Thing 23

This has been a great learning experience for me. The time commitment has been well worth it. I look forward to revisiting some of the Things and sharing them with others.

Thing 22

I will continue to stay current with the web 2.0 tools. I have shared some of the tools with staff members and will continue to do so. Now I have to spend some time incorporating these tools into my media center. We have many new things happening with technology in our district that I need to learn and inservice staff on. WebJunction and Classroom 2.0 are two resources I will continue to visit.

Thing 21

So much out there, so little time. I looked at all of the recommended social networks. WebJunction an Classroom 2.0 are two I joined and will continue to use. I spent a bit of time looking at some of the Health and Diet networks, specifically the how to lower stress levels.
Right now I find it more important to spend my time reading all of the new books I purchase for my media center. Students and staff are always looking for reading suggestions and if I do not read the new books I am not able to offer good suggestions. It is a matter of how to use my time wisely.

Thing 20

I set up an account on both MySpace and Facebook they were both easy and quick. For me Facebook seems to be easier to navitgate around. It was difficult for me to locate friends as my email address is not one of the free ones. For the past couple of years I have looked over the shoulders of my children as they use Facebook. I can see what the appeal is for young people. The amount of information and pictures they choose to display on these pages surprises me. I can certainly see why these are so popular with the young people. They can communicate with friends so easily.

I looked at the Denver Library and Hennepin County MySace pages. We block these at school so I do not see a way to use these. This is another one of those "Things" I will continue to explore when I have everything completed.

Thing 19

I love podcasts! My favorites are Car Talk, The Splendid Table and This American Life. It reminds me of a radio version of TIVo. Recently I purchased an ipod and have had a lot of fun learning how to load movies through HandBrake, creating playlist, loading audio books and podcasts.

This week I introduced author William Durbin to fourth grade students. I shared the interview with Durbin talking about his new book El Lextor that MPR had on their site. I was pleasantly surprised at how interested the students were and how many of them want to read the book. Without any video or photos I did not think it would hold their interest. I am going to explore creating podcast with students. Poetry month would be a great time to create some.

I've taken advantage of a few webinars and podcasts about various library topics. I will revisit the suggested list when I complete the "23 Things".

Thing 18

I enjoyed looking at the different videos. The Blond in the Library joke was something I thought would be fun to share until I got to the Bible verses.

There is a first grade boy that often comes to the media center looking for information and pictures of Mount Rushmore. He would love to video I selected!

I need to come back to this and find some good educational videos for elementary students and look at how I can use them,

Thing 17

I experienced some problems working with this Thing. I was not able to get the videos to work and I ran out of patience with the RSS feeds. I have explored the Kids Infobits and used it a couple of times with fourth graders. Currently we are doing a rainforest animal research project, when I went to look for some of the animals we are researching I was not able to find information on the animals we are studying. I found the National Geographic site to fit our needs for this project.

When students come in to the media center for a project we are always on a tight schedule. The students seem to do better when we use the World Book reference center and a couple of preselected sites. At the K-4 level they seem to get lost sorting through all of the information available on these databases.
ELM is a valuable tool that is available to all users. It is a cost effective way to offer patrons a variety of materials.
I will come back to this at another time, but for now I am calling it quits and moving on.

Thing 16

After I looked at Assignment project calculator and Research Project Calculator, I came to the conclusion that I probably would not use them. At the K-4 level this is something that is not grade level appropriate. I did share these with my daughter who is a student at the U of M she showed some interest.

Thing 15

Working at the K-4 level I have been wrestling with gaming in the media center. Anytime the kids have free time they want to play games on the Internet. I am responsible for what they are able to play so I have created a list of games on our student webpage that have some educational value.

I did take a look at Pirates Puzzle and the view the Second Life video. Because I am not very game savvy it took me a while to figure out how to play the Pirates Puzzle game. I'm sure I would have done better if I had a student help me figure it out. There were a couple of games I came across that I would use in the media center, Quest Atlantis and Whyville.

Thing 14

This was my first visit to LibraryThing. It was easy to sign up and add titles. I like the how the book covers come right up for display. I had some trouble getting the widgit to come up on my blog the way I wanted it to. I see advantages to using LibraryThing but it is one more thing to keep updating.

In my media center we use the Destiny Resource Management system with the Titlepeek option. The kids really like the way the book covers come up when they do a book search. It makes it much easier for them to locate a book on the shelf.

Thing 13

I did create an iGoogle homepage adding a few gadgets. I played around with putting a calendar on my blog. I will continue to explore this feature as I would like to add one to my school webpage.

