hide unrest, but because media is produced locally, by amateurs, quickly, and in abundance, it can no longer be effectively filtered. Shirkey states that media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap. It is no longer IF we want to operate in this environment but HOW we will adapt to it.

I have facebook and twitter accounts already which, frankly, I don't use much. I am afraid I am still more of a consumer of media than a producer of media. I am still more private than transparent in my worldview. I do enjoy keeping up with my college kids in a less obtrusive, casual way. I personally found twitter4teachers very helpful to get started finding people to follow.

I think the idea of backchanneling is amazing. I've never participated in that kind of activity. That would free teachers to stimulate critical thinking if simple questions are answered on the spot by peers or moderators. I think every speaker tries to feel the pulse of the audience and this would help. Phones are banned at our school, but students still manage to text under the table. I'm thinking that a moderated backchannel on Tiny Chat would be a more productive activity, kind of like "If you can't beat them, join them."

Thing 4 - Creating/Posting Video

2009-06-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

I found this activity to be enjoyable, but frustrating. I used both PhotoStory 3 (Microsoft download) and Windows Movie Maker to create a book trailer for Paint the Wind by Pam Munoz Ryan. I ended up posting the wmv file to Youtube Education and TeacherTube. The uploads were the easiest part. The music was the hardest part. I think I am ready to get a site license to Soundzabound just for ease of use and copyright protection. Here is the youtube embed (TeacherTube reviews the upload and posts it after 24 hours).

I like having more creative control over the end product, but animoto is definitely snazzier than what I can create. I think book trailers are really helpful to promote reading and I intend to make more, but youtube is blocked at our school. We can't see most of what's on neok12 which is a shame. I know my library students will have more fun making book trailers than the usual reports and I look forward to seeing what they will produce. I am also hopeful that teachertube will not be blocked.

Thing 2 Animoto Book Trailer

2009-06-18T12:46:00.001-07:00

Thing 3 - Skype

2009-06-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

I use Skype at home, but not at school. We don't allow Skype at school because of bandwidth limitations. I love the makeuseof site which I don't remember seeing last year as a resource. I found this index and started looking at some of the resources listed there:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/30-tools-and-tips-to-make-your-skype-better-all-free/
I think the recordings of Skype and answering machine widgets are the best tips.

The hard part would be trying to find a class to connect with, I imagine. I don't think epals provides for a Skype interface, but this wiki helps you find other classrooms to connect with for and offers many other resources for making the program more applicable to education. http://wikiskype.pbworks.com/Skype+in+the+Classroom

This site refers to an author interview with Cynthia Leitch Smith conducted by a high school in Austin. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6515247.html That is something I would like to do very much.

The following site was very helpful, very basic in how to actually begin teaching the program to students and Vicki Davis gives helpful tips such as giving a grade and checking profiles. http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/10/using-skype-in-classroom-or-just.html

I think the best applications are to include absent students via Skype, to conduct interviews with experts and authors, to have cultural exchange "show and tells" with students from different countries, and to conference with parents after hours, especially with an out-of-state parent (which you would probably want to record).

Thing 2 - Bookr

2009-06-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

Bookr is amazing! I get so frustrated shelling out big bucks for a little book of pictures and minimal text to help the younger grades understand key concepts. Here is a link to a book I created in a short amount of time. To read it, turn the top or bottom corner of the page.

I can see myself using this on a weekly basis for "the littles". They will certainly find this more fun and much easier to see. I will say that the site is mostly intuitive, but a little tricky. For instance, you can't save your work that I can tell, so you need to have a good amount of time to finish and publish your work. Also, some of the flickr pictures are inappropriate. Try searching hot or heat tags and you'll see what I mean... Probably uploading your own pictures would be safer is you are going to have students make books.

Thing 2 - Wordsift

2009-06-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

I am already familiar with Wordle. It's fun and easy for students to use to find the main idea. So this time I explored Wordsift and I really love its potential. It does everything wordle does, (without all the creative, colorful options) and much, much more. I especially like the links to definitions in the visual thesaurus, the links to other sites, and less so the clip art. It does have images that are inappropriate for younger students who can use Wordle comfortably most of the time unless an inappropriate wordle is featured on the home page. I chose to wordsift my first posting on Thing 1. It came up with some fun connections and youtube sites that were helpful. I think students will especially benefit from the visual dictionary which will help them identify key words for searching. Besides the occasional clip art issues and lack of creative freedom, I'm also not fond of the fact that you can't remove common words like you can in wordle.

