Week 9 Thing 23 My Thoughts

Wow! When I started School Library Learning 2.0 I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew time was going to be a challenge as I was finishing up CLAD courses, too. Once I finished the CLAD courses, I was able to devote more time to learning Library 2.0. I quite enjoyed learning all the "Things." So here are my responses to the prompts:

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey? My favorite discoveries were Library Thing and fd's Flickr Toys. I love being able to keep my book list on Library Thing and having the random books displayed on my blog. It adds so much color to the page. As for fd's Flickr Toys, I know it is something I can use to promote my library to my patrons.
2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? This program assisted me in learning about new available free technologies that I can use as a librarian or use personally. With some of these I feel I have just scratched the surface and will come back to learn more. Awhile back I started a book review blog for my students and staff on edublogs. I would post a book after I read it. It is a very simple blog. After using Blogger, I will probably spend some time this month switching Book Trail over to Blogger because Blogger offers some more features and is pretty easy to use know that I have been blogging regularly. I stated in an earlier posting that I used dabble in photography and now have a desire to learn more in depth about digital photography. This sparked a conversation with a colleague of mine who is a photographer. He mentioned that the local community college offers evening courses in digital photography should I want to learn more. So I am going to look into a spring course to see if it will fit into my schedule. Participating in this course also gave me the courage to try something I have been putting off. This month I hired a personal trainer and "re-joined" my gym after ten years of minimal physical activity. I have committed to spending several hours a week to some fitness training and I am going to attempt to learn yoga. While fitness training, I may even learn some Spanish from the available free podcasts I found. I've always been pretty good at working on my professional side but this class has also given me the desire to apply some lifelong learning to my personal life.
3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? Library Thing was definitely a pleasant surprise. I found many take-a-ways. Free podcasts and eBooks were a great discovery. Zoho, fd's Flickr Toys, You Tube, Teacher Tube, and Rollyo are "things" that I will definitely share with others and use again throughout the year.
4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept? I liked the self-paced learning aspect of the program and I felt the amount of what we had to learn for the summer was doable and allowed for flexibility. For some reason I completely missed the place where you could e-mail someone on the team if you needed tech support within the program. (Reading carefully over the About page, I see that offer listed under #9). In my eagerness to get started, I missed this. My only suggestions would be to put some troubleshooting steps linked to each activity (similar to the Weekly Tips) on the page with the activity and to locate the Weekly Tips in two places. One where the tips are currently located and on the activity page itself so learners can put the tip into action as they work on the activity.
5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate? I would participate in future. I liked the flexibility of the program and the self-pacing. I appreciated that the technology was free.
6. 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? I wasn't aware that there was so many free technology applications readily available that I could use to support my library, staff and students.

Week 9 Thing 22 eBooks & Audio eBooks

I spent some time looking around the World eBook Fair site. Mostly classics are offered for free download. I downloaded Bambi and started reading it on the screen. I really don't like the format of scrolling and reading a scanned book. There's something about a book in your hand when you are reading for enjoyment. I don't mind reading for research and information on the computer but when I am reading for enjoyment, I want the book. I haven't really experienced audio books too much but now that I have an i-Pod I'll give audio books a try. I do think this is a great way to preserve some of our classics that are out-of-print, so they can still be read and shared with new generations.

Week 9 Thing 21 Podcasts

I did some searching in two places. I do use iTunes so I did some searches for podcasts in iTunes and found lots of interesting useable podcasts and I did subscribe to a few. Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips for Better Writing and Coffee Break Spanish, I felt, were podcasts I could personally use for my own lifelong learning. The Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute looked great for students.

After searching on iTunes, I did a search on the link provided for Educational podcasts and found a very creative school that is using podcasts and other technology. Mabry Middle School in Georgia has a podcast central that features podcasts for parents and podcasts by students, teachers and the principal. It's a great example of how a school can effectively use podcasts.

Week 9 Thing 20 You Tube

You Tube offers some very creative video clips but you have to search through a lot of other "stuff" to find the gems. I found it fairly easy to embed a video, you just have to join You Tube and that's free. Once you find a video you want to place on your blog, choose post video and You Tube uploads the video to your blog. If you want to attach any comments, you'll need to type that in the space provided before you upload the video. Teacher Tube, for the purposes of finding something designed for education or by educators, offers a little more. I didn't have to search as long to find inspirational clips. I can see how You Tube will be useful for library web pages or blogs. You just have to spend some time searching to find something that will work. Reading other librarian's blogs or participating in a library social network where others share a good find would definitely be helpful and useful when it comes to You Tube.

