Thing 11 Delicious Tagging

Tagging photos, articles and information with subjects that make sense to me and my patrons has great potential for research and saving those favorite bookmarks of mine. If I could tag some of the research sites, or inform staff and students how to tag their research articles, this would save them a lot of time, and enable them to have all their articles in one spot. What a great way to build a list of resources. Now that I have those buttons on my explorer site, I plan to use them to organize my favorites.

Thing 10 Wikis

Well, I certainly find Wiki's interesting. Many of them that I viewed made sure that the viewer's messages pertained to the site, and were not personal or abusive. Some of them required an email address in order to edit any of the pages. I did get into the 23things ona stick Wiki and added a title to the front page, and then deleted it when I found the section for the comments. It seems like such a simple concept and seemed easy to access the editing pages. As for Wikipedia, we do not ban it from our library, but do remind students that a lot of the information on the site can be added by any internet user and therefore the information, although interesting, may not be completely accurate and therefore not suitable for research documentation. I am not sure I am ready to start up my own wiki yet, but I do like the idea of the "subject" topics, book lists, book reviews, and the other library sites. We are presently working on celebrating MN 150th birthday in our school, and I viewed the MN wiki and might possibly add to that site myself, or encourage some of my patrons to visit that site and add to it. I am glad for the opportunity to learn more about wikis. I was clueless, now am a little informed.

Thing 9 Collaboration

I found that Zoho Writer was relatively easy to use. I edited the Declaration of Independence, and I think that our Founding Fathers would probably be amazed at what can be done with their masterpiece. I tried to use Google Docs, but it would not allow me access. I did, however, add one of my documents to my personal google account. This would seem to be a useful tool since access to my document is right at my fingertips (if Internet is available). I like the idea of being able to access documents easily, but am a little leary of the entire world being able to utilize or see these documents. For the most part, I am content with my flash drive and the school server to handle my personal documents. If I were a history teacher, it would be useful to access public documents and have editing capabilities for these documents.

Thing 8 Sharing

Now that is really cool! I created a photo slide cube with picture trail. Adding it to the blog took only 2 tries--it is really easy to use. I had forgotten that I had a picture trail account, and it was fitting that my pictures from Armenia are located there--I am doing a presentation on Armenia tomorrow. I also have an efolio account, and have used it before. Efolio is used by our school counselor and other staff members. I haven't used mine lately because I have a TeacherWeb account that allows me to include the library stuff I want on there. I will post the link. I try to keep that updated with the latest library news from our school. Our school's website is also a useful link for sharing information with our patrons. I have also used Shutterfly and Snapfish for sharing photos and making photo books. I made a photo book of my niece's wedding and several calendars--I would recommend either one of those for picture sharing. What is nice about those is that you can use other family member's photos if they belong to that group. I would also recommend Picture Trail, and I, too, didn't have to buy anything. I just clicked through the ads. It was easy to use, easy to understand. I liked the lazybase and think it would come in handy for those lists of titles (books in a series, etc) that students want access to, as well as other personal lists (recipes for Weight Watcher's, for example). The Big Huge Lab is a great site to play around with pictures and create different formats for the pictures I have taken. I tried the Mosaic Maker and the Badge Maker and can see using them in the future for personal projects I have have. Could also be used for school projects--making 'official looking' badges for our Reading Zone readers comes to mind right now. This is way too much fun--but time to move on.

GatorReader

Thing 7 Communication tools

After reading the productivity tips for email, I agree completely and actually do all of those already. I check email about 4 times during the work day. Our school email gets bogged down with riff-raff--you know those jokes that aren't really funny, or the chain emails that are ridiculous and mostly untrue. I do delete most of them, and when I get fed up with them, I refer them to our school website where they can check if what they are sending is really true.

Email, however, is a very useful and efficient tool for providing information quickly to those who need it. We use if for quick messages, meeting information, workshop ideas and emergency information. Being able to communicate with teachers and staff is very important, and email provides an efficient way to communicate to all staff members.

As for IM, I do have a Yahoo Messenger account, which of course, I can't access at school. But I would love to IM with any librarian out there who is willing to chat about 23 things. Send me an email address and I will add you to my contacts on Yahoo Messenger. ( I will see if our techician will allow that site on my computer at school)

I have used Messenger for several years now, because I chatted with my Armenian teaching partner during our Project Harmony year-long project. Connectivity was an issue with her at that time, but when we could get through it was very useful as we planned our lessons for each other's classes. We also did an instant chat with Armenian students--of course this had to be prearranged to make sure all of us were online because of the time difference in our two areas. I also IM with my daughter who was in the Peace Corps, and phone calls were very expensive and IM was free. We still use that from time to time.

I am fascinated by the IM Reference aspect for school libraries. What a great tool that would be if we could get our students out of the nasty sites they like to text message to each other with--that is why we do not allow it in our school district. The language they use is inappropriate and downright filthy at times. (Beats me how they got around the firewall, when I can't get into any blogs or messenger services from my computer)--But a 24/7 reference center WOW!