Thing 2 - Glogster

2009-06-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Here is my first attempt at Glogster. I think it will be fun to create lesson links for students, but I don't think it is intuitive or easy enough for elementary students.

From a teaching standpoint, though, it's much more interesting than a pathfinder in word!

Thing 2 - Voki

2009-06-15T15:47:00.001-07:00

Thing 1 2009

2009-06-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

After watching the Networked Student my first reaction was "Hey, that's me -- thanks to 23 1/2 things!" I've not continued active blogging on this blog, but my PLN is intact, my wiki works, and my connections are so much richer than this time last year. So, I started asking all the college students I know about their PLN's and, guess what... they don't have one, at least not for learning, just for social networking. Their MP3's have only music. Their twitters are for fun. Their youtube use is voracious, but the sillier the better.

So I think there is still a great need for librarians and teachers to help them exploit the full potential of their tools. Personally, I am in an elementary library, so I will just keep teaching the tech basics, showing what's out there on the net, explaining intellectual property and promoting literacy of many kinds to try to get them ready. Another important role is to encourage my teachers to keep learning, to get their PLN's going, and to see what's out there to help them in their job of teaching in the classroom.

Voicethread

2008-07-23T19:09:00.001-07:00

Found this great idea to update our fourth grade fractured fairy tale project by moving it to Voicethread.com This is an example of a story written and performed by 2nd grade students.
Adventures of Baby Bob

Thing 23

2008-07-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to put into words all this class has meant to me, but the most important thing I learned is don't just say it, show it so I created this silly video with Windows Movie Maker.

My favorite discoveries: blogs and del.icio.us (remember, I'm a 1.0 gal just now learning to operate in a 2.0 world so I'm starting a little behind.)
My lifelong learning goals are exponentially increased since I now need to go back and develop all these new tools I've subscribed to, plus be alert to new trends.
The most surpising thing was how much I enjoyed what I thought I would dread, and how different today's student really is.
I think this program was exceptionally well-designed. Most of the work needs to be personal and hands-on anyway. The only thing I would change is to move the using your name discussion in thing 12 up to Thing 3 where we need it.
I would DEFINITELY choose to participate in the next stage of the journey. It's foolish to think I can navigate this new world without a guide and I know there's so much more to see, like Second Life and new mashups.
Empowering and stretching.
Thank you for the kick in the pants to get me going on my lifelong journey of discovery2.0.

Thing 22 - Nings

2008-07-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

At first, I was confused about the differences between nings and wikis, but this project helped clear this up for me. The wiki is a collaborative group of web pages like an intranet,l not meant to be static. A ning is designed around a social networking purpose, and members upload a static version of what they want to share, while allowing discussion. The extent of collaboration by participants is different in nature because the purpose of the site is different. So you would use a wiki to produce maybe a story together, or to research a topic. But you would use a ning for a classroom to allow students to upload their completed videos, etc... to share with classmates for discussion. I did create a wiki, but not a ning yet until I check with my school IT. I won't create one unless I can use it with my school population. In theory, it could make my library web page function like an interactive, collaborative, library web page.

I am in an elementary school and saw an elementary group on teacher librarian ning (which I joined primarily for professional development), but not on the Texas school librarian ning, (which I also joined because I enjoy Shonda Brisco's postings on the different listservs and my 5th grade students are almost middle school and soon need to function in middle school).

Oh, and I had to open a facebook account -- finally. My two college sons have mixed feelings about it as you can imagine. :)

Thing 21 - podcasts and photo story

2008-07-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

This was a tough one for me. I had to go out and buy a mic and figure out the settings to make it record properly, download audacity, download the lame encoder from audacity, think of what to say, learn how to use the software, and me without even an ipod to my name! Now comes the hard part, exporting it to this blog post. Here goes... This will be used for a Texas trivia contest over the course of the year for our fourth graders. Book trailers, audio reminders for directory paths, student storytelling, lots of cool things...

The next task is easier for me as I have already explored Photo Story this summer for my twin boys' high school graduation retrospective. I had lots of fun playing with the music and old photos. I didn't have a mic at the time, and it would have been fun to add my comments to some of the pictures. Unfortunately, it is very long and would not load so I tried a shortened version below. I may have to play with the file size some more (still 2M) to get it to load. It was the highlight of the day for my family members. I can see this in place of biography reports, author studies, history events, U.S. state reports, almost anything ....

