Jen's Adventure

Thing 47~Evaluation

2009-05-07T18:57:00.003-05:00

I can't believe that I have complete all of the More Things on a Stick project. Thank you to all that have set up the program and giving me more tools to make my Media Center a more improved 2.o Media Center. THANK YOU!!!!!

I am still going to continue to explore the More Things on a Stick. I will continue to share the websites with students and staff.

I have had lots of great experiences with the Web 2.0 tools. I have struggled with some of the Web 2.0 tools. I promised myself at the beginning of the project that I would complete them all and work hard at making my Media Center a more improved 2.0 Media Center. Have I completed my goal? No, I am going to continue to work on making the Media Center a better place with lots of tools to improve students projects and experiences in the Media Center.

I hope that who ever reads my blog will be inspired to work hard on improving their Media Centers for the students.

Once again, THANK YOU to all who have set this up and worked hard to improve library skills. You not only improved my Media Center, you will have improved many Media Centers.

Is this the end? No, it is a new beginning.

Thing 46~ WebJunction Minnesota

2009-05-07T12:38:00.003-05:00

I joined WebJunction Minnesota!!!! I have spent time exploring WebJunction in the past and thought about signing up but left it at a thought. I am now a member and am looking for friends. The hard part about finding friends is that everyone seems to have their profile hidden. I am not sure if this person is the person I am looking for because there is no information about that person. That makes it a little frustrating.

I did send out a friend request to Ruth Solie, who is the person that introduced me to WebJunction at an inservice. I hope she wants to be my friend. I looked for several other people and came up empty handed with the lack of information available to find them.

I did send out a help me with collecting overdues. I need some creative ideas on how to collect overdues. Things that I have tried include: sending them to teachers, visiting with individual students, and putting them on lockers. At the end of the year, I put a list of all the students that have overdues on a wall, which seems to get a little better response but still lose many over the summer.

I looked through some of the courses available and wanted to sign up for them but I will have to spend more time looking to see which of the classes will best fit in with my media center.

WebJunction is nice because it has other people to exchange ideas with on a professional level. I like that there are workshops offered on a later date if you are unable to be catch the first webinar.

I like that you can also use them for continuing education credits for your license. WebJunction Rocks!!!!!!

Thing 45~ Cloud Computing

2009-05-07T11:51:00.002-05:00

I have used Google Docs for a while now, since the 23 Things on a Stick. I like that my documents are backed up and not lost. Our server at the school had crashed and they had to go to the backup files and I lost a lot of information but Google Docs had saved the day. I was able to go on my retrieve the files and save them to my staff file later on.

I find that Google Docs is just awesome. If you have a presentation out of town, you can have the documents on your Google Docs and ready to go. I do use my flash drive for important information as a backup but it is really nice to have several backups. I like to email my files to my hotmail account for another backup. I didn't think that I was so into the Cloud Computing until I read the articles.

I looked through the Web OS links. I still find myself using my Yahoo account to link my favorite websites for access anywhere. I have set up files for Teaching Materials, Library Websites, Professional Development, and Personal Sites (like Nascar, JcPenny's, Kohls, etc). I like being able to access my favorites from any computer.

The advantages of having Cloud Computing is mainly you can access your information from anywhere. Does this mean your information is private? No, it does mean that people who are really good at hacking into sites will get your information. Does that make me nervous? Yes and no. I guess if the information really needs to be keep private you had better not put it on the web.

The disadvantage is if you Internet is not working, your information is not available to you. Do you need to plan ahead? Of course, everyone should have backup because you never know when you are going to need it the most.

Thing 44~ The Economy

2009-05-07T11:13:00.002-05:00

This thing is one that has directly impacted my family. My husband has been unemployed for the last 4 months, with little end in site. We have changed our spending considerably; we no longer do some of the fun things that we used to do such as eating out as much, going to a movie, or buying unnecessary items. A year ago, when things started going bad, I secretly thought, there is no way this is going to hurt my family. Boy was I wrong.

I looked at the Clearcheckbook site and found lots of interesting things. I found a place where you can set up your spending limits and explore your options for how to save money. I didn't want to set up an account at this time. I will come back to this site later to explore more of the options.

I looked through Craigslist. I explored some of the jobs that are available in the Fargo/Moorhead area and some of the items that are for sale. I got lost in some of the items and exploring this site. I will not set up an account on this site because of the latest news with the Craigslist murders. That has me a little nervous as to if I would send any information over the website.

I looked through Feed the Pig site. I like the 360 Degree of Financial Literacy. I went through the Tax Information and the Retirement set up. Interesting how much money a person will need for retirement if you want to live the same way or better. I do have a lot of money to start saving. I am not really a saver so this is something to think about and start doing.

Yard Sale Treasure Map was really interesting. I have a yard sale buddy who likes to find the best deals in town and surrounding areas. We like to plot our sales and get the best buys. I did not find any sales for this weekend. I will have to check it out for next weekend.

U of M Extension Gardening Information was awesome. I found lots of information on the best plants to buy and put in my garden. My mom is an avid gardener so this is a sit that the both of us can use. I really like the information that is available on the plants for Minnesota. I gave this link to one of my teachers to use in her classroom for her plant unit. She was really exited that the information was for Minnesota plants.

The one that I got lost in the most was the Gardening Information. My husband and I are setting up a garden in our yard. I found the perfect plants to go in locations around our house. I found plants for the shade and the sun. This is an awesome site. I will be going to the local garden center and start collecting my plants.

Thing 43~Online TV and Video

2009-05-07T10:48:00.002-05:00

I explored both Hulu and Joost and found both to be very interesting. Lots of shows are offered through both but nothing that really interested me enough to set up an account. I like to have the shows TiVo my shows at home. I did watch a couple of episodes of Two and a Half Men on Joost.

I spent a lot of time looking for Brothers and Sister which is on ABC, Sunday nights. Could not find any current shows on either Hulu or Joost. I was a little disappointed with not finding my favorite show but thought maybe I didn't search enough or should have searched differently.

I think it could be useful in a classroom if you could set up the movie to show just a clip or two for supportive material. I don't see that this will change the way that my family watches television. I do enjoy sitting on my couch, after a long hard day of work, and channel surf. I know that it isn't considered a sport but it can be a sport in our house. With the race to the remote and the victory dance.

If I would have recommended a video to a friend it would have been Two and a Half Men to my brother. He likes to watch the show as much as I do.

Thing 42~Music 2.0

2009-05-04T11:44:00.003-05:00

I spent a lot of time searching my favorite music on Last.fm. I love that I can just say find this artist or song and then bam it shows up. How great is that. You can select music that you want to listen to and then come back later and listen to the same songs or listen to a song that you didn't have the opportunity to listen to.

My coworker went to an Elton John/Billy Joel concert this last weekend and it had been a long time since I had heard any of their songs so I selected them to put in my account. They are awesome. I had an English college profession, that came into a music class that I was taking and played the Billy Joel Piano Man song. He was awesome. To this day, I still think about how awesome that teacher could play the song. It is amazing the talent that people have that you don't always know about.

I tried to get Wild 104.1 and the River 102.3 to play on the Internet but both were not working from my computer. The Wild 104.1 said that it was not available on the computer. The River 102.3 wouldn't play for whatever reason.

I did experience a few times when the song had to load because my computer couldn't keep up but this is awesome. I will definitely use this on my personal computer when working on my other job. I love that it is so flexible.

I added a widget with just Billy Joel because he is sooooo awesome!!!

Thing 41~Mashup Your Life

2009-04-29T08:55:00.002-05:00

I started out by setting up an account in FriendFeed. I added Ruth Solie and Linda Wadman to my friends. I searched out some of my friends and none of them were subscribed to FriendFeed. I haven't used it very long so I will just give my perspective for now. I think it makes it easier to go to this page and see what is going on then to go to a whole bunch of pages to see what is going on. I like that I can see if someone responded to a comment that I made on Twitter or on my blog. I like the format of the page it is easy to navigate through. I think a person could spend hours playing around with this page and not get anything done.
Overall, a good social networking tool but not a work productive tool for me, at this time. I am still trying to find the use for my media center. I will continue to play around with this site to see if it can be more utilized in my work or personal life.
Along the side, I set up a feed to my FriendFeed page.