Thing 12

After finishing this "thing" I found that I don't digg. I did not put a great deal of time into this as it is not something that interest me right now. Would I use this at work? Not in my K-4 media center. Would I use it at home? Not right now. Of the four I found the layout of Mixx and Newsvine easier to sort through. It is mind boggling how much information is out there.

Thing 11

I had no idea what tags were before started " 23 Things". It is nice to have an understanding of how they work and what they are used for. Will I spend time tagging, probably not. There are so many tools out there that I find myself spending hours at the keyboard. I have decided to pick and choose what is important to work on.

I did organize my school bookmarks and put them on del.icio.us. This has eliminated emailing myself addresses when I work from home..

Thing 10

The video Common craft video on Wiki was perfect for someone like me who is new to all of this. It was interesting how the video used the old paper pencil and finger drag method of instruction. As I explore each one of these new tools I am impressed with how user friendly they are. It was very interesting to see how others are using a wiki.

Do I see a use for creating a wiki, absolutely. Will I create one soon, probably not. At the K - 4 level I am not sure this is a top priority for us. As a collaboration tool among colleagues I can think of many ways to incorporate a wiki. I find that in our school right now we have many new technology tools and very little at work time to integrate it into the curriculum. Adding a greeting to the 23 Things wiki was fun and easy to do.

Thing 9

As I took a look at Google docs and Zoho writer I found most of my time was spent using Zoho. Both programs were very user friendly. Over the years I have had experience with assisting staff and students in opening projects that have been stored on a flash drive or emailed to school. At times there have been issues with getting projects setup. These collaboration tools could eliminate some of those issues.
With tight budgets it has become more difficult to find funding to stay current with Microsoft licenses and web certificates. These tools could help elevate some of that.

Thing 8

So many choices! I spent time exploring the many different sites. I created a couple of photo's for my blog. I found most of the sites to be very user friendly. This being said I still find myself spending quite a bit of time on each thing. The list of passwords and logins is growing rapidly.

Thing 7

I find that the text messaging language is like a foreign language. It sometimes takes me a bit of time to decipher a message that contains many of the text message abbreviations.

Email has made sharing information with staff much easier and immediate. It is an environmentally friendly tool that has replaced many of the paper notes we used to send out to patrons. I really appreciate the web access to the district email as I often work from home.

I experimented with Lazybase to create a database for a book club I belong to. I am also putting together a database of books that fourth grade students in our school recommend. Lazybase is user friendly but limited in it's functions.

Thing 6

I spent some time using ToonDoo to create some cartoons that will be used to introduce some of the research projects coming up in the next couple of weeks. This site was very easy to use.

Thing 5

All of this is new to me. I enjoyed reviewing the recommended links provided. I played around with creating puzzles, trading cards and posters. I have saved everything to my flickr account.
Experimented with creating a group and inviting some friends to join. Fun!

Thing 4

Opened my flickr account and uploaded some pictures. I can see where I would use this when sharing pictures with family and friends. At this point I would not put my pictures out there to share with everyone. As I work more with this I might change my mind. This activity went smoothly and was fun to work on.

Thing 3

I set up a Google Reader account and added a couple of book review subscriptions. I'm not sure how I would keep up with much more than that. After viewing a couple of the recommended video clips I have an understanding of how RSS feeds work and the benefits of using them.

Thing 2

Already I feel more confident as I enter the second activity. I was able to view the Stephen Abram video and read the recommended articles.

Where will I find the time to do the 23 Things? I will spend time in the evening at home maybe some at school.

Why am I participating? To grow professionally and personally. I am curious about how to do the activities, some of which I have heard of and others are new. What do I hope to learn? I would like to learn about some new resources and how I can use them at work and personally.

How has the Internet and the vast resource it can be affected your use of time at work and/or at home? At home I use the internet for work related activities and personal. It has been nice to order books from home and communicate with colleagues. Of course there is always the ease of shopping from home. At school almost everything I do has a connection to the internet from ordering books, using the Destiny system to help students find information on various topics.


Where are you in your knowledge and use of Web 2.0 tools? How about your library? At this point I am not sure. I will find out more as I travel through all of this.

What are you looking forward to in 23 Things On a Stick? Hopefully I will learn about some new resources and how I can use them. I hope this process will help with implementing some new activities at school.

Jan. 28, 2008

This is my first entry. I am excited to learn this new technology through the 23 Things On a Stick program. Setting up my blog went well, I am hoping the rest of the activities will too.