Week 5: Thing 11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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...