#14 (Week 6) Technorati and learn how tags work

I had a very good understanding of tags from my technology experience prior to starting this lesson. I did spent some time reviewing Technorati and playing with several tags within the Post / Blog / Video / Pictures. What I found most interesting was the statistics presented in the write up on the School Library 2.0 Blog. It is mind boggling to me that so many people spend so much of their time creating Blogs. It concerns me, as a physical educator that people are spending so much time in front of a computer screen. I will have to admit that (in phases) I am guilty myself.

#13 (Week6) Del.icio.us Tagging

I have been using del.icio.us since August 13th, 2007, AND I LOVE IT! I am not even sure if I learned about del.icio.us from Library 2.0 or if it was from somewhere else. Right now I have 347 del.icio.us links ranging from A(rt) to Y(ouTube) – sorry no “Z”. I did not know about the “Habit Seven: Move it around” from The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users I have since added my last 10 del.icio.usposts to this Blog.

#12 (Week 5) Roll your own Search Tool

A little confusing at first (probably due to fatigue on my part), but I got the hang of it. I am not sure that this program does as much as for me as my del.icio.us account, except that there is access to multiple sources from multiple people. Sometimes to much is not a good thing - or maybe it is?

#11 (Week 5) Web 2.0 Award Winners and NING

Again – I love to Play. I tried a couple of the programs: SpringWidgets www.springwidgets.com , WriteBoard www.writeboard.com and Ning www.ning.com

I was impressed with the WriteBoard and actually typed something up to send to my reading department chair. I hope that she can use this program with her students. I also created a Ning account: http://libraryevolution.ning.com/ but feel it is just one more place to keep track of. I feel like Alice falling deeper in the rabbit hole by the minute.

#10 (Week 5) Play Time

I love to Play!





What fun this is - I could spend hours upon hours playing with all the toys.

#9 (Week 4) Locate library related blogs and/or news feeds

I found Technorati to be the most user friendly of the suggested search tools. I liked the fact that they had separated Posts, Blogs, Videos and Photos. It seems easy to use, clean to read and complete in its search. Topix had an interesting feature with the timeline or what they call an “Interactive graph of “______” in the news”. Feedster seems to be down right now, so I was unable to view this site. From a search in Google it seems that this is a BETA version and is down “Version 2.1 BETA. Feedster is Changing... We'll be back up soon with exciting news!” Overall this was an interesting activity, but not something I got a great deal out of.

Bill Clinton's GIVING

#8 (Week 4) RSS & Newsreaders

Currently I use SharpReader as my aggregate reader and I am very happy with the program. I did sign up for Bloglines to try it out, but I think I will stay with SharpReader. I currently have 17 feeds and find it hard to keep up. Through this course and other webventures I have added several feeds including:

• A Wandering Eyre


• LITA Blog


• librarian.net


• eSchoolNews


• Kathy Schrock's Kaffeeklatsch


• theFischBowl


• techlearning

The truth is I find it very difficult to stay up with all of these feeds and find that the clock often reads past midnight when I get sucked into the cyber hole created by the many great links and pieces of information.

#7 (WEEK 3) Technology

Last December (for my birthday) I got a new digital camera, the Nikon D200. I love the camera but have not yet learned even half of what it is capabilities. I love taking pictures and wanted a way to produce my pictures on DVD for others to see. My brother-in-law suggested a program called ProShow by Photodex. He has created some amazing DVDs of his family. What I love about this program is Photodex allows you to download the FULL version for 15 days

• ProShow Producer for professionals



• ProShow Gold for enthusiasts



• ProShow Standard for beginners
  
  

Another plus - You can't beat the price. The Gold version is only $70.00 and is well worth every cent.

This was not suppose to be an advertisement, I just wanted to share another way I use my digital photography.

More on Life-Long Learning

In an article entitled Teaching Life-Long Skills from Techlearning.com (July 6, 2007) Jacob Nielson, an expert on the usability of the Internet, suggests that students need Life-Long Computer Skills:

• Ability to evaluate online information
  
• Techniques for dealing with information overload


• Ability to write hyper-linked online text
  
• Ability to create presentations (and avoid bad habits!)


• Abiility to understand workplace ergonomics


• Ability to debug, the logical process of tracking down errors


• Usability basics, for making informed decisions on a product's ease of use

#3 and #4 (Week 2) Blogging - Getting Set-up

Setting up this blog was as easy as 1 - 2 - 3. However, I found a way to make this task a little more difficult as I could not decide whether to use Blogspot.com or Edublog.org (I created my 1st blog about a month ago during a workshop hosted by the Orange County Department of Education posted on edublog). So of course the overachiever that I am I created a blog in both places to see how each worked. I also wanted to know which site would work best through our firewalls (we have a wonderful firewall both at the district and county that block just about everything). The difficultly came with keeping track of the site names, passwords, and log-in areas for administrative needs. After reviewing the two sites I decided to stick with Blogspot.com as it was the recommendation of the School Library Learning 2.0 program.

#6 (WEEK 3) Flickr fun with mashups

Reviewing all the mashups was fun. There are so many different options to choose from. I decided to create a Trading Card (very basic) and continued my theme from Alaska. This picture was taken on the second day while we were cruising through Hubbard Glacier. It was beautiful and a bit chilly. I am usually the photographer on most outings so I don't have many pictures of myself.

#5 (WEEK 3) Flickr

Two summers ago I took my first cruise with my father in celebration of his 70th birthday. We flew to Seward and then cruised to Hubbard Glacier, Juneau, Skagway, Icy Strait Point, Ketchikan, through the Inside Passage, and finished our 7 day tour in Vancouver, British Columbia. As most librarians I could not pass up seeing at least one local library while in Alaska. My quest however was two fold as I wanted to see the library and all its treasures, and find out if I could get on the Internet. Another of my passions is geocaching and I was attempting to find as many caches as time would permit in as many of the ports as possible.

Above you will see the beautiful stained glass window of the Juneau Public Library. Additional pictures are also posted on my Flickr site.

#2 (WEEK 1) Lifelong Learning Habits

Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it ~ Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate

7 ½ Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners

HABIT 1: Begin with the end in Mind (Have a goal)
HABIT 2: Except responsibility in your own learning
HABIT 3: View problems as challenges
HABIT 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
HABIT 5: Create your own learning toolbox (Books, technology, classes, mentors, friends, web pages)
HABIT 6: Use technology to your advantage
HABIT 7: Teach and mentor others
HABIT 7 ½: P L A Y !

Learning Contract (with yourself): Outlines your goals and your plans to achieve those goals

#1 (Week 1)

Welcome to Library Evolution where change is the only constant.

I have reviewed the School Library Learning 2.0 blogspot and the about at: http://www.schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/ I can't express how excited I am to participate in this program. I have been exposed to some of the activities listed in the 23 Things, but I don't feel comfortable enough with any of them to start using them during my teaching day. I hope through this program that I will be able to incorporate many, if not all, of the 23 Things I am about to learn.