Reflection

I really enjoyed this whole course. I learned so much! I think one of my favorite things to learn about was Flickr. I'm a scrapbooker, so I was interested in all the tools for use with photographs. It was a lot of fun playing with some of them! I had also thought about writing a blog. Now I feel confident that I can do that, and I know all the basics for getting started. Delciious was another favorite. My least favorite thing was probably Digg. I don't see a lot of use for it in my job, and I don't really have time for it. Some of the technical information presented in the "things" was challenging for me to understand. I still don't understand RSS feeds.

I learned so much about so many ways to communicate via the web. I knew there were a lot of ways to communicate, but I didn't know the half of it. I was amazed at the creativity of people all over the world and overwhelmed by the amount of information that is available at my fingertips. I would like to use Delicious this year with fellow librarians and even parents and kids. I would also like to use podcasting and YouTube (if it's not blocked) with the kids.

All in all, this has been a great experience. You made it fun and attractive by letting us know that we could "play" for 15 minutes a day and learn at the same time. Although I spent a lot more than 15 minutes on each thing, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you very much!

My Own 23 Things

Since I am the only staff person in my school library, I would use this program with the teachers and staff at my school. In fact, I've shared a little about it on Facebook and have already had two people ask if I would teach them something about Facebook and YouTube. Teachers are interested in being technologically savvy, and it is my job to help them as much as I can.

I feel that this was a very important class for me to take and one that will be useful to me in the future. One other librarian from my school district took this class, and we will probably encourage all of the librarians in our district to sign up for it. We've thought about creating one for our district librarians. We could adapt it to include using flip cameras and Flickr, digital projectors and videostreaming, scanners, etc. or the free databases available through Region XI. It could include anything they are interested in that would help them become better communicators and teachers.

Since I am not an upfront type of person, I like the idea of teaching the class via the web. But then again, I guess that's the whole point--using the web to communicate!

Podcasts

Although I have an IPod, I did not know much about podcasting. This was a good "thing" to learn about. I listened to several booktalks from Nancy Keane's website called "Booktalks Quick and Simple." They lasted less than a minute each, but I thought they were a little boring. They did not really make me want to read the books. I think podcasting could be a good tool for booktalks though. You could make it exciting for the kids. It is something I might like to try this year. The audio quality was excellent!

I found another podcast site called "TechTeacher." I did subscribe to that one because it had some very good information on it about all things tech and teacher-related. I couldn't figure out how to get the player on my blog, although the instructions were there. Maybe I'll work with it later and see if I can find the spot to add the html stuff. I subscribed on a biweekly basis via email. I'm looking forward to listening to these podcasts this year. I think they will be very helpful. The audio was clear and the speaker held my attention.

I went to the DeKalb County Public Library's website and found their podcasts. They also had a YouTube video on their page that explained podcasting. It was very good.

I'm not sure yet how much lower elementary grade students would use podcasting, but it might catch on. Ebooks and podcasts would be great things to have for long vacation trips on the car or on a plane. They would probably be interested in podcasts by their favorite teen idols--Miley Cyrus, etc. or in podcasts about their favorite sports teams. It will be interesting to see how podcasts are used in public elementary schools in the future.

YouTube

Wow! There are so many creative people out there!

I watched several videos that I found on a blog called "Best of Library Videos." My favorite was one called "Thank You Note." If you haven't ever seen it, it's worth watching. It's the story of how going to the library influenced someone's life. Very inspiring!

YouTube can be used for so many things. Some of the videos I saw could be used for recruitment ("Work @ Your Library PSA"), inspiration ("Thank You Note"), new ideas and innovations ("Mindspot the Movie: The Library as a Universe"), and more. The possibilities are endless! Some of them were quite effective.

One school made YouTube videos for National Library Week. I thought that was a great idea. You can use YouTube for booktalks or to make announcements or to share author or research information. What can't you do with YouTube?

You can also share the videos on Facebook. I did that with a couple of them. My favorite YouTube video of all time is called "Annoying (but very funny) mom sayings." If you're a mom and want a good laugh, you'll enjoy this video even though it's not school-related.