Thing 20 - video

2008-07-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Youtube -- familiar territory at last! And I have also used Zamzar before to show a Youtube video at school. Blinkx is amazing, but I think Google Video has more search power which, as always, is both a blessing and a curse. The Portal to Texas History will be very helpful with fourth grade Texas history classes as well. I knew the website but the trailer is fun.

Teacher Tube is new to me and it probably is not blocked at my school. It has much less offensive material, but not nearly the choice in imho. I think it is fantastic for finding out what other schools are doing with video and I really think we'll be making a claymation video, or a storytelling video this coming school year. Here is one example I found.

I sure hope this works. I've always loved this Leo Lionni story.

Here is another video discovered via the Cool Cat Teacher blog on a new way to teach at Woodland Parks High School in Colorado - lectures at home and homework done at school, a flipped classroom.

Thing 19 - Web2.0 awards

2008-07-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

What a great awards list, full of many of my new friends like del.icio.us and flickr and google documents, and many more! I looked at several, including the color blender, which was fun to use to color coordinate a website or a room, but then I settled on twitter. I have been hearing so much about it lately that I knew I'd eventually have to open an account. The overview was good, including a great commoncraft video that explained how twitter differs from email and blogs. Basically it's for little sound bytes of what you are doing or thinking, no longer than 145 words per post, complete with a handy little counter that counts down to zero as you are posting. There are fan sites and twitter etiquette sites, and it even went to Mars and was one of the first places to find out that ice was discovered on the planet. Amazing phenomenon! This tool, more than any other is hard for me to get comfortable with and it should be so easy. I think it's because it is not a productivity tool, and doesn't seem "important" enough. I can't imagine why anyone would want to know if I mowed the lawn, ate soup, drank coffee, or wasn't up to anything, just hanging around. I know so many people that are completely sold on it. That in a nutshell defines the digital divide. I still relish my privacy too much to "share" all the time.

Thing 18 - google documents

2008-07-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

I have explored the google documents through a "brand-new this summer"school google account. The tutorials were very helpful and incorporated hands-on practice which really made it easy to use. Basically, they can function as a wiki allowing changes by anyone you specify. That makes it useful for me to upload collaboration documents with my teachers that allow us all - the library, the computer teacher, the classroom teacher, and principal to collaborate on assignments for our students, then to upload them to a safe, accessible location for our students. I am so much more used to the Microsoft products that I still really need to think before using them on new documents. Of course, for all the work already created on Microsoft products, it is easy to upload existing documents as well or link to them which helps. You can even conference live time to see who is working on the document or set up a time to review them for everyone without meeting in person if there is noone to cover the library at a specified time. That helps me multitask and get needed tasks accomplished during the day. The documents move so easily from one google product to another with just a click of the button which makes it a time saver that helps compensate for the learning curve to produce the documents. You can work on documents offline for times when the internet is down by adding a gadget. Still exploring all the ramifications, but I think I'll be making the adjustment. Plus, I'm sure we'll get school-based training in August when we get back which will be frosting on the cake.

Thing 17 - Rollyo

2008-07-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

Today I checked out Rollyo and really see the use of it for teaching students. I compared it with Google's custom search on sites collected for our 5th grade report on United States Presidents. Both worked very well, but I especially liked seeing all the options on the rollyo site that were already created by other users. I felt like I wasn't having to reinvent the wheel but had a expert go ahead of me and prepare the way. I was unable to add the button to my toolbar, even after I unlocked the tool bar and checked the settings. I don't understand because Del.icio.us button uploaded just fine. Still trying to get it to show, but for now have the page starred as a favorite on the tool bar and on del.icio.us.

On the other hand, My original searches are conducted on google advanced so I'm already there. Also, once the searches are created, and in many cases I already have lists of weblinks prepared from previous years, it is easy to put them into google as well. And I have link created on my igoogle page so that makes it just as easy for me, more familiar for the students, and easily uploaded to my other google tools for students, so I will probably end up using both.

