Stretchy Librarian

Texas Two-Step: Method 3, In the Cloud

2009-12-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

I haven't given thought until now to wonder where my Google mail resides. The initial knowledge that it might be in Boston one day and on a server in Los Angeles another day is unsettling. However, the benefits I've had with my Gmail in the cloud compensates for that. Zoho looks intriguing, but I find that my intuition and online "intuitive" programs are often not on the same wavelength. I scanned some of the Zoho apps, but wish there was more instruction. I'll search for some sites in the cloud that will simplify and explain this process to me. Doug Johnson's idea of carrying a light and inexpensive netbook, and putting nearly everything else in the cloud is appealing. But I do have concerns about loss of identity, loss of electricity, loss of connectivity. As is true for all new inventions that are widely-used, this one will become stronger, safer, and easier to use.

Methods 1 and 2

2009-10-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

I took the 23 Things with Spring Branch ISD this past summer, and learned a great deal. By the time I got to the end of it, I knew enough to feel like I needed to start over. Using the 10 Things from the Texas State Library will help me review some of the key things.

I'm very excited about Library 2.0. For a while, there was so much gloom and doom about how libraries and librarians would become extraneous and underused. With the tools of Library 2.0 that help librarians communicate and interact with their patrons in a collegial way, the life is back for libraries. Knowing many of the tools makes us better able to appeal and relate to our digital natives. I see Library 2.0 as a bridge between the digital immigrant librarians and their younger clients. It is a way to not only become relevant, but also necessary and helpful. We are definitely helping our patrons learn to fish in the digital pond.

23 Things Commencement Thoughts

2009-08-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

My favorite discoveries were Rollyo and delicious. I will definitely be using them in the future.

This program has assisted my lifelong learning goals because there were so many "things" I read about in journals or heard in the news of from students that I didn't know about, and now, even if I'm not yet adept at their use, I know about them.

An unexpected outcome from this program is to show me that this old dog can still learn new tech tricks.

This program is terrific. It uses the "things" it asks us to learn in the instruction so we not only see examples, but we use them. The only thing I wish could be different is that every time I'd click on a link inside the lesson, the site would open on top of the 23 Things site, and each subsequent site would open on top of that one until I couldn't find my original page and had to close and reopen the progarm.

I would participate in another discovery program. In fact, it looks like there is another Library2Play section. I'd like to learn more about Facebook--how to use it without surrendering my identy or endangering my privacy.

How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities? My one word would be "catalytic"

Thing 22: Nings

2009-08-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Classroom 2.0's Ning includes access to monthly vidcasts that are broadcast first as free webinars. Steven Hargadon created the ning to "Welcome to Classroom20.com, the social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education" and even has a section to give additional help to those new to this effort. He seems to be encouraging others to learn and integrate all this digital stuff by using those same technologies to teach us. PBS KIDS producers and educators discussed Early Childhood Literacy: Resources & Strategies.

So much free quality inservice is available on the Internet through the webinars, blogs, nings, and online video sessions that I'm surprised my district has gone to immense work to have 2 days of upcoming face-to-face, self-selected workshops for all in the district. The district librarians will be attending a webinar on updates on our Canadian-based circulation program, so there will be some use made of 2.0 technologies.

In checking out the various Nings and postings by teachers and librarians, I can see how useful this is to add a "you are not alone" element to our lives. The most impressive site, and the most travelled from what I can tell, is Joyce Valenza's TeacherLibrarian Ning. Her tabs, Members, Photos, Videos, Forums, Events (let's you know about all the upcoming library and techie state/national conferences), Groups and Blogs, make every kind of social and information connection that could help in at work.

I don't think I would create a ning, but I might join one. My only hesitation is that I'm already a member of LM_Net, have an RSS feed from several blogs, and get a lot of professional reading and information from print and online journals and magazines. As wonderful as they are, do I really have time to add all the postings of a ning? We've only scratched the surface in this course concerning all the possibilities in the ether. But to keep from feeling overwhelmed and undercapable, I think I'll select a few to learn well. I think Nings will be in the second wave for me.