Google Docs

I could not find the video on the Google Docs home page, so I went to YouTube and watched "Google Docs in Plain English." Before doing Thing 19, I knew there was something resembling Microsoft Office available online, but I didn't know what it was. Now I do. What a great tool!

I have been making a list of the links used in 23 Things as I have been taking this class. I was able to cut and past them into Google Docs and then send them to a friend who is also taking the class. She will be able to add her own links and comments. I love it! I also created a Book Review form and a short PowerPoint presentation with a link. I couldn't get the spreadsheet to work on my computer. I kept getting some kind of error message.

Wonderful tool!

Wikis

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about other participants in 23 Things and adding my information. My page is under Susan B. I added the subpages, Who am I?, What do I like to do?, and My favorite things. It was very easy.

I am a member of a wiki of elementary librarians in our school district. We exchange lesson plans and ideas, but we haven't done a very good job of keeping up with it. I forget to look at it. Maybe that will change after doing this "Thing."

I went to Wikipedia and looked up several articles but didn't see anything that was suspect to me. It did horrify me this year when a group of teachers on my campus had their students use Wikipedia as the primary resource for their research project. It is hard for me to teach the kids how to research without the aid of computers, projectors, whiteboards, etc. in the library. I will volunteer to go to the computer lab with them this year to prevent Wikipedia from being their main source of information. I had no idea they were using it as their primary source of information, especially with the multitude of free, electronic resources available to us.

LibWorm

I really enjoyed this site. I could have spent all day just reading articles and looking topics up. It's a great site for librarians!

I looked up "Texas Librarians" in several different ways and found a lot of interesting blogs and websites. One that I particularly liked was "Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day." This blogger introduces a new site every day, kind of like 23 Things. There were several sites on her blog that I want to go back and look at. I added this blog to my Google Reader and tagged it in Delicious. Another good site was "AASL's Best Websites for Teaching and Learning." You can join AASL but you do not have to to access the sites they recommend. All in all, I'd rate this site a 10, even though I didn't get any hits when I searched using the name of my library. :)

LibraryThing

I had heard of a site that would allow me to upload my personal collection of books but hadn't looked for it yet. It was nice to find out more about it. I added a few books and tagged them and then searched for other users who had similar interests to mine. I like the Recommendations section, too.

I read several posts and looked at the Thingology blog, but I had trouble finding the sections on ThingLang, ISBN Check, and MARCThing. I did finally find and read them all, but I didn't understand much of what I read. I don't understand the significance of ThingLang since all my books are in English. (Maybe that shows my ignorance.) Are librarians using this site or these tools to find info about their collections?

I'm not sure if this is a site I will use often or not. It seems like something I might use if I had a lot of leisure time, but I'm not sure how useful it would be for my job. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.

Digg

Digg is new to me. It's an interesting site and concept. I don't know how I would use it as an elementary school librarian, but I can think of many professions that would find it interesting, if not helpful. I can see Digg catching on, especially among younger people. While I did read a couple of very interesting articles that I probably would not have seen otherwise, I don't know think that I will really spend much time looking at Digg on a regular basis since I barely have time to read the newspaper and/or watch the daily news as it is. I will, however, introduce it to a couple of friends that I think would find it helpful.

Delicious

I spent quite a bit of time today on this site. I set up an account and imported my bookmarks, then I added tags to my bookmarks. Here is a link to my site: http://delicious.com/bucksu. I would love to share links with other librarians if anyone else is interested. I added one of my friends to my site and am looking forward to sharing bookmarks with her.

I have used ikeepbookmarks in the past and have been pretty pleased with it, but I am going to try Delicious this year. I was wondering if I could import my ikeepbookmarks links into my Delicious account. Does anyone know the answer to that question?

Delicious was easy to use once I got the hang of it. I had a hard time finding the tag button on my browser at first, but I finally found it hidden on one of the toolbars. I'm still working on getting it in the right place so I can see it all the time and remember to use it.