Thing 40~Mashup the Web

2009-04-28T12:13:00.007-05:00

I started by watching the video on Mashups and I noticed that he spelled Internet wrong. That was a huge distraction for me. Then I went to Library Worm which has a lot of information and hard to determine if I would use this everyday or just randomly. I looked through the section with Jobs, Tags, and RSS feed. I liked the tag section the best because it was more broken down.
Next, I explored the Wheel of Food. If you know me, I think a lot about food. I spend most of my day wondering what I can make for supper or searching for a recipe to try out. For my area, there isn't a lot of restaurants because I live in a very small community.
Visual headlines was okay. I like a picture to go with my news but it was a site that you have to be careful with. A lot of profanity which I wouldn't use in my school setting.
Mashface Beta was just not my thing. It did remind me of my favorite summer show, Big Brother. They use face mashups as a competition for the house.
As to other mashups Karen's Mashups looked to be a good website for educational purposes. Here was another mashup that I had found called Education Mashups for the 21st Century.
I created a mashup using Polyvore that shows my lazy fashion.

Thing 40~Mashup the Web

2009-04-28T12:13:00.006-05:00

Fashion by JenB1 featuring American Eagle Outfitters jackets

Thing 39~Digital Storytelling

2009-04-28T11:22:00.008-05:00

I started out by looking at the features of Scrapblog, Smilebox, and VoiceThread. I liked the features that they all had to offer but I decided to go with Scrapblog.

My digital storytelling is put together through Scrapblog, which has a lot of features to offer. I was impressed with the amount of things that can be added to each of the themes, as well as making your own. I think this would be a nice feature to a classroom. I could see myself, as well as students, making scrapblogs for classroom projects. I think this would be a neat way of displaying students work to parents.

I am not much of a scrapbooking kind of a person. I have all of my pictures in totes somewhere in my house. I find that I like to put them on disks now that I have a digital camera. I am not very good with printing them off. I find that my family rarely looks at the actual picture. I like the digital version better because I can email them to friends and family and they get them much faster.

Thing 38~ Screencast

2009-04-27T10:58:00.002-05:00

My overall opinion on screencast-o-matic is WOW. How simple is that! Great tool for the classroom with easy to use features. I would definitely use this in the classroom or media center as a tool for helping students. This could be put in the teachers homepages for how to drop grades in their drop boxes, etc. There is endless possibilities if you are willing to try it.

Thing 38~ Screencast

2009-04-27T10:55:00.001-05:00

Thing 38~ Screencasting

2009-04-27T10:06:00.002-05:00

I started out by watching the video on Skitch. I made an account but was blocked out during the downloading on the Mac due to some security issues with the school server. I then decided to try screencast-o-matic and had difficulty with getting Java on my computer. Overall, I was pretty discouraged after all of the computer issues.

Skitch has a lot of great features for making a screencast. I liked the fact that you can write on the screen. I would have done a tutorial on how to get to my card catalog page for my students. I can see how this could be very helpful in a classroom for teachers to highlight important sections on webpages for their classes.

Screencast-o-matic would be nice if you are working on a You Tube movie. This could be used in a classroom for a science lab and more. I like the feature where you can add voice for students. This can be helpful for students who need visual and audio.

Both had great qualities to add to the classroom setting. I have not given up on this thing but I will continue to try to make my screencast on how to get to my card catalog from the high school homepage.

Thing 37 ~ Flickr Slideshow

2009-03-27T13:01:00.006-05:00

Thing 37 ~ Photo Tales

2009-03-27T12:31:00.006-05:00

I started Thing 37 with creating an account on Flickr. I have explored through Flickr in the past but hadn't spent a lot of time using it. I didn't want to put my personal photos on my blog so I did use the FlickrCC which has tons of photos to use that are put out their by other Flickr users.

I created a slideshow of photographs that were provided by Creative Commons and titled the post Thing 37 ~ Flickr. I looked for photographs that were close to home that had the feel for mainly spring. I live only an hour from the Red River Valley flood. I needed to look at something other than white snow which is covering the ground right now.

I had a hard time embedding my slideshow into the post so this is something that I will continue to work on. I think if a person is more technical than I am that it wouldn't be too difficult to add them into PowerPoint presentations.

I was amazed at how many people put their personal photos out for millions of people to look at. I still have the issue of privacy and worry what kind of people are looking at my photos.

I think that Flickr and other slideshow generators could be a very useful tool to use in classroom presentation. It could easily be put into a PowerPoint presentation. I can see students having an easy time taking photos for a classroom project and using them on the SMART board.

Overall, it was a lot of fun to play with the photos. I did create a mosaic in Flickr but it was unable to be put on my blog due to human error (that being my error). I have something similar at home that I use to make slideshows with my digital camera. Kind of fun to pull out the slideshow during family events/holidays.

Thing 36~Comic Relief: Generate Some Fun

2009-03-23T09:45:00.016-05:00

I have had some experience with the generators doing the 23 Things on a Stick and had a blast with the Big Huge Labs. In the past, I made a puzzle of my children, which can be viewed along the right hand side of the screen, and a name badge which is no longer on my blog due to the amount of things on my blog. I felt like it was going overboard.

I started by playing with a lot of the generators. I made some fun things like a Wanted Poster (Wanted ~ My Marbles) through ImageChef. I felt like I had lost my mind at that point in the fun of creating many posters. Spacefem is where I generated my own dewey classification number which is 608. My number is for technology which I thought was pretty funny. I am learning a lot of technology through my job and More Things on a Stick. I also created a sign that says: Out to Lunch using Tiny Tags. I was really hungry at the time which if you knew me, you would know that I am always hungry.

Then it was on to ToonDoo, which I must say was a lot of fun. I have recommended this site to my students in the past when they were creating a newspaper and had to include a comic in their newspaper. I found a really cute comic by ACLD23Things which you can see by clicking on the link. I made my own comic, which is not really funny at all but I was informed that it didn't have to be funny. You can see it along the right hand side or by clicking here.

I did check out Newspaper Front Page which I thought would be very useful for some of the students struggling with creating their newspaper projects.

Overall, I think that there is a place for Online Generators to enhance the library or a school project. I found myself getting caught up in all of the generators and trying to think of creative ways to include them in the Media Center.

Thing 35~Book 2.0

2009-03-23T09:45:00.012-05:00

I have accounts in both Library Thing and Good Reads. I find them interesting to see what other reviews are on the books that I have read and really enjoyed, as well as the books that I haven't enjoyed. I find that I will read a review before purchasing a book that I have considered reading, if the reviews are poor I reconsider purchasing the book.

Books on Your Phone

I did check out the site: Books in My Phone. Something that I wouldn't personally use. I don't have a cell phone which allows me to download books to my phone. I still like to hold the copy of the book in my hands for reading. For this part of the thing, this was the only part that I found I would not be able to use.

Readers' Advisory

I use two of these sites on a regular basis now: What Should I Read Next? and What's Next. They are sites that I highly recommend to students when they come in and say. I liked this book what would you say is a good book to read. Thanks to whomever pointed out these sites earlier this year. They are awesome.

Online Book Communities

Overbooked is a really valuable website to help get you started. I checked out the hotlist and the booklists part the most. I did bookmark this site to my Yahoo page for more research and continued use.

Book Group Resources

Reading Group Choice was the site that I looked over. I found some of the books that were already in my libraries collection. I like that it gives questions to start a book discussion. This is helpful if you are starting a book talk and am not sure which questions to ask or what things to really consider before the discussion.

Audio Books

Open Culture had a neat podcast on Twitter. There is much to look through and consider.

