What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I had to look back at the whole list to find my favorites. I can never pick just one! I really liked Twitter and have been told by friends who use it often that it is adicting. I feel a little more hip knowing what it is and trying to use it. I really liked delicious too. I think that it is helpful to me, both professionally and personally. Learning about delicious really helped me understand tagging, how it works and how it helps! I liked the online image generators because they were just fun!
How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
This program made me learn but in a fun way--through play! I learn well this way. Having the time to participate in the summer is great! When it comes to technology related things, hearing someone tell me how to do it or just reading about how to do something isn't enough for me. I have to fiddle around with it and work with it to really learn how to use it. This program has also expanded my horizons and made me think about things in a new way. I have been challenged to become a serious Web 2.0'er and to encourage my collegues to join me!
Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I am surprised at how Thing #15 challenged me to think about how important it is for me to learn all about the Web 2.0 world and apply it to my library. I need to really jump in and challenge myself to learn more and more and not just stop with these 23 Things. If not, I think I would be in danger of being left behind. Before I started this project, I was content to let the busyness of my day to day work keep me from learning the new Web 2.0 tools. But I know now that that isn't a good plan any more. I need to be active and not complacent about new things.
What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I'm not sure. I liked that it was on a blog and that it was self paced. I liked that we had to create a blog to share our experiences and see what the experiences of others were as well.
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
Yes!!! How about the Next 23 Things? Or 23 Things - Part 2?
How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?
23 Things has been a relevant, challenging, valuable, self-paced professional and personal growth experience!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thing #22
I was quite excited to see the Texas School Librarians ning but then disappointed when I logged in because of the small number of people who are members of that ning. I thought it would be a greater number of users and that they would be much more active. Instead, the Teacher Librarian ning seems to be more of what I was thinking the TSL ning should be. I think the nings seem to have similar information that I find on the TLA list-serv. I liked the groups feature, that allows people of similar interests within the profession to share information within a smaller group. There were a few I checked out, but there didn't seem to be lots of newer posts. I'm guessing this is because it is summer time and people are taking a break.
I don't see myself joining lots of nings, maybe just the Teacher Librarian ning and monitoring it for new ideas and a way to share ideas with a wider group of people. One of the things I like about my school district is that the librarians have monthly meetings. Sometimes we are split up by elementary and secondary level and sometimes we meet all together, but the most valuable thing about our meetings is the sharing of ideas. This seems like a virtual way to do this and on a larger scale.
I don't see myself joining lots of nings, maybe just the Teacher Librarian ning and monitoring it for new ideas and a way to share ideas with a wider group of people. One of the things I like about my school district is that the librarians have monthly meetings. Sometimes we are split up by elementary and secondary level and sometimes we meet all together, but the most valuable thing about our meetings is the sharing of ideas. This seems like a virtual way to do this and on a larger scale.
Thing #21 - Part 2
Did I post my Photo Story correctly? When I tried to view it, the screen said it wasn't currently available.
Thing #21
Photo Story took me awhile. I have recently learned how to do Windows Movie Maker and I assumed they were similar, but they aren't. I was a bit confused at first because Photo Story didn't seem as sophisticated as Movie Maker. But once I understood they how they are different, things got better.
My Photo Story is an advertisement for a reading program I am planning to do in my library this year called Read it Forward. A few of my collegues heard about it from the Round Rock ISD librarians at a presentation at TLA this past spring. It is based on the idea from the movie Pay it Forward. We will distribute a limited number of the book Schooled by Gordon Korman for kids to read then pass the book forward to a someone else to read. We plan to have activites for the kids who have read the book to participate in throughout the year.
My Photo Story is an advertisement for a reading program I am planning to do in my library this year called Read it Forward. A few of my collegues heard about it from the Round Rock ISD librarians at a presentation at TLA this past spring. It is based on the idea from the movie Pay it Forward. We will distribute a limited number of the book Schooled by Gordon Korman for kids to read then pass the book forward to a someone else to read. We plan to have activites for the kids who have read the book to participate in throughout the year.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thing #20
I found the following video at TeacherTube. It is a book trailer made by a librarian in my district. Book trailers are like video teasers for book, similar to movie trailers. It is for a great book: What I Saw and How I Lied.
(Ok. The embeddable player didn't work and I don't know why. I copied and pasted all of the info in the Embeddable player box, but it didn't work. It just posted html code when I published this post and it didn't link to the video. So I just pasted the info for the Video URL instead. If you know what I did wrong, I would love a tip in how to fix it!)
(Thanks for the comment! I fixed it!)
I think having access to these videos is great! There are lots of possible uses for teachers and students. I think it would be neat to allow students to create videos as their final product and post them to TeacherTube. There are lots of quick how to videos that are great--I especially like Common Craft videos! As a librarian, I like book trailers to use with my students. I took a course in making them and hope to put my finished product on TeacherTube for others to use.
(Ok. The embeddable player didn't work and I don't know why. I copied and pasted all of the info in the Embeddable player box, but it didn't work. It just posted html code when I published this post and it didn't link to the video. So I just pasted the info for the Video URL instead. If you know what I did wrong, I would love a tip in how to fix it!)
