Library Ninja

Funny but true!

Thing #23 Summarize

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

Google Tools, online image generators, Library Thing, Teacher Tube, and creating a blog.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

I have always been curious and love to learn new things. Through participating in this program, I learned so many things...far more than 23! As I stated in a post at the beginning, I remember when my daughter showed me the difference between the monitor and the computer. Now I know more than she does, at least about web 2.0. I am ready to start a new course and learn even more.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

What surprised me is my personal growth. At the beginning I was so nervous about posting on my blog, let alone commenting on others' blogs. I loosened up over the weeks and it is easier for me to participate. I'm amazed at myself.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

Perhaps put #12, Creating Community through Commenting, closer to the beginning. Also, it would be nice to see where participants are in the 23 Things so that it would be easier to find postings to read. There were so many participants and it took a long time to open each blog looking for a post on a particular Thing.

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

Absolutely. Just say when.

6. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?

Learn while playing! Not original, but it is the perfect description.

I do plan to keep my blog and repurpose it. At the beginning, I thought I would delete it as soon as this class was over. That shows how far I have come. I do plan to keep reading others' blogs because I will keep learning from my classmates. C'mon everyone. You can do it!

Thing #22 Nings

I had heard of Nings, but didn't know exactly what they were. Now I do! When checking out the Texas School Librarian Ning, I found a subgroup for High School Librarians. It is small with only nine members, but I can see how one could get support and ideas by interacting with these fellow librarians.

As I learned from 7 Things You Should Know About...Ning, educators can learn about social networks in a safe environment away from MySpace and Facebook and keep up with what our kids are so familiar with. I like the idea of creating projects for a course within Ning. The students would enjoy the format and interaction. For library use, I am thinking of creating a book club. My students have such difficulty getting to school early or staying after school because most of them ride the bus, so a book club ning would let us discuss books, post pictures, and have fun! I may create a ning for the club I sponsor so that we can share dates, announcements, and get to know each other. Last year's president would put announcements on her Facebook account, but I would prefer having a place specifically for the club and be able to monitor it and contribute to it. (I wasn't invited to be a friend on her Facebook account!)

What I did find alarming is the number of surprises I found when searching for nings. I did a search for "Navy wives" which I thought was an innocent search term and, oops, some interesting things appeared. As if the name of the ning, "Nude Wives/Girlfriends", wasn't descriptive enough, there was a photo beside it! As with all Internet searching, ning.com must be approached with care.

Thing #21 Podcasts and Audio Books

This one took days, but I really enjoyed it. I was planning to create a PowerPoint (how old school) for parent night next fall. I have lots of pictures of students using the library and I wanted to have it playing during Open House. Now I will create a Photostory and add narration and music. Can't wait! For this assignment, I decided not to use my students' pictures because I do not have their permission (or their parents' permission) to put their pictures on the Internet. To learn about Photostory, I used some photographs I have of a trip to Washington, D.C. I learned about iTunes and downloading music legally. I registered, paid for several songs, and used the appropriate amount in my presentation. (At least I hope I did!)

This is pretty corny, but I created it for all the members of my family who were or are in the military, including my father, brother, husband, nephews, and brother-in-law, and in remembrance of two friends.





All photos are mine except four that I found at Flickr: The Air Force Memorial is by bg_os; Marine Memorial is by winter ends; Navy Memorial is by OZinOH; Navy Memorial Fountains is by singed photography.

As for my thoughts on this technology, I plan to use it for booktalks. What an exciting way to introduce books to students, especially in a setting like a high school library where we don't see the students regularly and they are all so busy. Teachers, too! In addition, I try to teach students how to cite their sources using the MLA format. What a dry, boring topic. Podcasts and vidcasts might make it a little more interesting for the students.

Thing #19 Web 2.0

This assignment was too much fun. I was still playing with several of the sites when my husband got home from work, so I showed him two that I thought he would like. I sent my daughter a link to Livemocha so that she can stay fluent in German or help others who are learning to speak it. For personal use I intend to use Menuism and Yelp to find local restaurants to try.