Book Swaps

Book Mooch was interesting. I typed in some of the more popular books to see if they were available. I find myself swamping books with friends or donating the books to my own library for others to read. I like the concept behind swapping books with fellow readers.

Book Reviews
The Complete Reviews had some neat reviews and had a place to send you to other locations with reviews. I like checking out the reviews for a book before purchasing it for my library.

Children's Books

Silly Book was neat that it sent you out to best links to teachers. I liked the games and additional ideas to do with books. Nice to find ideas to do with books without having to create everything all of the time.

Overall, this was a very worthwhile thing to spend time on. I appreciated the additional websites to check out for recommending books to my students. It makes my job easier which means a lot to a librarian with a busy schedule.

Thing 34 ~ Is this Our Competition? Online Answer Sites

2009-03-12T11:48:00.002-05:00

I started by reading the articles on the "future of the reference" desk.

The Future of the Reference Desk: I think more and more students are going away from the books but it takes someone to help them find the information whether in a book or on the Internet. Students still need to be guided to help them find reliable resources. Just because it is on the Internet does not make it a valuable resource. Librarians need to be as accessible as possible whether behind a desk or out in the open to answer any question.

That Thing You Do: I looked around my library and tried to access what was going on. I found students working at computers, playing games, emailing, studying at desks, playing chess, and overall just visiting. Then I had to ask myself, Is the library an important place? My answer: yes! Students come down everyday to check out reading material, whether fiction or nonfiction. Are we important? Yes! Students have a safe environment to study, hang out, get information or whatever the need is. I order my materials around my students and classroom support. I find that I cater to the students. What do they want to read? What is the latest and best books for the year? All things that are researched through students or websites. Librarian are important because we are here for students to help them in anyway possible through instruction, guidance and interaction.

Librarians 2.0-Interviews of the future of libraries: Tim Spalding - Future of Librarians Interview, What he said about tagging is true. LibraryThing is very user-friendly. I like that I can interact with other readers who have read similar things. I think that more libraries should have places for students to put their thoughts out on books. Our library catalog allows students to recommend the books to others. Important for students who don't want to take my word about a book.

Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition: Libraries have indeed changed. Libraries used to be quite places of study. Now they are more interactive places for students to hang out. We need to be more personable.

Slam Boards: I think this is a neat place to give accurate information to users. I think if the person identifies themselves and gives the location of their information it becomes more creditable.

I found a lot of the questions to be quite interesting. You can find questions for academics to how to treat an injury. I did read a lot of the questions but was not interested in answering any of the questions.

What I found most important for this thing was reading the articles. I feel that libraries are important to people if they serve a purpose. Libraries need to learn to change with time. My library does not have a high check out rate but we serve a lot of students and staff everyday. We are accessible to students or staff for anything. We look for information, help with the everyday problems (How do I find a book?, My computer won't print., Can you order me a book?, etc,) and maintain a user-friendly environment. If your main goal is to have really high check out rates and that is it, is it really an important place for users? I think we have to look past the number of books that are checked out and look at the ways that we are helping students.

Thing 33 ~ Travel 2.0

2009-03-12T08:08:00.003-05:00

Articles on the topic of Travel 2.0
I started this one with reading the article Travel 2.0: Social Networking Takes a Useful Turn. I was very impressed with the Sheraton Hotel putting the reviews from past visitors on their websites. The Sheraton Hotel now has a guest book, reviews, and room views. I find into more useful to see what the hotel looks like before making reservations. I find it rather interesting how things are moving more to cater to the consumer.

Blogs and Podcasts
The Window Seat is filled with recommended links, destination guides (US and International), categories (trip tips, planning by interest) and travel deals. I like how user-friendly this is set up. I like that I can look by location or by interest. If I am unsure of a good location but I have an idea of what I would like to do, I can look in the plan by interest section.

Review Sites
I went through the Sheraton Hotel website. I was really impressed with the consumer reviews. I like seeing the good and bad of what other guests have to say. I like seeing a glimpse of what the rooms are going to look like before getting to the hotel and not knowing what I need to pack or not pack.

Travel Journal Sites
My Life of Travel: This was probably my favorite of blogs that I visited. I like the real person experience. It had a lot of features to view from featured members, most viewed blogs, popular locations and featured journals. I really like the unbiased opinions of others. I felt this was probably the best because it was not sponsored by a certain business or hotel. Feels more like an honest good place to give what people liked or didn't like on their vacations.

Travel Mashups
Wines and Times: I really liked this one. I like know that there are winery's around my hometown. I found the location of winery's and how to contact them. I think that mashups are helpful in planning a vacation.

Overall: We have a class that is responsible for planning a vacation outside of the United States. The students have to give important information from where they are going, how long they will be gone, what they are going to visit, and what are some of the important cultural information they will need to know. Students can make their own mashups and blogs of what they are going to see and do while on their vacation. These are valuable websites for students to begin their search.

Thing 32 ~ Google Maps and Mashups

2009-03-02T12:10:00.004-06:00

I use Google Maps quite a bit. I use them when I am going to conferences and need to find the location. Sometimes the directions are really good and sometimes not so much. Google Maps and Google Earth are used a lot by the students in my district. Students are finding their homes and hunting land all the time. They are really into Google Maps. Teachers have their students create maps for social studies.
I tried all of the Google Maps Mania, Google Maps: 100+ Best Tools and Mashups, and 100 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups. I had the most fun with the one called "If I dig a very deep hole, where would I end up?" I choose my hometown, of Frazee, as the beginning point to start digging my hole. To see the results of my dig, you will have to click on my link.
http://map.talleye.com/bighole.php?lat=46.717268685073954&lng=-95.723876953125
I was unable to get the map to show up on the screen so I put the link on it.
Google Maps are really useful for classroom teachers, libraries and students.

Thing 31 ~ More Twitter

2009-03-02T10:57:00.004-06:00

I started off by reading the article on etiquette. I find that it is important to understand what is really going on and how to best use Twitter to get the most for your time. I click on a lot of the links to see what is offered in Twitter, how best to use it, what other people are using it for, and checked out Congress. I tried to add my name to the directory but was blocked out by my computer.
Then I tried to determine what stage of twitter I thought I was in. I am in between two stages (in my opinion): New is Cool and Talk to Me. Here is my opinion on this: I think Twitter can be useful in keeping up with friends and colleagues in your field. I am exploring so I kind of feeling like someone had better start talking to me soon or I am going to drop Twitter like a bad habit. I guess I need to experiment more in order to make Twitter more useful for me.
I took a quiz. I am a comma, which I think really explains me for the most part. I am an outgoing, busy, looking for new things, and I do look for the good in most everything.
I found out that I am ranked 572,350. I guess that isn't too bad considering that I am new to Twitter. I think if I would use it more and comment more or have discussions more, it would help my ranking. I guess I don't have to be ranked all that high to enjoy using it.
My changed my Twitter to page to a really cute pink color. I have not left much in the line of background information. I think that if I left more information as to who I am more people would be willing to check my Twitter page and see if I have anything to add professionally or personally. I am considering adding more information.
I can see myself spending more time on Twitter if I could find some of my friends out there. I think it would be a good way to keep in touch with my friends that are not close to home. I still think that email is better for me. I have a hard time using only a 14o characters. I am talkative.
I found lots of people on Twitter. I did a simple search by first name and last name to see if I had friends on Twitter. It was not a successful search.
I tried to add a badge to my blog but was unsuccessful. According to Twitter, it had to many Tweets and they were experiencing some difficulties. Will continue trying to add a badge.

Thing 30 ~ More Ways to Use RSS and Delicious

2009-02-20T12:13:00.002-06:00

Confession time, I did not keep up with Delicious or Bloglines since the 23 Things on a Stick.

I started off by reading the article seven tips on RSS feeds. I have to agree with it that having too many can be very overwhelming. I did add some bookmarks to my Delicious account. I am always looking for really good teaching websites for myself and others. I still am old fashion, I like to read the newspapers online. I find myself going to my favorite newspapers and picking out the headlines that attract my attention.

