Thing 17 Elm databases

These are really great resources for our students.  Often they like to Google for things but here are valid resources. If teachers and media people, show students how to access information here kids will use them.  It's important too to point out the how access.  This is my first real successful access from home, because I finally have high speed access instead of dial-up.  Even with dial-up I would use resources for students.  It's been some time since I used by account in EBESCO  but its STILL THERE!!  I like using the magazine alerts.  I couldn't get the RSS feeds to work. But the email alerts work well.  I was too a workshop once on using the web page creater in Ebesco, but I don't get very excited about it.  Seems too tedious.  There are other ways of creating web pages. It should be more like the blogger. That's easy and the finished product looks create.  It's been awhile since I've visited netLibrary.  It's come a long way.  I will definitely back here for research and reading.  The accounts that one can set up to email articles will certainly help collaboration.  Remember elm4you to locate the databases.

Thing 16 student tools Research calculator

I like the research project calculator better because it allows the student to prepare for projects in different formats, ie video, powerpoint, as well as the traditional paper.  It is neat that it provides not only a timeline for organizing the tasks, but it also gives helpful resources such as storyboards and on-line resources such as links to windows moviemaker or apple's imovie.  Teachers should know about this site and show ask their students to use it.  It will help students to be more organized and to understand the research process better. Just a couple weeks ago I had a student tell me that you could plan all the steps if you had a month to do a project, but not when you had 3 days.  My point is regardless of how many days you have, you need to do all the steps to make a good project.

Yes you could use this to manage a timeline of your own.  You could also use it to look for helpful resources when doing planning with teachers.

Thing 16

I saw the vision of of education before this from an email I received. There are several other responses to this on YouTube as well.  Look at this one on What's it Like being a highschooler.

Thing 15 gaming

Over the past year I've change my thinking about computer games in the media center.  Since I'm retired I suppose what I think doesn't really count!  Used to be games took up precious computer space and bandwidth.  Now schools have more computers and usually more bandwidth available too.  I see games as a way of getting students in the media center. I also think that games (looking at the pirate game) require a high degree of thinking, planning and creating strategies to win or move to the next level. While I'm not a gamer ( too many other things to do--like good books to read!), I think they have a place.  Not all games are created equal of course.  Some are just shoot 'em up, but I remember how much fun it was to play PacMan when it was one of the first computer games.  It didn't require much high level thinking!  School libraries will need to rethink their stances on gaming.  Computers availability and bandwidth will enter into those decisions on whether games are allowed.

Thing 14 LibraryThing

This was really interesting and I spent alot of time here.  Seems like I'm always spending alot of time on each one of these!  I found that this would be a useful thing to have on my book club blog so have added it.  Great way to get other peoples opinions for books that are currently being discussed.  This would be a good way to let people know what is new in your library. Also a great way to keep track of books you've read personally.  Think I'll delete my lazybase account which was easy to update but doesn't have all the nice features, reviews, book covers, etc that librarything does.

Thing 13 On-line Productivity tools

I created an iGoggle page since I already have an account; I'm using the blogger and the rss reader so it made sense to expand on that.  I did like the looks of the PageFlakes--seemed easy and simple.  iGoogle isn't bad.  I may make this my home page.  With the Mac some of these things can be dropped into Dashboard and you have the widgets available on your desktop without using the browser.  iGoogle of course has the advantage of always being there for you no matter where you are.  Lots of features available.  I put a weather link on my blog.  Seems like we always what to know the weather forecast.

 I think I need to write out my to do lists . Mac computers have sticky notes and I use them occassionally as notes and as to do lists. I have iCal for calendars. Don't know that I would use an on-line one.  I know they don't travel with me from site to site, but it works for me. Backpack looks good for sharing calendars.  I could see that for the NWSC office staff.

 I didn't know about Zamzar the file converter.  I can see where that would be handy in school or even at home.

Thing 12 Do you Digg it?

I was able to submit an article to Mixx without being a member.  Not true with Newsvine. I was surprised with the ugly language on reddit.  I wouldn't want students using that site.  Newsvine on the other hand seemed too stoddgy, too formal.  Mixx had the best introduction to their site with the video and I liked the categories that you could set up and how your could personalize the account.  This is all new stuff to me. Wasn't aware of these sites before.  I could see wanting to keep up with what is popular, especially in a public library setting.  I don't think I would Digg it, but I would certainly Mixx it!!