Tagging

I had never heard of the term "tagging" before I read the article on Wikipedia. Tagging actually appeals to me as a librarian because different people tag different things different ways. If I was looking for a website pertaining to a specific subject and used a different tag than someone else to search for that information, surely I wouldn't be the only one to use that particular tag. Tagging leaves room for individual and regional differences and could also help me to expand my searches.

I can also see some of the drawbacks. Some of the tags will definitely become outdated just as some of the library subject headings have. For instance, we now use Native Americans rather than Indians and African Americans rather than Blacks. Also, there will be multiple tags for the same information. That may or may not be a drawback. It would be nice to have all the information under the same tag, but then again, I might not think to tag the information in that way.

I will have to think about this some more, but I feel pretty positive about it at this point. It will not and should not, in my opinion, replace subject headings and probably should not be used with library cataloging, but it definitely has a place on the web.

P.S.

I forgot to say that I watched the video on the Twitter help page and it was very informative. I plan to watch it again tonight with my husband.

I also started following the people who were following me and a church group as well. I wanted to see what other pastors are doing on Twitter.

Twitter

My Twitter name is bucksu. I set up a Twitter account a few months ago but never tweeted anything. Then I got a few email messages telling me that people were following me on Twitter. Guess I'd better tweet on Twitter since I have followers.

You hear about Twitter on a daily basis now. Just yesterday my husband came home with his new IPhone and wanted to set up a Twitter account. He asked for my help and, fortunately, I knew this lesson was coming up today. I told him I would help him, so guess what we'll be doing tonight.

My son suggested that my husband use Twitter because he is a pastor and is always looking for more effective ways to communicate to our congregation and anyone else who might be interested. It will be interesting to see what kind of response he gets when he gets his account sets up and starts tweeting.

Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet!

IM

I used to use IM all the time, but it had been so long since I used it that I forgot my username and had to create a new account. My username is bucklestriomom and I use the AIM service. Most of my friends and relatives use Facebook now, but getting back on AIM reminded me of the good times I used to have talking live in a private setting with my friends and relatives. I may try to get back in touch with some of them and see if they are still IM-ing.

I did not know about the aggregates, so that was something new I learned. I thought you had to be on the same service as the person you were IM-ing, so it was nice to find out that you can use an aggregate and talk to anyone who IMs through any service (if I understand it correctly).

Ning

I have a Ning account already. We use it in our school district as part of the mentoring program. I was in charge of the mentoring program at my school this year and had a hard time getting people to post their pictures and/or real names on the Ning site. They were very hesitant for security reasons. Now I understand a little more about Ning and can understand their concerns.

I looked at several different networks. I like scrapbooking and found one Ning that puts a new sketch on their Ningsite every week as a template for scrapbookers to use. I'm always looking for new ideas, so I really liked that. It is called 52sketches52weeks. Another Ning I looked at is called Quilt with Us. I enjoy quilting and often need advice from others who know more about quilting than I do. After watching the video about Ning, I explored the Classroom 2.0 Ning and found a link to some free classroom 2.0 live workshops that might be interesting and helpful.

I enjoyed learning more about Ning.

Thing 9

I enjoyed learning more about Facebook. I joined several groups, including Please Pray for Ben Kopp!, Central Bible Church, Simple Scrapbooks, Quilt Guild, and Elementary School Librarians. I have been surprised at some of the group invitations I've gotten. I usually don't join them. I'm still not sure how safe they are.

I also became a fan of the Dallas Mavericks, Texas Longhorns, and Dallas Cowboys. Go, teams!!!

Of course, when I went to Facebook to do this assignment I got sidetracked and had to write several messages and tell everyone what I've been doing today. :) One of my favorite library links is http://kidsreads.com/. I've been making some folders this summer to help the kids when they're searching for books in series, so it has been really helpful for that.

Facebook

I have had a Facebook page for a few months and have really enjoyed keeping up with friends and family members. I was glad to read the article, "Ten Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know." I went back and edited my page accordingly.