I am really trying to get websites organized and more userfriendly for myself. I like the overall Google webpage or Yahoo Webpage. I have some of the RSS feeds set up on my homepage. So it feels like a waste of time to set up another account to keep track of.

I did set up a link on my blog for others to look at my Delicious bookmarks. I am not going to add anyone at this time to my network. I think I will work more on getting comfortable with Delicious before finding people.

Thing 29 ~ Google Tools

2009-02-20T08:57:00.002-06:00

I started by setting up a Google account. I then went though and made up a home page including RSS feeds for local newspapers, weather, and added bookmarks. I changed the theme to a nice puppy (kind of like my puppy).

I looked through most of the tasks to do and then decided to spend the majority of time on Google News. I like the archive feature but most of the article require that you pay for them. I find it hard to believe that students would be willing to pay $3.95 or better for an article for an assignment. I like that the Star Tribune came up with I entered in my zip code. I like the current weather conditions, even though it is really cold.

I then went and looked through the gmail. I have 3 email address already. I have hotmail, yahoo and school email. I do use hotmail for personal emails. I have had hotmail for about 10 years. I don't think I will switch to gmail. I like my Yahoo homepage and the google homepage is nice.

I have used Google docs in the past. The middle school is working on having students use Google docs so they can work at any computer at school and finish it up at home with no problems. Some of the students have been using the feature while others are using jump drives.

I looked at enabling my Google Web History. I am not going to at this time. Web history could be useful if you don't have any place to bookmark sites. I find that I bookmark a lot of sites and then revisit them frequently. When students are jumping from computer to computer in a school this could help keep them a little more organized. I think setting up a Google homepage and bookmarking sites would be a better approach.

Thing 28~Customized Home Pages

2009-02-11T08:39:00.002-06:00

I chose to set up a home page on Yahoo. I had Yahoo email so this was an opportunity for me to look more into setting up My Yahoo and getting organized. I have added in my favorite links to all of the webpages that I visit for example: recommend book sites, my portfolio, my email addresses, my blog, favorite recipe sites, and much more. I have a section for the local newspaper headlines, my television listings, and word of the day.

I really like how I can set up my bookmarks and access them from any computer. I bookmark a lot of sites at work on my work computer but than I add them to My Yahoo account so I can access them at home. I love the fact that I just have to click on the bookmark and I can find where I left off. I did organize my bookmarks into categories so they are not just spread all out.

Thing 27~Twitter

2009-02-10T13:07:00.003-06:00

I started a Twitter account: http://twitter.com/JenLibrary. Not really sure what I am going to do with this. I find it overwhelming and very confusing. I did send a message and plan on spending more time exploring twitter and will invite more followers. I used the Ning to find people to follow. I looked through the categories and found that their are a lot of people who use it for ideas or to blow off steam from a long hard day of work. I like the Minnemom twitter with the recipes. I am going to send a message about books and any suggestions about really good books to read.

I can see the benefits of keeping up with friends and colleagues. Twitter can be a very useful tool for keeping up with friends if you don't text message or in addition to texting. It is something that you have to check frequently, which can be overwhelming and/or addicting.

I will continue working with twitter to get it all figured out. My goal this time around is to continue working with the things even after I have completed each of them.

Thing 26~Join the Ning

2009-02-10T11:44:00.002-06:00

I joined the 23 Things Ning during the 23 Things on a Stick round. I must admit that I did not use this much during the first round. I did some exploration and left a comment, added a post, changed my overall look, started a discussion (thanks to Ruth S.), and joined the NLLN group. I left a post on book recommendations which has been very useful. I have followed the comments and am very excited about the new web pages that I have visited.

My goal this time around is to be more interactive with the blogs and the Ning thing. Nings and blogs can be useful if they are interactive.

Thing 25~Bloggers' Toolkit

2009-02-10T11:35:00.003-06:00

My overall feeling is that if you add too much to your blog it becomes tacky. I like the more professional look. I don't want a bunch of things to clog up the side of my blog.

The Things Added to My Blog:

Search Tool: I like being able to search through a web page and find what I want in little to no time.
Followers button: I would be curious to know who is following my blog.

Things I looked at:

Click Comment: I like to read what people have to say. I think it is more personal to leave comments and not click a button and that's it.
Outbrain: I viewed it. Didn't think it was right for my blog.
Blogflux: Viewed but chose not to add. I have a widget that shows my statistic of who is clicking on my blog. Shows me if they are repeat followers or new to my blog.
Resize my photo: Not something I wanted to add at this time.
Clocklink: Looked through the choices and didn't find one that I really liked.

Recommended Book Sites

2009-01-22T12:38:00.002-06:00

I am looking for some really good recommend book sites for high school students. These are the ones that I use but could use others.

ALA Book Lists (American Library Association)
Follett (book company)
www.teenreads.com
www.teenreadstoo.com
http://wellreadchild.blogspot.com/
http://teenbookreview.wordpress.com/
http://www.juniorlibraryguild.com/jlg/home.dT

Thanks in advance for your site recommendations.

Thing 24~ Refresh Your Blog

2009-01-21T11:04:00.005-06:00

I was very excited to see that the 23 Things on a Stick will continue with More Things on a Stick. I started off with registering my blog. Would you know, I forgot my password to log into my blog. I guess that being said, I have not been keeping up with my blog. I have been visiting other blogs but not writing on them. I will try to be a better blogger and add comments to other blogs.
I did change my look a little but I really liked my old look. I switched the order of the things on the side and gave a little bit of a profile. I am changed my avatar's clothing and gave it a dog that looks more like my own dog. That was hard to remember how to export my avatar. Shows that I am rusty.
Here is a list of the blogs that I have visited when doing some research into finding books for my media center:
http://wellreadchild.blogspot.com/
http://teenbookreview.wordpress.com/
If anyone has any recommendations of really good blogs with book reviews. Please feel free to leave them in my comment section.
With that, I am going to start Thing 25 with a little more patience and hope that things go a little better.

Thing 23~Final Thoughts

2008-04-02T10:08:00.000-05:00

First of all, I just want to express how much fun and learning I have experienced. I have learned so much, thanks to everyone who put together the 23 Things on a Stick. I wish there was more than 23 Things. I hope you continue to put together more 23-type programs for use to explore. Technology is ever changing and this is a fabulous way to keep libraries more up-to-date. With our day-to-day activities it is hard sometimes to take the opportunity to learn new things without a push. Some of us get stuck in a rut and need a gentle push.

Reflecting back on this experience: I have spent a good 2 hours on each of the activities. At first, I was concerned with being able to do some of the things. Now I am going back and spending more time and sharing all of the information that I have gained in this experience. I will continue to return to the 23 things on a stick list and explore more thoroughly each of the things. I just wish that there were lots more.

As to a one word or sentence summary to promote the 23 Things on a Stick, I am not quit sure that I can due justice in just one word or sentence. A technology enhancement and professional growth experience that will forever change the way that you view the library of today and tomorrow.

Personal Growth: Our media center has about 30 computers in it. We have PC for students to use throughout the day. We have Macs for students to create movies. We have a huge collection of books, which some are out of date. I feel more inspired to get rid of some of the really out of date books and utilize more of the ELM resources that are available online for free. We take pride in providing an open friendly, safe place for students to come. I would love to be able to cater more to all types of learners and will continue to work on making the media center user-friendlier.
Favorite Tools and Discoveries: Through this experience, I have a wider variety of tools to use to help my students in their research such as ELM, Flickr, and Big Huge Labs. I have more tools to help myself manage a busy schedule.

Connecting: I just wish that there had been more collaboration with others as we progressed through the 23 things. Would be nice to have a place to create more discussion, such as a discussion board. The blogs are nice to post your thoughts and experiences but more collaboration would be beneficial. I spent a lot of time reading other blogs but not responding to others. A discussion board could enhance the 23 Things on a Stick.

