thing 23

I have finishe d my project and now I am to the end. Of the things I have learned, I enjoyed thing 10 the image maker and photostory. These things for me personally are very helpful and interesting as I do so much with my family and am always taking shots of them. I love to play with my girls and their pictures.

This program has helped me in my long line of learning goals as technology was very high on my list of things I needed to update. I am a papre and pencil type and this has helped me brak free from that shell.

My take aways would be that even an old fart like me can learn new things. Just try and do not give up.

I just wish I had more time to play that would be the difference I would see.

I might particiapate in a program like this again if I had time to play. I do enjoy learning, but felt pressured to finish due to the other things I was learning.

Impressive

That is all folks!

thing #22

I went under the Teacher librarianing and found this very neat to read. I think I would use something like this to keep people informed of what is going on in the library. I could use this tool to show the administration of how vaulable the library is and all the things that I do to add flavor to the library. I could post book reviews and have people blog about the various books. I could host other school librarians blog areas. Pictures could be used to show various research items for the students. It could become a social area for students to share their research projects that they have created. I really thought the children's storytubes were so cute and creative. It would be a great lead into differentation of lessons and I could teach the teachers how to use this tool with their students. It would help build collaboration amongest the teachers. I find this site to be one of the best tools for librarians. This is the site I chose and I really do like the lay out.

http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/

thing 21

I worked on photostory since my computer does not have a web cam attached. I thought I would enjoy the photostory as I would love to make a senior year video for my daughter when she is a senior. With this thought in mind, I thought I could practice now on some pictures. It was rather fun doing this and so now I will have to update my music and I will really have fun recreating albums. I created a post of my family at Easter.

thing #20

I looked up on youtube and teachertube and took forever to play. I lost sight of what I was really suppose to be doing. I had even walked away for a moment to do some chores and when I came back, my youngest had a Justin Bieber video playing on my computer. This is obviously a great area to visit for all people. My children then showed me some other things that I had no idea were on these sites. They had fun "teaching" mom. I was impressed that even my 9 year old new so much. I thought I had failed her and she showed me. This definitely stand out as a fun activity that I really enjoyed. I pulled up under the teachertube this particular video on student centered classrooms as this was a huge deal in Cy-fair and seems to be the wave of education today.

Thing #19

I enjoyed exploring this thing and yes there were so many things to play with I did not know what ones to start with. After playing around on myspace and facebook, old familiars and easy for me to use, I decided on http://www.zoho.com/ to play with as it was listed under the organization group and I figured I would need this as a librarian. This site was a great site as it had spreadsheets, invoice sheet, online meeting calendars, and presentation tools that I know I will need with staff developments. It has other items that will be useful as a librarian. The site was free for personal use and gave a discount for non-profit use as well. The indiviual items used on the site charges a fee for each one of the items and the pricing per item varied. It could get very expensive, but may be well worth it for non-profit or an individual. The features it offers thought are pretty nice.

Thing 18

lI attempted to research both sites listed, but for some reason open office was not working right for me, so I used Google Doc's. I found some really neat budget sheets that were useful for my own personal use. I thought it was pretty easy to use and I enjoyed this site. I think because it is really easy for me to use and I understood a little more about this technology tool. I thought that I would try the other site later. However, I will say I think the advantage of using the free tool is that not all children have computers let alone can afford the software and applications required to support the software. These free sites would not cost anything for the students. Along with it being free, the updates that most computers need may be kept up as the companies will maintain the computer site better. The disadvantage can be that sometimes not enough traffic will keep the site up and many times sites become obsolete quickly. I think as an educator it would be to my advantage to use something that is available to all my students. It would also be something my children could access else where if the computers they were on did not have the other applications such as windows 2003, etc. down loaded.

Thing #17

I went into the rollyo site and created a link next to my posting of my rollyo. It was Marines as I have been folloowing them due to my personal interest. I can see how this to would be a great resource for doing research papers. I could have many sites for the children to access and use as the create a research paper. I would have preselected sites for them to use and they could even access the sites from home. Some of these things are really fun to explore.

Thing #16

I enjoyed watching the common craft video on this thing as well as the ones in the past. Wiki's seem very eary to create. I can see where this would be a great place for teachers or librarians to post daily happenings. https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/ was a website wiki that was from the University of Minnesota Library staff website that posted the daily happenings of the library. It is easy for people to track what will be happening and the list can be added to if needed. I can see how this would be great to use for a librarian as it would give people direct information as to the happenings of the library. It is a good way to keep people informed. I will try to incorporate something like this when I have my own library to run.

