Week 9, Thing 23 The End of the Journey

I liked the CTAP Region IV Piracy and Plagiarism website. That seemed to be the most useful for teachers at me campus. The video Fair(y) Use Tale was really cute for junior high and I think my students would enjoy it. The teachers probably wouldn't.

Whew! What an amazing journey through Library 2.0. What I learned: I found that keeping a blog is not difficult at all; in fact, it is rather engaging and cathartic. Wikis are wonderful for encouraging collaborative, meaningful class participation. Zoho writer would have helped me immensely while I was working on my Master’s. It’s a wonderful tool. I’ve already uploaded all my favorites to delicious so that I can find what I need away from my pc. I’m addicted to Library Thing because I joined a poetry group in which I enjoy interacting. Library Success made me want to organize my library better. I found that I can’t live without Flickr, Picasa or Ning, where I created my Tiger Book Club forum for student participation in an online booktalk. And YouTube is just plain fun. I will definitely a provide staff development session to enhance the teachers’ technology tool belts with these wonderful educational sites.

Week 9, Thing 22

E-books and audio books are convenient, inexpensive, and easy to obtain. And now with new portable ebook readers, ebooks are even more popular and accessible. I see the traditional paper textbook industry evaporating as the Brave New World of library 2.0 and ebooks envelopes us. And to make it all even better, Project Gutenburg is helping to make e-books free. As the website states, "Think of this as a contribution to your grandchildren." It's easy to see how my children and grandchildren will benefit from the tremendous leaps in 21st century technology. I plan to buy an ebook reader before the end of the year and introduce the concept to my library patrons -- junior high students.

Week 9, Thing 21 Podcasts

Today I heard an NPR podcast, from the NET network, called “All About Books.” The link to acquire this podcast is http://feeds.feedburner.com/all_about_books. I downloaded Juice, the cross-platform podcast receiver in order to hear “All About Books.” The narrator discussed a book entitled Beyond Revenge, a study my Michael McCullugh. It is a serious study about the evolution of forgiveness. McCulluch goes back to the caveman days to talk about revenge as a survival instinct and how forgiveness is also a part of our evolutionary development. The narrator talks about the main idea of the text and reads excerpts from the book. I enjoyed this podcast and would definitely like to hear more “All About Books” segments as I drive to work in the mornings. This is a great educational tool for teachers to use in the classroom.

Week 9, Thing 20 You Tube

I found a lot of You Tube videos about librarians, most of them demeaning, ridiculous, and unrealistic. The public must have a very low opinion of librarians and what they do. I saw a British-made video in which the librarian stamped books all day long, and an American-made video entitled "Sexy Librarians," the content of which I will not comment. There was one titled "The Angry Librarian," which depicted the librarian as nervous, neurotic, and overly concerned with book shelving. The video about Conan the Librarian was actually funny, and March of the Librarians was cute, even though it made librarians look like a National Geographic subject. Librarians definitely need to do something to improve their self image.

The website itself can be extremely useful in an educational setting. Students can make their own video about science, math, or literature and post it to YouTube with parental permission. And teachers can use some of the videos to teach content.

Week 8, Thing 19

Today I created an account with Library Thing and explore the website. I found a group called "Poetry Fool" and posted a message about my two favorite poets: Kay Ryan (modern) and Edgar Allaln Poe (classic). I also created my own "library" catalog in Library Thing and entered 5 popular Lonestar books. (http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jan519). This is a wonderful site to connected librarians and bibliophiles who like to discuss the qualities of various books. This site is actually better than Amazon.com because of the amount of honest reviews we can read. I will definitely use this tool in the library.

The Outsiders Book Talk

Booktalk Questions #1

1.  Compare the similarities and differences between the Socs and the Greasers.

2.  Could Johnny have avoided the conflict in the park?  If so, how? 

3.  Why don't the Socs and the Greasers like each other?

4.  Is Johnny a hoodlum or a hero?  Explain your answer.

5.  If you could be a Soc or a Greaser, which would you be and why?

Week 8, Thing 18

Today I created a Zoho account and quickly typed up a test document in the word processing link. I think this is a wonderful tool, and one that I will use quite often. I can begin working on a document at work and continue at home without skipping a beat. It is so much more convenient than having to attach a document to my e-mail or carrying around a pen drive, which I often lose. I wish I had known about Zoho when I was working on my Master's! I also published my Zoho test document to this blog (The Outsiders), which was extremely easy; I can see that sharing my word documents with others is no longer an issue.