Women In Art

My mom shared this video with me a while back. I searched for it on You Tube and was able to find it. I wanted to share this video clip because I feel if you enjoy art or art history, you'll be amazed by this. Also I think art teachers would enjoy showing this to their classes. Challenge yourself, how many paintings or artists can you name?

Week 8 Thing 19 Library Thing

I had already explored Library Thing during Week 5. I spent a couple of hours later adding books to my book list and checking to see if they were favorites of others. I love the suggestion tab. I was able to find other books I had forgotten I had read and I was able to get some great suggestions for further reading. I plan to use this with some of my 7th grade Language Arts classes whose teachers have built a reading culture in their classrooms. These classes visit the library regularly for book talks and the students "talk" to each other about great reads on School Loop, our intergrated communication system. I think many of these students and their teachers would enjoy keeping track of what they read on Library Thing. It was interesting to see that some of the books I had read have been read by thousands of people and then I have some that only 2 others have read. I love Library Thing. It is something I will continue to use and definitely share with others.

I have another question. How do I respond to someone who has left a comment on my blog or asked a question of me?

Week 8 Thing 18 Zoho

I explored Zoho this evening. I do like the idea that you can create a document and share it. I like the idea of being able to retrieve a document from any computer and not having to worry about its formatting. I tried notebook, wiki, show, writer and sheet. All were very easy to use. I plan to play around with these some more. I will definitely tell my students about these. They will be happy to not have to buy disks or remember their flash drive.

Week 7 Thing 17 Wikis

I played in the sandbox today and uncovered lots of great ideas for how to use the "things" we've learned in different curricular areas. One idea shared was to make trading cards for the staff by having students interview them. As a former 8th grade history teacher, trading cards on Civil War Generals or battles would enhance the regular study. In 7th grade history, you could do inventions from ancient China or figures from the Renaissance.

I haven't started the lessons on podcasts yet but I think having students do podcasts of book talks would be something I'd like to try. I'd like to work with the staff about recording their lectures and then podcasting them for students who missed the lecture or may need to hear it several times to learn it. I'd also like to use Flickr to make read posters of our staff and different athletic teams. I saw the idea at the CSLA conference using the athletic teams and their favorite books and I thought it was a great idea. So I plan to try it too.

I plan to share with my staff the ideas used on sample school wiki about how a class scribe takes notes and then posts them on the scribe page, students blog their opinions and reactions, and teachers create wikis for projects, discussion and other student interaction around classroom topics.

Week 7 Thing 16 Wikis

My favorite example was the sample school wiki it had a lot going on but it clearly demonstrated many ways students could use wikis. I liked how they have blogs for personal opinions, scribes for posting class notes, and wikis for sharing facts and for discussions. I still need to read up more on how they work on the sites provided to become clear on uses. I noticed that on some wikis you had to have a log-in and that seems smart on a classroom wiki. What are the aspects of safety on the Internet that librarians and teachers instruct their students before starting activities like these? Being new to this, would someone please share this side of using wikis, blogs, and podcasts with students. I noticed that student's first names were only used. The name and city of the school or library is usually given. I want to be prepared on how to answer questions that come from parents and my administrators as to how I am keeping students safe. I know that is a concern in my community.

As far as uses, I can think of many...book reviews, book talks, contests for our special activities, sharing poetry, sharing short stories, favorite lists, student blogs, posting notes, posting links to helpful websites, videocasts of tutorials on how to use school technology, student projects, sharing examples of quality student projects, and posting rubrics for projects.

Week 6 Thing 15 Library 2.0

I read all of the articles posted and wanting to know more, I read some of the articles that were posted under references on the wikipedia article, "Library 2.0" I realize we are coming to another shift in how we conceptualize teaching, learning, classrooms and libraries. Since I am a new school librarian I haven't been around long enough to experience some of the other shifts in how libraries have been used. But I have experienced changes in technology and though the learning curve has been rough at times I have learned how to use new technology. As a life-long learner, I will continue to adapt and learn to use new technology. After reading the articles it seems pretty clear that the profession will be adapting also to a new focus and a new ways of offering our service to our library patrons. The challenge for me will be to stay up with all the new technology and making sure our patrons know what is available to them (Hey, I can use some of this new technology to keep my teachers and students up-to-date on what's available!)