Thing 21: Podcasts and Vidcasts

2009-08-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

After my book Substitute Groundhog came out, a librarian in a south Texas school sent me a podcast of her students performing a Suzy Red script related to it. When they e-mailed it to me, I was impressed and touched. I'm glad to have the tools to make similar podcasts with my own students. It might be a more appealing alternative to a book report for some students.

For an author visit by Mike Artell last spring, PhotoStory came in VERY handy for me. With Mike's permission, I scanned the book into PhotoStory and used it to read his book La Petite Rouge, A Cajun Red Riding Hood to each class. Because my school is large, it saved me from having to read the book to 22 classes, especially because it is lengthy and there is a lot of Cajun dialect. Because of copyright, I destroyed the story after his visit, so I am unable to vodcast it. Knowing what I do now, I'll be able (if my district permits) to vidcast such a production so classes can view it in their classrooms.

I'm going to use PhotoStory to show the locations of the library as we go on a virtual tour. In the past, trying to do it physically was less successful as I dragged my queue of ducklings around the library. Inevitably, the ones at the end heard the least. I'll follow that with a game I'm creating for the Smart Board. So far I've taken all the photos and learned how to do it. The end product won't be finished until after this course. I think it will be very handy, if I'm permitted, to save this tour as a vidcast for new students to see, and to use as a midyear review.

Thing 20: You Tube, Teacher Tube, and Blinkx

2009-07-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

I did not have a lot of luck on Teacher Tube. I searched first for Library Orientation. The blurbs for each offering are very brief--after a few words, the canned TeacherTube vision statement usurps the rest of the space. However, I discovered that they were the same 6 videos listed over and over again. Clicking on one called Orientation at Walker Elementary didn't get me the video, but a 9+ page list of the most favorite videos (and they weren't related to my search). On about the fifth page, I again clicked on the same title, and this time the video came up. However, the 4 1/2 minute video had to buffer EVERY 4 SECONDS! I let it buffer 5 times and then lost patience.
However, when I went to YouTube, I found a clean page with the summaries of the videos listed on the right and a screen shot, title, and brief descriptor listed on the left. Many of the Teacher Tube videos were listed here (only once per title), but the screen shots and summaries made choosing an appropriate one MUCH easier.

Here's one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGGt7S34hrQ

Since I'm continuing to have trouble with this "Thing", I'm going to skip it and come back later. On to Thing 21.

It's been nearly 2 more weeks since I posted this, and I still can open the direction video for how to download videos, and I thought I tried what the help screens told me to do to download, but it doesn't work. This is all the time I have to spend on this Thing on this go round.

Thing 19: Web 2.0 Awards

2009-07-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 Awards reminds me that we could have a 23Things-Part II just based on the award winners. Glad to see that some are the ones we've already been working with.

I investigated first place Lulu in the book category because it was listed with LibraryThing (honorable mention). If I'm going to learn a cataloging program, I might as well learn the first place winner. However, it isn't a cataloging / book club kind of site and I'm surprised they were competing. It is a self-publishing site. The viewer chooses from a variety of options concerning cover, binding, pages, price, etc. Then I'm sure money changes hands and voila--you're published! There are more than 14,000 books on the site, which is meant to be the sales site as well. Judging from the uneven quality of the blurbs besides each author's cover, I would definitely be very choosy about what I purchased from this site.

In the Education category, I investigated first place winner DocStoc. This is a place to upload one's documents for the world to see, but a twist is that you can earn money by doing so. Hopefully many folks will look at your documents, and buy from the advertisers that have space on the right side of your document. DocStoc splits the earnings 50/50 with the person who uploaded the document. The front page of the site featured documents listing the earnings of staffers at the White House and the 911 transcript of the call about Steve McNair.

Clicking on the Education link at DocStoc brought up all kinds of documents from a multiplication baseball folder game to "low pass filter controller design simulation in Pspice". I searched for Smart Board documents and found only 4. This site seems unwieldy to me. Because people might be motivated to put up quantity over quality to increase their odds of advertising revenue, I see its promise diluted. I'd prefer to use Rollyo to search multiple quality lesson plan sites, for example. Doing so brings up more Smart Board lessons than I can use in a year!

