Thing#16

Prior to this discovery I was not familiar with Wiki and all that it allowed you to do. It it a great tool for collaborating,adding, editing, or removing content. This is a great resource to use with your students or colleagues when working on a document that requires everyones input. Students could use this as a resource for working on team projects. As a school this would be a great resource for collaborating ideas for a school wide project. In the future I would like to become more familiar with Wiki and integrate this tool into my professional life.

Thing #15

Researching about Library 2.0 was very engaging. I especially like the video that I was able to view on You Tube titled "A Vision of Students Today"-What students would say about the library in the future". This really captured my attention due to the many facts that were stated throughout the video. Students today are faced with far more challenges-2300 web pages, spending 3 1/2 hours online daily, 2hrs on cell phone, 26% reading in class is relevant to their life, 3 hours in class daily, reading 500 pages of email, and the list goes on and on. So much of what was listed rings true to the world of technology that we live in. Students today are faced with a true need for librarians to change the way they serve their patrons well in a world that has changed dramatically in the last decade.

The online article entitled, "Where will the next generation Web take libraries" by Tom Storey was very insightful. I find it extremely important that librarians embrace 2.0 world for there is much to gain by doing so.

Rick Anderson list many icebergs he feels that we need to be cautious of for example:
The “come to us” model of library service. Basically, what he is pointing out is how important it is for us to make libraries accessible from any where the user is in order to compete.

Bottom line is staying current and ahead of the technology game is crucial to libraries success. Its nice to know that there is a forum for communicating ideas to insure that we are moving in the right direction!

Thing #14

While exploring Technorati I learned alot. I first typed in the keyword School learning library 2.0 in the following search engine , blog post,tag,and blog directory but I came up with nothing. After watching the video I was able to understand the purpose of Technorati-basically it is an internet search engine which helps you search for blogs.After much time reading I learned that Schater the founder of delicious wants users to do the tagging not publishers of content such as bloggers,who put tags on their own work in hopes that it will draw readers and advertisers. I agree that tagging is benefecial as it allows to you to organize by specific interest and content. After searching The top 100 in Technorati I found Gizmodo which is great for finding information on electronics. There I was able to view a video of someone who had just purchased the new Iphone 4 and got great information straight from the horses mouth! The guy on the video was very entertaining. It is my prediction that he will probably make a commercial for the new Iphone. Technorati is great tool to explore!

Thing #13

Delicious really is a resourceful way for organizing all of your favorite sites. It simply makes it easier to locate and share with anyone including your students. After watching the video I realized that yes saving the sites to your favorites is the old way of doing it. Many times I have come across a website and wanted to share it with a colleague and found myself pasting the link into an email so I could pass it on. Boy, is this more time consuming. Now with Delicious I can network and share and also reap the rewards of other people's great finds in the great wide world of the Internet. Fortunately, for me we have an awesome librarian who uses delicious and has taught us the great benefits of using it. We have a common way of ordering our lunch through delicious at our school. This is great idea for any other campus who has someone who is willing to deliver lunch to a school. Delicious can help simplify and organize the ordering process. My new tech goal is update my favorite file to my delicious account. Now I was actually able to share my new delicious account with ladybug! How exciting! Cheers to more great learning on this great adventure in cyber space!

Thing #12

This discovery took a lot more time than I expected. I learned the value of receiving a comment. Before I attempted this assignment I viewed my blog and was very excited that I had received two comments. It certainly gives value to your work when you know someone is reading your blog. It also helps you to reflect on your own thinking and allows you to better your work as well. I agree that it is important to be respectful of others and wise with your comments-Think before you respond is always good advice!

I enjoyed posting comments on other blogs as well. Here are the blogs I posted comments on :

Firefly Flight
Ladybug
360 again
Becoming Mary Poppins
Luka Blog walker

Here is another tip I learned today- When posting comments to a blog always open up the whole page. I posted many comments only to learn that I did not type in the code listed below post comment and therefore none of my comments posted. Needless to say I had to go back in a re-post all of my comments. Hope this helps!

The part I found a little more challenging was posting comments on other blog sites. I am a big Oprah fan so I commented on her blog 10 Ways to Be More Abundant in Life which related to spirit and self happiness. In our busy world its important to stay connected to what truly matters. I also viewed a blog title nicakellys. This blog really captured my attention as it was about a couple who decided to move to Nicaragua to start a school for an orphanage. Since I am going on my first mission to Costa Rica coincidentally also to help children who live at an orphanage this site captured my attention.

Whew this is done! How exciting!

Thing #11 LibraryThing

Exploring through LibraryThing was eye opening. I had no idea this existed. What a great way to be able to search books of your interest and learn about other great titles that follow under the same genre. During my search I found myself thinking about my mother in law who is an avid reader. She would love this! I plan to share it with her and am hoping I will be able to teach her something new! This is especially great if you are wanting to read more books written by the same author to your students. I love Kevin Henkes and had fun searching through all the titles he has written. Searching through the various groups was a great way to be able to stay current on any given genre of your interest.

The only problem I had along the way was learning how to post my library to my blog. Here's a tip for anyone else who is having the same trouble- GO to LibraryThing and click on the tab more(on the far right top corner). Click on Make a standard blog widget.On the lower right hand side and HTML is listed for you to copy and paste on your blog. Now go to your blog and click on the design tab at the top. Then click on add a gadget which is located on top of about me. Then click HTML/Java script. Add your title and paste the HTML under content. Click save after pasting and after returning to your design page.View your blog and you should now see your library!

Happy searching!

Thing #10

http://www.dumpr.net/

http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/

http://dummies.book.cover.txt2pic.com/

Wow all of the online image generators have many endless possibilities. I enjoyed exploring and investigating through all of them but in the end used the Dummiecover and the comic strip maker. The comic strip maker could be used for students to share their version of story they read. This would allow them to use their creativity and change the ending to the story. I also like wordle which I have used before with my students. My students made one for our TAKS buddies with tons of words of encouragment. This is very simple and quick. I really like being able to use technology to make learning more fun, afterall technology is where it's at!