Thoughts

This has been a great experience. There were some things that I already knew about like youtube and flikr toys but many more that I had never heard about. There was a class just in the other day and the teacher was talking about a student that had access to the internet but did not have a word program so this student could only work on his paper while at school. I gave him the site to zoho and explained some things about it and he was very happy and said he would try it out. So, if I had not gone through this program I would not have known about zoho and then I wouldn't be able to pass my knowledge along, and that's really what it's all about. I think the 2.0 team has done a fantastic job of pulling all these new technology tools together and I appreciate the time they have taken to help us along. I was especially impressed with the sandbox wiki and thought it a great idea for others to share what they have done and what works. Maybe next year there will be another 23 things to look at and explore?

Week 9-audio books

I have to say that I am really amazed with the project Gutenburg. Although there are many many books that I would not want to read, there are some titles there that I did recognize. My son would probably love to see the inaugural addresses by the presidents and I plan on showing him this next week. We do subscribe to e-books at the district level but most of them are nonfiction (actually, I think all of them). So is it Okay to include a link to the site on a web page? I wish more of the titles were audio books but it is pretty cool that there are audio books too. I think of those people who put all these things together and I can't help but think that they have no other life because it seems like it would take so much of their time. I just had a glass of wine so I may be rambling a little. Anyway, this is probably one area that I haven't explored too much, I think maybe because I love to hold books and look at the jackets and take it to bed with me...hmmm, that sounded a little weird. But, I can definitely see the usefulness of ebooks, everyone could pull up the same book and you woudn't need to have multiple copies.

Week 9-Pod casts

I went into this not knowing what a podcast was and am leaving with a better grasp of it. I think in my head I thought it was something different, more like youtube. I included "The great read radio show" onto my rss feed in google and I also downloaded some Spanish lessons onto my bookmarks, and I was very pleased that it included all of the lessons. What I'm thinking is that if there are more lessons then I will have to go back and include those, so maybe I should just try to also add this one to my rss feed so that I will know when there are new installments.
My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-f85db0c8185edb5e2dac93fee3c45616}

Week 9-Youtube

This is what I really love about Youtube--sometimes I'll be hanging out with my boys and something will come up, maybe from watching TV or just just telling them about something and I can get on to youtube and show them what I was talking about. For example, I don't remember how we got to talking about Abbott and Costello and "Who's on First" but I was able to show them the skit and they loved it. My youngest played it over and over. There are so many things you can find on this site and on so many different topics. I have been using Youtube for years. I would love to use more youtube videos at work but unfortunately it is blocked.

Week 8-Library Thing

This is an interesting site, but again you could take forever exploring what others have to say about a book or how popular it is, or the reviews. I thought it was kind of strange though that Kite Runner has over 18,000 members and popularity of 15, whereas Classic Fiction of the Harlem Renaissance has 15 members and popularity of 298,285. I was looking at the "hot reviews" on the home page and I did notice that someone used the F word. Even though I am a groovy person I sort of feel that this is uncalled for on a Library site, it wasn't like he was quoting the book. Regardless of this, I still really liked Library Thing and plan on using it in some way. One more thing--I made the book widget but I couldn't get it to look the way I wanted to on my blog site. I had 4 columns and 3 rows. I made the blog widget with just the book covers and then I think I added it by going to layout in my blog and selecting html from gadgets. I also tried by saving it as a jpeg and then inserting it as an image but it would only copy one cover. Any step by step instructions on getting it to look more like a poster?

Week 8-Zoho

I published a test document from Zoho to my blog site. I don't think the little emoticon or smiley face quite made it. I couldn't figure out why it said tongue and then I realized that I had inserted the little face with the tongue sticking out. I may come back and add to this but right now I am exhausted since I spent the last two days cutting down a tree.

test document

I am on Zoho creating a test document. This is really kind of neat when you think about it.I like the idea that you could be anywhere and access your work. There are some quirky things about it though--I keep having to hightlight new text when changing the font. It seems to want to stay in Verdana. Oh, I see, hmmmm. OK, I typed a line in Verdana, highlighted it and changed it to Comic Sans. But when I continued it changed back to Verdana. So I highlighted it once again and changed it, and then it automatically went back so then I just selected Comic Sans and now it is staying that way.

Week 7-thing 17

That was really neat and groovy seeing all the ideas. The ones that interest me most are the image generators and flickr fd, that allow you to make the posters and different cards. I just think things like that are so much fun, and if I think they're fun than a school age person will think it's fun (in my mind any way). I will definately use the sand box for ideas and think it is just great how others share what they are doing or planning on doing. At the school I used to work at the Teacher Librarian has the CDs for making the "read posters" and got the teachers to take pictures with a book and the posters were then put on the wall. I think the kids really enjoyed seeing the teachers with their books. I don't know if I will have the money to buy the program but in the mean time I can use the ALA mini poster generator and make mini posters for free to include on our school web page--it will be a "Look who's Reading" section. I would also like to have a separate page for the students. What I think would be really cool is to make a montage after so many kids have participated and then buying the poster to put in the library.

