Thing #23!!

I made it! I finished! I was really worried but am glad I finished.

My favorite discovery was NINGS. I love how they have evolved from when I first joined a NING years ago. This is one place I will go back to to get ideas and inspiration.


My favorite activity was the Photostory. I love it when I get "into" a project. I loved the activity so much I skipped lunch and only left my computer to go to the bathroom. Also the basic introduction into the web 2.0 world via hands on activities, like creating a blog (my first). Some activities I had already explored so I explored to a greater extent because I had the time.


This program has not only assisted my learning but had affected it. I have learned that it is OK to try new things and let the virtual world get to know me. Sometimes things work and sometimes it doesn't. You just have to get in and get your hands "messy."



One thing that was unexpected was my husband's reaction to my discoveries and my enthusiasm. He has always been very protective of his reputation and information about him that gets online. I guess that's where some of my fear and resistant was in opening up and letting the world get to know me online. He has realized that this has kept me from communicating and performing my job better and is now willing to spend the money to upgrade my phone so I can text (yes, I have never sent a text) and do all the other cool things my youngest son (22yrs) has done with his phone and all the apps he has. While I respect that he doesn't want to do a lot of these things he respects my feelings and supports and encourages me and my life online.


The biggest improvement I would make to the program would be to make sure when people click on the links it is on an active link. I don't just mean that it works. Make sure that what you want "students" to see is actually being used. When we were looking at wikis I found some from the Library2play site that hadn't been used in 2 years. It gave me the impression that this type of technology was no longer being used.


I can't wait until next year and participate in Library2play2. Could I do Library2play3 in the same summer as Library2Play2? I would expect to have to complete 2 before continuing on to 3. Otherwise I would always feel left behind.


My quote would be that "Many of these 'Things' are things I had been meaning to explore but never seemed to have time. This was the perfect setting for that."


I have already made many comments on others blogs and have gotten one or two from others. I'm ready to go out into "the world" and comment on everything that inspires me.

Thing #22

I really like NINGs. I now feel "plugged in." I had joined the TeacherLibrarianNING two or three years ago after attending TLA. At first I didn't see the point. I love it now! It is Face book/wiki/blog Teacher tube social net work especially for LIBRARIANS! It is the ultimate 2.0 application.

I can't wait for school to start so that I can get ideas from other librarians. I don't feel like I'm in this by myself anymore. There is a world of other professionals that is in the same boat I am. Sometimes at school I feel like I am an island. I have no peers to speak of that does the same job I do. Yes I have other librarians in my district but each of us has gotten used to "doing our own thing" that is special for our campus.

I joined the Texas Librarian NING after looking around. It is a fairly new or not well known NING. I can tell because there wasn't an Elementary discussion group so I joined and started one.

I will be visiting the NING more as I need great ideas and as I incorporate more technology.

Thing #21

I had created a PhotoStory in the past but this time I had the time and enthusiasm to learn about all the bells and whistles of the program. I love this program. It is very easy. You just have to upload your photos, add some music and go. Or you could take a lot of time and time the photos, or add some narration. I could see this used in many different ways. Students could take pictures of what they wanted to create a story and then narrate the story using the sound or type in the text to tell the story. They could create their own ebook. Students could create book reviews as evidence they have read a book. They could link pictures together to show steps in a process like an experiment or science project. The applications are only as limited as your imagination. I had a lot of fun creating my PhotoStory and look forward to teaching this to teachers and students.
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Thing #20

YouTube
While YouTube is a good source of videos, for those of us with less than high speed Internet, it can be a drain on bandwidth. I understand now why many districts block YouTube. There were many instructional videos that would be suitable for most high school or university teaching. There was even some videos for elementary. The majority of the videos are for the sole purpose of entertainment. If you have a lot of time and bandwidth on your hands you could spend hours, days, weeks, months, and possibly years on YouTube and never repeat a video.



Teacher Tube
Teacher tube was not kind to the bandwidth either but I believe the information was better. Teacher Tube seemed to have a different purpose. While YouTube was entertaining, teacher Tube is a better source when looking for materials to supplement our lessons. I like that they not only have a way to upload videos but you can easily download them to use so you don't have to stream them. They also have a place for you to upload and download documents.

