Week 5 Thing #11

I am so glad I had this assignment. I did not know about Farecast -- I saved so much money on airfare to visit my goddaughter in Honduras over Christmas. No wonder it was an award winner. I also checked for airfare to the Rose Bowl. Farecast didn't have the best price -- Travelocity did, but Farecast told me to wait a week until the price went down $50 more. It's a GREAT site. Ning was also a GREAT discovery. I created a private Ning social network for my Media Center Club members. So far it includes profile questions about favorite genre, author, books, characters and has videos about reading. I hope they think it's as great as I do. More later . . .

Week 5 Thing #10

I spent entirely too much time with the Image Generator. Image Chef was fun, but I haven't figured out any practical educational uses for it. I found Build Your Wild Self and BeFunky while surfing through SMARTBoard blogs. They were fun too. But it was when my OCD kicked in and I decided I had to edit the results that all time was lost. More later . . .

Week 4 Thing #9

Assignment: 1. Explore some search tools that can help you locate some news feeds. 2. Create a blog post about your experience. Don't know what to blog about? Here some questions to think about ...Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? What kind of unuseful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

I looked for an RSS feed icon on my local newspaper's webpage but wasn't surprised not to find one -- disappointed but not surprised. I found boingboing -- I enjoyed the gadget update. I wish I could find a feed that would let me keep up with just that column. More later . . .

Week 4 Thing #8

Assignment: 1. Learn about the difference between RSS feed readers, Bloglines, and Google Reader. 2. Create a free "RSS aggregator" account from either Bloglines or Google Reader and subscribe to at least 5 newsfeeds to your reader. 3. Create a post about this exercise.
I think RSS is amazing. And, it seems so simple I have to suspect whether or not it is legitimate. How can something so beneficial be so free and easy to use? Is there a difference between newsreaders, newsfeeds and the old method of just letting magazines pile up on my desk? I'm a librarian! -- I hate to admit to not finding enough time to read. But I had to laugh when I read BiblioTechie's comment. It's just the truth!
I created a Bloglines account first. Then I saw that my WorkinProgress blog gives me the option to import feeds from Google Reader to my Dashboard. (yet more evidence that Mr. Potato Head might be a better reader than I am -- sigh) So I created a Google Reader account. I have a Yahoo page, but enough is enough! And I might end up changing my mind about that because what I like about newsreaders is that I only have to go looking for the feeds once. After that they come to me wherever I choose to have them delivered. The URL for my public bloglines account is: http://www.bloglines.com/public/WorkinProgress@yourlibrary

Week 3 -- Thing #5 (out of order)

Assignment: a. Take a good look around Flickr . . . b. Capture a few pictures of something in your school library. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images “School Library learning2.0" and mark it public. Create a post about your photo and experience.

When I started in my library, I put a Mr. Potato Head by the circulation desk with a sign "Work in Progress @ Your Library. There were a lot of changes I wanted to make and Mr. Potato Head was my billboard to announce that. In the few years that I've been in charge, both the LMC and Mr. Potato Head have undergone changes. So far, the changes to Mr. Potato Head have been drama-free and just plain fun. (Mostly, that's what the changes have been like for the LMC, but not always.)
I like Flickr's use of tags to help search and find images. I looked at 200-some of the more-than-2000 images of Mr. Potato Head. I was surprised that in the 200-some pics of Mr. Potato Head that I saw, none (NOT ONE) had him with books. I have always thought of Mr. Potato Head as a reader. One of my Media Center Club students and I took pictures of Mr. Potato Head in various places around the LMC. We printed them and created a bulletin board, "VOTE for best costume" on Halloween (today). It was fun for all. I created a set of Mr. Potato Heads to Flickr. Then I learned about the "blogit" tool in flickr. I thought, This is how I can get pictures inside my posts and keep the image from covering up the script! It didn't work! :-( But then I finally paid attention to the tool bar at the top of the Compose portion of blogger. AHA!!! I'm mostly happy now, except I'm afraid that Mr. Potato Head is probably a better reader than I am.

