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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Na, na, na, na, Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye...but not for long!

I can't believe I'm finished...I'm not ready to be! I want to learn more cool stuff. This was by far the coolest class I have ever taken!

I love Google calendar, Google Book Reader, Ning, and Ta-Da Lists the best out of all the applications I learned in this class.

This class has proved to me once again that there is always more to learn. Just when you think you're "up-to-date" on technology, something bigger and better comes along! I am a life-long learner and will continue to be.

What surprised me? Voicethread! I was not aware that something of that nature existed. I love it and plan to use it very soon! I was also surprised about RSS feeds. It is so neat how the news and information comes to me:)

I have no suggestions to make this course better. I thought it was perfect! If there was another course like this I would definitely take it. (The next 23 Things????)

The things I learned in this course will help me to integrate technology into my library lessons in different ways. I will break out of the same old, same old and use some of these new things.

I will keep up with new Web 2.0 tools by continuing to take staff development through the district, taking webinars, attending TLA as often as possible, and of course reading my Google reader posts from all of those fabulous technology blogs and sites.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Thing #23


Visit 23 Thingsters


I liked Classroom 2.0, but I LOVED Teacher Librarian Ning(TL Ning)! It was so cool to see discussions that actually applied to me!

I like how Ning is very specific. This is more of an educational social network than just a social network. This is definitely one to use to enhance your knowledge in your specific field of work.

I found the coolest resource through TLNing... a wiki called elementarylibraryroutines.wikispaces.com. This is a wiki that gives great ideas on all kinds of routines in the library! I love it! I subscribed to it in my RSS feeds! It is interesting to see how other librarians do things. I am going to borrow a few ideas from that wiki.

I will definitely keep up with the 23Thingsters Ning and TLNing to help me further my professional learning. I wish I could log the hours I spend on these Nings as some CE credit:)

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Thing #22

My facebook account

My myspace account


Social networking is not only fun, but important for our jobs as educators. Networking with other teachers and librarians will help to keep us on the cutting edge of our work and give us fresh new ideas to implement in our classrooms and libraries.

I primarily have used these sites for my personal life, but this "thing" made me explore further and find library related links like authors, library associations, etc. It is really neat to be updated daily by these people and associations. I feel like a part of their "inner circle" even though they don't know me.

I really prefer Facebook over MYspace. Facebook is very simple. There is not a lot of "stuff" on people's pages. It loads quickly and is easy to navigate. Myspace kinda drives me crazy because people decorate and upload all kinds of stuff to their pages (including me)! It takes forever for the page to load. I get irritated waiting. I find it harder to find people on Myspace.

I definitely think there is an educational use for Facebook. Classes could start a profile together and become friends with people and groups that are related with the topics they will be studying. The teachers could check their page daily on the promethean board for the whole class to see what kinds of posts occurred the night before. This is a great way to do some real-world learning.

Thing #7b

So my google reader scared me to death today!!!! On one of the blogs I follow, there was a story about how kitchen spoons can cause overdoses in children. They did a study on how most households have 5 or more different sizes of teaspoons and tablespoons. Most moms don't realize the difference. They dose their children with the teaspoon or tablespoon and assume their child got the correct dose....scary. Buy a medicine dropper people!!!!

Thing #20

My Google Document

Check out what I created to sell my house!

I have never used Google docs...always heard of it and seen it, but never created anything using Google docs. Well I have been missing out!!!!! I wish I had known about this before I spent $100 to buy Microsoft XP for my computer.

This is the best discovery for me and my population at my school. Most of the families at my school are economically disadvantaged. If they have a computer at home they might not have an Office package. This is perfect for students to use for school assignments because it is free:)

Google docs is perfect for collaborative assignments. Students could write a report or story together using the document application and not even be in the same classroom. It would be so cool to partner students from separate classes together to write a report or story together. Seeing things from others perspectives is always so eye-opening! They could build a story together by adding on to the previous work completed by the other student!

Better yet, what about pairing up students from different schools? Cities? States? Countries? Students could create presentations together. How cool would it be for students learning about different cultures to have a partner from the culture they are studying. Each student could create similar slides about their own cultures and merge them together into one slide show presentation. I'm getting excited just thinking about the possibilities!

The spreadsheets feature could be used for keeping track of data within a science project. Students doing the same project could record data into the spreadsheet and compare their findings with other students doing the same thing.

Thing #21

I loved playing around with all the google apps! My husband's favorite was Sketchup. He used to build houses so he had a blast making 3D models of all kinds of buildings!

I love, love, love Google calendar! I am going to start using it for my own personal calendar. I try to be a very organized person, but sometimes I forget my paper calendar at home. This will be a great tool for me so I can access my calendar from my laptop or any computer! I think I'm going to try to use it for my library sign up schedule as well. I still need to play with it and figure out the ins and outs. I'm not sure if others can edit my calendar or not, so we will see what happens!

Um, ok...how come none of the librarians told me about Google book reader? That is the coolest thing ever! What a cool way to get a glimpse of a book to decide whether or not you want to buy it! I played on this forever!!!!! I read tons of books, well as far as it would let me read anyways. I would like to use this with my older students to get them into other genres of books. I think because it is online and they can read parts of books, not the whole thing, they will like it. They could use it when they are not in the library to start choosing books.

This is also a neat collection development tool. I can preview books to decide which ones I want to buy for the library.