Week 9!!!!, Thing 23

Better late than never. I have finally gathered my thoughts and can write my last post! Well, not my last blog post ... just the last one to complete the class.

Now that I know more about Creative Commons licensing I realize how wonderful it is for education. I think many librarians, teachers and most of all students love to share things. CC can make it so much easier.

I feel I always need refreshers in copyright so the YouTube clip was helpful. I think I can incorporate it into an intellectual property lesson. I'll add it as a bookmark on my ma.gnolia page! (I never switched to delicious).

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

My favorite discovery was http://www.bighugelabs.com/. I haven’t used it in the library yet but I have shared it with students in the yearbook class. My own children loved the “movie poster maker.” I loved the “Wharholizer.” If you have a lot of time for fun stuff this is a cool site.
Another favorite was blogging. I’ve always wanted to set up a blog but never had a reason to, until now. I hope to expand it so I can use it in the library.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
As an adult I love learning new things and as a school librarian I get to by taking classes, going to conferences, and reading industry publications. This program made me realize even more how important it is for a school librarian to continuously learn of emerging technologies that can enhance learning, lessons, life, etc.

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I was surprised that I fell behind. I thought I'd have plenty of time to examine the tools and report back. But, the amount of infomation that I couldn't even get to was overwhelming! Podcasts .... wow, the subject range was staggering.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I felt it was a lot to do in 9 weeks. The format was great. The only change I would recommend would be more interaction from "cheerleaders."

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
Most definitely! I learned a lot.

How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote CSLA learning activities?
This program gave me the confidence to explore and use emerging technologies every day!

Week 9, Thing # 22 continued

I don't know about the rest of teachers my age but I don't like to read anything lengthy from a computer screen, ipod, or pda but my students are used to doing everything online! I haven't tried a Kindle yet ... maybe that would be better.

The two sites that I found to be the best were: http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ and http://manybooks.net/. World Public Library always asked me for a username and password so I just went elsewhere.

Week 9, Thing #22 eBooks and eAudio books

Hmmmm. I went to World eBook Fair to look for free ebooks but they ask for an $8.95 membership fee to view books. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I'll try again tomorrow.

My husband is excited about all the free podcasts I've discovered. He wants to learn another language! I really feel like I'm "in the know" with all these great web 2.0 resources!

Week 9, Thing #21 Podcasts

I never realized how many podcasts there are out there! Pretty much any topic I searched for resulted in something to choose from. I used ITunes initially since I use it for music. But, I couldn't figure out how to add an rss feed. I subscribed to a few free ones ... book reviews, essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson and travel.

There are many podcasts that could be used to enhance curriculum. I found "great speeches in history" and "ideas for teaching reading and writing." "The Groovy Girls Guide to Grammar" looks interesting too.

Podcast.net was the next one I tried. It's very easy to use and again there were choices for all topics I searched. Here it was easy to add an rss feed to my google reader.

I've only listened to parts of the podcasts so far. I think I'll load a few onto my IPod and bring it to the gym.

Week 9, #20 YouTube

This was the first time I used YouTube to search for something I could use in teaching! I've seen many funny videos to share with friends though!

Today I searched for videos on plagiarism and found a few that could actually be useful to use with students. We are in the midst of our 11th grade term paper and there have already been two possible plagiarists.

Here's a video that was based on the recent Identity Theft commercials.

Oops, I have to go back to youtube to see how I can add this to my blog. It didn't work the first time.

Okay, I think I've got it.

Week 8, #19 Library Thing

I do think Library Thing is great but I already use Good Reads. Good Reads has tags, groups, and all of the features of Library Thing. I did add 5 books to Library Thing and added it to the bottom of my blog. I wonder if they'll be able to co-exist or if one or the other will take over. I didn't compare how many members each has. I have heard more buzz about Good Reads lately.

Week 8, #18 Online Productivity Tools

I am using Zoho Writer to write this post to my blog. I will also try Google Docs to see which one I like better. This is certainly easy to use and the toolbars appear to have all of the formatting I would want in a word processing document.

This resource is great for students working on a project at home. Students can't access their school files from home so this would eliminate the students with corrupt disks or files that can't be converted. We can't convert Word files that were created in Word 2007 and I'm always asked to help a desperate student just before a project is due!