Teacher Tube is more organized, social, and overall more complete. It better meets the needs of teachers and education. It has a way for them to find anything associated with education. Blogs, groups to chat, videos, documents, jobs, or things to purchase like on Craig's list. You might say Teacher Tube is YouTube 2.0. It is better and worth more of my time. I was very impressed with Teacher Tube and will continue to visit when I find myself in need. I just may have to go to Starbucks for a latte and some bandwidth.

Here is the video I found on Teacher Tube about the Dewey Decimal System which I teach to all my students each year. So I am always looking new ways to explain it to students. Besides it was cool and fun to watch.

Thing #19

I love cooking and watching the Food Network and the Cooking Channel. So I investigated the Imcooked site.

I love that it is free and so easy to use. People can upload their videos and show off their cooking and or video skills. It was like looking for recipes at first. Then I found one that was really good. It made me feel like I was watching the Food Network. It was very entertaining. There are even videos from famous people like Christopher Walken and Paul McCartney. Alton Brown is on the David Letterman show and that was very entertaining too!

They have different "Channels" which is different types of foods. They have Groups although not too many. I think it is a fairly unknown site as there were less then 4,000 members. There is a place to "Upload" your videos and a place to upload videos to help others on how to make videos,"Creating".

How will all this fit into education? I thought at first it would be great for my students in the library because we need to teach sequencing and step-by-step instructions, How to's. Also it would be good for summerizing or details. I showed classes clips from movies last year and they summerized those after picking out the details.

The "Creating" will be helpful this year because the TIS and I are starting a Technology club. My district just started a technology contest, videos, Photostory, Annimotos, That sort of thing. Students did not know how to create those as the teachers spend most of their instructional time on the basics of reading, writing, math and science. I'm hoping that when I get to school it won't be blocked like all the other video sites like YouTube.

Thing #18

I played with Google Docs. I figured since I had a Google account and have been doing all this stuff on Google I would use that so I didn't have to download any new programs.

The benefit to Google Docs is that the storage is on their server. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection and you could conduct business. People without computers or Internet could go to the library and create there as everything is FREE! I love free.

Another benefit to Google Docs is that you don't have to email anyone your documents. Just give them the address and you could actually collaborate on the document at the same time. There have been many times when I have read my husbands or son's college papers and if we had used Google Docs then we could look at them at the same time and make the changes together.

Thing #17

At first I didn't see the point of Rollyo but then when I watched Bruce's video and how it was set up and how easy it was I bought into it. I had my account started before the end of the video and started looking around. This is going to save me time!

When a grade does a research project I usually set up a page on my website specially for them with all the links they will need to include some cute pictures. This usually takes a day to a weekend and my eyes are all bloodshot. With Rollyo I can do the same thing but I won't have to have an entire page. I just have to give them the address of the Rollyo. They will feel more like they are searching the web and aren't limited to the few links they have on a website.

When I created my Rollyo I went to a website I had created this last school year for a 3rd grade Black History project and put in the major websites that I had searched. It worked great and because I was searching all those sites at the same time I actually found some articles that I had missed when just looking for that one topic.

Thank you for this great tool!

Thing #16

When I was going through the examples given on the Library2Play site I found one thing that worried me. Most things were not dated or if they were they were old-2006-2008. Are wikis a thing of the past and people are no longer using them? Has the fad faded? Am I that far behind that I can identify that things are old? or not current? It's like wikis were the latest and greatest and everyone set one up and spent a lot of time setting up this great tool but no one had added to it in 2 years. When your talking about technology I expect to see at least 2009 or 2010 even if it isn't the same month we are in now, it is summer and school is out.

I like the idea of wikis and will use one for sure. My district just set up a wiki for the librarians to contribute to so we can collaborate on lessons and such. We need to standardize the teaching in the library from school to school and we are going to use the wiki to communicate more effectively. I am excited that our district librarians are going to have a wiki to collaborate. We never seem to have enough time to share the good things we are doing in our libraries at our monthly meetings.

How will I use this in the library? I could set one up for my library and have teachers, or students, post their research projects that they create. It could be a way for the students to store their project while they are creating and editing. Students can currently save to the server at school but working on it at home would not be possible and many students (grades 2-5) do not have the pen drives to take to and from school. This way the students could have access to it at home. Students could collaborate on a project in their own homes.