Library 2.0 to me means extending the library beyond its walls. If you think back to B.G.(before Google) and computers, most people had to visit a library to research answers to their questions. Now with the Internet, search engines, on-line databases, on-line catalogs library patrons can access information from beyond the library walls. As a school librarian, I am shifting my perspective on how to help prepare students that use my library for the future. Whether I teach them skills as a class, one-on-one or direct them to video clips posted on the web to assist them in learning a skill, I need to continually assess and learn as new technology becomes available so I can offer my patrons the best service possible.

I am learning so much during this Library 2.0 course. I see great potential for what I have learned. I found a video on Teacher Tube that I think fits this lesson. I found Teacher Tube after browsing through other members blogs. One blog I learned a lot from is kangaLMT2. She had some favorite blogs that she regularly checked and I found many of them suited my taste too. So as I was searching around Teacher Tube, I found Shift Happens
which I suggest you watch when you have the opportunity because it fits this topic. But I am posting Shake It Up by Tom Woodward because I think it shows where we've been and where we are headed. (I wasn't able to embed the video on the page, so you'll have to use the link. Just when I think I've improved my technology learning curve...)

Week 6 Thing 14 Technorati

I just finished exploring in Technorati. It is amazing to discover how many blogs are out there in the blogosphere. Technorati is a fantastic tool to help you search for blogs you would be interested in reading regularly. I signed up on Technorati and claim my learning blog. I searched under the tag of libraries and young adult fiction to find blogs I may be interested in reading regularly. I added those as favorites and added tags to them.

I have learned how tagging in Flickr, Technorati and del.icio.us helps save time for those who regularly use web 2.0. I also like that once you find a blog you like to read, you can find out what that blogger likes to read in Technorati and possibly find other blogs to read. It's similar to a book recommendation from a friend with similar tastes.

Week 6 Thing 13 del.icio.us

This morning I worked on the del.icio.us thing. It took me awhile to catch on but I eventually set up an account and tagged all my favorites. I can see how this is a most useful tool. I am going to tag all my bookmarks in del.icio.us as I add them. This will definitely be a web tool that I will share with others at my site and some of my family members.

Week 5 Thing 12 Rollyo

I created a search roll for a research unit on Anne Frank and the Holocaust that my 8th grade Language Arts teachers do with their students. I can see how creating a search roll for classes that are researching a specific topic in the library would optimize research time for the students if the teacher or LMT research websites in advance and created a search roll for the topic that included valuable websites.

I tried unsuccessfully to add the Rollyo icon to my blog like I have seen on other blogs. I did manage to add the search bar but decided I didn't want that on my blog at this time. I will probably add it to our library web page in the future.

I did take the advice of comments left on my blog, and added links. I will continue to add links know that I've figured out how to add links. I'd like to respond to some of the comments left on my blog but I am unsure of how to accomplish that task.

Week 5 Thing 11 Ning & Library Thing

LibraryThing is amazing. I set up a free account, made a book list and perused around the site. I added some book covers to my blog. I am starting to see how you could spend hours at the computer utilizing all this new technology. I plan to introduce LibraryThing to my students and teachers who are avid readers because it is a wonderful tool to help you find books to read, keep track of what you've read, share what you are reading and discuss what you are reading with others. I'm also going to share it with some of my family members who love to read. I took some time to check out Ning. I plan to research it a little more before I join a group. I didn't really find a group that interested me. I'd rather join the on-line book club on LibraryThing. I do want to go back and spend some more time on the Web 2.0 winners site to see what else is out there. I was like a little kid at Christmas, once I opened LibraryThing I only wanted to play with that.

Week 5 Thing 10 Image Chef

I played around in Image Chef and created this 8 ball design that I could use to advertise new books on my blog for students. Image Chef was very easy to use. I've also been checking out other Library 2.0 blogs. Everyone is so creative. I'm getting lots of ideas of how to apply what I'm learning to our library. I have a couple of planning days coming up to use how I'd like. I'm going to plan my first Family Reading Night for our middle school and I think I'm going to plan some specific teacher workshops where I can demonstrate some of these ideas to interested staff members. I'd appreciate any ideas for a Family Reading Night for the middle school level if anyone out there has experience with such an event.

Week 4 Thing 9 Feedster & Technorati

I'm back from searching and searching. I used Feedster and Technorati to locate some book review sites for young adult fiction. It took awhile to weed through lots of other unrelated blogs to find a few. After I have a chance to see if they are worthwhile sites, I'll share them. I added these to my Google Reader account so I'll be up-dated for new postings. I still want to put in some more time searching for local and national newsfeeds as well as RSS feeds that would assist students and teachers in finding current information on topics studied in class. I definitely need to put in some more time exploring in this area.