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.