Thing #15

Wow! What a powerful video. I loved it! I want to show all the teachers I work with. We, the educators, need to communicate the way they, the students, communicate and they will better recieve our message.

Library 2.0 means to me that technology is used in some form or fashion. We as librarians and educators need to focus on how we communicate with our students and what we ahve them do for products. We need to hype up our lessons to keep them engaged as they are multi taskers. These students are not the same students that walked though our doors 5 or 10 years ago. They have grown up with the technology. They think about using the technology first.

I loved all the things Michael Stephens had to say about being a Librarian 2.0. I hope this year to morph from a Librarian 1.0 to Librarian 2.0. I think this "class" and doing these "23 Things" is a good step.

"It's going to have to happen one library-one little boat- at a time." Rick Anderson I hope my library or boat, will be able to join the tranformation.

Thing #14

When I searched "School Library Learning 2.0" both in blogs and in posts I got nothing. The popular blogs link was active but I guess Technorati is doing some updates at the moment and it is unavailable. I'll have to go back later.

I did go in and try other searches. I tried teachers, learning and books just for fun so I could see how it could be useful. I can see how this would be useful for advertisers or those who care about what other people think.

I was bummed when I went to the Technorati widgets as they were not available. They are currently doing some updates. I will try again at another time.

Thing #13

I LOVE Delicious! I went to TCEA in 2009 and at the end of the conference I was like a deer in headlights. I knew I had to get a Delicious account. If I am at home or at school if I have a site I come accross I can quickly bookmark it. I stay signed in almost all the time I am looking for something.

I went to our Summer Tech Camp last week and heard of more social bookmarking sites. The presenter was Jenni Keith and she was great! She gave us time to play with the new sites. She actually made us sign up for the accounts and some have educator accounts too! Those sites were Symbaloo, ShareTabs, and Diigo which was Furl on the Library2play site. I think that Symbaloo would be good for me to organize the links I use for reasearch with my students. Sharetabs we didn't spend too much time on but Diigo is great. I works with Delicious and you could save links from your phone.

Tagging to me is like subjects in the card catalog. The more tags it has the easier it is to locate, expecially if you are looking for a specifick link and you can't remember what you tagged it as.

Thing #12

I wish this Thing was earlier. I'm just understanding the blogging concept now. Two things I learned from all this and I think is important is:

1. It's 'O.K.' to put yourself out there. If you don't comment on other's blogs then you are not part of the conversation and you are just eavesdropping. My mother taught me that it is impolite to eavesdrop. But I also know it is not alright to interrupt conversations.

2. When you do comment and put yourself out there then you need to sign your posts. It's 'O.K.' to use your real name. I think it is more professional to use your real name then a cute made up alias. I use my real name because I'm not that creative and all I could think of was "Mrs. Cardon" which is what I am called about 90% of the time. The other 10% is "Mom" or "Dear."

3. I went to 5 or more of the blogs in the Library2Play and left comments here and there. I looked at when the last post was. I have discovered through this experience that I like blogs that are more current. I lost count as I had fun reading other's blogs and looking at their backgrounds and how they have customized their blog. I ran across 2 that had finished today. Those blogs looked very professional like they had been blogging for a while.

4. When I was going through the instructions for this thing I mustered up my courage and left comments if I could. Those links that discuss blog etiquette were from 2008 and I felt a little behind the curve ball as it is now 2010!

Thing # 11

After reading the introductory information and watching the YouTube video, I created yet another account, which was super simple, and looked around before adding my required 5 books. As I was adding them I thought about the uses for this LibraryThing.

When I was in the classroom I would have loved to have this so I could keep track of all my books and who had them and which were loved so much the student who borrowed it added the book to their collection. I loved how when I added a book it told me how many other members had the same books. There were reviews and suggestions if you liked this book you'll like this sort of thing. This will not only help with my personal reading but in choosing books for my library. Every once in awhile I'll buy a dud but I like to go on student recommendations because they bug me about "Did that book come in yet?"

I have arranged my library schedule this school year so that I can meet with the teachers of each of the grade levels I work with. I will also be able to present a technology tip of the week. This wil be one quick thing I will show them as it is something that they will be able to use.