I don't have the option for text messaging on my cell phone (it's in the car, primarily for emergency use). I have sent messages a couple of times, but I am so slow and so illiterate when it comes to texting, that I prefer to use email or regular phone calls. I have a problem with the shorthand used in texting--basically it is Greek to me. But, I can see the advantage of being able to text to students/patrons who use a cell phone as their primary source of communicating. No doubt this will be a common practice in the future BFNIDTY (but for now I don't text yet).

I have participated in Minitex webinars and I feel they are a valuable tool for communication, especially for those of us in remote areas. They provide a way for us to get new information, or training on new technology via a web conference. I learned all about the Gale resources via Minitex, and this was efficient and economical for me, as I usually have to travel several hours to get to a conference that might last an hour.

Although I am not proficient in using all of these communication tools yet, I do realize their importance for out patrons/students and the impact they will have on their learning and their ability to have access to library resources and tools basically at their fingertips.

Whew! 7 done, 14 to go! My brain is full!

Thing 6

Wow! I made a name badge for my Weight Watchers meeing, a trading card with a favorite pet, a puzzle and checked out the mosaic maker, the motivational poster, the framer and the pocket album. They are all so easy to use to create different ways to present different photos. This would be great in an art class or any class that requires pictures for brochures or posters. I liked the simplicity of it, and can see myself using this in presentations or informational projects with students.

After using Flickr, I think I prefer it to the Google Picasa Web Album--it uploads easily, sharing is simple, and it's fun to play with the "toys" that go along with Flickr.

Thing 5

The "spell it" portion of Flicker was fun to do. I spelled out "I love to read" and added it to my blog. I also tried out the color photo find section. I think that I would use the "spell it" portion for posters and maybe use it to motivate my readers in the library. Since it is I Love to Read month, I may put that group of photos on a poster and use it in the library. I get too carried away with all this stuff, and something that is supposed to take me 15 minutes ends up being an hour or so. Very relaxing and stress relieving so far--have to concentrate on learning something new.

Thing 4 Flickr

After playing with Flickr for the past 3 hours, I decided to use the google photo tool--Picasa web albums. I might be able to access this at school under my google account. The ability to save/sort/organize/share photos in either Flickr or Picasa would be very useful for the pictures we take for our school calendar. Right now, the photos are saved on the server in monthly folders. I can see organizing them in the web sharing, saving them (most likely privately, because of data privacy) and then utilizing them when it is time to put the calendar together. I have used Shutterfly and Snapfish to share photos and make cards and books and to order prints on line (very briefly) I think the magnitude of Flickr or Picasa make them a grea tool for saving the photos, to free up space on personal computers, and to keep them safe is an awesome thought. If the photos I take are of scenery, things, and do not contain personal things such as family, friends and students, I don't have a problem sharing them. However I am concerned about sharing pictures of students with the public because of data privacy, and out of respect for the students themselves.

I did upload 18 pictures to the Picasa site, and guess what--you can view them in my slide show. That was so easy. I can't wait to try some things with the reading program at school. It is so much fun to work with pictures on the web, just to see the many ways that you can display the, organize them and share them. I would like to add my "I Love to Read" pictures to this site as well, and share them with all the other reading lovers.

Thing 3 continued

Had to go back to Google Reader to check up on any new feeds to my account, and also added a couple more. What a great tool, but I also reviewed the process again--cause if I don't use it, I lose it. Since I am a weight watcher, I added some WW blogs to my subscriptions. Next I will make IGoogle my homepage, so I can readily check the latest info.

Thing 3 RSS feeds

I just subscribed to Google Reader and set up the blogs from 23 things, ALA, and ISafe. I already found 2 lesson plans I can use with my 3-5th graders regarding Internet safety training, and several blogs that refer to books for elementary students that will be helpful in collection development. I can connect to 23 things from there, and am still playing with other subscriptions to add to the Google Reader. I could not get into the other RSS account. I am also learning that everything requires email accounts and passwords, so I am writing them down in a notebook (I wish I would have won one of those at MEMO) and I have also started a GMail account. This is very time consuming, and 15 minutes a day, is barely getting into each of these "things", so I feel like I have accomplished something by doing 3 of them this week.

Thing2 Web2.0

I am overwhelmed by Web 2.0, and I must confess, I am one of those "baby-boomers" who is always up to a challenge and needs to learn new things. (Right now, it is thing2). I watched the video and read the articles, and I feel I am already behind on what the post-baby boomers are learning, and what they need to know. But as I am one of the "oldies", I probably won't see much of Web 2.0 in my media center before I retire (That is because, I have to access the components at home, since blogs are blocked on our server.) I find that my mind is full of what is out there and how little I do know about all these "things". But I am learning, and I will continute to finish the 23 things, just so I can be a bit wiser (but maybe not smarter than a 5th grader) when it comes to the virtual tools available to our students. Now, I am going to re-read the articles, and see what I can use with my students.