(Thanks for the comment! I fixed it!)
I think having access to these videos is great! There are lots of possible uses for teachers and students. I think it would be neat to allow students to create videos as their final product and post them to TeacherTube. There are lots of quick how to videos that are great--I especially like Common Craft videos! As a librarian, I like book trailers to use with my students. I took a course in making them and hope to put my finished product on TeacherTube for others to use.
Thing #19
Ok, I picked Twitter. I've been thinking about this Web 2.0 tool for awhile, wondering what all the buzz was about. I set up my account and found some people I knew to start following. Some tweets immediately popped up with posts from these friends and they were interesting. It gave me some ideas of what I can tweet about.
Twitter is special because it allows people to follow other people and find out what they are doing now with very few words. There is a 140 word limit with any post and I can see where they wouldn't all be used on a regular basis.
As I said before, Twitter has had me pondering about it for awhile. This morning I got on Gale and searched for recent articles in LMC and SLJ about Twitter, wondering how it is used in libraries. (I've begun to secretly want an iPhone but I figure I need a reason to have one. Could Twitter be a reason?) The articles I found were interesting and gave me lots of ideas. I think the idea of putting out really quick book talks is neat and could really work for my customers -- MS students! I think it could also be useful for really quick announcements like "Book fair opens at 7am today! See you then!" I think that Twitter is great for reaching my population! I also think it would be fun for my personal life, family and friends and all. I guess I would need two user names or accounts -- one for the librarian and one for the regular person.
I found some big name library people to follow like Doug Johnson and Joyce Valenza. There tweets came to my homepage as soon as I added them to the list of people I am following. Joyce Valenza puts links to other blogs that have something interesting. It can be used as a way to promote blogs and share ideas that are out there right now.
I am a loyal NPR listener and a few times now I've heard reports about Twiku and other forms of poetry via Twitter. That sounds fun and like a great idea for English teachers to use with students.
Twitter is special because it allows people to follow other people and find out what they are doing now with very few words. There is a 140 word limit with any post and I can see where they wouldn't all be used on a regular basis.
As I said before, Twitter has had me pondering about it for awhile. This morning I got on Gale and searched for recent articles in LMC and SLJ about Twitter, wondering how it is used in libraries. (I've begun to secretly want an iPhone but I figure I need a reason to have one. Could Twitter be a reason?) The articles I found were interesting and gave me lots of ideas. I think the idea of putting out really quick book talks is neat and could really work for my customers -- MS students! I think it could also be useful for really quick announcements like "Book fair opens at 7am today! See you then!" I think that Twitter is great for reaching my population! I also think it would be fun for my personal life, family and friends and all. I guess I would need two user names or accounts -- one for the librarian and one for the regular person.
I found some big name library people to follow like Doug Johnson and Joyce Valenza. There tweets came to my homepage as soon as I added them to the list of people I am following. Joyce Valenza puts links to other blogs that have something interesting. It can be used as a way to promote blogs and share ideas that are out there right now.
I am a loyal NPR listener and a few times now I've heard reports about Twiku and other forms of poetry via Twitter. That sounds fun and like a great idea for English teachers to use with students.
Thing #18
I played with Google Docs for my Discovery Exercise. I'd played with it a little bit before for Thing #7. But this time I took the time to go through their help pages with all kinds of explanations and how to's. They were very clear. Then I played around a bit with a document or two.
I think for my students Google Docs can be very helpful. It can allow them to work on an assignment at school, save to Google Docs and then open that same document and work on it at home. They don't need a zip or flash drive or any 'thing' to help transmit their data to and from school. The only draw back I see for students is that they may not have a Google account and I'm not sure about my district's opinion on requiring students to get a Google account.
I like the feature that would allow people to see your documents and even edit them. That could be very helpful for collaboration with teachers. I can see creating or uploading a document, maybe an instruction sheet for a research project, and 'sharing' it with all of the teachers involved, allowing them to edit the document. I think this could save time as well as paper, creating and sharing drafts over and over again until something is ready to be published. I think it would be helpful amoung my peers too for the same reasons.
I think Google Docs has some advantages over just using Microsoft Office because it is web based and allows for sharing and collaborating in a way that can be more efficient than emailing documents back and forth for editing purposes.
I think for my students Google Docs can be very helpful. It can allow them to work on an assignment at school, save to Google Docs and then open that same document and work on it at home. They don't need a zip or flash drive or any 'thing' to help transmit their data to and from school. The only draw back I see for students is that they may not have a Google account and I'm not sure about my district's opinion on requiring students to get a Google account.
I like the feature that would allow people to see your documents and even edit them. That could be very helpful for collaboration with teachers. I can see creating or uploading a document, maybe an instruction sheet for a research project, and 'sharing' it with all of the teachers involved, allowing them to edit the document. I think this could save time as well as paper, creating and sharing drafts over and over again until something is ready to be published. I think it would be helpful amoung my peers too for the same reasons.
I think Google Docs has some advantages over just using Microsoft Office because it is web based and allows for sharing and collaborating in a way that can be more efficient than emailing documents back and forth for editing purposes.
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