Thing 20 - Facebook and My Space

I think it is important for me to know about these sites, but they are not my thing. Even looking at the different libraries sites didn't interest me. I do think it is a valuable tool for some library patrons. Libraries need to appeal to people on many different levels. If a my space page from the library gets you interested in the library that is great.

Library 2.0 tools will be even more important in my community this fall with the closing of two of our branch libraries. With the physical proximity to the library building gone, many will have to rely on electronic access. Very sad.

Thing 19 Podcasting

I looked at the MPR website and found the Grammar Graters podcasts. I included an RSS feed on my blog. It is good to keep practicing how to add these things so I don't forget how. It would be fun to do book review podcasts with the kids in the library. I downloaded Audacity and I have been playing around with that. I'll try to get my own kids to record something and post it on my blog. My only problem with podcasts is that I have a hard time sitting still to listen to them. I should try putting them on my ipod. Then I can listen on the go.

Thing 18 YouTube

YouTube is fun. I have used it in my lessons. I should remember to use it more. The clips are great for short attention grabbers. I choose to put the video of the library tour on my blog. We use Movie Maker at our school. It would be fun to make a short video of my library or school. In our district teachers have access to YouTube, but students do not. However, they can view selected videos on the Smart Board, so it can be used as an educational tool.

library tour video

Thing 17 ELM

Boy, I wish I had access to ELM when I was teaching high school. I had a stand alone version of InfoTrac that ran on a 286 green screen that was updated yearly with the big old floppy disks. It is crazy how much things have changed in 15 years! Now I'm in the elementary and my goal is to use Infobits more this year. Most of my students idea of research it to go on the internet and Google it. It is great to have resources such as ELM and the encyclopedia subscriptions to show them.

I did go through most of the exercises for this thing. I tried to follow the updated directions for the rss feed. I could view the article lists, but was denied when I tried to access them. But, school is fast approaching and my goal is to finish before that starts, so oh well...

Thing 16 - Assignment Calculator

I was introduced to this resource at a workshop presented by an ELM employee. I would definitely use this resource if I were still working in a high school. It is way over the heads of elementary students. I was most interested in the teacher handouts. I hadn't heard of the Minnesota 5. I've used the Big 6 or the Super 3 when teaching research. I will have to take a closer look at the MN 5 to see how they differ. I wonder if there is a MN 5 equivalent of the Super 3?

Thing 15 - Games

I tried to play the Pirate game, but it didn't work on my computer. I watched the Second Life movie. I kept waiting for the words to start. I guess the game interface is very powerful with kids because it is a platform that they are comfortable with. It is a good way to reach them and if the library can be fit in to that world, it would probably attract more kids. The problem we have with games in our school is that they eat up too much bandwidth. Although we do allow "educational" games, it gets hard to draw the line between educational and not educational. I think this will get more difficult in the future.

Thing 14 - Library Thing

Library Thing was neat and easy to use. If I had a library blog, it would be a good way to publicize new or seasonal books. Currently I show new books through book talks or just displaying them on prominent shelves. I'm not sure if I would use it in my library, but it was fun to look at other peoples' book lists and see how others use it.

thing 13 - online productivity tools

I spent a lot of time looking at these things. I did an igoogle page. It was fun. It would be very useful if I trained myself to go to it all the time. Maybe I could set it as my homepage. I made a to do list with the gadget on igoogle. I just didn't want another account somewhere else. Trying to keep it simple to access so I might use it.

I have used google calendar for my kids' soccer clubs. I can see that if I ever took charge of organizing something like that I would use google calendar or look a lot more closely at backpack. I think it would help keep everything organized. Email is great for communicating with groups, but it gets scattered after a while. I find myself searching through tons of old emails in my deleted files folder. It would be great to keep all information organized in one area.

Thing 12 Social Media Sites

I imagine there would be a lot of people addicted to sites like Digg. I am not one of them. I', not a news hound (I'm not sure if that is good or bad) Also, after looking at each of the sites I wouldn't send younger students like mine to them due to the content. Maybe someone should make a kid friendly site with kid friendly content and reading level. That I would use. Maybe there is one?

Thing 11- tagging

There have been many times I would have liked to have my bookmarks from school available to me at home. I think it would also be very useful to set up a set of research links for students when we are doing projects in the library.

Thing 10 - wikis

We tried a wiki type thing at our school last year. The problem was that not many people remembered to use it or even how to get to it. (myself included) We are so trained to correspond through group emails that we never really got into it. It does seem like a really good idea. I edited the 23 things on a stick wiki. It was easy. I was glad to see that there was a password to edit it.