Future Plans: I will continue to check the NLLN website to see if there will be more 23 Things in the future. I would love to participate again. I will give more time to learning more technology and more friendly ways to open up the media center to more patrons. Once again, thank you very much for this great opportunity to explore technology and the ever-changing library world.

Thing 22~What Did I Learn Today?

2008-04-02T09:50:00.002-05:00

My resolution? I kind of feels like it’s New Year’s Eve and I need to make a plan for having a better year, in this case, a better library. This year, will I keep my resolution? How long will the resolutions last? Time will only tell. I will try to spend at least 15 minutes a day learning about new sites and reading information in my RSS feed. I will try to share my really neat website with my staff and on my blog.

I will work on my issue of whether to sign-up for an account of Flickr and Big Huge Labs. I still find it hard to put my personal pictures online. Privacy seems to be my big issue. There are so many people out there that don’t respect privacy and can hack into anything. I don’t know if that makes me paranoid or overly cautious.

As of now, I am going to work on building my Yahoo page. I have bookmarked lots of sites that I visit frequently. I have even made it my homepage. I will try new ways to improve my library and my job. I said earlier in my blog that budget cuts are always on a person’s mind in the library, so I will try to make my position in the library as valuable as possible. Making it much harder to eliminate my job.

I will go back through and revisit all of the 23 Things and spend more time with them and try to come up with more ways to use them in my media center. I will spend time looking for more articles on Library 2.0 and how others are changing their media centers to be more user-friendly.

Thing 21~Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

2008-04-02T09:43:00.000-05:00

I explored several of the social networking sites and read the articles. I really think it is important to reach out to the students to make the library an important part of their education. Getting students involved in social networking might bring in more students. Whoever, my school has blocked out some of the social networking sites, like MySpace and Facebook, so having a social networking site would be very difficult. MySpace and Facebook are sites that my students are comfortable with using. Having a social networking site would be taking some of the students out of their comfort zone. Which could be bad or good.

WebJunction

What can I say? There is so much. From professional development to building your technology, to managing your resources; there is just so much. I would be interested in finding out if there was CEU’s for join in on the WebJunction archives as well as the live presentations. I think a person could spend days on WebJunction and only scrap the surface. I looked at web conferences and discussion boards. As I was looking through some of the Discussion Boards, I ran across a site where you can share your documents and they can be edited online (like in Thing 9). http://www.yourdraft.com/

Library 2.0

Ruth had given me the site Library 2.0 a while back to look at what other libraries are doing and how they are collaborating. I visit the site frequently and search through the groups. I have not joined a particular group but find it interesting how everyone is willing to share their information and open to suggestions. I will try to keep up with the Library 2.0 social networking site and join a group. I just haven’t found a group that I think will work the best for my library. As I continue to go through the 23 Things, I start to see how all of this fits together as a whole. When I first started, I thought great 23 Things to use but how can I put them together to make them useful not just 23 more things to think about in my already busy day. I see how the Social Networking can be useful for teachers and libraries to interact with each other in the building as well as throughout the world. With cuts that schools are making, it is important to show how much a library is used and why it is important to keep the doors open. So many times libraries are the first things cut out of the budget. Who are we hurting? The students. We are not allowing them to have a safe place to study or network with staff or students.

Thing 20~Libraries and Social Networks

2008-04-02T09:42:00.002-05:00

I explored both MySpace and Facebook. MySpace seemed a little over the top for me. I wasn’t too crazy about the music on each page. I really felt out of place. I think it is more of a teenage place than anything. I have a friend who has a MySpace page but I still didn’t feel inclined to sign up. I did take a look at some of the library sites. I don’t think they fit in with our library image.

I did set up an account on Facebook. I joined the group 23 Things on a Stick and the Library 2.0 group. There were only 2 members before me, on the 23 Things on a Stick. The Library 2.0 group had over 5,000 members. I wrote on the wall a message about why I joined Facebook. Not really sure what will happen in the next week. I will continue to check my Facebook. I did invite some of my friends who have Facebook accounts.

As I explored through MySpace and Facebook, I understood why many schools have blocked them. I don’t see the Detroit Lakes School District opening these pages to students to explore during the school day. I can’t really see a place for our library on either. When talking with several of the students, in our district, they would not utilize these sites for educational purposes.

To be perfectly honest, I really don’t think I will spend a whole lot of time on Facebook or MySpace. They are not social networks that really interest me. I would rather be on a network like Ning or Library 2.0. Ning and Library 2.0 are much more professional sites and see to be more fit to my personality.

Thing 19~Podcasts

2008-03-14T14:23:00.013-05:00

Podcast.com: To me it seemed like I was clicking from one place to the next and on and on. I did look through some of the NPR and find anything one that caught my eye. Grammer Grater was a link that goes through some of the English language issues that seem to pop up in most high school classrooms. One is example is the can versus the may and the proper usage. It was a short 3 ½ minute podcast discussing when it is appropriate to use can and may.

I went through Podcast.com and looked through the top 25 podcasts of the month. Nothing really attracted my interest. So I moved on to a different directory.

Yahoo Podcast: I personally liked the Yahoo Podcast because it was more search friendly. I seem to find a considerable amount of information on the Library 2.0. I can type in what I am looking for and it gives me a ton of options. Podcast.com was nice if you are looking to click through a ton of things. My preference lies in the ability to search an engine like Yahoo and find something really fast.

I have chose not to link a podcast to my bloglines at this time. I will continue my search to find something that will work to improve my media center. At some point, I am sure that I will link something to my RSS feed.

Presentations can be greatly enhanced by using a podcast.

Here is a link to podcasts that our students have created during their Laker Live class. The podcasts are ones that have been selected by students because they were the best or funniest.

http://ms.detlakes.k12.mn.us/hslibrary/pd/Site_2/Podcast/Podcast.html

Really Awesome Website

2008-03-06T11:15:00.000-06:00

I was looking through a catalog, after meeting with a book rep. So I did a google search on an author which brought me to the website Lookybook. It is a site where you can look at picture books for FREE. You can read the whole book online. If you are looking to do some research for ordering or you would like to read new books online to your kids. This is a cool site. You can even set up an account, FREE, and go back and look at the books anytime.
http://www.lookybook.com/index.php

Thing 18~You Tube

2008-03-04T11:40:00.000-06:00

The above video was done by the Detroit Lakes High School Advance Public Speaking Class. The class consists of about 20 students who are responsible for videoing and editing local happenings and educational programs. The videos are then shown on a local network channel, as well as, aired during Laker Time on Friday mornings. This video is about 30 seconds in length and was placed on YouTube by Kent Mollberg, the Media Specialist.

It took some trial and error to get the video uploaded in the right spot. Would have worked better had I read the directions that were provided versus trying to figure it out on my own.

Prior to working on this thing, I had spent very little to almost no time on YouTube. I was surprised to find local videos put out by our own Media Specialist and students in our district. I don’t know that I will spend much time on YouTube after completing this thing but it has been a lot of fun to look at the recommended videos. I really like the video under library ads. It probably wouldn’t encourage students to read but it was overall very entertaining. It would be neat to have some of these videos made in our library and aired on Laker Live.

The first search I did was Library. I came up with a video called Upskirt Spy Cam Panties down in the library. I knew there were inappropriate videos on there; I just didn’t think my first search would come up with the number one video showing underwear. So I refined my search to Library 2.0 and watched some of the videos and changed in other libraries.

YouTube is widely used in our school. Students spend their study hall and open hours viewing YouTube videos. Most of the time they are watching sports videos, television shows, and anything where someone is doing something stupid. Since the school has unblocked YouTube, students are spending more time in the Media Center during lunchtime.

There are many educational videos for classrooms to use with their curriculum. However, there are many videos that are inappropriate for students to view. I could see classroom teachers using YouTube with a presentation they have set up. I don’t know that any teachers in the high school use YouTube in their classroom presentations but it would be really interesting to find out.

