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.