The things people say on Facebook are surprising to me. They talk about when and where they are going on vacation without considering that someone could possibly access that information and rob them while they are out of town. They also share very personal information sometimes that I am not comfortable sharing and/or reading.

I do enjoy being on Facebook, though. I think people just need to think before they write and remember that the whole world can view what they say or upload if they're not careful.

This is not a resource I would use with young kids. In my opinion, they would need to be supervised while using it in order to prevent security issues. It would be something to talk with parents about and maybe offer a parenting class on since it is so popular.

Thing 7

I just added some more subscriptions to my Google Reader. It was easy. I did it two ways. I copied and pasted some of the suggested URLS into my subscription box, and I actually went to one of the websites and subscribed from there so I would know how to do that. It was not hard at all. I even followed Vidya Krishnaswamy's instructions and was able to get the North Texas Regional Library System feed to show up on my blog. Boy, it makes you feel good when you learn something new and are successful at doing it! Thanks for the help!

Google Reader

I had never heard of Google Reader or anything like it before doing this Thing. It might be something I would use. I get tired of typing in my favorite websites, so it would be helpful to have them all listed there. I tried to subscribe to one website and couldn't do it for some reason. Does anyone have any suggestions about why I couldn't subscribe to it? The url is http://www.mansfieldbible.org/. I just went to the site from my blog and tried to copy and paste the link here and couldn't even do that. I had to type it in. Do some websites block people from adding links to their blogs somehow?

Boys on Vacation

Boys on Vacation
Originally uploaded by Bucksu

I went back and edited the poster I created on Image Generator and then figured out how to upload it from Flickr to my blog. It took me a while, but it was a good learning experience. I wish I had more time to play around with this stuff. It's fun.

Image Generators

This was really a fun thing to do, and I would like to use it at school this year. We have live announcements every morning and incorporate a lot of photos of the kids. It would be great to make some READ posters of the kids using this technology. I can also see using this on my own blog to post vacation pictures, etc. I'm looking forward to trying the Mosaic Generator later.

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

Posted using ShareThis

Spell with Flickr

I went to Spell with Flickr and created a mashup, but I couldn't get it to upload the whole thing to my blog. I could save one letter at a time on my computer and then upload that letter, but it wasn't what I wanted. After several tries, I went back and read some of the posts for Jeff under Thing 4 and found someone who had the same problem I did. I followed his instructions for them and was able to copy and paste the mashup. I'm so proud of myself for not giving up! I learned something new today. Hence the name of my blog, She Can Be Taught. It's always fun to learn new things. I'm looking forward to checking out the other mashup sites.

Mashups

Okay. I went to Spell with Flickr and created a mashup. Now let's see if I can post it. As you can see, I could only post two letters. I'll try another site.

My Flickr Photostream

Here is a link to my Flickr photostream. I uploaded a picture of our new puppy, Chip. His full name is Chipotle Chili Pepper. Before we got him we knew he was going to be a red dachsund, so we went to the spice aisle in the grocery store to look at dachsund-colored spices. We came upon Chipotle Chili Pepper and decided to name him Chip. We didn't know that he would also live up to the chili pepper part of his name. He's a livewire but loads of fun. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bucksu/

Second First Post

I realized after looking at the 1st thing again that I needed to say hello to everyone on my first post. So . . . hello! :)

Flickr

I just tried out Flickr for the first time. I uploaded and edited a picture of our new puppy. It was fun. After I did that, I explored the site a little and did a search for frogs. I found a lot of cool pictures that I might want to use for a project in the fall. Does anyone know if these pictures are copyrighted? I would think you need to ask the owner of the picture before you use it or print it, but I don't know enough about Flickr yet to know for sure.

First Blog

Before reading the suggested articles, I didn't really know what Web 2.0 was. Now I feel like I have at least a limited understanding of what it includes. That's a good thing, especially since I work in a library. :)

I like the format of 23 Things and the concept behind it. Fifteen minutes a day doesn't overwhelm me (at least at this point). I'm looking forward to learning more in the next few weeks about some of the tools that are available online that might be useful in a school library, starting with blogging. So here goes . . . .