I also investigated LinkedIn from the Professional Networking category because I've been asked to join by 3 people and didn't know what it was. The actual site isn't much help, but the videos on YouTube explained everything I need to know. Done right, this site takes a couple of hours per week to answer professional questions to help others and build professional relationships. I can see some of the advantages for a professional, and for school use, it might help you locate experts to help students. However, Ask an Expert seems like a much less complicated way to do this.

All in all, I'm glad to know there's a site like this to show me the best of what's out there. Google must be very proud to see so many of its products in the top places.

Thing 18: Online Productivity Tools

2009-07-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

I investigated GoogleDocs and found a lot to like.

Pro
1. Cut out a number of meetings about revising the school handbook, curriculum documents, etc.
2. Can use it to work offline.
3. Templates include scrapbooks as well as resume's and business documents and forms
4. Allow revisions within a group, or back and forth between a writer and editor
5. Can be used on any computer
6. When used by a group, you can see who is contributing, and how much
7. Keeps your presentation safe when traveling with a presentation.

Con
1. Will my district allow us to use this with students?
2. Because many users are already comfortable with the Office products, this will require some training and encouragement in use until the comfort zone finds them again.

Thing 17: Rollyo

2009-07-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

Until I tried it, I thought the only difference between Rollyo and a pathfinder on my school's server would be public access outside my district. The magic happened when I posted my list and then searched. I posted a list of Texas Regions sites for my fourth graders who are required to do a project on a Texas city. Now they will be able to search all the sites for Cuero or San Antonio instead of having to open and search each site individually. Wow!

The only thing I think would make the site more useful is if we could type in the name of the site with the address. Looking at someone else's roll list means I have to open each site to see what it is. If it were named, I would know which I could trust (Smithsonian, National Geographic, etc.). The site may be young--I found little to help me in the elementary library at this point, at least for the searches I did.

Great tool, and SO simple!

Thing 16: Wikis

2009-07-19T06:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a perfect example of why each of these assignments takes many hours for me. I've been reading and thinking for nearly 4 hours and haven't gotten past the first link in the assigment!

I clicked on the link to the ALA conference wiki, and was sidetracked after the first session, David Free's "Welcome to the Twitterverse". What got me off track was a connection to Michael Gorman who is not a fan of twittering, or indeed, of what he calls "The Siren Song of the Internet".

Then I read articles that disagreed with Gorman, and even a sidebar article about personal computing in 1988. (Anyone remember having to touch metal before the keyboard, that RadioShack and Exxon made computers, and that geeks salivated over the portable Osborne 1 that weighed only 23 pounds and could be stored under an airplane seat?) All of these initial articles address misgivings I've been having about the tools of 2.0. (Research I read today shows most will skip reading the rest of this post because it is "too long".)

With RSS feeds, social networking, Technorati and tags for my photos, my personal books , my posts, and favorite sites--and now wikis and tweets--I feel overwhelmed by data. There also seems to be increased respect for and reliance on what's been called "the hive mind" and it unsettles me to think that "keeping up" could involve hours of reading the thoughts and ideas of hundreds of strangers whose credibility is unknown.

Here are some immediate events that have given me pause.

A few days ago, I made the mistake of answering yes when my computer asked if I wanted to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. I began to have immediate problems, including the inability to cut and paste into my blog posts (I'm using FireFox to write this). I thought I'd use Technorati to find out what people are saying about the pros and cons of IE8 before I rush my machine to the tech doc to have it removed. I spent 45 minutes reading posts and comments, and was taken aback by the amount of flaming and bad language. It made me long for the integrity of Consumer Reports or the authority of Forbes favorite Slashdot.

Three weeks ago I attended an 8-day Highlights Foundation Writer's Retreat on the beautiful wooded farm of the family that founded and still publishes Highlights Magazine. We had individual cabins, gourmet meals, and unfettered writing time after a morning session from an award-winning author. There was no TV, no radio, no cell phone reception.

After the first two days of techno-withdrawal, I felt my mind settling. It was as if my thoughts, especially because of all I'm learning at 23Things, were a whirpool of thrashing waters. When they had unplugged time to calm, my thoughts cleared into a transparency that allowed me to produce 5 manuscripts! I also had slow time to re-examine the complexities of my life and the desire to simplify and find peace came to the forefront. I think that's why the following quote resonates with me:

"In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas...

