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.