Thing 23

Yea - almost finished! I had hoped that this wouldn't take me the entire summer to complete. You know what they say about best-laid plans...

Summary Questions
1. I enjoyed exploring, but sometimes the reading and the website-hopping just took too long. I do like understanding RSS feeds, Nings, rollyo, and delicious. I've used delicious in my summer school class already!

2. 23 Things has made me realize that I need to learn new things on a continual basis. Oftentimes, I sit back with contentment, thinking that I'll do such-and-such in the next few days. Lo and behold, I 'wake up" a year later only to discover that I've forgotten what I learned in the first place. Thus, I have to start over. I think my new goal will be to learn one new thing (or re-learn an "old" thing) each week.

3. Delicious and Ning were pleasant surprises. I see myself using those regularly.

4. Many Things seemed to take way too long. My eyes and hands would get tired from too much screen and keyboard time. A lot of the discovery exercises were intense. If "easy" exercises were interspersed every now and then, that would be helpful. (With my luck, there were "easy" interspersed with "intense" already...)

5. Probably.

6. Overwhelming, but worth it!

7. I have been commenting throughout the project.

Thank you for enlightening me on 23 Things!

Thing 22

Just created a Ning: GIGgals! The members of my weekly bible study, nicknamed "GIG", endure a slew of emails each week as we communicate about our particular study, who's bringing what to eat, where we're meeting, who's sick, etc. Currently, I am not at home and do not have access to my address book. However, tomorrow when I invite the gang, I truly believe that this Ning will help us! Here's to technology! Right now, I'm on the "love" portion of the love/hate relationship! :)

As for the library... Nings could be used for collaboration and research projects. I look forward to testing its potential.

Thing 21

My mantra continues -- I hope that worked!!

I really enjoyed making that video. Would that be called a podcast? Or, would I have to do it another way for it to be considered a podcast? Either way, I can see great potential in the library! Book reviews, instructions that often repeated until I'm blue in the face... Before I do that, though, I would need to get my hands on a camera and microphone. I also need to play around with focusing. My photos are blurry. Since I'm nearing the August 10th deadline, I can't spend as much time on this as I would like. In the near future, though, that's a promise!

Thing 20, part 3

This was from the "embeddable player."

Thing 20, part 2

The Library of Tomorrow!

Shared via AddThis

Did it work?? If so, this is the 1966 version...

Thing 20

That was fun!! My eyes need a rest, though... Didn't have quite enough popcorn...

I have known about YouTube and TeacherTube, but haven't really spent time exploring until now. There are lots of good things on both! I'm pretty sure that YouTube is blocked in Fort Bend ISD, but I can certainly put TeacherTube to use. My searches on both sites were "school library" and "educational technology." It was no surprise that YouTube had more; however, I seemed to find what I wanted more quickly than I did on TeacherTube. That seems paradoxical to me...

On YouTube, I found the video I referenced in an earlier post, A Vision of K-12 Students Today. I'll attempt to embed it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8

Somehow, I don't think that worked... Let me finish my thoughts here and then I'll go back and see if I can fix it.

On TeacherTube, I came across a hilarious parody on school libraries entitled "The Library of Tomorrow" by Dr. Loopy. From the 1966 perspective...

I'm glad I now know enough to explore. My students will appreciate these little nuggets every once in a while. Even though my teachers will resist, they'll love it too! Now, if I can just figure out the embedding thing... (I've read the directions several times and will continue to try...)

Thing 19

I loved exploring! Thank you for the "best of" list! Tonight, I looked into three. Upcoming has a list of events in Houston; I'm Cooked is a compilation of recipe videos; and CraigsList has items for sale in Houston. Believe it or not, I had never explored CraigsList!

Upcoming could definitely be used in the classroom/library to teach budgeting through time/money. I liked the step-by-step videos on I'm Cooked. It kind of reminded me of the how-to papers I taught many years ago. I would bring out all the ingredients for a PBJ sandwich and then have the students tell me how to make it. It helped with descriptive words and sequential order.

Thing 18

These are interesting tools. I'm not sure I'd use them on a regular basis because I already have Microsoft Office, but it's good to know that I have the option if I ever needed it. While exploring, it seemed that OpenOffice had more options than Google Docs did. However, it occurred to me that I might just have to add shortcuts for "cut," "paste," and the like in Google Docs.

Would my students be able to use this for occasional assignments? Would they have to register separately, or could they use mine? If I create a document on one computer, and then a student needed to do the same, s/he would have access to my document, right? I'm sure I haven't spent enough time exploring; the answers are probably there.

One thing, though, I couldn't find was the Google Docs "tour." I think it was there at the very beginning, but then disappeared after I registered.

Thing 17

Now this is cool! My teachers are going to love me! I always knew that there was something better out there - I just didn't know what it was. Now I know! My first rollyo is on the planets. I liked seeing the community of rollyos; I didn't have to reinvent the wheel.

I'm currently having trouble adding the RollBar to my bookmark bar. I'll try again tomorrow. It seems so easy; it's just not working for me at the moment. Regardless of that minor detail, I love this!!

Thing 16

I have always doubted wikis. I had avoided Wikipedia because of the lack of authority. However, after playing around a little, I now see the fascination. It was cool to have the ability to change / edit /add to the Sandbox. I will have to continue playing in order to see its full potential in terms of my students.

I'm running out of time, so I will have to press onto the next Thing...

Thing 15

To me, Library 2.0 means using every available resource, whether that be print or online. I have seen another video quite similar to the YouTube video. I think the one I had seen was with elementary aged students. Anyway, I agree that we need to modify our teaching. We need to meet today's & tomorrow's students' needs rather than use traditional teaching methods. I appreciate the digital and online resources, but also wholeheartedly believe that students should learn to use the old-fashioned print materials. Technology is great, but what about power outages??

Thing 14

I'm not sure I like Technorati. The discovery exercise says to search several different ways. The video said you could search several different ways. However, I can't find it on Technorati's homepage. When I typed "school library learning 2.0" into the basic search box, it resulted in 28 posts. When I tried to search other ways, I couldn't get any results. I don't see myself using this.

Thing 13

I like this social bookmarking thing! Last year it annoyed me when I had bookmarked a site on one computer, then had to show it on another. Delicious sounds like it would help immensely.

I'm not really a fan of Digg. It seems more like a blog than a place to bookmark websites.

OK! I'm having a brain-lapse! I read through all of Thing 13 and the discovery exercise. I was interrupted then and came back a few days later. I remember one social bookmarking site that allowed you to put a post-it on a website. What was it?? I immediately thought "COOL!!" Can you please refresh my memory?