Thing #15

I read two different thoughts on Library 2.0. I have to agree with Michael Stephens in the fact that what a library looks like today will be so different in 5 to 10 years. Library technology is just getting smarter and smarter and in order to stay up with the forever changing time, Librarians are going to have to stay on top of the new faces of technology. I think librarians making the library a place to learn about the new technology will keep students ahead of the technology game. Currently our school library does not seem to do enough for teachers and students in this regard. If we want to keep up with the trend, schools and school districts are going to have to keep the technology updated to meet with the requirements that the 2.0 world is trying to introduce to all. As a school librarian I will have to do a lot of continous updating in what is the latest trends in technology and will have to try and stay ahead of the trends so I can promote to the students what others are learning. I will have to try to fight to keep the library updated which might be a problem as I will have a limited budget in order to keep up. Librarians will have to make the best with what budget they are given, but if the school administrators are on board this might not be as bad a problem as in other schools. I can see where I myself will need to continue my education.

Thing #14

On this thing, I played around awhile with the site. I can see where this will be helpful as a librarian. The site technorati was fun to play with and I found that the widgets site was down as they were updating this. As a librarian I could post reviews on books and videos that would help teachers when making selections for class. I also could see where Icould post blogs for students to follow when wanting them to create things using technology as a tool. I think tagging items will also help the students in research and searching for things that are already approved. St. will be able to have things prepared for them and then they can access the sites pretagged. I did claim my blog so I will see how that goes as they stated it takes a little while to verify the blog. Can not wait to see if it will work in attracting others to the site.

Thing #13

Social tagging sites are interesting for teachers and librarians to use as they let you share great ideas with each other. We have had diigo introduced to us at school and many of the teachers have used this site. They tag favorite sites that can be used to help develop some great lessons for all to use. Librarians could use this site to post about books that would fit curriculum. They could also use these tag sites to set up technology lessons and research material for students. This would be beneficial for the teacher as presearched sites could be used and it makes it easier on the teacher. This would fall in line with the collaboration item that we are all needing to make schools a success for all. The tag sites would also be great in keeping the different topiced items in categories which would make for easy look up of needed materials and also easier to share specific items with specific groups. I did find that Ma.gnolia was relaunched and that is was sort of like facebook in which you have to be invited to join. I prefered diigo, I guess as I have seen this before.

Thing 12 commenting

I enjoyed reading from How to Comment Like a King (or Queen!) . I found that people do post things that sometimes are very hurtful and can be taken the wrong way. People can not see the emotion that is actually behind the comment and sometime people will take the comments in ways that were not to be ment in certain ways. People must keep in mind that they should post to others they way they would talk to others. I like this blog because it makes me remember this.

I also like 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog . I am really a looker than I am a poster. I like to read things others post and often times think that what I have to contribute to people's post is not much worth reading. I do like the ideas to get more people to post on my site and I think this is going to make things easier for me

One blog site http://www.weightlossprogramsnow.info/diet-plan-to-lose-weight-and-stay-fit-weight-loss-for-women-site/ is a site that I like to visit as I am trying to get in better shape and enjoy the tips I can get from here.

Another site I follow is http://www.ktrainstation.net/forums/ . I love to floow the sports out here in Katy and this is a great site to keep up with the gossip per say of the teams. Have blogged for a while here.

I enjoyed posting on others sites for this post and found that many people had the same thing to say about being lookers on others sites. I am hoping to be better at posting on others after reading this thing assignment.

LibraryThing #11

I went into this site and had a little bit of trouble at first. I found searching books under the Library of Congress to be a very slow process. I switched and went into Amazon and this was much quicker. Since I really do not have time to read, I just picked school libraries as my topic and added books from this category. I can see where this would be a very helpful tool for the avid reader. It would also be a great place to look up what others thought of a particular book. It would give you some insite to the book before you selected it for a public library. I am sure it is also a great place to hold book talks with others. Librarians could share their thoughts on certain books with other librarians. I will have to keep this site in mind as I continue on with my library science degree. I did not join a group at this time as I rarely keep up with the things I have already joined now.