Thing 11 Del.icio.us

This is something that I will use.  I first created a delicious account two years ago.  Then, I rather forgot about it.  I think it has grown and changed since that first experience.  I also learned more about it from this thing than I knew before.  I like the bookmarks being accessible from any computer. But I also like the connections. When I look for photography I found so many more possibilites for new information than just searching on the web. I think schools should encourage staff and students to make use of del.icio.us. The idea of shared bookmarks(tags) is great for staff development topics or department topics. Some of the library sites didn't even look like delicious so  that bears further exploration.  I found some really cool sites using Pagekeeper and selecting 10-12 and other for subject area.  Many of these are media folks and they neat lists of helpful sites for library/media people.

Thing 10 wiki

The wiki video was a good explanation.  It seemed so simple but the sites I checked weren't!  I edited the 23things wiki.  While I just added stuff, this practice wiki is alot of rambling.  A wiki with a defined purpose would be more helpful to the participants.  (This was great for us.)  I think wiki's are too unreliable to be used for research. I think students should be told they can read them for background info, but not to cite them in their research.  Reading list wikis for school libraries and wikis for class projects could be good uses in the school setting.

Thing 9 on line collaboration

Didn't spend much time on these.  On-line collaboration tools have their place and something to remember ?!! for the future.  The Google one appeared easier. At least it was easier for me to get into and leave a comment as well as get into the actual text and change.  I was able to leave a comment in zoho but couldn't get into the document even though I had permission. Probably wasn't doing something right.  

Thing 8

Well, I bit the bullet and created a flickr account.  Seems like you can't do much if you don't have one!  Anyway I should have one with all the pictures I do.  It's just that on a 56k modem uploading takes awhile. So I have a yahoo account, a flickr account, and a bighuge labs account!

I created a database with the lazybase.  I didn't do much with it but I can see some handy personal uses for it like a reading list since the library can't tell me what I've read.  This way my list is available wherever I have a computer.  Books to Read 

I did the big huge lab thing with the photo mosaic.  I like it.  It could create some cool prints of an event that would be easy to share. I also found that it didn't work in Safari so I moved to firefox.  I couldn't get the code for the mosaic to work so I saved the mosaic to my desktop and then uploaded it as the picture you see here.  These are all MY photos too!

Blogging

I took my newfound knowledge about blogs to create a blog for our bank bookclub.  I wanted to use  the name of the bank and our coffee/travel group but found out I couldn't as the bank has some strict rules about the use of their name and the clubs name.  I thought the blog would be a great way to inform people about the books we are reading and a chance to share comments about the books especially if they didn't make the book club day.  The blog has only been up a couple days so not many know about it yet.  Will let you know how it goes.  

Click the here to get to the book blog.

Thing 7 Communication tools

It isn't the email overload as much as it is the listserve overload.!  I do put messages into folders for projects that need archiving. The listserve messages are usually scanned and deleted except for those that I want to follow through to the links that are there--that's what takes time to read.

We use email in our media center for online ordering and for scheduling problems.  Of course I use it to communicate to sales people as well as others in the office.

I have not done instant messaging. I watched my daughter do it when she was in college.

Nor have  I done text messaging.  It's one of those add on features on the cell phone that I don't have a good reason to pay for. So I'm not into all the shortcut words that are used!

Web conferencing I have done quite a bit of doing Minitex webinars as well as some online seminars from Adobe.  This has been a great way to self inservice on my schedule.

Thing 6 on line image generators

This would be a fun activity for kids to create.  You could create trading cards on books.  This came from big huge labs. bighugelabs.com
  This came from imagechef.com. They have good, easy to follow directions for creating the images and good directions for posting them to a blog or elsewhere.

Not sure why I ended up with blue, underlined  type above.

These image generators could be a lot of fun and time consuming. But a great place to create a project that involves creativity at no cost to the students or teacher.  I could see using them for creating eyecatchers for bullentin boards as well. Of course, if you had a library blog you could use them there.

www.Toondoo.com allows you to create comic strips. What a cool idea for English!  I didn't want to create another account that I may not use  so I didn't create a comic strip.

Thing 5 Mashup

Spell with Flickr was fun. Has some possible uses.  I read thru the 10 Best Flickr mashups and think I could get hooked on the picture Sudoku as I'm already hooked on the numbers one.  I think these things are for people with too much time on their hands!  Offers a chance to be creative and to exercise the brain but so far, I'm lost as to a function in the library/classroom.