Thing #11 -Library Thing

This was the easiet "thing" by far that I have done for this project. I easily see applications for this web site through my school library web site. I am thinking about having my Name That Book team members setup their own library and as they read the required book titles (35 total) they could add the book along with their review. This would be one way for me to help track who has read what books, and they would be sharing their library with me and the other team members.

I could also share my library through our school library web site which would allow both students and parents to view my recommended book titles. It would be a great tool for posting both an adult and student Summer Reading List.

Adding the LibraryThing blog to my favorite blog list was a snap. I am finding that the lessons are getting easier to do which means that I am mastering skills that I learned in past lessons. What a great feeling!

Thing #10 - Online Image Generator

I chose the Fake Magazine Cover for all three of my images. Each is very different but are things I could use either in my library or for sending to friends to create interest in my blog. The link is http://www.fakecovermagazine.com.

The first cover I used was "LOVE" magazine and I used a photo of my nephew and his wife that I took while in New York last summer. They are both school teachers - he teaches high school science and she is a middle school Health/PE teacher. I wanted to let them know about my blog and I thought what better way to get them interested than include them on one of my blogs. Plus, they are so cute, they could actually be on a cover of a romance magazine. Here is a photo of my cover.


Next I used the K-9 magazine cover to do a photo of my daughter's pug, Oscar. I wanted to show her my blog and also thought this would get her interested if I had a picture of her "Oscar." Here is the little guy with his reindeer "chewy."




The last photo I used is a picture of myself with my 3rd-5th Name That Book team that took 1st place in the all of HISD back in May. We competed against 57 elementary schools and came away with the lst place trophy! Here I am with my team - I was so proud of them and all of their hard work. I thought Student Stars was a very appropriate cover for my photo.




I plan on using this web site throughout the school year to display on my library bulletin board. I thought I could use it for my birthday club activity, my Name That book, Texas Bluebonnet Award Breakfast, etc... Kids loving viewing pictures of themselves and I thought this would be a great way to showcase all they do in the library

Thing #9 - Useful Library Blogs and Newsfeeds

After viewing all the search tools, I found I liked Google Blog Search and the Topix.net the best. I disliked Atomic Learning the most because it is a subscription service that costs money to use; however, it might be something I would check into as a service for our school. I plan on discussing this tool with our technology teacher to see if it is something we might be able to subscribe to for our school. It does indicate that you can access the sight with a SBISD password, so they must have it in their district. Perhaps it is also a tool that HISD might consider providing through Library Services.

I felt it was equally easy to find feeds through both Google Blog Search and Topix.net. While playing around in Topix.net, I tried several different searches and one I did was for the Texas Bluebonnet Award. I found a news sight - Newsome.org. - that had an article about a young girl who read all 20 of the 2008 Texas Bluebonnet Award books and posted a review on each book. It included a blog where you could post your comments and congrats to this young lady. That gave me an idea on how I might use something similar through our school web site.

I didn't find any of the recommended sites confusing, I just liked some more than others.

I found the feeds for the Texas Bluebonnet Award, Newbery Award, and Caldecott Award useful. Just for fun, I typed in Tiger Woods and I found it unusual that there were several feeds that had been created over two years ago that still were awaiting approval by Topix.net. I wondered what dictates whether a feed gets approval or not.

I didn't discover any other ways to locate newsfeed during this exercise, but I am aware of how to locate newsfeed after the last few exercises.

Thing #8 - Rss feeds

I have to be honest, initially I didn't spend alot of time choosing the feeds I wanted to share. I chose FoxNews and ESPN as my primary feeds as those are the two stations I watch the most. I included the Houston Astros feed since I am a big fan -even during their losing ways right now. I am also a birdwatcher and included the bird watching blog. When I did take the time to search for the RSS and newsreaders,
I liked the ease in locating the blog feeds through the Google Blog Search, but I also found it a little overwhelming. There is so much out there that it was hard for me to decide what feeds to post to my blog.

I also found it much easier to think of how the newsfeeds could be added for my own personal use, but not so much for use in my library at this time. As an elementary school librarian, I am not sure how easy it would be for my students to access my blog, read my postings, visit my favorite blogs, etc... It might work for my older students, but maybe not so much for my younger students. After some thought, I felt my blog might better serve the parents of my students.

I feel libraries should take advantage of the ease in which newsfeeds may be accessed by their patrons. I plan on adding some Internet connections to RSS and newsreaders through my Alexandria Catolog system. I know there is a way to add sites through the Explorer tab in Alexandria.

I recall talking about RSS at one of Alan November's seminars, but had never tried it. I am love the way I am learning something new with each of my lessons.

Thing #7 - Cool Google Tools

I have used Google Earth and Picasa in the past and will continue to use them in the future. Google Earth is a great tool to use in my library lesson plans as my class can literally fly to any place on earth for a skyeye view of a place we may be discussing in class. I found my elementary age students to particularly enjoy seeing places that they are familiar with, such as our school campus, their home, their Little League baseball field, etc... I have also used Google Earth in discussion about famous landmarks. One of my 2nd grade classes did a project on famous landmarks this year for their classroom teacher, and I was able to show the teacher and students how to view their various landmarks from space, using Google Earth.

