Wednesday, January 30, 2008

thing #14

This is all very new too me and before starting our 23 things, I don't think I had ever heard of Web 2.0, Business 2.0 or Library 2.0. Based upon my experience and reading so far, Library 2.0 means, to me anyway, taking the tools out there available on the Web and looking for creative ways to use them in my library program to better serve my patrons. Being an elementary public school library means that I have a distinct population to serve, and maybe everything out there is not a specific fit for my campus. I think what this means in regards to public school libraries is that information is moving at an incredible speed these days and we must keep up with it in a way that is beneficial and safe to our students and staff.

thing #13

I think this is one of my favorite tools. I book mark so many things and my bar is always a mess. I also switch from my laptop at home to PC at work so I think I will use this all the time. To set it up and add the bookmarks was so easy and it was neat to see how many other people has those sites marked too. Using the list developed for the 23 things was easy too. I can see where this would be easier than using Filamentality to make hotlists for the website. Since all of the computers are now linked to the server, I am making hotlists in Word and posting them to the server for classes instead of posting them on the website. I think this may ever be easier.

Monday, January 28, 2008

thing #12

I looked around these sites and created a Facebook profile. I am so uncomfortable with this and I am quite sure I am not giving it a fair chance. I know I should become knowledgeable about this because the kids are so into this, but I have some very strong preconceived ideas. Last year one of our PTA programs was with the Mesquite Police department and the officer stated how dangerous these site were in no uncertain terms. I am so leery of putting any personal information on the web. I joined the Dallas/FTW network then quit the network within minutes because of things that made me uncomfortable. I canceled the Facebook profile then created one in Ning. I liked Ning so much better. It did ask me for e-mail address and password the way Facebook did. (One of the reasons I canceled the Facebook profile soon after I created it.) I really can't think of a use for this for my campus or library program but that is not to say there couldn't be one.

thing #11

I like the idea of Library Thing and would have really loved it before I had kids. I used to have an extensive personal library. Now I have limited my personal library and use the district and public libraries more. We have a ton of children's books in our house but those belong to Cody and Carson, and I think that would be overwhelming to try to register. I tried to create a link to my Library Thing collection but have not been successful yet. I will update this post when I figure out what went wrong.

Monday, January 14, 2008

thing #10





This was fun I just wish I was more creative with my words. My favorite image generator site was the custom sign generator. I liked the fact that it had many links to different image generating sites. I also like the fact that when you scrolled across the link it gave an example of what the image would look like. This helped me choose the sites I would be more interested in before I went to the link. My favorite sites were the Comic Strip Generators, the Post It Note Generator,and the Safe for Kids site.

Some of the ways I might use these would be images for the website, a bulletin board or maybe to create a special bookmark for a particular reason. I haven't thought of a great way to use them with students yet but I am sure I will find a ton of uses once I read everybody's postings on thing #10.

Here are some of the images I created.

thing #9

I hate to admit this about myself but I find that I am not much of a blogger. Out of these tools I found that I like to use the Edublog Award winners. I think the reason I liked this was because it was pretty simple and straight forward. I wasn't randomly searching. It had categories and several choices to compare within the category. Most of the others I found somewhat confusing or just not worth the effort. Another thing that I found interesting and annoying at the same time is that the internet is world wide and I may be reading something that is going on or relevant on the other side of the world instead of my world. As of right now, I like the Google Alerts much better. If I were to search out individuals to converse with professionally, I would use e-mail because I honestly believe that there is no other school district out there doing things better than Mesquite.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

thing #8

I am adding to this post because I have now had time to enjoy or be annoyed by some of my feeds. I love my Willow Web feed. I am using this as a model for podcasts in my library program. It is helpful to give the kids an example of what I want them to produce. I found that I don't really like all the news feeds I subscribed to. I found that I had too many and they were more annoying rather than informative. I did like the one daily summary feed though so I kept it. Google Reader made it simple to change my subscriptions as I discovered what I liked and disliked.

When learning about RSS feeds, I chose to work with Google Reader. I am trying to keep things as streamlined as possible so that the tools I am learning to work with do not become too overwhelming. In doing so I decided to revisit a previous task (thing #7) and create a home page in iGoogle. I love the idea of the RSS feed. We are all so busy and having one place where I can go to check for updates is so easy. I added more subscriptions than I thought I would.

As far as feeds go, my next goal is to learn how to make a website feed to subscribers. I am working with three 5th grade Science classes on podcasts. Once they are ready to post, I would like people to be able to subscribe.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

thing #7

This will be an ongoing post. I just set up my calendar, created a google alert and downloaded the Picasa web album. I did set up an album and I hope this will be useful as I go between my PC at work and my laptop. I do the yearbook for my campus and I do most of it from my laptop because I like to work with iphoto. I had a little trouble last year doing everything from the laptop. Studio Works seemed easier to work with on the PC. I hope using Picasa and the web albums it will be easier to work from both computers. I also hope that I can use the albums in connection with my library website.

As for the calendar, Chris already has one and has urged me to use it. I am glad this has pushed me to go ahead and create one. I think it will take practice to develop the habit of using it. Creating and using are two different things and I will have to continue to make myself use it until it becomes a habit.

I will update this post as I continue to practice using these tools.