Week 7, Thing 17

Today I added a post to the Region One Sandbox and explored California 2.0 Curriculum Connections. Something I have enjoyed in this tutorial is the Wiki experience. Students can participate in the creation and content of a Wiki and teachers can turn Wiki's into group projects over class novels or short story reading. I especially like the interactive nature of this new technolgoy.

Week 7, Thing 16

I explored the library success wiki, the book lovers' wiki, and the sample literary circle wiki. I was especially impressed with the literary wiki because students have the opportunity to hone their technology skills as well as respond in writing about a book they they read in class. I can definitely see the value of this in the public school, where a teacher can grade students according to their understanding of the plot, theme, character, setting, mood, etc., all of which are popular TAKS objectives. A wiki is student centered and interactive.

I can also see from the library success wiki that "vandalism" can occur if someone chooses to provide incorrect information in a wiki. This brings up the question of the the reliability of some wikis, such as Wikipedia. But hopefully internal security measures can be implemented in a school setting to ensure authentic authorship of a wiki post.

Week 6, Thing 15

I read Michael Stephens’ Into a new world of librarianship and the Wikipedia article Library 2.0 about the next generation of librarians and the services they offer patrons. We are quickly approaching the “brave new world” of future libraries: user-friendly, patron-centered, collaborative, interactive facilities that go beyond the four walls of the traditional library: it reaches into cyberspace and the needs of the community. The 21st century learning resource center is not only technologically based, but now patrons help decide the needs and expenditures of their library. What a utopian ideal! Wherever he is, I’m sure Aldous Huxley is smiling.

School libraries, unfortunately, will take longer than public libraries to embrace this notion of a modern, interactive library because of curriculum and funding constraints.

Week 6, Thing 14

I did not like using Technorati. The keyword search, the blog search, and the tags all brought me back to the same page with "Who's Writing About Freepath" as the starting point. And when I clicked on a link within the Library 2.0 parameters, I found the information wasn't particularly useful. I don't see myself using this tool or teaching my staff to use it. Delicious, FD Toys, and Rollyo were far more useful.

Week 6, Thing 13

I created an delicious account at http://delicious.com/jan519 . At first, I didn't see the point in looking at other people's bookmarks, and it almost felt as though I was peering into other people's private internet searches. Then I realized how useful those bookmarks can be if I were doing serious research on an obscure topic. What other people find on the same topic can be extremely helpful in my own research. Now I'm hooked on this social networking tool! I typed castles in Ireland in the search box and found a huge number of sites that can accommodate my curiosity or increase my knowledge on the subject. I hope that this is a website that is not blocked in our district so that I can introduce delicious to our faculty.

Week 5, Thing 12

I created my own Rollyo search site at http://www.rollyo.com/search.html?prevsid=452109&q=library&sid=452109. I included topics of interest to me, especially book lists of popular, up-to-date teen reads. I can access this site easily when I'm about to begin ordering books for the library in September. Furthermore, I can share the site with my vendors in order to acquire the book collection I want for the library.

This tool is useful not only to librarians, but to the teaching faculty as well.

Week 5, Thing 11

I was really intrigued with the Ning network. So much so, in fact, that I created my own link: http://tigerbookclub.ning.com/ in which I set up a method for students to participate in a book talk about popular middle school novels. I made it private in order to comply with district online safety standards and I plan to create the invite list once I collaborate with the campus reading teachers in late August. Ning is a wonderful tool for teachers.

I also visited the Web 2.o Awards website where I explored http://www.biblio.com/ which provides a method of ordering rare and out-of-print books. I found this site particularly useful because there are so many hard-to-find books that I want.

Week 5, Thing 10

My creation
Originally uploaded by 956jan519

Today I went to FD Flickr Toys to create a matte-looking photo of my son at the Island. It was extremely easy and fun. I would likek to use FD Flicr Toys to create a logo for my school newsletter, perhaps with our mascot, the mighty tiger.

Week 4,Thing 9

I added Syndic8's HealthMadeEasy.com to my list of blogline feeds. I chose the health section of daily news feeds because I like to write a montly newsletter for the library and add useful information for teachers and staff, such as the latest news pertaining to health issues in the United States. This feed publishes the most recent articles from the World Health Organization, as well as other reputable medical sources.