Thing 17~ELM Productivity Tools

2008-03-04T09:59:00.000-06:00

At the Detroit Lakes High School, we use the ELM database for a lot of our research. We have them linked right on the Detroit Lakes Media Center web page. I use it when looking for information for teachers, students, and myself. I use OCLC when cataloging books for important tag information and call numbers. When classes come in looking for research information, we direct them to ProQuest and Student Edition of InfoTrac. The information is much more reliable and the students are spending less time finding information.

We recently had a class working on a library research paper. The media specialist gave a presentation on ProQuest and InfoTrac. The students were amazed at how current the information was and the sources of information available. All of the students were able to find at least one article to use for their paper.

We have a psychology class that has to find an article once a month on a mental health issue. The first time the class comes down they are introduced to ProQuest and InfoTrac. Students will come back to use them again because it takes only a few minutes to come up with a good article. The hard part for them is writing a review of the article.

I created the RSS feed on youth smoking will be interesting to find out how many patrons visit it in the next month. I created a webpage in EBSCO on the 23 Things on a Stick and one on Library 2.0. I researched social networking and read a few of the articles. I email it out to a colleague and to myself. I spent some time with NetLibrary. All are worth looking through and handing out to teachers in our building. The webpage would help with presentation that we give to students. Students can make their own folders and have that information ready for them every time they use EBSCO for research, definite time saver.
Overall, ELM is worth the time spent on introducing students. They find information fast and easy. Best of all, it is dependable information.

Thing 16~Assignment Calculator & Research Project Calculator

2008-03-03T13:38:00.000-06:00

When I have written a research paper in the past, the most difficult thing for me has been to get started and figure out how to best organize the whole paper. I feel overwhelmed with where to begin, what is a good topic, what to do with the research I have gathered, and how much time should I allow for editing and revising the paper. The Research Project Calculator would have been a very nice tool for me. I need to have deadlines set up so that I am not waiting till the last minute to finish. I think the Research Project Calculator would be a useful tool for procrastinators like me.

The high school has a class titled Library Research. The teacher has a schedule for every step of the way, when he wants things finished what they should be working on. However, it doesn't always seem like the students know how to begin or where to begin. I think the RPC could be a very useful tool for students who are struggling with where to start and how to get organized.

At first it looks like there really wasn’t much to the Calculator. I thought it was like here is what you should do and when you should finish it. Then I got into the Teacher's Guide and Support Materials. There are a lot of materials to help students get started and organized. At the high school, students could use the supportive materials to get started and see their work progressing so that it would be easier to write the paper.
I will be sending this link, http://rpc.elm4you.org/, on to teachers to help students get organized and to help them organize their research papers.

Thing 15~Online Games

2008-03-03T12:58:00.000-06:00

Games and their importance in our education system? I am still trying to figure out how putting my library online would make it a more user-friendly place for my students. I personally like the one on one interaction with the students verses the computer avatar. Our school district finds that games really do not have much importance; therefore, most of the gaming sites are blocked. Bandwidth tends to be the answer the technology director gives when asked why we don't allow games during school hours. Our servers have problems keeping up with all of the computers so blocking out games helps keep the technology problems to a minimum. Certain gaming sites have been allowed for the first time ever in our library. I have found that students spend more of their free time in the media center playing games. Where is the education value with some of the games? I am not quite sure but I do know that I have had less trouble with students visiting inappropriate sites than ever before.

I am not one that likes to spend much time on games. I would rather read a good book. Second Life may be valuable for some schools or public libraries but our district will not be leaning in this direction any time soon. Throughout this thing, I keep wondering how many districts would allow their schools to become virtual reality? What would be the guidelines that would have to be set up to become a virtual reality school? How many schools would block this? Will school districts that do block online games change any time soon? What will it take to change districts opinions on the importance of a virtual reality? Are we the only district that finds online games to be a problem with their servers? How can we solve this problem? Is this an issue of privacy or security for students?

I read through the eight myths about online gaming. I still find it hard to believe that research says that gaming does not lead to violence. I believe that students that do not have an understanding between games and real world can turn to violence in certain situations. I do think that games are more targeted today towards kids. Look at all of the new systems that are available, like the Xbox 360, Wii, etc. Who are the ones that are purchasing them? Parents are purchasing them for their children for Christmas. Anyone who watched the news around Christmas time say how parents stood in line for hours waiting to get the Wii.

I took a look at the puzzle pirates, which took forever to download onto the computer, and I researched about the Second Life. I have a hard time finding a use for Second Life in my library. Second Life may be useful if students want to interact with other students when they are at home. I find it hard to recommend turning my library into a virtual reality. Some places are having classes on virtual reality. I find it hard to want to take a class where I can’t directly see the person. Maybe I am a little too concerned about personal identity and how to best protect my students and myself. There are just too many scary people in this world to not want to protect my students, as well as, myself.

Thing 14~Library Thing

2008-02-21T11:45:00.000-06:00

I started using LibraryThing about September or October of this year. Our Middle School Media Specialist introduced me to her LibraryThing account and told me to check it out. I use LibraryThing when I am researching books to purchase for next year. I like to see the reviews and how many other people have the book. There are many groups who are able to help with finding the best books and giving tips on what works in their library or may work in your library. I find that reading their comments has lead me to purchasing or not purchasing a book if I am unsure. I like the ideas of how they make their libraries more user-friendly and how they are trying new things to get patrons to read.

I did set up an account with LibraryThing, however, I spent more time searching LibraryThing than setting up the account. I put a link to my LibraryThing page at the top of my blog for anyone who is interested in looking at it. I picked books that my students check out frequently. I randomly chose five books that are currently in my library or am ordering. I did put tags with them which I used from my card catalog. I really like that the books have pictures for visual people. I think this could be very useful if you do not have an online card catalog. Our church has talked about having their library cataloged and would like to have suggestions as to how to organize the catalog. This would be an informal catalog that could be user friendly for all users.

I like how you are able to communicate with other librarians. I like to see which books they found are good and if you like this book, you make this other book. If you don't like this book, then you are not going to like these books. I have spent a lot of time on this site previous to setting up my own account.

When making booklists, I use my card catalog and make a list or catagory for my patrons to access the information. I have lots of booklists for classes as well as personal booklists. I think the patrons would like the reviews given by amazon.com. LibraryThing would be really useful if you don't have an online catalog but time consuming to keep up if you already have an online catalog.

Thing 13~Online Productivity Tools

2008-02-21T10:16:00.001-06:00

I started my Yahoo page. I really like how I can organize the page to fit my lifestyle and needs. I will make this my go to page. I find it hard to start with a page when 95% of my day is working on my card catalog. There are so many options. It is nice to be able to link everything to this page so I can click on a link and then go back when I am ready.

I live my life with lists. I have a list for groceries on my refrigerator. I have a list of things to try to accomplish at work on my desk. I have a list of things to complete for the 23 things on a stick on my desk. I have a list of things to get done on a list. I have so many lists that I find it hard to give control of my list to my computer. My husband laughs at me for having so many lists. I feel a little bit of panic when I can't find one of my lists. The online calendars all have really nice options to fit all kinds of personalities. I do have a calendar with my school mail that I use all of the time. It gives me options to make notes, put together lists, and much more. I still am not totally comfortable giving up my paper and pencil to a computer. At school, I do have a planner that I write in to keep most of the lists in check.

The homepages can be helpful if you need to organize and minimize your Internet time. To do list are nice to have but they can't consume your life. I really don't know that I am ready to use a Google calendar or any new calendar since I am comfortable with my school mail calendar. I will continue to work with the online calendars and try to put my lists on there. According to a commerical, you have to try something for 21 days to make it a habit. I will continue working with all of the tools that we have explored for a long time to see if they become a good habit.

There are some many organizational tools available on the web it is almost overwhelming. You can link them from one place to another and so on. I feel I spend about 2 hours or better just looking through all of the options that 23 things has to offer. Then I almost feel overwhelmed to just pick one of them and give it a try. So I will stick with my online calendar and try the next thing.