Week7-Wikis

I have just spent several days looking over the different Wikis. What I found most interesting about them is how much can be done with a Wiki, and how even in a specific area like "Library" there are so many different areas that can be covered, but not necessarily all on one Wiki. I also learned that Wiki Wiki in Hawaiian is a word used to mean something fast. The Wikis I liked most were the ones that were kept current, so I was a little disappointed with Book Lovers Wiki because it was a sort of one time thing, which doesn't seem like what a Wiki should be. I really liked the Teacherlibrarianwiki (and there were others that I really liked too) because it had information on it that I found very useful. I liked how the topics were organized and I even found a slide show on "fair use" that was what I was looking for on the internet but couldn't find. I think the one point that came up in all the sites about wikis was how they can be used to collaborate with teachers--they can be used for presentations, projects, book clubs and on and on (I have it all written down). I think I would like to one day create a Wiki at our school site. I also liked the idea of conference wikis--by any chance, and I should know this, was there a CSLA wiki put together that covered the different sessions? It would be great to look over some of the sessions (topics, handouts) that I wanted to go to but couldn't.

Week6-thing 15

My thoughts on the articles: They all seemed to have the common theme of moving away from a traditional library (what ever that may be), and incorporating technology so that users can go where no other humans have gone before. My son actually tried to do this once when he threw his little body at the TV. It was sort of weird watching how he bounced off. He went one way in slow motion and the Enterprise went the other way at warp speed. I think I like the idea of making things as user friendly as possible so that the information is more easily attainable. But on the flip side I also think that more attention needs to be given to the teaching of research skills. If the information is not easily found, how do you go about finding it--what search terms do you need to use? Where do you look? What do you do when you get 1,000 hits? I still see the Librarian as the Teacher. There is so much out there, sometimes I think too much and it becomes a major sensory overload and you have to pick out those things that will be most beneficial to the users. I don't see libraries as just warehouses for books, I do think that we need to be in the forefront when it comes to technology. I think the article I liked most and could relate to was "Into a New World of Librarianship." Library 2.0 is a reality and I think a Force, and I see my role as the one who will search out those tools that will facilitate learning and implement them into the library. And now I will leave you with a great line from "Star Trek: TNG:

• Q: "It's an unknown – isn't that enough?"

Picard: "If you'd earned that uniform you're wearing, you'd know it's the unknown that brings us out here!"

Week6-Technorati

I just watched "Dark Knight" with my kids the other night and saw a little bit of myself in the character two-face. I love technology but I absolutely love books and love to read, and sometimes I want to throw the computer right out the window. There are so many things one can do with sources like Technorati and Delicious--the networking, the connections, the sharing of ideas--but then I think "Gosh, I can just call my old boss who happens to be one of the techiest librarians I know and just ask her." That would save me a lot of time, plus I get to hear what's going on with her and all the others I used to know.--hmmmm.
Anyway, getting back to Technorati, I thought it was pretty easy to navigate. I put in the search for "School Library Learning 2.0" and I think there were around 27 blogs, but nothing when I clicked on posts, but I'm not really sure what the difference is and then the two-face comes out and....
I did notice that Web2.0 was one of the 100 most popular (and was also listed in the directory under the catagory technology) and checked out some of those blogs.
So, it all goes back to having the time to really explore these blogs. But, lately I don't so when I'm really looking for an answer to a specific question I know who to call.

Week6-Delicious

I spent quite a bit of time looking over delicious and bookmarked some of the sites I liked. Again, this is one of those places where you could spend an inordinate amount of time looking at, exploring, figuring out and organizing all of the bookmarks you have saved over time. I didn't really have to do this last thing though since I had lost all of my bookmarks when my computer got sick. Too bad I didn't know about this site a couple of weeks ago. I can see how this site could be really useful especially since others have already bookmarked and saved topics that are of interest to you.The tags make if easy to find the topics I am interested in, but it is still a bit overwhelming and I could spend days (which I don't have) looking at the places others have bookmarked. My plan is to go back to this over the summer when I do have the time, but for now I have too much to do and I think it's starting to give me a stomach ache.

Week5-Rollyo

I've decided that I'm going to have to let this one go and if I have time I will go back to it and try to figure it out. I was always told that if you get stuck on a problem move. Maybe it's just me, but I just couldn't get a hold on this one. I created a search roll on a subject I liked but then I wasn't clear on what to do with it. I thought maybe I could click on the sites to automatically go there from the drop down box, but it just listed them. If there is any one out there who has the time and patience to explain it all to me I will gladly listen. Even though this picture has nothing to do with my Rollyo experience (just a friendly game of Scrabble) this is sort of how I felt.

Week5-thing 11

I really liked the site yourminis I liked playing around with the widgets. I included the weather widget into the library website that I am making and thought it was soooo cool. It's got the five day forcast for the Sacramento area. One of the other sites that I liked was I'm Cooked because I really like food and I liked the short videos on preparing the food. I watched a short video on how to make wings (my son really likes spicy wings) and I actually think I will try it out. But the widgets have really got me all worked up--I'm planning on going back to that to see what elso I can use. I also joined the "Teacher-Librarian" Ning. I liked the fact that there was a group that discussed library issues at the High School level.

Week5-thing 10

Well, I just got my computer back and I lost a lot of things while it was being worked on so I am a little disgruntled and on top of it all since I didn't log on for awhile I forgot passwords--I've got to remember to put all those passwords in my crs file.

I went to the different online image generator sites and played around with them. I finally decided to try to make a mosaic with some pictures that I had taken at school so I hope I am able to post it-here goes....OK, I'm happy with that.

week4: thing 9-RSS

I searched most of the different tools that help you find feeds--I think basically they all work the same way. The ones that have the tags are useful and also the ones that have the menu bar that allow you to search for a certain topic. I was trying to think which one(s) I used when adding the feeds to Google Reader and then I remembered that I didn't use any for most of them. I just went to the site I was most interested in, news-library blogs-weather-and used the rss feed provided on that site. I think sometimes the best way to find a site that you want to be attached to is to ask friends that are knowledgeable in the area and ask them. It saved me some time.