Thing #10 image maker

I worked on playing on this site http://bighugelabs.com/motivator.php and enjoyed this one very much. I have tried some of the others like http://www.imagechef.com/ and did not like this one as much as you had to have points to share and it is really more like facebook, which I find way easier to use. I do like how on bibhugelabs I could send my images to the facebook account.

I created two different pictures of my daughters and enjoyed this. They really liked what I created.

Thing 9

I found google to be on e of the easier ones for me to use. It was very user friendly and I was able to navigate around pretty easily. I guess I am getting more comfortable with google that I prefer it over the others. It allows for a wide variety of searches.

I do like topix.net as it allowed for me to put in my local town, Katy, which brought up information only pertinent to Katy. I felt like this was a site that allowed me to read things that were more of my interest.

I did not like syndic8.com. I found this to be to busy with little words to read that I was just not as interested in searching on this site. Too many offers like languages to chose from, countries to chose from and since I really am not that interested in things other than the US, I was not as impressed.

One thing that really bothered me while searching is that I typed in the word "marines" and it brought up some porn site of marines. I was floored being that my daughter is dating a marine and she could pso easily access these sites if she were leafing through them as I did. UGH!

Thing #8-RSS Feeds

Well, I am playing with all sorts of new things and this is yet another one of them. I did enjoy the site, but honestly found that I do not surf the same sites as often as I thought to make them my RSS feeds. I thought of some that I do use and have added them to my reader. I can see where this would be important as a librarian or teacher. It is easy to mark files that you would want your students to use for tracking such things as current events.

I think an advantage of the RSS feed is that a teacher can have pre selected sites available that you would want the students to use. I also think it gives students a start into finding their own RSS feed ideas.
Technology is very important in today's society and I am slowly learning all the new things. I see that RSS feeds are important for librarians to use as it can help with the cross curriculum use for teachers. It also is good for the librarian to have these as the librarian can help with curriculum that is being taught in the various grade levels and can have RSS feeds ready to be used.

Thing #7

Google- I do enjoy using google. I am familiar with a lot of the things google offers. For me it is easy to use and I think it has great tools. I like the google scholar function. I was able to use this to look up sources for another class I am taking. I am more comfortable with this search engine, but I have been trying out Bing as well.

Another tool I liked about the google search site was the alerts. I was able to put in items that I am interested in following. I put in the Olympics and I have already gotten a alert. It will be fun to see what alerts come through for me to read and to keep me updated.

I did enjoy some of the other areas, like the claendar and list making features. However, I am terrible about having list and not always sticking to them, so I thought I will just leave that one alone for now.

Thing 6

I really enjoyed the websitehttp://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/. I created a book called diversity in colors. I thought I could use a book like this for all grade levels and create various picture books to be walked through. I really enjoyed the picking of the different pictures and have fun it is to be like an "author and Illustrator." The pictures came from Call Me Sunshine under flickr . http://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/?id=11744

Thing #6

I think under this site mashups there are some interesting things to be used. I can really see how an art teacher would appreciate this site as well. I also see how a librarian can use this as a lesson to teach to students in creating their own books. I think I will enjoy using this site in the future.

thing 5

I do like flickr as my friend has been on this and she sends me pictures of the Katy football games and my daughter is a dancer at these games and it is so much fun to see the pictures she takes. She is Call Me Sunshine on Flickr. I am Regtan as it is easy for me to remember.

thing 5 flickr

This reminds me of my sweet babies at my house. They are labs and hate the water at bath time but jump inmy pool any other time.

Thing #3

I found making the avatar fun but frustrating as I do not think I got this to copy right to my blog. I thought I followed all the steps right, but guess not. Not sure but I would love to have more time to play with creating the avatar. Something fun to share with my girls.

Thing 1

I was very excited about learning this even thought I am not computer savy at all!

thing #2 life learner

Ok, this is very advanced for my level of expertise on the computer.

Easiest thing for me is to think of the end in mind. I can work better when I think that this will all be for something eventually. I like to have something to work towards and this helps me to stay focused. As the old saying goes, I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Hardest thing for me: View problems as a challenge. I often get a little stressed, especially lately with starting new classes, so this one is very difficult for me. I often view problems as a stresser and not a challenge. It is a challenge for me to think other ways and to try to stay positive when stressed.