Booklady

Week 6: Thing 14

2010-05-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

I searched the Technorati web site for "School Library Learning 2.0" and found 1 hit in posts and 0 in blogs. Still not sure if I did something wrong, but when I did the same search in Google with 1,060,000 hits, Bing with 25,800,00 hits and Yahoo with 11,500,110 hits, I realized that the searching system was very different, much more specific and must rely more on specific tags. I also looked at the link for the top 100 blogs (the popularity link wasn't working) and looked at the top 10 along with their tags. I wasn't surprised to see that many of the blogs had to do with technology and celebrities. Some had no tags, some had an extensive list. I had never looked at any blogs like that and was curious about the Huffington Post and Gizmoto (because it's been in the news recently). I think tagging is important to know about if you are promoting, following or researching blogs. Personally, I don't think I would use this, as I am not following, using or searching for any information in blogs at this time.

Week 6: Thing 13

2010-05-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

I viewed the Delicious tutorial and explored the website using the SJLibraryLearning2 account. I saw lots of useful sites covering all aspects of libraries and technology. I searched some of the tags and found some really useful articles. I would like to go back and really explore and read some of these bookmarked websites that were set up for this exercise. I think they would really help and inspire me to begin incorporating more of these tools in my library- and improving my program in many areas!! I really can see the usefulness of this website, both in researching a topic, for professional development or personal topics, and also in creating your own account to save and categorize those useful websites that you have found. I thought that the tagging both in searching on a topic and in providing related tags, was really helpful. I haven't done this yet, but would really like to go back and set up a Delicious account and begin to organize and use more specific websites. Since I really don't usually bookmark websites anyway, I kind of feel like I would be starting from scratch. As with all of these tools, we just really need to make the time to learn about them and use them.

Week 5 Thing 12

2010-05-05T10:05:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been while since I've posted to this blog and time to finish the Web 2.0 tutorial! This activity included exploring Rollyo which I found a little overwhelming, but think it would be useful if you spent a lot of time searching websites that you used a lot. I did find the examples helpful and chose some of the travel sites to explore and created my own Rollyo search tool with a few of them. I thought Wordle was a lot of fun! Just pasting information and seeing how it created the "word cloud" was great! I think it would be a fun activity to do with students. I also tried the Traveler IQ challenge and found that I am not good at this at all- but think students might have a lot of fun with it!

Week 5: Thing 11

2009-04-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

I explored the Web 2.0 awards list by browsing the topics and winners and was surprised to see that I had heard of many of them. I was already familiar with Craigslist and use it regularly. I decided to try a couple that I had heard of, but not used. I explored Yelp to look at reviews of restaurants and wineries in Petaluma where I live and think that would be very useful if you are visiting a new area and just trying to find new places to go near where you live. I had heard of Google Maps, but hadn't used it. I typed in Petaluma and was surprised to see my address pop up with a photo of my house!! I clicked on the photo and could then move the picture around to see up and down my street. That was really amazing!!! I will soon try out Pandora, as my husband and daughter love it. I know we will also be exploring many of the other sites in the upcoming activities. I think the Web 2.0 awards list is great- easy to use and very helpful.

Week 5: Thing 10

2009-04-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

I explored the Flickr Toys again and Comic Strip Generator, but really liked the Image Chef. I created this image, just to test it out, but think it would be a lot of fun to play with.

Week 4: Thing 9

2009-04-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

For this activity I looked at the Edublog Awards and really liked the best library blog- Hey Jude. I'd like to go back and explore that a little further- just not sure if I want to add it to my Google Reader yet- feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment with all of these blogs and newsfeeds. I tried out the various blog search tools and am not sure when I would really need to use them. I did remember reading about the Casa Grande High School Library blog in the SLJ and searched for that using Google Reader and Technorati, but found it easier using a regular Google search. As I become more familiar with blogs or need to find something I might use these, but right now it seems like there is more than enough for me to explore without searching for more!! This activity did make me want to set up a blog for my library as a way to share photos and library projects and activities and I hope to get started on this soon.