If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture. In a recent essay, the playwright Richard Foreman eloquently described what’s at stake:

I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense and “cathedral-like” structure of the highly educated and articulate personality—a man or woman who carried inside themselves a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West. [But now] I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self—evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the “instantly available.”

As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button." from "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr. (Atlantic, July/August, 2008)

I've still to read all the rest of the links on this Wiki Thing, and that will require even more thought and introspection. Somewhere deep in the links of all the articles I read this morning was a quote about the four levels of information: data, information, knowledge, wisdom. I still have much to learn about wikis, but one thing I know already, we need to teach students that an accumulation of data doesn't push us to the next step--information--any more than a plethora of information leads to knowledge.

Instead, synthesis and application must be employed before the next level can be reached. Because 500 people say "me too" in tweet responses to a statement doesn't make the statement wisdom, nor do 100 posts that supply the same incorrect data to a wiki make it knowledge. The best of conventional learning and wisdom needs to be applied to 2.0, because efficiency, accessibility, and speed do not equal merit.

POSTSCRIPT: Though he is often dismissed as a ranting Luddite, I find these considerations from Michael Gorman's various articles to be important: "Let me be clear at the outset, the Internet in particular and the digital resources available to us in general are ineluctable forces that are shaping our lives, in many ways for the better. We cannot turn away from these forces, nor should we. But we must exercise judgment, use digital resources intelligently, and import into the digital world the values that have pervaded scholarship in Western societies for many centuries.

"Human beings learn, essentially, in only two ways. They learn from experience—the oldest and earliest type of learning—and they learn from people who know more than they do. The second kind of learning comes from either personal contact with living people—teachers, gurus, etc.—or through interaction with the human record, that vast assemblage of texts, images, and symbolic representations that have come to us from the past and is being added to in the present. It is this latter way of learning that is under threat in the realm of digital resources."

At the risk of being labeled outdated, or worse, is anyone else having reservations?

Thing 15: Library 2.0 What Does It Mean?

2009-07-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you? What does it mean for school libraries?

Library 2.0 is the Read/Write Web, using the Internet not just as a collection of resources searchable by engine, but as a place where the collective intelligence can congregate, create, and share. Not only are the library walls down, but the state and country borders are down. Many of the blogs and videos I've accessed while playing are as likely to come from Australia, England, Canada and other English-speakers as they are to be from USA.

Rather than merely absorbing information, Library 2.0 teaches students to think, to analyze, to synthesize and create information using products and processes on the Web 2.0. We've come an amazingly long way from when using technology meant programming a Logo turtle or playing Oregon Trail. We don't buy tech programs on CD anymore--it's all available online.

Rick Anderson's description of the Three Icebergs that threaten our profession's ship and our own library boats has given me much to think about, and some ideas I've yet to work out. It's so easy to charge us with abandoning the print collection to build access to "everything", create services that don't need training, and humbly admit we don't have a monopoly on information so we should supply access to it in every digital way possible. But doing all that? It's not just the training and effort needed by the librarian, but the financing, enlightenment, and buy-in of those in education who have more say over libraries than the librarian that works in them.

The article on Librarian 2.0 is particularly frustrating. It describes what seems like an information superhero who is unfettered by minuscule budgets, supported by agile tech departments, consulted by savvy patrons, and understands, uses, and even spots trends ahead of others. I will need a Second Life to do all that and still function in the real world I live in at school.

As a digital immigrant, I feel like these charges take a team, and the team seems to be possible by using the socially networked tools themselves. However, school districts move slowly and economically, effectively blocking many of the Librarian 2.0 traits that we are urged to develop. Learning all the tech tools is similar to the difficulties of learning the intricacies and irrational rules of English as one not born into the language, but an English that changes constantly.

Bottom line: For schools and their libraries, 2.0 offers exciting possibilities to get kids thinking, get them engaged, get them creating. However, are both organizations nimble enough to take advantage of the tools? Is it possible for librarians and teachers to stay trained, stay current, stay proactive when the tools are blocked? The future of learning is a rosy one, but the traditional educational burdens of underfunding and slowness to change are exacerbated by the acceleration of tech change and the ability of learners to get what they need and want without the educational system.

