Schoollibrariansl

Thing 23 - Final Thoughts

2008-09-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

I now know more than I did before. Summmer was a great time to spend time getting acquainted with different tools that Web2 has to offer. It was frustrating at times and I thought I was spending way too much time - but the experience was worthwhile.

In public schools we are limited on what sites the students can use. Anything that talks about social networking scares people. I think a blog would be a great tool for students to write. It would also be a great tool to discuss books. I realize that there is so much available for students to organize and put their ideas into a product. What is also great is most of this free. Thanks for the opportunity. I will be spreading the news.....

Thing 22 What did I learn today?

2008-09-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

I do need to start spending more time browsing the Internet. I still spend 15 minutes in the morning and at least 10 minutes at night looking at the daily newspaper. Some of this time could be spent browsing the Internet. When you work with computers all day, sometimes I would rather not look at them a night. It seems to be more relaxing to read the news. I realize that the Internet can be so much more individualized. With your RSS feeds and subscriptions, you tell the computer what you are interested in reading about. I do thing I learned a lot from this experience. At least when someone talks about a Web 2 item, I will know what they are talking about.

Stick 21 - Beyond Myspace - Other social networking sites

2008-09-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

I don't see myself getting too excited about myspace. It seems to be a lot of work and I am not prepared for rejection. Not to many people want me as a friend at my age. I do see other sites like Library Thing or a social network like Geni to be worthwhile. You find people that have the same interests or passions, and you share ideas. I think a good idea would be that you find lists of social network sites and post theses on a library website

Stick 20 Social Networking and Libraries

2008-09-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

If you are dealing with anyone under the age of 25, you need to be involved in social networking. As an educator you hear all about the problems that social networking can cause.
Students need to know how to be safe on-line. I created a file on Facebook. I wanted to see how easy it was. Someday soon I will create a profile and add some pictures. Then I need to find some friends. My children have politely said that they will not accept me as a friend. Oh well!!
I would probably learn things I don't want to know.

Stick 19 Podcasting

2008-09-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed articles that were on-line discussing podcasting. I didn't realize that the name comes from the I-pod and the word casting. I have downloaded podcasts to my I-pod from I-Tunes. There are many free ones you can subscribe to. I enjoy shows from MPR and Garrison Keillor shows. I am always amazed at how fast things can download as a mp3.

I think podcasting would be great for students. Students could create podcasts instead of writing a paper or giving a speech.

Stick 18 YouTube

2008-08-24T17:18:00.000-07:00

This is one that my students just love but was blocked because of its content. It has so many wonderful things available that can be used to educate. It is a wonderful resource for teachers to use when creating lessons. The only problem is that as the article ("7 things about YouTube) states was that the videos may not always be available. There also may be concerns about using the content because of copyright violations. As educators we have more flexibility in using materials for educational purposes, but again we have to make sure we are not violating copyright.

Stick 17 ELM Productivity Tools

2008-08-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

I could see where these tools will come in handy. Thanks for the hints on how to make it work with a proxy server. I wish I knew a way to convince my students that databases such as ELM provides can be so much easier and richer than anything that they can get on Google. I guess we can only show them what it has to offer and they will have to decide what they want to use. You can bring a horse water but you can't make him drink (or something like that).

Stick 16 Student 2.0 Tools

2008-08-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

I thought the brief videos on vision of K-12 students and the one done about college students was very powerful. It would be something that would be worthwhile showing at a faculty or school board meeting. I also thought the articles linked were very useful. The one called "Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for students"lists many useful sites and briefly explains what they can be used for. With the heavy filtering many schools are forced to implement, I can see many of these sites being blocked because of their social networking applications. It is hard to show students these tools if they can't be used in schools. Maybe it would be easy to unfilter these sites -- Something I need to look into....

Stick 15 Online Games and Libraries

2008-08-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

I have to admit I am not much of a gamer and cannot see myself playing games with people I don't know. But if you are working with anyone under the age of 21, you have to at least try to keep educated at whats out there. I am afraid that things change so rapidly. The best way I have found out is ask the students using them. They love to tell you what the newest game is and what is it about. My nephew can play games with Nintendo 360? (the newest one) with his cousins who live in Iowa by getting on a website. You pay a subscription (50.00 a year) and you can play with anyone who is out there at that time. I guess you can even talk to them.

Stick 14 Library Thing

2008-08-19T16:48:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed the social aspect of this site. I looked at book recommendations. I spent time looking through groups. I thought the group chats about library things was very useful.The zeitgeist was interesting if you liked numbers and statistics. I can see where this would be a useful site to belong to. I also think it is a good way for libraries and librarians of all kinds to get together. It is amazing how even though our work settings may be completely different we still deal with the same basic issues.