I liked the Google calendar and thought it would be fun to set it up on my library computer and have student birthdays posted on the calendar. This would be a wonderful tool to assist me in implementing a Library Birthday Club next year. For more about Library Birthday clubs visit
http://www.saa-sds.org/SummerPacket/PDF/LibraryBirthdayClub.pdf


I have only used Picasa for my own personal use, but I do see applications for using it in a classroom setting. I particularly like the way you can edit the photos so easily and build a library for each of your albums. As I had stated in a previous blog, I enjoy showing students pictures of places I have visited. I could set up my Picasa albums on the student computers for them to view when visiting the library.

Unfortunately for me, I recently lost all my photos that were saved in Picasa when my computer crashed and I had to restore it back to its original settings. Thank goodness I had made print copies of all the pictures. So I learned a valuable lesson. I guess I was thinking that even if my computer crashed, that the pictures would be saved by Picasa. Next time I will be sure to back them up to my jump drive.

Thing #5 - Explore Flickr

I had heard of Flickr before but never tried using it. I didn't particularly like the idea of going through tons of pictures posted by people I have never met trying to find something that might interest me. However, I can see the application for it. My husband and I travel alot during the summer and I do relate stories to my students during the school year about places I have been and things I have seen. The students often ask if I can bring pictures in from the places that we discuss in class. My goal now is to start uploading my photos to Flickr and using them to enhance my library lessons and also to teach my students how they can go to the Flickr web site and view my vacation photos on their own. The next step will be to teach the students how to create their own vacation photo web site and share them with their classmates. Also, our school has discussed the possibility of getting an inexpensive class set of digital cameras for the students to use for taking photos for science, social studies, etc... and uploading to our school web site during their computer lab classes. There are so many possibile applications....

I did like the tip about downloading photos from the Discovery Education web site. I use this web site almost everyday in my library classes. I usually start the year out discussing the autumn season and have my elementary students tell me what they know about fall. For example, how do you know it is fall, what holidays do we celebrate in the fall, when is the first day of fall, etc... So, I created a "fall photo" folder and plan to use it in my autumn lessons plans.
I thought I would display the photos to the class first - via the LCD projector - and let the students tell me what season they think the photos represent and why, then have our fall season discussion. Here are just two of the photos I could use in this lesson:


Of all the things I have learned so far, I feel Flickr is the web site that I would most likely use in a elementary school library setting.

Thing #2 - 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners

I almost forgot to do this step. Thankfully I read a few posts from other team members, and realized I had skipped this step. I had read it, but forgot to post my thoughts. I think the habits hardest for me are habits 4 and 6. I have not always had the confidence in myself as an effective learner, which may explain my getting my college degrees later on in my life. I think having my two daughters and seeing them grow and learn helped me to gain the confidence to go back to school and get an education. But even after all that, I still find that I lack confidence in myself from time to time. Habit 6 which is using technology to its full advantage, has not always been easy for me. I do not own an I-pod or MP3 player, and don't know that I would use them if I had them. I do know my way around digital cameras, palm pilots, and computers, but that is because I use them in my current job. I am thinking by the time I finish this course, I may be the proud owner of an I-Pod. The other habits I found are pretty easy for me, especially play! I love to have a good time - whenever possible.

Thing #4 - Registering a blog

I got my blog registered with my team captain, Vaughn. At least, I hope it worked and that I provided him all the correct information. I just realized today I am supposed to be labeling my blogs by the "thing # so I hope my captain can determine what my first two posts were in reference to as far as what number I was completing. I haven't visited any other team member blogs yet, but will do that today. I want to see if my posts looks like other blogger posts, or if I am totally off track.

Thing #3 - Creating an Avatar

Well, I did it! I made my own Golf Girl Avatar, with a little determination and alot of figuring it out on my own. I have to admit, at one point I became so frustrated I said out loud "Forget this!" But that Life Long Learner thought creeped into my head, and I pushed onward. It was easy creating the Avatar, but I struggled with figuring out to export it to my blog. I think I just need to slow down and read the LibraryPlay instructions more closely, and use the hot links provided in the instructions. On to thing #4 - I am already wondering how much frustration I will ultimately experience as I go on with this journey into cyberspace.

Creating a blog for the first time

In in the words of Gomer Pyle "Well, Gol-lee!" I actually sat up my own blog! I guess I just can't imagine anyone taking the time to read it - except maybe my team leader Vaughn. (Hi Vaughn)
I can't say it was easy to setup. I kept having to go back to the directions from the LibraryPlay2 instructions, and it took me awhile to figure out what was what (blogger name, what I am known as, how to access my e-mail through the internet address bar, etc....) but after an hour of trying, I am on my way to becoming a first rate blogger - I hope.

Thing #1 - Becoming a lifelong learner

I never really thought about what makes someone a lifelong learner until viewing Thing #2. But when I did think about it, I realized how nice it is for me to already be one and how it doesn't take alot for anyone to become one. I hope that makes sense.

I look forward to the LibraryPlay experience. I call myself the late bloomer because I graduated from college with a degree in elementary education at the young age of 39, then finished my Masters in Information Science at the age of 42. So although I got off to a late start, I have tried to put my education and knowledge to great use and enjoy the opportunities to "keep on learning."