Week 9 # 20

Tonight I looked at Teacher Tube and although I am somewhat familiar with You Tube, I had never looked at T.T. I liked it somewhat. It was easy to do searches and get lists of videos. Of course, the work came when I had to sift through them all and find what interests me or what is appropriate for my lessons. Again, putting in keywords could send me loads of videos and I don't have time to sit down and watch 4 minute videos looking for the right one.
In saying that, I think it is something I would definitely use with my classes as kids love videos - so even if it's something as simple as the one I watched with a teacher giving hints on reliable sources for research, sometimes it's just a lot more fun if they are watching someone else say it instead of me talking all the time. I will definitely spend some time looking for pertinent T.T. videos. It's great when someone shares a good one they have found - saves time for us all!

Week 8 # 19.1

I do use Digital Pipeline with many of the kids in my school already, but I did take this opportunity to investigate Novelist as I’ve never really looked at it, other that for cataloguing purposes. I like this site and would recommend it to students who were looking for books similar to the ones they had just finished reading. I also like the recommended reads section and the fact that it gives the kids lots of information such as reading level, subject, who it may interest, other similar books and a synopsis of the book. I will definitely add this to my library webpage and introduce it to the students in my classes.

Week 8 # 19

I loved using Library Thing and that is definitely a site I would use – both for personal use and also for recommendations for student reading. I thought it was easy to use and navigate, easy to add tags and see at a glance which books were popular, had many reviews, etc.
I was pleased to see that one of my books, Mother of the Believers, only had 25 other members having read it. It’s neat to read a book that not many others have. I love the fact that I could get further recommendations based on the books that I have already read.

Week 8 # 18

I found Zoho easy to use, easy to create new documents and save. I wanted to save my document to my blog but I was having problems accessing my blog (away from home, unable to access password, etc.). The only thing is that I was unsure what I would use it for at this point – maybe if I was doing work that I was going to present to staff. That I would have to think about.

Week 7 # 16

I really liked the St Joseph County Public Library Subject Guides. Wow! It listed topics, definitions found under this topic, information pages, what can be found in the library under this topic, links to other sources. I would love to do something like this for our library (for the popular curriculum topics for example). It would be great to get the students to help (find websites, books in the library,etc.).
I also liked the book lover’s wiki. With its book reviews and recommendations, it’s just a great way to get book suggestions for students and personal reading. This definitely could be linked to the school library website.
I think that teacherlibrarianwiki.pbworks.com is one that I could use right now. There were lots of topics that related to my job, I could get lots of information and suggestions from here and it would be extremely helpful to me.

Week 16 #15

I read some of the comments about web 2.0 libraries with interest. Rick Anderson made some poignant comments about these libraries that made me sit up and take note. The first point he made that I felt needed thought on my part was the one about libraries needing to eliminate barriers between patrons and the information they need.
I think that most of the most frustrating parts to this course is learning to use these tools so that I can indeed find what I need and find it fast and efficiently. Knowing that I have these frustrations makes me realize that my students do too and so what can I do to ensure that they don’t. I have set up a library website to help them find their search tools easier – nettrekker, worldbook online, Alaska digital pipeline, webcat, etc; however, I know I need to do more. I have just spent a considerable amount of time showing my grade 5 students how to navigate and use nettrekker. Perhaps brainstorming with other librarians on this topic is a good idea.
His second point was about how are we bringing these services to our patrons instead of making them come to us. Again, I provide lists of search sources available and how students and their families can access them from home. It’s a slow process getting people to switch and see the relevance of these teachings (especially the parents).
I loved Michael Stephens comment about the importance of the librarian asking what technology and materials users need. That’s pretty well how I buy books right now with the limited money I receive. I ask the kids/teachers what they want to read/what they need to support their curriculum. I don’t have money to waste putting books in the library that are not going to be read/used for research.
I also love his comment about librarians must not impede access to the library. Yes, how many of us do that with our rules and regulations?

Week 6 #14

Well I spent lots of time on the weekend researching these next few things and then couldn't get into my blog, so I'm now going to download all the comments from my computer on to my blog. Ah, don't you love technology?!!

I tried Technorati and I have to admit that I didn’t like it all that much, nor did I find that I would have any use for it in my library life. I thought it was crowded and confusing. I did not find it easy to use and couldn’t figure out where to do tag searches. I could only find the one search site with the option of either searching blogs or posts. When I searched School Library Learning 2.0, I found no blogs and several unrelated posts. I had to scroll through them to see if there any I was interested in. I’m just not sure how I would use this in my library at all. I don’t really have any interest in checking the top posts, blogs, etc.

Week 6 #13

I love delicious!! It was easy to open and then I just pressed a button and it brought over all the sites I had been bookmarking in Firefox (and of course there was no organization to them at all). Now I just have to change the tags on them all (which is so easy to do). I love this because I'll be able to bring organization to everything that I want to save for myself. In addition, I will be able to save things for students and teachers and have them all organized. I love it! I wish I would have discovered this tool a long time ago. I can't wait to start using it. I do want to figure out how to share my delicious tags with others (students or teachers, for example), but I will work on that after I have more organization with my own bookmarks.

Week 5 #12

I really love voice thread and would like to try it with our K/1 classes. In the library, they could use it to talk about a book that they liked. I tried to make my own but unfortunately, was unable to get any sound (I had this same problem before). I'm not sure what to do. When I hit record, it seems to be recording, but when I hit playback, nothing comes back to me. I'll have to try it on the school computers to see if it works there.

Week 5 #11

I had a quick look at del-ic-ious and I'm very interested in opening an account (I think that we may do that later on in this course. I love the fact that I can bookmark all the sites that I am interested in and keep them all in some sort of order. I think the fact that they can be tagged would make it much easier to re-find something later on. A possible downfall is that I can't relocate the site I want later, but in order to discover whether that is actually the case, I will have to open an account and try it out.

I would find this very useful in the library as there are so many different items that I try and save just in case I need them for something and there just doesn't seem to be any way to organize them. This web 2.0 tool could help me get organized!

I also had a quick look at Lulu the book site and even though I wouldn't necessarily use it at school (because of the cost), I would love to use it personally - to publish books that I make for the grandparents - or to publish books that I write for my son about his family. I love this and can't wait to try it!

Week 5 #10

First, I made a map showing all the countries I visited in the world, but I could not post it to the blog and I'm really not sure why. I just didn't know what to open so that I could post it somewhere. So then I made this comic and just saved it to my documents and then I was able to attach it to this post. That was much easier!

I like this making the comics site. I think the students at school would really like it and I could use it when I send out newsletters, reminders, etc. Comics certainly capture their attention right now.

Week 4 #8 (again)

Has anyone figured out how to make the bloglines (RSS feeds) public? I tried adding it here to my blog but it keeps telling me that it's an invalid username when I try to link through to it?

Week 4 #8

Am I understanding this correctly: I have just opened an account on bloglines and have subscribed to several sites using the RSS feed button. So in order to read these RSS feeds, I now have to go to my bloglines account to do this? Or does it automatically come to my email address? I'm not sure I quite understand.