Well, I typed the above in Zoho Writer but when I tried to "post to blog" I logged in and then got an error on the page. It happened twice. I just copied and pasted instead.

Week 7, #16 Wikis

Wikis seem like a combination of a few good things. The wikis that I looked at all had the following elements: web site with original content, links (bookmarks) to related sites and blogging abilities. Maybe I should use a wiki to bookmark, set up web quests, have a library web site, etc. My favorites were Library Success and Library Bloggers.

Wikis are great for groups of teachers or administrators working on curriculum mapping in vertical teams. There are many ideas for students to use wikis on class projects across the curriculum. I would love to find more examples of wikis created and used by students in various subject areas to show faculty how useful they can be. I think the wiki Library Success would be the best place for me to begin.

Week 6, #15 Web 2.0, Libraries 2.0 and Future

Michael Stephens article "Into a new world of librarianship" really resonated with me. I believe that the libraries of the future must be customer oriented. We need to be able to give the customer what they want. That means staying current with technology (the technology that we've tested ... not just the new stuff), making the library a welcoming place and a social place and much more. Librarians must continously be learning and teaching what we've learned.

On another note, I don't want to believe that eventually we won't have print! I can't imagine not being able to feel the pages and look at the pictures in my hands. But, I know it makes sense to have everything digital and ready for use when needed. Maybe in 5 years most students will have some type of a reader. Certainly for textbooks that makes sense ... they'll always be up-to-date and not left at school.

Week 6, #14 Technorati

Now I know noone will ever read my blog! According to Technorati there are over 175,000 blogs posted every day! I looked at some of the top 100 blogs (based on fans) and liked lifehacker (although a bit too technical for me) and even though I feel very nosy, I enjoyed http://postsecret.blogspot.com. Postsecret is a community art project that encourages people to send in their secret anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard! Some secrets were hilarious but others were kind of sad.

I like being able to search for blogs that relate to a current project.

The only disadvantage I find with tagging is that individuals categorize things differently based on their own ideas.

Week 6, #13 Tagging and Del.icio.us

I like the bookmarking concept of Del.icio.us because I can't remember my bookmarks from home to work computers. I've already used Ma.gnolia for bookmarks. Ma.gnolia also has groups, favorites, most recent, etc. so for now I am going to use Ma.gnolia.

I don't really have enough bookmarks added yet to really use tags but I'll get there.

Week 5, #11 Rollyo

It took me awhile to really want to explore Rollyo. I had trouble coming up with a reason to limit a search to selected web sites. I'm just afraid I would miss a good site if my search is limited. I finally decided to create a poetry search using Rollyo. It was easy to create a search but not easy to link my search to this blog. I'll have to try again at a later date as I'm already 1 or 2 weeks behind.

The best thing about using Rollyo with students is that Wikipedia could be excluded from their searches!

Another search engine that I love is http://www.clusty.com/. The search results are clustered into categories and it really helps to focus a search.

Week 5, #11 Explore Web 2.0 Awards List

I really needed the extra time February vacation allowed for this assignment.

The categories that I explored from the Web 2.0 Awards list were: Collaborative Writing and Word Processing, Books, and Bookmarking. Thank goodness for the "short version" of the awards. I would have been completely overwhelmed with more than the Top 3.

I liked Google Docs and thought it would be useful for collaboration in the classroom and to help students transfer work from home to school. It was easy to sign up, upload, edit and share documents. I compared it to Thinkfree.com and preferred the look, toolbars, and ease of use of Google Docs.

Currently, I use a thumb drive or email docs from home to school but I could use Google Docs instead as long as it's a word processing, spreadsheet or PowerPoint. As with everything I've experienced as part of this class, finding time to explore, learn, and ultimately remember to use each new tool is the hard part.

I checked out Library Thing in the "books" category really just to compare it to Good Reads. It's similar and has some unique features that I don't think Good Reads provides. Library Thing will analyze your catalog and make suggestions for new books and provides a humorous "unsuggested" analysis. But, I'll stick with Good Reads since I've already started to use it a bit.

The site ma.gnolia.com was beautiful to look at and I think it could help with organization. Sites that I've found and saved as favorites at school sometimes slip my mind when at home. Instead of using my browser's favorites I can keep ma.gnolia open and add bookmarks there. I could see myself using it with colleagues to share sites that may be useful for their subject.