Thing 16 - wikis

2008-07-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

Wiki's have eenormous potential, especially for today's student who wants high tech, high touch learning. It is something I am seriously going to try to implement in the library this year. I never really took off with my web page the way I wanted to, and Edline is too restrictive, so I am going all out for a wiki through pb wiki. Ad free is the real selling point with me and with parents at our private school. I'll try to remember to add a link here when I have my page set up. I hope it will generate a database of student book reviews, give access to my calendar for all parents to see and teachers to update as necessary, allow student research log-type feedback, in short, do everything I wanted my web page to do, but interactively.

I think it will be an important tool for our younger students as well, those who typically do not have email. Here is a way to contribute to the discussion on any computer, with just a user name and password. I think it will make parents feel safer and allow more access by the students. I saw a cute 4th grade classroom wiki at Edington House School via a link from Vicki Davis' blog A Library by any Other Name.

Found a new wiki entry to star as a favortie NECClibrarians08 seminar. It's almost like being there!

Thing 15 - Library 2.0 and beyond

2008-07-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

Many new discoveries in this exercise. One exciting find was a wiki WebTools4u2use, as well as a wonderful list of blogs broken down by categories that specifically deal with Library 2.0 called socialnetworking4teachers. So, of course, I had to add a few of those to my Google Reader. Since those finds were wickis, I am sure I'll be visiting them again in future blog postings. I did see one project for elementary school students on the list called The Flat World 1001 Tales which may bear looking into.

In terms of ideas about using Web2.0 as a teacher I have a long way to go and I need to see how much of this will be allowed by our tech department and/or school administration. Encouraging elementary school students to have their say on blogs and wickis involves many more people than the traditional library services and certainly involves more advance planning. This goes beyond lesson plans and teacher collaboration to include IT cooperation, parental permissions, registering for accounts, technical reliabilities, comfort on my part, etc... I think we'll be able to do this through our school's secure Edline account, but I think parents are the only ones with logins at the moment. I'm ready to tackle it this year, but it wasn't fair of Dr. Wendy Schultz to be talking about Library 3.0 and Library 4.0 already when I'm still getting my mind wrapped around the potential of 2.0!

Thing 14 - Technorati blog search

2008-06-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

I have been very curious about Technorati since it has been referenced many times in this 23 1/2 things adventure. I explored keyword searching which helped me get to the right area, and then tag searching to follow out specific themes such as "library_love" to watch the latest video submissions on You-Tube. I am quite sold on tags. I also did some research on solar energy blogs on Technorati and on Google Blog Search. Both pointed me to excellent sites, although different ones on the top 10, so I think searching in tandem is the key -- not sticking to just one site.

It wasn't really surprising to me to see that the most popular blogs at the moment are technology-related (with the exception of The Huffington Post probably because it's an election year). I think things change so quickly in technology that blogs are the only way to keep up with things. Educationally speaking, I think this site is more geared for older students and professional development. I did see some interesting videos promoting the library which gave me some ideas for creating one for our elementary library this year. I found so many more blogs of interest to me on Edublogger.

While I explored the widgets I chose not to join Technorati because I feel I'm getting spread too thin. If I get too many things going, I won't develop the habits I need in any depth. At least I know what the site is if I need it again. There were no tutorials for using the site either which makes me feel that the site is really for techies, not so much for educators.

Thing 13 - del.icio.us and tagging

2008-06-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

del.icio.us is delightful and i don't know how I managed with my ikeepbookmarks account which I found very slow to load sometimes crashed on me. Having the buttons on my browser made all the difference and I am smitten with tags. Now I understand what all the chatter has been about replacing sears and Dewey categories with tags. You can create your own categories that make sense to you. I appreciated the simplicity of the embedded Commoncraft video. Here is my fledgling list.

For professional development, seeing what everyone else is reading is so important. Finding helpful websites, vetted by other librarians is so easy with this site. Organizing flexibility and specifically remembering what I liked about a site, will be so helpful.

For students, keeping track of all their sites to go back to fix citations and check facts would be helpful. Finding sites preselected by the teacher without having to type them , even from home, will be very beneficial. Teaching students to evaluate websites for instance by looking at the difference between a popular and unpopular site with the same information.

Only thing I don't like about del.icio.us is the name! The word Furl is easier to type but I didn't care for it as much aesthetically, and there weren't as many results as I would have liked on ma.gnolia,.