Thing 14: Explore Technorati

2009-07-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

1. Are the Technorati results different in Blog posts, in tags, and in the Blog Directory? Today, July 15 at 4:30, there were 1183 posts for School Library Learning 2.0. These were posts with "any authority". There were 249 with some authority, and 32 with a lot of authority. There were 73 blogs, 12 photos and 18 videos. If the photos and videos are any indication, there is a lot of unrelated material with these tags. For instance, the videos on this topic include how to apply car tinting, extreme survival for military, and Olivia learning French. Being able to winnow the posts by authority will hopefully overcome this seemingly random tagging.

2. Anything interesting or surprising in popular blog, searches and tags? In the directory, topics are limited and somewhat arbitrary. You can find advertising and liberal politics, but not education. Clicking popular books revealed that Amazon was having "a temporary problem with that information". There was also a glitch when clicking on popular tags. Searching the top 100 blogs led to some interesting information. I watched The Angry Chef make unhealthy bran muffins in his tiny kitchen, for example.

3. Value of tagging info and thoughts on how Technorati and its features can help me and my students. The more I delve into blogging and tagging, the more I realize how much is out there and how one could live on the computer all day. Now we can keep up not only with what our friends think and wonder, but also folks from around the world. And we should? I can see the benefit of sampling "the unwashed masses", as the Technorati product developer calls them after an event like Obama's election, Michael Jackson's death, or the launch of the latest Space Shuttle. Tantek Celik of Technorati thinks there is much to be gained from, "the human experience raw and uncut" with no filters. Another at Technorati said that "good stuff will bubble up from the bottom".

A good example of the impact of this phenomenom is a music video made by a musician whose guitar was broken by United. After a year of chasing down numerous individuals at United, Dave Carroll posted the first of 3 videos he promised United he would make to publicize the destruction of his $3500 Taylor guitar. In 10 days, there were 3.2 million views and 14,000 comments. This will definitely impact United's policy in the future.

Claim your blog: Still waiting for verication

Thing 13: Tagging and Discover Delicious

2009-07-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

1. See if you can figure out how to share your delicious site with others (students). Since my husband, a fellow student, is also an educator, I'm going to share some of my lesson sites with him.

2. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. When school ended in May, we had to move all our bookmarks, which were grouped by student topics, from our shared drive to My Documents because the computers will be reimaged over the summer. Come August, I'll move all of them back to the shared drive. With Delicious, this won't be necessary.

Students can also access the bookmarks more easily from home. Accessing them on our school site requires student training and a number of clicks. The ability for a group to contribute to a tagged subject by using a unique tag is a great idea. Share the workload, and make the search part of a group assignment rather than just handing the list to students on a shared drive.

Finally, I've decided to open all the bookmarks on my computer and evaluate whether I still need them, and if so, I'll tag and store them on Delicious. Two problems I've had with my bookmarks--I forget I have them, and when I do remember the site I need is there, I often don't remember and have to search the hard way.

Funny, I remember in the early days of my dial-up, dot-matrix, digital life writing down Web sites in a tabbed address book in order to save them. We've come a long way!

Thing 12: Creating Community Through Commenting

2009-07-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

1. Explain two of the points about successful commenting that you think are important.

There were so many important points in the discussion of blogging etiquette that were very useful. Two that will impact my future use of blogging and commenting are:
Darren Rowse, ProBlogger.com, shared tips about how to get more people to comment. Since all of this is new to me, I learned that blogging is more than an online journal that people can peek at if they want. Since I'm also a writer, this site will be helpful in getting me to develop and use a site related to my books to enhance community and sales. The discussion about whether to comment on comments was enlightening.

At Blogging Basics 101, I read a very interesting discussion about what name to use when commenting on edublogosphere. I hadn't given this any thought, but now I have. I am going to combine my extremely common first name for a personal touch with my book brand to be memorable and possibly lead people to my writer's blog and Website. I like Pat@StretchyLibrarian.

2. Choose at least five different Library2Play blogs and make at least one comment to each. I did so, starting at the bottom of the list since those folks may not get a lot of attention. Unfortunately, I had posted comments on 3 sites before I realized they were all graduates of the course! The other 2 are current librarians and I got a good lead to sites from each of them. It was fun to comment. I can see why it is important to try to return the comment if anything of substance has been contributed, or in the case of the limited responses I will have on my blogs, to each person who has taken the time to write.