I also lurked around the groups and added two or three to my reader and created a separate folder for them. The blog folder was getting a little crowed.

I checked out talk and found a couple of threads where people were actively "talking." I also looked at local for events. This might be a good way to get out the word for a book fair at my school or when we do the Barnes and Noble event in November.

All in all a good experience and well worth the time.

Thing #10

In this thing I visited all the online generators listed on the Library2Play site. Every site I visited I tried to create something. The one to the right, or any of the images on the Comic Strip Generator could be used as a writing prompt for students.

When I went to ImageChef I loved paying in there. Teachers could allow students to create their own and print them out to put on anything that needed to be labeled in the classroom. I emailed my creation to my husband.

The Happy Face Generator was fun and I spent quite a bit of time there as there were many choices to do things. I wanted to create something that I could use in the library. My creation is to the left. I could print this out and place in the library or on my website.

I have been to Wordle and Gloster in the past. In Wordle I did create one from a brochure I hand out to parents on "How to Raise a Reader" but I have been unable to post it in my blog. When I put in the code they gave me, all I see is the code and not the Wordle.

When I posted my Gloster into the blog my Internet explore could not handle it. See, I live out in the country and have satellite for my Internet and although they say it is "high speed" you won't break any speeding laws with this connection. So here is a link to my website where I have placed my Gloster.

One bad experience was Dumpr that would not load my photo although it was a really neat looking site. I will have to try it when I get to school with a faster connection.

Thing #9

I was kind of glad to get to this "thing" because after thing #8 I really wanted to spend some more time figuring out the RSS feed and finding some quality blogs that will help me in my job as a school librarian. I was anxious to build my "circle of the wise."

I looked at all the suggested links but really spent quite a bit of time going over the Edublogs Award Winners and added many of those blogs. The cool thing is that with the reader, anything new added will be in my igoogle reader and I don't have to spend a lot of time going over and over all the blogs. I can just read the new posts!

The news feeds were the most confusing and hard to read. I also discovered the more "stuff" they had on their blog the less likely I was to take the time to read all of that. I'm kind of a bottom line person. Tell me what you really want me to know. I'm not into a lot of fluff.

Thing # 8

1. RSS feeds and readers are very useful for people who need to keep up with a great deal of information but don't have a lot of time. Like educators! I had some problems at first finding things I really wanted to follow. Adding them was easy. Once they were added I had to figure out how to organize them-that's just the librarian in me.

2. After I organized them in the Google reader I had one blog that I purposefully didn't read in the reader and went to my igoogle page and there it was-ready for me to read. I think this will really help me keep more up to date with what everyone else is doing out there. I'm incorporating technology but seem to be a step or two behind the trend. The reader will help some I just have to go to it and see if there is anything new!

3. People in the education field can use this to communicate or share so that all persons don't have to be in the same room. You can check when you have time.

4. I shared something from Google reader and then I went into my igoogle account and tried to share something from there. I couldn't find anyway to share from the reader in igoogle. I'll try again later.They are always updating things. Maybe this is one thing they can add or maybe I'm just overlooking it.

Thing #7

When I saw what Thing #7 was I got excited. I've been wanting to explore the Google tools for some time to find some things I could use but never seem to have any quality time to spend with then to get down and dirty with them.

Last summer after our district's Tech Camp I set up an igoogle page and used that some this last year. This year at Tech Camp Tammy Worcester came and showed us lots of neat stuff but what I found cool was that you could add tabs to your igoogle page.

So I added tabs to my igoogle page and a different theme and gadgets to each one. I have a cooking page with all kinds of recipe hints and recipes of the day. I have a news page with gadgets from all the news sources. I linked to Facebook and my emails so reading my email will take a lot less time now.

I also set up a google alert for me and my husband and have already recieved an alert on my husband. There are actually a couple of people with my husband's name somewhere in the states, a doctor and a lawyer, and the alert was for one of them.

Most of the other Google tools I have already been using. My daughter puts pictures of her kids on picasa and I get to see them that way. I did a lesson last year with Google Earth after learning about it at our Tech Camp.

I didn't care much for google scholar but maybe with more investigation it will grow on me. I love the advance search and will be using that more next year as it will make looking for certain files much easier, especially powerpoints.