June Authors' & Illustrators' Birthday Calendar

2008-06-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

June Authors' & Illustrators' Birthday Calendar

Thing 12 - commenting

2008-06-26T07:07:00.000-07:00

This Thing really made me realize the differences between generations. While I see the need to contribute, I am on a steep learning curve and I find it exhausting to be in these types of learning communities online and sitting at my desk communicating so much. I still prefer face-to-face, showing my age I guess. The other comment I would like to make is the using your name discussion should have been part of Thing 3 as I was creating my avatar and setting up accounts. I probably would have made different decisions.

But, OHHHH!, there are gems in all the digging. YouTube - We Think was one result of searching Drapes Takes today. I find it amazing that one simple 2 minute video can change many of my long-established understanding of the teaching process and am glad he posted it from YouTube where I'm afraid to go directly anymore because too many hours go by. I've subscribed to Drake's feed too because it seems very thoughtful and uses big, new words like adhocracy in his posts.

I was able to comment on the Library2Play blogs, but had much more difficulty commenting on "expert sites". I don't feel qualifed except to lurk at this point. But I finally found a very welcoming post on the Library Tweeter blog titled "Is Anybody Out There" which gave me confidence to post as I had already read the Bluebonnet Books. Then I found a great article on Information Overload when I searched google blogs. Needless to say I had some newfound expertise in that area!

Thing 11 - Library Thing

2008-06-25T18:51:00.000-07:00

This was an easy one. IT was a piece of cake to add titles to my catalog. I like having the widget to pop right from my blog to my catalog on Library Thing. In the Thingology blog I read an interesting comment on mashtags perhaps taking the place of traditional catalog entries one day, or at least bridging the gap. I'm going to try to put more care into tagging here, and in my catalog on Library Thing. I also read about the possibilities of using Library Thing for Readers Advisory Services. That really looks promising down the road as more titles are put in. Right now I just have the five books on my desk in there so I'll need to put in a few more to find a "kindred spirit" to share titles with. The Zeitgeist tab brought up some interesting data, but I think the figures just apply to the actual users of the site in terms of book and author popularity.

I would use the site more if they had a separate section for children's books, though.

An update: It's official. Library Thing is now officially trying to create a new catalog based on tags and is looking for volunteers to head up the endeavor.

Thing 10 - images

2008-06-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

I created the stop making excuses sign on sidebar using Imagechef. It's my little reminder that I CAN DO THIS! I am a lifelong learner. I found it very easy to use and to upload photos for home use. For school purposes, it would be a great idea to create fun new signs for the kindergarten community sign unit, to have kids create motivational buttons, to introduce authors.

After about 1 hour of playing around with all the different possibilities, I felt like this from Comic Strip Generator.

The site was friendly and I'm sure students could use it to introduce creative writing assignments, write thank you notes to speakers, and just for fun practice typing.

For most flexibility, I still prefer the BigHugeLab site we explored in thing 7 which has losts of cool project templates and is the easiest by far to use.

Thing 9 - library blogs

2008-06-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

I really like Edublog as a tool. The first thing I saw when I clicked in was Best Librarian Blog Awards. I followed out to the first place winner Hey Jude and read about glogster for the first time. Amazing! One of the posters was an Internet scavenger hunt theme and the librarian radar clicked in - Scavenger hunt?! we do scavenger hunts in the library. This would be more fun than the ones we do.

Technorati also yielded many interesting results, in all different formats, but with 1500 blogs tagged libraries I still feel overwhelmed, even with the descriptor attached. I can see that, as always, precision is key so got better results (for me) when I typed in elementary school librarian. The tutorial wasn't really worth the trip, especially since it loaded in Dutch the first time! I have used the free lesson accelerators before with Atomic Learning and one or two of the free tutorials, so that was like finding a friend in a crowd of strangers.

I am getting lost as I move from place to place and need a better system for keeping track which I hope to find in future lessons. Now that I can open several tabs on the browser, I can get even more lost than I was before! Where do all the hours go?

Thing 8 - RSS feeds.

2008-06-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Some of my favorite feed articles are linked in the side bar. I access them easily on my igoogle page's Google Reader gadget. I think RSS feeds are a great professional development time saver, plus I feel more likely to "stumble upon" the things I need to know to do my job. I will still rely heavily on my LM-Net Listserv friends for good ideas and practical tips, but the sites I chose are good for thinking and building a vision about what the library is becoming.