3. Find two blogs about a subject of personal interest and explain what drew your attention to these blogs. One is PlanetEsme Book-A-Day Blog by Esme Codell (I love her books) which keeps me informed as a librarian and the other is Writer's First Aid by children's author Kristi Holl which gives me a weekly shot in the arm in my life as an author.

Thing 11: LibraryThing

2009-07-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

This was fun to play around in. The latest blog post concerned the booth LibraryThing had at the recent ALA conference. I checked into it, and viewed the catalog of the Richardson Public Library. It has added LibraryThing for Libraries to its catalog. The enhancement shows up by adding "Similar Books" and "Tags" categories to the left of each title. This is very handy to supply recommendations for readalikes and a wordcloud way to access books rather than a subject search.

It will be very handy for me to catalog my home library of children's books. My current method of searching all 5 bookcases, vaguely remembering a title, is very inefficient. This will make my home library as easy to use as my school library. I did check into the groups (two of the three gave me an error message), and saw how this site can truly keep the book addict in more recommended pages than she/he could read in an uninterrupted lifetime!

I also discovered that I'm not reading nearly enough quality titles. I need to quit joining and rejoining those book clubs via mail. Their repeated tempting offers to send me 5 books for 99 cents have filled my "need to read" shelf with none of the books that I see reviewed and shared as favorites. This site will be a source for more literate titles to read.

Thing 10: Online Image Generator

2009-07-12T05:36:00.000-07:00

Graphic novels are very popular in our library, and I have one boy in particular who is creating book after book of his own detailed graphic novels. This site would give any student the opportunity and tools to dip their imagination into the world of story told through conversation bubbles. This would be fun to pair with Mo Willems' books, most of which are only told this way, with older students, and let them loose with the sites to create one or more pictures in the same manner.

Thing 9: Useful Blogs and News Feeds

2009-06-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

"I like to read people who are widely read and view new knowledge not as an opportunity to dig in and resist but to learn and grow. "--Vicki Davis, Cool Cat Teacher Blog

Vicki inspired me to think positively about these new tools. So it was surprising that two of the first sites I linked to from her "How to Create Your Circle of the Wise: How to pick the reads in your RSS" were not positive.

1. Creating Passionate Users "As for the future of this blog, I know I cannot just return to business as usual -- whatever absurd reasons have led to this much hatred for me (and for what I write here) will continue, so there is no reason to think the same things wouldn't happen again... and probably soon."

2. Order for Closure , the recent "Most Influential Post" winner in The Edublogs 2008 Awards, displayed its most recent post (2/04/08), and last post, right after the annuncement of its award: "This blog has been disabled in compliance with DECS wishes."

Not all is sweetness and light in the blogosphere. Over all, I found a number of interesting blogs to follow, but only selected a handful. I'll follow them and see how they use my time. Though they had won Edublog 2008 Awards, not all of the winning sites are still online. Vicki and her Cool Cat Teacher Blog gave me a lot of good information and will be included in my selective Circle of the Wise.

Ironically, the subscription I look forward to reading is one I discovered on the blog search. It is to an online print magazine, Technology and Learning. This old dog is trying new tricks, but keeps returning to its old favorites!

Thing 8: RSS Feeds and Readers

2009-06-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

The RSS and readers save time by culling the huge amount of daily data to bring you updates on what you want to know about. They cost time because they give you even more to read each day! No longer is it enough to keep up with professional journals and magazines and books in the field. Now there is daily info to keep one on the leading edge.

In my school life, I will have to use this at home. Just like e-mail can be a black hole for time, this reading will also cost productive work time. At least when people see you reading a book or magazine, they can see how that might make you an asset. But absorbed for lengths of time on the computer? Not as positive an image.

I find that when I need information, I will look for it. With the RSS, info is brought to me on topics I've selected whether I need the info or not. For example, every now and then, I like to read Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk blog. He is entertaining and well informed. But with an RSS, I will feel compelled by an irrational concern that I will fall behind if I don't keep up with all the new info.