Week 4, Thing 8

I never knew the news websites were called RSS news feeers, but I've been using them all along on my homepage. I have Yahoo and I installed world news, national news, and BBC news to see how the world views the U.S. as opposed to how we see ourselves. For this exercise I created a Bloglines account with some news feeds, as well as the following library links:

Libraries and Librarians
Library Stuff
NYT > Books
The Shifted Librarian

Teachers can use this new technology by finding feeds connected to their subject matter, to education, to TAKS-related links, or simple news feeds to support civics classes/current events objectives. If these feeds are not blocked at our district, I would like to make sure teachers know how to access them to supplement the curriculum.

My own bloglines account is available at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/jan519 .

Week 3, Thing 7

I was wowed byMontagr, the photo mosaic maker. It combines collage with mosaic. What a great new tool for art teachers, and what fun for students. I found the trading card to be the most useful for personal and school use. I know how competitve students are, and how they like to collect items to exchange for prizes, much like at the Peter Piper Pizza game arcade. They would definitely enjoy the challenge of accumulating trading cards for reading books and taking AR tests. I plan to use this tool inthe future.

I have been following dare2dream's blog and enjoyed her trading card, which showed a photo of a child at my favorite place -- the beach. I also like the "Aggies" shirt!

Week 3, Thing 6

I made my first trading card. I wasn't comfortable using a picture of myself, so I used a photo of what I enjoy the most: the island. I would like to use trading cards in the library with pictures of book covers on them. Students can collect the trading cards after they pass an AR test on a book, and at the end of the year, earn a prize for having the most trading cards. This is definitely a useful tool.

My first trading card!

My creation
Originally uploaded by 956jan519

I created my first trading card on Flickr today. What fun!

Week 3, Thing 5

Today I navigated through Flickr. I enjoyed adding a photo to my blog, and I especially liked creating my own account in Flickr, in which I added a few of my own photos from the Technology Conference this past May. I also created a magazine cover. How versatile this website is! It's a great way to share photos and to have fun creating photo projects. It would be difficult to use it in a school environment, however, because of the need to protect students' safety. But I'm sure that photos of some school activities would be acceptable. This is a wonderful tool for librarians.

Eternity

Originally uploaded by Oeil Photography

What a beautiful photograph! I love cloudy skies, especially when there is an approaching storm.

Week 2, Thing 4

This activity is connected to #3 in that it relates to the newly-created blog. I registered my blog with Region 1, sent them an e-mail, and am recording my progress in writing. I also remembered to record my progress on the "23 Things Log," which I downloaded from the ESC1 Learning 2.0 website. So far, all the steps have been fairly easy to follow. Now I have officiallly begun my learning journey!

Thing 3, Week 2

Well, I set up my own blog, as you can see. I haven't received any comments or posts yet, but I am truly enjoying the process of writing and expressing my opinions about each activity we are to explore in Learning 2.0. I would like to set up a blog for my students to discuss their current reading material. It would definitely motivate them to read, as well as help them hone their technology skills, such as keyboarding and information retrieval. What a great way to teach literature and writing!

Thing 2, Week 1, 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners

This powerpoint is informative and well done; however, I'm not sure who the intended audience is. Isn't it groups of educators? I imagine everyone who views this particular presentation has a bachelor's degree or higher and probably already embraces the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learning. However, it would be a wonderful tool to use in the library to teach secondary students about the value of being responsible for one's own education. I especially liked Habit #2: Accept responsiblilty for your own learning. That says it all! I think that is the most difficult for students today becsause they are asked to be responsible for so little, even for their own education. College and vocational students understand the value of educational responsibility. It is something we need to instill in our young adults in high school or even junior high.

Thing #1, Week 1, Introduction

I am at the beginning of my Learning 2.0 journey. I've never actually written a blog, but I had to observe other bloggers and leave comments to their blogs while I was a student at Sam Houston State University working on my MLS degree. I enjoy using the interactive qualities of the new, upgraded Web 2.0 and I hope that someday school districts in my area will allow such 21st century ideas to be a part of their technology curricula. Right now, most districts block any type of blogging or interactive communication in order to protect the best interests of the students. But I imagine this will change as the marriage between technology and education matures.