I saved the Eagles Read site so that I can build one like it for my own students. I hope they are as excited about talking about Bluebonnet books, research question troubleshooting, new books, and keywords as I am.

Thing 7 - Google earth

2008-06-23T20:13:00.001-07:00

This posting has taken the longest time thus far because every time I opened a link to a different Google tool I lost track of time playing with it. I signed up for everything I think but I still feel as though I've just scratched the surface. The tool I played with the most was Google Earth which I downloaded for the first time today. I've set my home as a begin from here location and I've added different fly to locations, the seismic layer, and have everything just right except it doesn't open from the little icon and I need to use updater to try to reload every time. Fortunately it saves everything even when I delete and add the software as I've tried twice. It has something to do with my graphics card apparently. I guess it's time for a new computer. The uses are mindboggling and the students will be so impressed. Enrichment for geography, of course, astronomy lessons, world missions for Bible classes, writing prompts, story settings, biographies for social studies, current events. Great fun.

I have also customized my igoogle page to the hilt. Went so crazy I had to take many things off to keep it cleaner but kept 1000 places to visit, sticky note, weather, calculator, translator, notebook, reader, dictionary, news feed and moon phases. I also added a game tab with Sodoku, NY Times Crossword, MahJongh for fun. I may move all of the google tools to a new tab.
See it here.

Thing 6 - mashups

2008-06-23T14:50:00.000-07:00

I created a stamp in Big Huge Labs using the framer tool and a photo we took in Hawaii. I plan to have our 3rd grade students create stamps for their state reports. There are so many tools that would be useful to me professionally and personally. This is the site I've been looking for! Our kids don't have access to professional photo editing tools and they are too young to use most of the ones I've looked at. If I can do it they can too. Posters for teachers to make, badges for our bookfair volunteers, biography trading cards, science fair demos, staff trading cards, scavenger hunt type trading cards, writing prompt photos -- too many things to count. Thank you 23 1/2 things!

Thing 4 - registration step

2008-06-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

I have officially registered, but well past the deadline of June 10th. Even if I don't get continuing ed professional credit for the work I'm doing this summer, I am learning so much that it really doesn't matter. I was too overwhelmed to tackle 2.0 without a plan, and just having the framework in place is all the help I need to get started and take those baby steps. I obviously have alot to learn because I keep forgetting that posts are made most recent on top so my Thing numbers are very new math, I'm afraid.

I can't wait to get back to school and start implementing these ideas. I wish I had seen this a year ago!

Thing 5 - photos

2008-06-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken by Darren Hesten and found on the Flickr site in the Creative Commons/Attributions section. I liked it because it is the perfect "apple for the teacher" picture with a twist - the colors seem to be the reverse of the stereotypical red apple. The flickr site looks very useful, especially the creative commons section. I especially like the link to the Creative Commons photos from the Library of Congress which will come in handy when we need to have primary source photos in history, art, science, etc... I can also see accessing the pictures for 5th grade world geography projects, 2nd grade animal reports, signs unit in Kindergarten, really too many places to count. But really interesting to me since we are FINALLY getting class sets of digital cameras and this will help us manage.

Thing 2 - 7 1/2 habits

2008-06-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

I read Covey's book 7 Habits books several years ago and it made quite an impact on me, but I had never thought of the habits in the context of information literacy. Great "mash up", is that the word? As was the case in the past, despite actively working to improve this area, my main issues are with seeing problems as crises to manage instead of challenges to learn from. Intellectually I know that the most creative work comes from having to think outside the box to deal with a perceived challenge or problem, but in real life I still struggle to flex and bend in a new direction. The easiest for me is to accept responsibility for my learning. That's why this old dog is still trying to learn new tricks.

Thing 3 - avatar and personal blog

2008-06-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

I am slightly intimidated looking at some of the blogs thus far. I feel like a foreigner to this new world.' but the Chinese proverb comes to mind: "Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." Here is my first baby step into Web 2.0. Setting up the accounts turned out to be the hardest part of the assignment. None of my email addresses were accepted by blogger until I opened a gmail account, but things went well after that. Another account opened at yahoo, but working with the avatar was fun. I chose an explorer because I really do feel like one. Might be that the most difficult part of this assignment will be keeping track of all the passwords and user names! Very much looking forward to the next step and am so grateful for this structured program to help me in my explorations. Thank you Dr. Bishop and Spring Branch ISD.