Wednesday, April 9, 2008


View my page on 23 Things on a Stick

My Photos in a Ning Slideshow


Find more photos like this on 23 Things on a Stick

Thing #23

First of all I took to much time before I started doing the 23Things on a stick. Some of this was because I thought I had lots of time and some because I thought I would be able to do some of this at work.

I was only able to do a few of them at work. There was 2 reasons for this. Some of the sites are blocked at our school...and the other reason is that when I am trying to learn new technology I need to "think". My job is such that I do not have very much quiet time and even when I do I do not have it for long periods of time.

I was ok with doing the 23Things at home. I found that once I started doing them I spent several hours at a time on my computer. It was time well spent. Even if I do not use 1/2 of the tools I was introducted to in this project, I will have considered it a success. I am going to try to start over. I learn by doing. The more time I try something new the more it makes sense.

Thanks for the opportunity to use these new "Things".

TL

Thing #22

The first link I choose from Thing #22 was the WebJunction. I was excited to see the free online training. I have taken several fun class from HPonline. When I was on the WebJunction website I signed up for one of the online classes. I will defiitely use the online classes that are offered.

I will try to continue to use my blog to record how I liked the online class.

Thing #21

I thought that Thing#21 was interesting. I liked the WebJunction article. We use to have a "floating inservice" day for teachers/staff at our school district. We had classes on technology for some of the choices. Several of the classes were multiple sessions. On the first session we taught the new technology. On the second session we allowed the staff members to be project to do that used the technology taught at the previous session. This allowed people to not only see how people were using the technology but if any problems occurred there was someone there to help them solve the problem.

I had some issues adding the Ning Badge. I was successful after reading the hint regarding adding the >embed to the html string.

I will definitely spend more time with all of these Things this summer. Right now I feel that I am aware of most of the new technology but would struggle to with some of the items. I was recently able to help a student with her blog and I was proud of myself and she was thankful that I knew how to help her.

I may have to work more on #21 but I can't remember my password for Ning and our school email filter will only allow me to see the reset password email in the next day.
TL

Photo Slideshow Widget


Find more photos like this on 23 Things on a Stick

Ning Badge


Visit 23 Things on a Stick

View my page on 23 Things on a Stick

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Thing #20

Facebook...I setup a facebook page. I discovered that my Son, Niece, and Sister-in-Law all have facebook pages. So far I have 1 friend. I added the quote from Mayo Angelou about "How you treat people" to my wall.

I will spend more time looking at facebook after this project is over. I joined the library 2.0 interest group. I also visited the Denver Library MySpace page.

TL

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Thing #19

I have never listened to a Podcast so this was all new to me. I have iTunes on my computer so that is the software I used to listen to the Podcasts....more later.

I listened to a couple of the Podcasts in Memoirs for School Library Media Specialists. One was about using White Boards in the Media Center.

I also listened to some of the Podcast on Minnesota Public Radio.

Now that I have listened to Podcasts I am going to start using them for my hobbies such as knitting and crocheting.

TL

Thnig #18

I choose a YouTube video of Elvis Presley. When I hear him sing certain songs I can imagine myself as part of the song.

Our school blocks YouTube. On rare occasions we do allow it to be unblocked if a students needs to show a video for a school project that is located on YouTube.

I could see us using YouTube to create a video of our library and/or school. We do have pictures of our library on our website. We do use video editing in several of our classes for projects. If their wasn't so much junk on YouTube and it didn't take up so much bandwidth it would be nice to allow the students to upload their completed (approved) projects.

TL

Thing #18 - YouTube Video

Thing #17

I did have problems trying using the RSS reader until I read your hints. It still did not work for me in google reader even after removing the proxy server portion of the url. I downloaded the RSSOwl reader and it worked perfectly. Non of the help videos would load on my computer. It just kept saying Loading.

We use several of the online databases in our school. We try very hard to educate the students to use these as a first stop on their research process. Too many just want to go to google and use the results listed.

I did learn how to use the advanced features. I have often emailed myself articles if I find something at home/or school and need the information at the opposite location.

I have tried reading ebooks. I still enjoy enjoy reading the hard copies but for information they are very helpful.

TL

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Thing #16

I am a media/tech assistant so Thing #16 isn't something that I can identify with other than the prospective of how it might work if I was a teacher or student. It does seem to be a good tool if you have a problem managing your time.

I did watch both videos and it does remind me that "school" is very differant than when I was a student.

TL

Thing #15

As always I spent too much time playing games. I loved Puzzle Pirates. I love to play computer games and have to limit how much time on can spend playing them. I'm not sure how either of these games could be used in a library.

The only game we allow the students to play is a typing tutor game that does teach typing skills.

I will use the puzzle pirate game again.

TL

Thing #14

I liked Thing #14. I may add my personal library to the website. It would be a neat way to keep track of my books. I was suprised at how easy it was to find the books. I randomly added books from my shelf. I was able to find all but one on amazon. All of my books were popular. Now I can tell my husband who thinks I have too many books that at least several other people think they are good books and have them in their personal collections.

I think this is a great way to share booklists with the English teachers and students.

TL

My Library

Thing #13

Our school uses outlook exchange as its mail server. I use outlook and its features all of the time. Because we can access our email from anywhere I use the outlook calendar as my main source for keeping track of both personal and work related appt. , activities, etc.

My biggest complaint about some of the items that "23 Things on a stick" have asked us to do is the amount of downloads, username accts. that we are creating. As a general practice I do not like to download "free" stuff from the internet.

I also use MSN hotmail. I setup a calendar and it did work but not as nice as the outlook calendar. I did make a igoogle home page. I quess that I don't feel that this would really be something that I would use. It also assumes that you do not share the computer with others.

Again most of these tools are nice. Students could use these tools at home but at this point I would not want them to start using them at school on school computers.

TL

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Thing #12

I liked Digg and Newsvine the best of the four listed. The reason I liked them the best is because they were more like a newspaper than just a listing of articles. I felt I could determine what the article was about without have to just read the headline or click on the article before I knew what the article was about.

I think that some of these can become a productivity detractor. You can spend too much time reading the comments. Some of the comments are just....

I quess that all of this are a nice addition to the main stream media. I just hope that people continue to use all types of sources for their information.

TL

Thing #11

I setup a del.icio.us account. I will have to spend more time with Thing #11 before I can understand how it will be a benefit. I do use bookmarks for webpages. I currently have folders for my bookmarks by categories. Being as these bookmarks are only on my home computer I can see the advantage of using a website location where I can add/modify/or delete bookmarks from anywhere.

I have some issues regarding using some of these "Things" in a school library. We do not allow students (or more correctly) do not want students to personalize the computers. So far alot of the Things require adding buttons, logins, specialized home pages, etc. I think these are great tools for the students to learn and use at home but not all of them can or should be used at school.

TL

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Thing #10

I used the 23Things on a stick wiki page for editing. Prior to that I linked to the MN historical Center's website via one of the test wikis. I spent quite a bit of time searching both birth and death certificates of people with my same last name and those of other relatives. It's amazing the information that is located on the internet.

I liked the idea of creating a blog so students could add the name of the books that they would like in the library. We use book displays to attract new readers for old books.

TL

Thing #9

I thought that using Google Docs was very easy. I was able to create a document, save it, then edit that same document. I was able to create a presentation, make changes, change the theme, then save and publish the presentation on my blog.

TL

Thing #9 - Online Presentation