Is anyone else wishing that there was ONE PLACE to have a blog, get e-mail, publish photos, bookmark, read RSS feeds, ect.?

Week 5, #10 Online Image Generator

The image generator at http://bighugelabs.com/ that I liked the most was the "warholizer." I made my digital picture into pop art! For best results use a picture with a lot of contrast.

The Hockneyizer was great too.

My family had fun with the movie poster maker.

I've forwarded this fun site to the yearbook advisor at school. I think the students could produce some unique images to use in the yearbook.

Week 4, #8 and 9 Learn about and create RSS reader

I've always wondered how that little orange RSS symbol on web sites was used. Now, I have my own RSS reader. I used google and it was simple to set up. I searched for library and education related feeds and added a few. YALSA's blog http://feeds.feedburner.com/Yalsa is one I frequently read so that's part of my reader now. Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/rss/pao/web.xml has a "new on the web site" feed that I added to my reader.



It will take me a few weeks of reading to see which feeds I find most useful. I'm sure this will be a neverending process of adding and deleting. I think it will help to keep me more organized and up-to-date.

Week 3, #7 Technology Related post

Microsoft Office live workspace http://workspace.officelive.com/ is a tool that anyone can use to create, revise, complete and save office documents (word, excel, etc.). The documents created are available anywhere there is an internet connection. Students can set up accounts to store school documents and work on them from home or school. I would love to never have to see another floppy disk from a student!

I do not have experience using officelive yet. I think I'll ask a some students to try it and let me know if they find it useful. Hopefully it will help them be more productive ... no more excuses like "my printer is broken" or "I know I saved it to this floppy disk."

If Office live includes PowerPoint and Publisher it could be extrememly useful (and fun) to use with collaborative projects and peer editing.

If someone reading this post has experience using officelive I'd like to hear from you.

Week 3, #6 Flickr Fun, Mashups, etc.

I've quickly realized that to explore all the fun stuff with Flickr I need lots of time. I found a mashup that I wanted to try : Gickr - make animated gifs from Flickr (or any) photos. I wanted to animate some pictures that I took at the Patriot's rally but it took too long to upload the pics. I'll have to resize the images and try again later. Creating trading cards from Flickr images is another one I'd like to try.

Sunday, Jan. 26. New England Patriot's Rally

Week 3, Thing #5

Wow! Flickr has so much to look at it's kind of overwhelming. I did create my own account and added a couple of pictures that I took over the weekend. Next, I'll add some to this page.

I've used Shutterfly for personal picture storage, prints and photo items. It doesn't have the same capabilities as Flickr and seems to be more for the casual digital photo user.

Things #3 and #4 - Create a Blog and Avatar and Post

It was a bit frustrating logging into blogger to create a new account. There were too many passwords/accounts to set up. When I finally started to create my blog space I loved it. I spent too much time trying to come up with a name for my blog! The thought of putting something in writing for the world to see was daunting. I know my students don't have any issues writing on their blogs/myspace/etc. It's just not something I grew up with. When I was younger, I wrote in a diary with a lock on it!

Creating my Avatar was fun, fun! Although, when my son looked at it he said "It does look like you, Mom, just waaaaaay younger."

Flickr is my next experiment. I use Shutterfly for digital pictures all the time for personal use and find it easy and reliable.

Thing 2-Pointers from Lifelong Learners

The easiest habit of lifelong learners that I will be able to follow is to "Use Technology to Your Advantage." I've always liked learning by doing. If I have a need to learn a new piece of technology the best way for me to do it is to experiment and try things. Next week I am facilitating a PD workshop for teachers on "Classroom ideas using Inspiration." I have used Inspiration software a few times but now the pressure is on! Luckily, the Inspiration website is a fantastic resource.

The hardest habit, "View Problems as Challenges." I can easily be distracted by roadblocks. There is always something else that can be accomplished to complete one more item on my "to do" list.

Thing 1-School Library Learning "About"

As soon as I read about this course through MSLA (Massachusetts School Library Association) I knew it was something I wanted to complete. Taking the online course will force me to make time to learn (and use) web 2.0. In the past I've thought about beginning a blog but didn't know what to blog about! Now, I have a reason ... this class. I'm very excited about sharing what I learn with my colleagues and students.