Thing #23

1. My favorite discoveries were LibraryThing, TeacherLibrarian Wiki, TeacherTube and Del.icio.us. (Actually all 22 Things were interesting ... some more than others)
2. How have Things affected lifelong learning goals? I began my teaching profession in the classroom and I have always had a love of reading. I migrated from the classroom to teaching many in a library setting. I continue to work and improve to meet the challenges in the library classroom and to allow all of my students to become successful. There is always something new to learn so I keep reading and sharing!
3. Unexpected outcomes: I have not had any online classes and I did not think I would ever be able to complete all 23 Things. It was difficult to wait for downloads and contend with the firewall in the district. I expect problems trying to share Things if I cannot access sites.
4. Improve on format and concept? I liked the format and concept but I am still not online at home so the time allowed was a challenge. I am looking into getting connected from home. I preview many things afterhours from school or crashed at a friends that is online. Since I had already checked out most of the Things I worked online over Spring Break to finish!
5. Would I participate again? Yes. I will try to get connected from home and await my new laptop before trying again. I might have more time during summer months. Would this be something that could be done during staff development days?
6. Thanks for providing this amazing learning opportunity for us. I am in awe that we work with such a great team.
God Bless...

Thing #22

Ning is another place to social network. I checked out the TeacherLibrarianNing and would use it as a beginnng but not an end as there are so many other great things out there. There was not much for middle school but I will check to see what others thought about Nings.

Now on to the last Thing...

Thing #21

Photo Story was fun to use, but couldn't get the microphone to work, so I used music. I can see uses in the library, especially for student book reports, etc...

Thing #20

Searching out the videos on YouTube and TeacherTube is fun. There is a wealth of information out there. It was easy to find relevant material through searching. I chose this video with my grandson - because there are no cookies in the library, only books about cookies.

Thing #19

There were so many award winners it was hard to know where to begin. I recognized many that I had encountered before and discovered some new ones.

For Books: Library Thing, Lulu , and http://www.biblio.com/
For creative writing projects: http://www.onesentence.com/
For anything multimedia. http://www.podshow.com/
For digital images and photos. Flickr and Picasa

I would like to check out other sites that fellow librarians discovered and utilize those with my teachers.

Thing #18

I tried Openoffice.org and it took a long time to download, but it was interesting for a free program and documents saved in this format opened in Microsoft Office. If you only have access to a free program it is very workable and useful for students that do not have Microsoft Office or other programs available through school. I like Microsoft Office but I am still learning how to use it and all there is to know about it. I plan on sharing this information with some of my key teachers on campus and get their input as well. Google Docs looked interesting and full of possibilities.

Thing #17

Playing in the sandbox was fun! Wikis can be used in many ways... sharing information we have learned from Library 2play; collaboration with librarians on curriculum sharing; just the beginning of things to come as we work together in this information age.

Above is one of my grandchildren, Austin, playing in the sand this past summer. He likes to play in the sand too!

Thing #16

Wikis are wonderful and I really enjoyed this Thing! Everything was fun to read and there are some great links out there with information that is easily understood and shared with others. I can certainly see librarians finding this useful and I plan to share this with my teachers. I can see many of them finding this useful as well. Great sources for middle school book lists and ideas to share! I want to go back and respond to some of the wikis I read...but I must finish the rest of my Things!

Thing #15

As we move toward Library4.0, the librarian will be the information guide and sometimes traffic cop no matter what format is used; and it is necessary to stay informed to assist students and faculty; but there will always be a place for the librarian to meet the needs of the students!
Policies must change in public schools to allow students to access appropriate web based information but students need to be held responsible as well. All of the articles were interesting!

Thing #14

Technorati was not my favorite thing but I understand the use of tags and organization of blogs since there is so much online now to search for and through. I tried the keyword and tag searches and found them to give similar results, but I preferred the way the tag results were listed.

Thing #13

I can certainly see a use for this thing! It was one of the best so far. I will share this with my teachers and I can see them using this with the new laptops and opening Delicious.com to save and share bookmarks.

Thing #12

Select Search Engine...ReferenceSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

This might make it easier to narrow sites, but I don't think it's that useful. It seems to reinvent mega search engines that already exist. But now it's done, so on to the next thing...

Thing #11

LibraryThing is great! Thanks for making it one of our things. I will certainly use it to check out titles that are not already in the system. I checked out the groups and especially liked Librarians Who LibraryThing. It seemed relevant and something I would use as we have shared interests.

Thing #10

I looked at the different resources available and used the Comic Strip Generator focusing on Snoopy, my favorite to create the graphics above. You could use an image generator to create bookmarks, trading cards, posters, and rewards for reading celebrations. You could also create strips and have students fill in the word bubbles themselves.

Thing #9

• Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Google Blog Search where you did a keyword search to find a feed was the easiest to use. Also looking at the blog rolls of trusted colleagues like Vaughn made it easy to find a feed of interest.
  
• Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Google Blog Search since I chose that as my news reader or any other tool that has a keyword search option.
  
• Which was more confusing? A top 100 list that did not offer a detailed description of the blog's content was more time consuming to sort through and was not user friendly.
  
• What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? Library2Play or any feeds on Vaughn's page were great. Many sites were confusing because of all the ads that made it hard to find the information. There's just not enough time to really check out all the blogs, so I'll use my resources in our district and check with my fellow librarians to find out what they found useful and not reinvent the wheel.
  
• What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds? Asking family and friends and discovering through conversations with others what news feeds they find useful. Also my wonderful supervisor who updates us through emails and monthly meetings.
  

Thing #8

• What do you like about RSS and newsreaders? I like RSS updates as it makes information easily accessible and brings new ideas right to your Google Reader. I can select topics that interest me or that are content areas I need to share with my teachers.
  
• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life? With our new laptops, this new technology will be invaluable in both school and personal life. I plan on sharing this information with my staff after April 22nd (probably before so they'll be ready).
  
• How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? Between lesson plan, curriculum, and author websites, new information will become available on computers in the library on topics requested by teachers. Teachers can select these feeds on library computers and access them during the day.
  

Thing #7

Here is a link to my Google Notebook I started on quilting. I also used Google Earth to locate an aerial view of my campus (shown on the left). I can see using all the new tools and resources I've learned under Google with science, social studies, and other content areas that I teach in the library. I will enjoy sharing these resources with my teachers as there's so much more to Google than just searching.

Thing #6

I used Mosaic Maker to create a collage of my grandchildren. I still would like to play with the trading card idea that was discussed at our library meeting. Sounds like a fun way to share authors!

Thing #5

Flickr is fun and easy to use. Family has used shutterfly in the past but might switch over to flickr. Great place to find images that can be used for lessons in the library.

Thing #3

Avatar was easy to do and easy to import when reading and following directions. I chose to hold a grandchild as I have four. I chose to stand in a kitchen since I am your cake lady. This part was fun and I'm looking forward to 20 more.

Thing #2

Remembering to take time to play along the way is easy, but viewing a problem as a challenge and meeting the challenge is harder to do.

Thing #1

I've got my blogging shoes on and I'm ready to go!