Week 3 -- Thing #7

Assignment: Post about anything technology-related that interests you this week.
Flickr and blogger and twitter and second life and hulu.com and skype and avatars are all lots of fun, but the most applicable technology tools I've been able to use with my students last year and this year are the student responders and PowerPoint presentations through TurningPoint. PowerPoint has been around forever and student responders with a radio wave receiver make it interactive. Creating PowerPoint slides is easy. Getting students involved and giving them immediate feedback is powerful. Handing out an individual paper survey about "What is your favorite genre?" is different from asking that same question via PowerPoint to the entire class at the same time, letting them all respond to their favorite choice with the "voters", and then showing them the class-wide results immediately.

Week 3 Thing #6

Assignment: Explore Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools . . . Create a blog post about one . . .
I liked the curriculum connection to use flickrtoys/trading cards to make vocabulary cards or book talk cards. I want to try a Literacy Carnival and thought maybe to create sets of teacher "Superhero" Trading Cards to give as collectibles/prizes at certain of the game sites. I created a Trading Card for myself. It took me awhile to come up with ideas for superhero skills and I don't have any good pictures for this. I mostly "borrowed" the skills from others' cards. And, I never figured out what the icons that we're allowed to choose actually mean. I think I need to hang out with someone who actually collects real Trading Cards. But making the card was fun. I've posted it down on the right side of the blog under the "about me" section. I shared the Superhero Trading Card idea with my library's secretary. She's thinking about it.
I like the idea of mappr and mapmaker and groups. I think there are a number of faculty/staff who would enjoy joining a group and adding some of their vacation pictures for use in classrooms.

I sent an email to my tech people ten days ago asking how to open these mashups for student use, but I haven't heard back from them yet. I shared the lolcat generater with my Media Center Club students. They're still printing posters from that site.

Week 2 Thing #3

I loved creating the avatars. That was fun. I learned from Facebook that there are other free sites to create avatars. I want to play more with exporting them to/from different places. One of my challenges with the camera "avatar" was how to keep it from covering up the quote that I wanted with it. The only solution I discovered was to change the layout of this "gadget."
The students who read the Manga/Tokyopop books talk about avatars. I understood the definition to be a cartoon representation of a real person, an alter ego in an alternate reality -- like Peter Parker / Spiderman. But when koolavatar.com called the movie projector an avatar, I got confused, and I finally looked up the definition. Merriam-Webster online dictionary gave as definition #4: an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user (as in a computer game). The thesaurus in freedictionary.com reads:

1. avatar - a new personification of a familiar idea; "the embodiment of hope"; "the incarnation of evil"; "the very avatar of cunning"

Of course the original definition is "the incarnation of a Hindu god." The change/growth progress in definition of this term reminded me of Carl Sandburg's poem Languages
"There are no handles upon a language Whereby men take hold of it And mark it with signs for its remembrance. It is a river, this language, Once in a thousand years Breaking a new course Changing its way to the ocean. ..." I remembered the quote as languages change like rivers, but the correct quote further on in the poem is languages die like rivers. hmmmmmmm . . .
I also checked out one of blogger's features -- Blogs of Note. The top pick was ReadingAdventures! I don't kid myself that this blog is all that interesting, but I'm hoping the stuff I learn is interesting and can be applied in teaching and learning situations.

WEEK 1 -- THING 2

7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners was well done -- very well done -- but too slow for me. I guess I was expecting something more perky, instead of something so calm. I recognized my attitude as "OK, let's get this done." The easiest habit for me will be #7 1/2 -- Play! I'm ready for that and looking forward to it. The biggest obstacle for me will be the time factor. Hopefully, any "problems" I encounter will be balanced by the fun I have with the play time. The first "problem/challenge" I encountered was opening the learning contract discussed at the end of 7 1/2 Habits. I never figured out the solution on my school computer (DELL). On my home machine (iMAC) I figured out that the problem was "pop-ups not permitted" so I overruled that obstacle and it worked. I've recognized that problem on the Dells at school before, but not this time.