If there was a narrow curriculum topic that would be served by the latest news, an RSS would be a real asset. An example would be efforts to return to the moon. Or if a school was getting involved in an initiative like professional learning communities, it would be helpful to have an RSS bring in the latest info and thoughts from others trying the same things.

Thing 7: Cool Google Tools

2009-06-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

I set up a calendar, an iGoogle page, and played with some of the other tools.
The two tools I chose to explore more thoroughly were Google Notebook www.google.com/notebook/#b=BDQwUSwoQ6szrtp8k and Google Alert http://www.google.com/alerts. Since our students and faculty aren't allowed to set up their own desktops, this tool would be of best use to educators on a home address.

The notebook feature looked like a great way to keep notes while researching anything on the Net. What I do now, personally and with students, is to use vertical pages, with the Word doc open on one side and the Internet site next to it. The downside is that a lot of scrolling is involved, especially if the laptop has a smaller screen.

However, when I got ready to play with it, I got this: "Google recently stopped development on Notebook, which means it is no longer being improved upon or open to sign-ups by new users. If you're visiting notebook for the first time, instead try exploring other Google products that are still supported." I didn't think the Bookmarks tool, which was suggested in lieu, met the same need. Does anyone know of a similar tool developed by someone else?

To keep up with buzz that is going on (or not) about the books I have written, I made alerts for each of the series. However, I discovered when I was inundated with sites that the alert searches for each word separately! So I tried doing just a couple of alerts with the titles in quotation marks. No results to report yet, since they are only posted once a day.

Thing 6: Mash-Ups

2009-06-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

This is how our terrier Hank would look if he was immortalized by Andy Warhol from the Warholizer mash-up at Big Huge Labs.

This motivational poster mash-up has so many applications! This would be a great way to involve faculty and students in making READ posters. And the site, Big Huge Labs, allows you to save it or send it in so many ways--including ordering posters.

These are only two of the 42 "Flickr Toys" at bighugelabs.com. And that's only one of the 181 mash-ups listed at Flickrbits, http://www.flickrbits.com/. Kids would happily do research to produce mash-ups to demonstrate their knowledge. That's one way to get around plagiarism.

Thing 5 - Using Flickr and Creative Commons

2009-06-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday I'm flying to a Writers' Retreat in the woods of the Pennsylvania farm owned by the Brown family that began Highlights magazine. We each will have our own cabin--echoes of writing Thoreau's adventure.

Flickr is definitely the eye of the Internet. Is there a way to give credit in a tag line just under the photo--perhaps in a smaller font?

Photo by Wili Hybrid/Flickr

Thing 3: Blogs and Avatars

2009-06-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Setting up the blog couldn't have been easier! But I got lost in the avatar instructions, going back only to the FAQ on the 23 Things help page rather than all the way back to the instructions on the original Thing page. It's easy to wander off into Cyberland with all the help screens, examples, etc.

But I think I'm getting the hang of this. My avatar, poor thing, will probably always be wearing the same outfit--like one of the caped super heroes. She is poised to help any child or staff member that comes to the library with an information need--or just wanting a hug.

Thing 2: 7 1/2 Habits of Successful Learners

2009-06-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

The easiest habit for me is to accept responsibility for my own learning. Dad was in the military, so we moved a lot and the quality of my education was very uneven. However, he gave us what we needed to become life-long learners, voracious readers, and fluent writers. He is gone now, but he would have been all over this 2.0 stuff.

The hardest? Viewing difficulties as learning opportunities. To be an effective teacher-librarian, I have to engage my learners, and today that means through interactivity and productivity. I've got to start that vertical climb, learning some of the best of the countless apps and strategies. As Habit 4 urges, say what you want to be true. So I believe that I'm going to have at least 23 learning opportunities and that I WILL overcome my frustration and feelings of inadequacy.

Thing 1 Playing with Web 2.0

2009-06-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

Even though there is no assignment here, I've discovered that I really like being able to move through the videos, blogs, and other 2.0 ways I'm being taught and know that my digital natives will be even more so. I have to keep thinking like The Little Engine, though I feel very intimidated. But I want to give my students the best instruction I can, and via technology is definitely the way to get them interactive and productive. Wish one of my fifth graders was here to help me with this. :-)