Week 4: Thing 8

2009-04-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

I set up a Google Reader account and then subscribed to the New York Times Book Review. I have checked this a few times and found it a little overwhelming. I also added the subscribe button in the Google Reader to my bookmarks bar which made adding other subscriptions very easy. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to get in this format and how much information I would need to manage, but I did subscribe to the 5 newsfeeds for this activity. In addition to the NYTimes site I added Unshelved, the library comic strip and the blogs of the other members of my team. This was very easy to do. I also went through a tutorial to give me a little more background on RSS feeds and why they are useful. I am sure I will be much more aware of them now and will probably add more as needed.

Week 3 -Thing 7

2009-01-27T16:35:00.000-08:00

Each time I spend the time to look at digital photos, I am amazed at the things you can create and the possibilities for sharing. I keep wanting to use some of these projects for book talks and book reviews and really want to sit down soon and spend more time with these tools. I tend to take photos, download them into the computer, but that's usually as far as it goes- unless I make a slide show. It really is a lot of fun to learn about all the things you can do and become comfortable using them

Week 3 -Thing 6

2009-01-27T16:27:00.000-08:00

Flickr mashups were fun to explore. I had never heard the term mashup- and thought it was interesting that it was linked in the tutorial to the Wikipedia definition. I looked at the librarian trading cards, but didn't really want to create one, so I created a trading card with a photo in my library. I also looked at the curriculum connections and created a sample card for a book talk. I saved these cards to the desktop, but could upload them as an image in this blog. They came out in html. Maybe if I had uploaded them to Flickr it would have worked. I'll try again after meeting with my group tomorrow.

Week 3 -Thing 5

2009-01-14T12:25:00.000-08:00

Flicker is pretty amazing. I explored Flickr photos and then created my own account and uploaded photos I had taken from my library. Most of them had recognizable student faces, so spent a lot of time trying to figure out which one to use or to post. I thought I read that you needed permission to post photos, even though you don't identify them by name. I chose one photo where the face is down. I love the way students lose themselves in a book in the library!

Week 2 -Thing 4

2009-01-03T16:48:00.000-08:00

My blog is registered and it was really fun to see how it looked and to see my published posts. It was also rewarding to see some encouraging feedback from CSLA members. I had fun looking at the comments and seeing that my team members were viewing my blog also and that I could easily link to their blogs. It really helps you realize that we are all here to learn from and help each other.

Week 2 -Thing 3

2009-01-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

I was excited to set up my own blog and creating an avatar was fun. Although, I can see how a lot of time can be spent getting a little sidetracked on the Avatar- it was fun to play with.

Week 1- Thing 2

2009-01-03T16:30:00.000-08:00

In reviewing the 7 and 1/2 Habits of Successful Learners, I think that one of the hardest habits is to Use Technology to your Advantage. Often it seems that problems with technology can bog you down and a lot of time can be spend in frustration. It can be very challenging and time consuming to learn something new, through trial and error, on your own, but it can also be very rewarding when it all works!! I think that one of the easiest things for me is to accept responsibility for my own learning. Once I get started (and procrastination is a habit of mine that is not one of the habits for successful learning) I really do try to go forward and get all that I can out of any program or learning activity. I am excited to learn all that I can and to apply it to my library program and actually use these tools and skills so that I don't forget them!

Week 1- Thing 1

2009-01-03T16:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm inspired again to learn about these tools and ways to incorporate them into our libraries and programs. I'm excited to be working with the members of my team to motivate and share with each other. As part of this review, I also looked at each of my team member's blogs and was impresses with what they had shared and was excited again about all that we are going to learn.

Catching Up!

2009-01-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

Wow- vacation is almost over and it's time to get serious about all those things I wanted to spend time on over vacation- when I had more time!! First, I had to review the School Library Learning 2.0 program and what I'd done so far- now on to some new posts...

First blog

2008-11-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

I just created my first blog. I haven't even read any blogs yet, so this should be a lot of fun.