Thing 12~Social Media Sites

2008-02-15T13:14:00.000-06:00

I am new to all four of these social media sites. My adventure was looking at the headlines and then taking the tours of all four social media sites. I found the tours to be very helpful in what the sites have to offer. I read lots of the articles and was very impressed with the variety of sources the article have come from. I will be recommending them to the social studies department, as well as, students who are looking for current events. It is awesome to see popular headlines without clicking on all the individual websites. When I would look through New York Times or Washington Post, I would have to search many different tabs to get the political, world, or national headlines. This gives important news headlines with just opening the website. I can pick and chose which headlines I really want to read, fast and easy.

These can be very useful but it still limits what is important. Articles that may be important to some people are not as important to others. This does leave out many articles in the New York Times and Washington Post. They are good for looking for major national headlines but leave out your local information.

Will I continue to use these media sites? I will check them once in awhile but I still like to read my local and national papers. I don't have a lot of time to set up an account an then keep it active. I wish I had more time for that but my day is already filled with a million different things. I will recommend students to check them out when looking for a current event.

Thing 11~Tagging and Del.icio.us

2008-02-15T11:51:00.000-06:00

I create a Del.icio.us account and did some tagging. I find that you can lose track of time when looking through all of the sites that have been tagged and tagging sites for yourself. This could be very valuable if you find an article that you want to read and then tag it for later when time allows you to go back to the article. I use the same computer every day so I still like bookmarking my sites. I think tags would make it more useful, you can break the sites down to it's importance or usablility. Tags are important in cataloging books and information. This is just one more way to make the Internet more userfriendly to viewers.

I think Del.icio.us could be a very valuable tool for students to use when doing research. They can bookmark their sites and then log back in to see the sites from any computer. This makes the research much more accessible for users and it would help with not having to print off all the pages. Bookmarking is nice if they are at the same computer all the time but classes have access to four different labs and the media center, making bookmarking not useful. Students can use this for research and help save time. They can bookmark the site and then tag it according to the sections they need for research.

Our Media Center could use the tagging to help students with research. We could put the websites into categories and then students would have a place to start with their research. We could add our links to Del.icio.us which could help students find information fast and from any computer.

Thing 10~Wikis

2008-02-15T08:40:00.000-06:00

Wiki's could be used for personal or school. An organization could use a wiki to plan events with who is bring what or putting out their schedule of events. I think wiki's could be really good for planning events with many people. I can see people using wiki's for wedding plans when relatives live far apart. Email is nice but you have to start with the old emails and work to the new emails to see the trail of what is going on, which can cause more confusing. I like that you can add your thoughts or opinions and there is a trail as to who added what to the wiki.

Wikipedia can have really useful information but students have to be very careful. Some of our teachers do not allow students to use wikipedia and some limit the use of information they can use with wikipedia. I think that wikipedia has a lot of information but the fact that anyone can edit this informaiton makes it a little less reliable than other websites. I find that if I have to check to make sure the information is correct with another website than why use it.

I decided to explore in the sandbox. I wrote about being in the 23 things in a stick and how it is like a real sandbox. I have never used a wiki before so it was all new to me. I had been to a presentation on wiki's at a Northern Lights Library Network workshop and never taken the time to use it before. I don't know that I will use a wiki any time in the near future. However, I will continue to keep an open mind about it and do more exploring of other wiki's.

Thing 9~Collaboration Tools

2008-02-14T12:41:00.001-06:00

I chose to use the Google Docs. I already had an account so that is why I chose to use Google Docs. I think this could be very useful for me. I am currently working with a company called School House Books. I help the published type out documents to put together in the book to be sold to schools. I could use this to put the documents on and then send them back to the publisher who could send them back with any errors that need to be corrected. This could be very useful. Some of the documents that I have sent to the publisher have not come through with email so I have had to resend them which holds up the book publishing.

Here is one of the documents that I have created and use on a weekly basis. I created a document to keep track of the classes coming and using the Media Center. I can send this information off to administrators to show how our Media Center is used and what are the most used times.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddmb36ht_1fh679fg3

I think both Zoho and Google Docs are about the same. They both have many options to help you create and share documents. I spent more time with Google Docs so I have a better understanding of the Google Docs.

Writing up documents has changed so much over the years. It used to be pen and paper. Now, pen and paper is hardly used. Most students have to turn in typed documents so the art of pen and paper is being lost. Students hand writting skills are very poor. I remember spending lots of time in the third grade learning how to write each letter in cursive and perfecting each letter. Now I can use the computer and even use spell check. Changing a document is so much easier. No more white out. No more rewriting the paper if it wasn't perfect or crossing it out with a pen.

Thing 8~Share Your Creations

2008-02-14T11:48:00.000-06:00

I toured all of the the things and was very impressed with the creating and sharing slideshowes. I have used Microsoft Powerpoint in college and had to make sure I had enough disc space to get the information from one place to another and sometimes it didn't work. That would be a huge help if you had presentations that you would use from year to year. We have classes that have to give presentations using power point and then our technology person is trying to get them all in one folder to give to the teacher. Then students work on the presentation and the folder has to be updated which is really time consumming for the technology person. That would save him a lot of time. I will be sure to pass this information on to teachers and the technology person.

The mosaic was fun to make and would be nice to share with relatives that are long distant or even near by. I created a Mosiac Maker using photos of my two wonderful children. The Big Huge Labs is one that I have used in other Things so it was very easy to use. I would highly recommend anyone to use Big Huge Labs. It is like being on a playground, so many fun things to explore and you loss track of time.

I think that eFolio could be very useful to me, when I decide to become a Media Specialist. I could put my portfolio out there for others to see. It wouldn't be hard to manage and would be a nice presentation.

Thing 7~Web 2.0 Communication Tools

2008-02-13T12:16:00.000-06:00

Email Productivity
I use email on a daily basis to check school announcements, interact with teachers, and email friends and family. This is cheap way for me to keep in contact with friends that are not local. This year, I got the media center and the computer labs set up on a calendar that staff can access through their email. We were having difficulty with staff booking two or three places and others were not able to get in. Staff can email me any time of day to notify me that they would like to schedule time down in the media center. I have pretty much full control of the calendar so that I know who is coming and what time. I find that teachers are using the calendar more. It says them time from walking all the way down here to schedule time, that may or may not be available. This has helped with our office to be able to track down classes when they are not in their classrooms. I find that I check my email on a hour to hour bases depending on how busy I am. I tend to leave my email open and then it appears that there is one new message at the bottom. I can click on it and then view or ignore.

Instant Messaging
Our school prohibits the use of instant messaging on the computers. So for now, I don't think that I will encourage students to use instant messaging to get in contact with my boss or myself. I think that it is more important that students come and ask then instant message. I feel I can spend more time and it is more personal than sending a small message.

Text Messaging
I had never text messaged anyone before. I decided to give it a try. I text messaged my friend about some plans for a weekend. I am not sure that it would be cost effective for the library to text message students. There is a lot of things to learn in text messaging. I don't know all of the abbreviated forms of words and these students are really good at it. Most of the students are now carrying cell phones and texting their friends all the time. I just don't see our media center using text messaging any time soon.

Web Conferencing
I decided to take a look at one of the web conferences offered by Minitex, that has already aired. I viewed the Library 2 web conference with Carla Pfahl. I wanted to see what their impression of Library 2 means. I was surprised at some of things that they talked about, I was currently working on with the 23 things. What seemed to be the most important point was that the Library 2.0 is the upcoming thing for library world wide. If you want students to get the most out of your library, you will have to take an active stance in keeping your blog, MySpace, and Facebook up to date. Every media center/library wants patrons to utilize them and we have to be creating in getting existing and new patrons the information. It is important that we stay active in learning new technology and using the technology.
I think web conferencing could be a very inexpensive way to learn new things but can have some draw backs. I very rarely have an hour or more to devote to sitting, watching, and participating in a web conference. Most of my time during the day is spent working with students and monitoring students. Watching web conferences that have happened in the past can help, but if there were questions that you have, you might not be able to get as many answers or solutions to our questions.