Stick 13 On-line Productivety Tools

2008-08-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

It was fun looking at these new tools. I added weather to my I-Google. It reminds me of my kitchen drawers. Tools and gadgets are great but you seem to rely on the same ones all the time and the rest you could probably do without. It also clutters up your drawers or in this case your browser. I did not know these existed. I like the one you could keep track of time you do specific items.

Stick 12 Do You Digg?

2008-08-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I have seen this site. I can see it as a useful site to find different types of information on a specific site. I think it would work well for real current information or information that has more than one side. It amazes me how much information (not all good) we have at our disposal.

Stick 11 Tagging and De.li.cious

2008-08-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

As we all know as library people, if we spend the time to organize it at the beginning it becomes a lot easier to manage it and find it when we need it. You do need a plan though so your tags make sense to you or who ever is using them.

Stick 10 Wicki's

2008-08-10T16:26:00.000-07:00

It was fun looking at all the sites that you could use to create documents. There was one wiki I looked at that found all the countries that had two or less athletes at the Olympics. They also had maps of all the countries. That would be a great geography lesson for students.

Stick 9 - Online Communication Tools

2008-08-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

I think this would be very useful in an office or education setting. Many times two or three people collaborate to write something and you end up e-mailing attachments. This works but especially in an environment where you may not have the same word processing programs. Many schools with Mac's don't have access to Microsoft Word. Next time I have a project that needs to be shared, I will look into this. The article mentioned that it has replaced his word processing program. I think some day soon there will only be Internet based programs that we access and we don't have to load software.

Stick 8 - Share your creations

2008-08-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

That took way too much time but it was fun. That is my grandson and my husband in the picture.
Creating was easy. I had some difficulty remembering how to put it on my blog. I sent it to a few of my friends and family. I will see if they are able to access it without too much trouble.

It was a great learning experience. Once you know one program it seems like it is easier to learn the others.

2008-08-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

Stick 7 Online Communication Tools

2008-08-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

I have used online schedule tools at work. I liked it because I could set alarms for meetings. I have only used my individual schedule. It would be nice if you could see other peoples schedules to see when a meeting would be feasible instead of e-mailing or calling each person on the list.

I have participated in Webinars. These are an excellent way of attending a workshop without having to go anywhere. I agree that the participation of the group is not the same if they are not in one room. Discussion is slower and not as spontaneous.

This is a great way for librarians to share there knowledge. I was unable to access the OPAL archives but will try at a later time. They looked interesting.

Stick 6 Online Image Generators

2008-08-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

This is very cool and I can see many uses for teachers and students. The sites I looked at seemed easy to use.

One site I liked was accessed at wordle.net. You can either paste or type in words. The sight mixes up your words and creates an artistic version. You can then move words around or make them different colors. I could see students writing words about themselves. I brainstormed things, actions and people you see in a media center. It gave me a cool collage of my words.
I subscribed to the image generator in my RSS feed as suggested in the newsletter.

Stick 5 More Fun withFlickr

2008-08-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

I can see where there would be many applications to teaching. You can use the many mashups and build onto that. I looked at one where they were using pictures from Flickr to teach the English alphabet. There was a warning on the site that you could not use with students directly because the pictures were chose dynamically? and some unsuitable images could show up. I could see you taking this photos and printing them our putting them in a slide show.

Flickr could also be used to get additional photos that are not found on Google images, etc.

I also tried to get a screensaver program that I could no longer find. It referred me to a different web address but when there could not find the application.

Stick 4 Flickr

2008-07-16T18:16:00.000-07:00

This seems like a great site. It took me a while to figure out how to use it and it will take me a while to make it work for me. I liked the fact that you could post pictures but you could be selective on who you let see them. I was able to load pictures and invite friends to see my pictures.

Thing 3 RSS Feed

2008-07-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

This is something I am sure I will be using. It was a little complicated for me at first but once I read the information provided it made sense. It is nice to have all your favorite sites easy to access. It definately takes time to find good sites and can be addictive. I am glad it is summer and I don't have to feel as guilty. Maybe I won't get to my closets.

Thing 2 Web 2.0

2008-06-18T18:11:00.001-07:00

You hear so much about Web 2.0 and I now after reading the information and watching the video I understand more fully how important these tools will be if we work in libraries. As soon as we learn these tools I am sure there will be different ones to add to the mix. Bring them on - I'm ready.
I watched the video and it made sense to me that you have to make the time. If you want something bad enough, there will be enough time. I am anxious to learn about all the great web tools out there.

Avatar Summer

2008-06-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

Thing 1 - Creating my Blog and Avatar

2008-06-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

June 18, 2008

I created my blog last week but forgot to register (I think). I wasn't on the list so I registered again. I am excited to learn new things. Registering was easy. The hardest part was finding a password that they would take. It was fun to create my Avatar. I could see where that would be useful with IM site. I was proud that I could get it to export. It took a while but directions are available. You just have to find them.