Thing 6~Online Image Generator

2008-02-01T14:16:00.000-06:00

I got my pictures at Google Images by typing in fire dogs, person with computer, and person + hammer + computer. This is was a lot of fun. I chose to do Fire Prevention because my son loves playing fireman and I have showed him my blog. I found this to be rather addicting as you can see with all of the cards that I have made. Thanks to everyone who posted the pictures on Google images so I could make the trading cards.
I think this would be fun to make book markers out and hand them out to the kids during fire prevention, black history month, etc.

http://www.compusmile.com/ http://www.choiceshirts.com/

http://www.lendinghand.com.au/ http://www.loshin.com/

http://www.firesafetyplus.com/

These are links from the pictures.

Thing 5~Continued

2008-02-01T11:37:00.001-06:00

I had a student approach me for help on the Xinjiang Mummies. So I turned to my friends Google and Google images. They had some information but I want some really good pictures to help her out with her poster. I had just completed thing 5 with Flickr so I thought I would give it a try and see if there was more than just fun pictures. Wow! I came up with some really nice images to help her with her poster. Then I looked down the list of the 23 things and decided to try del.icio.us and found some more information (I skipped ahead a little).
I am going to have to add Flickr on my catalog homepage so I use it more often.

Thing 5~Fun with Flickr

2008-01-31T12:00:00.000-06:00

I did not realize all that Flickr had to offer until I did some playing around with Flickr Color Pickr, Spelling with Flickr, and Big Huge Labs. I create several calendars with pictures of my children with Big Huge Labs. I spelled out 23 things on a Stick and put that on the bottom of my blog~curitosy of Spelling with Flickr. I created a name badge with Big Huge Labs. There is a lot to offer. I still am nervous when it comes to sharing my children online so you will notice that the calanders that I created did not appear on my blog.
The opportunities that students could have with these tools are endless. They could use them in power point presentations, poster presentations, and more. One of our classes has to create a movie poster for a book, I will be handing out Big Huge Labs to lots of staff. I sent these links off to the daycare center director that I work for to help create name badges for our center.

Thing 4~Explore Flickr

2008-01-30T11:55:00.000-06:00

I have spent some time search through Flickr and have really enjoyed the images that have been shared by others. I chose not to start an account with Flickr at this time. I would like more time to explore the site and see what is there before making a decision to join. When I have shared photos with friends, I have used email. I am a little more comfortable with sending photos through email than a website. I added a photo that was available through Flickr. I used the tags: library mascot to come up with my picture. Thanks to KendraK at Flickr for the image. Her image came from this web address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kendrak/12264309/
I watched the video on Common Craft about putting your family pictures on the Internet and how this can safe guard those images from fire and hard drive failure. I am still nervous about putting my children on the Internet. I think that there are people out there that can still access your private information and I don't feel comfortable exposing my children to that. I use CD's to back up all of my photos and keep them in different locations such as parents house.
Students could use Flickr to come up with pictures for classroom projects and put them on power points. They could use their own photos or photos available on Flickr.

Thing 2~Continued

2008-01-30T09:15:00.000-06:00

I read through the articles on Perspectives and I have really mixed feelings. I fear that students will not know how to research information from a book. They spend some much time going through sources on the Internet and neglecting the books. In turn, I have done a lot of weeding to get rid of some of the materials that are outdated and will continue to get rid of these materials. I have started buying less nonfiction materials because of the amount of use is way down. I look at the "just in case" collection and wonder am I doing the students justice by keeping it or tossing it? Am I helping support the crazy of the Internet by getting rid of the materials? How will I be able to keep up with new information? Do I have enough funds to buy worthy databases that are useful to students? Am I helping students by throwing out the books? How do I better educate students on worth while Internet sources?
Since I started working in the high school in 2001, we have purchased more computers, decreased the amount of nonfiction materials purchased, and tried to teach each incoming class how to research the library, as well as the Internet. I think it is important to keep up with the technology changes that continually come our way but I still feel old school with teaching students the importance of books. I wish more teachers would have students use books as a source for research.
As I weed the materials, I look at the shelves and wonder if at the same time they were not too full and therefore not user friendly. How can I make the shelves more user friendly? Should I be labeling the shelves according to book content, like health issues, or leave them with the standard call numbering?
Teachers struggle with helping students. Some of them, give them the websites to use that have the best information. Is that spoon feeding them? I pull books for classes and put them on shelves and some students will utilize them and others will run for the computer and use whatever they can find on Google.
The education system as I knew it has changed so much since I went to school. There are more computers available. If we don't change with the times are we going to be left behind or do an injustice to our students? All things that need to be continually thought about and dealt with.

Library 2.0

2008-01-29T12:46:00.000-06:00

Ruth suggested that I visit the Library 2.0 network. I joined and started searching through the members, groups, photos, and videos. I haven't hardly touch the surface of information available. There are so many groups that look interesting to join for example: Library Leadership, Public Schools, and more. The 23 things on a stick network is small in comparison to the Library 2.0. I am going to continue searching the Library 2.0 social network and would encourage everyone to join or at least look at some of the information. The Library 2.0 network appears to be a great source for colleagues to share upcoming events, information, and library developments.

Thing 3~RSS Feeds

2008-01-29T11:27:00.000-06:00

This was a first time for me signing up for bloglines. I find it interesting to see the important headlines from the newspaper, whether I find them interesting or not, is another thing. I like being able to see the posting that other members are putting in without searching each blog. It can be a big time saver. I am not sure that I would use it so much in my personal life. I really like to see the whole paper not just what they feel is important.
I could see a media center specialist and/or teachers using this for their students. Each student could create a blog and then the teacher and/or students could put the blogs in the blogline. The students could put there daily assignments on the blog and this could save the teacher from looking at each blog for the assignments. It could help save paper and the teacher can access them from home without taking all of the assignments home with them.
For me, I liked looking at site that I frequently visit and put them on with the RSS feed. I did do some copy and paste on the URL for sites that I was not sure had RSS feed.
The school has blocked most of the blogs with the exception of some newspapers and such.
The links that I included were newspapers and some blogs from the 23 things. I don't know that I will use this tool much but will continue to explore the bloglines and invite teachers to try it out.

Thing 2~Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

2008-01-28T12:26:00.000-06:00

I think it is important to find time to learn new things. I find myself spending time at work and home looking through the articles and blogs. I intend to spend at least an hour on each thing to get the full information and give it lots of thought on how to improve my library. I am taking part with 23 Things because I feel it is important to learn new things that will benefit my job and students. I hope to create a user-friendly library for my students, in which, they will utilize more. I find that I spend a lot of time on the Internet looking for information for teachers and students. More and more students are going away from books and using the Internet as their only resource. I have to be knowledgable about reliable resources on the Internet to help students find useful and worthy information. I don't have Internet at home because I have small children and I enjoy spending time with them. So far, I have learned how to blog and create an avatar. I think the blog could be useful for teachers and students for classroom work. The avatar, I don't understand the importance of. It was fun to make and learn but that is about all that I will do with it. I am looking forward to learning more technology and how I can use it to better my library.

Thing 1-Blogging & Avatar

2008-01-24T12:25:00.001-06:00

I have finally completed task 1. I am feeling a little more confident in blogging. It has been a long process. I had a hard time getting the avatar from the yahoo account to the blog page. I had a lot of fun formatting and re-formatting my blog. The overall blogging experience, has been a good learning experience. I am looking forward to learning more!

Thing 1~Creating a Blog

2008-01-23T18:12:00.000-06:00

I have finally created my blog, after 2 failed attempts. I am unfamilar with this type of technology so this is pretty exciting. I am looking forward to using the blog and getting more familar with it. Any helpful hints would be greatly appreciated.
I am looking forward to starting the 23 things on a stick.
Jen