For school use, Wetpaint is a hosted wiki site that I will definitely share with the biology teachers. Each year they come to the library with their classes to research genetic diseases. Each student then creates a PowerPoint presentation. This coming year I would like to freshen up the assignment and have the students share their research on a wiki. Wetpaint seems user friendly and provides education templates and tips. Since I couldn't narrow down my choice to one 2.0 site, I must mention The One Million Masterpiece. The goal of this site is to gather artwork from one million contributors. Each creation is a small square created with the site's software. So far they have 28,576 contributions from 174 countries. The goal is to create a snapshot of our global society. It is "a collaboration where everyone is equal, where all outcomes are valid." The site claims that the results will be printed and displayed in some of the most prestigious art galleries. I want to suggest this to the art teachers and the computer teachers. I hope that they will be excited about it!

Thing #20 YouTube, TeacherTube, and Zamzar

This assignment was fun. I discovered so many useful videos for teachers and students to use. I linked to two videos just for your enjoyment. The first is linked directly from YouTube. I converted the second through Zamzar. At this point, I am waiting for the conversion which will be sent to me via email. When I receive it, I will edit this post and include the converted link.

I did receive the converted file, but I can't figure out how to post it to my blog. I can open it and play it, but I don't see any way to grab it and put it here.

Enjoy this video about Bill Gates' retirement from Microsoft.



An oldie but goodie about tech support:








I can't open TeacherTube today. I will try again tomorrow to complete this portion of the assignment.

Having so many clips available is a great opportunity for teachers. Teaching with clips is preferable to using full-length videos. These sources will allow students to find clips that they can use in their presentations. Blinkx returned so many results when I searched for clips related to science. I played with searching for the Three Gorges Dam in China and was amazed at the results. I've already emailed two clips to the Environmental Science teacher.

Thing #18 Online Productivity Tools

After three attempts, I got Open Office loaded. (I believe if was operator error) It is a great tool that offers word processing, spread sheets, presentation software, and technical support. I have many students who do not have Microsoft Word at home, so it is impossible for them to work on their projects outside of school. Since Open Office is free and not licensed, I could give them copies of the program to take home. We have Microsoft Office 2007 on our school computers, and Open Office is not compatible with 2007, but the Microsoft Office 2007 does allow one to work with documents created with 97-2003. The Open Office product is clean and simple to use. Our students are confused by 2007 since they never received training on it. Teachers and staff were offered training, and those of us who took it are still struggling to figure out where things are on that "ribbon"!

I like the fact that Open Office is free, anyone can use it, it can be loaded on as many computers as needed, copies can be burned to CD, and there is a great community out there to support and improve the product.

A minor annoyance for me is that Microsoft Word thinks it knows what I want and provides formatting without being asked. Open Office does not seem to have built-in intuition...and that is good!

Thing #17 Rollyo

I had high hopes for Rollyo. I create genre notebooks for my library in which I put one-page reviews for books. Students flip through the books to find titles that might interest them. I always have two or three websites open at one time while creating these; amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Titlewave by Follett. Having these together in one Searchroll seemed like a real time-saver. I did create my Searchrolls and placed them on the right side of this blog. After trying a few searches, I found the results to be overwhelming. I got pages and pages of results when I searched The Host. I also experienced an error message and had to perform the search again. I will "play" with this for a while, but at the moment it doesn't seem to streamline my searches.

Thing #16 Wikis

This exercise was one of my favorites. I now have several ideas about using wikis with the students for their research. The suggestion about collaborative note-taking with each student adding information about a topic, including the sources of the information, then writing their papers using only the notes on the wiki would work very well with the ESL students.

As I say on just about every post, I hope the students can use wikis on the district computers. Is my frustration with the technology department's blocking everything apparent?

Thing #15 Web 2.0, Library 2.0

The video, "A Vision of Students Today" was interesting. While it has been a very long time since I was an undergraduate, my daughter is a recent college graduate, so I have some idea of what college students are like today. I think that students are the same as they ever were; only the technology has changed. If a student doesn't want to open his expensive textbook, he won't. Other students may find that textbook so interesting that they keep it long past graduation, usually in Mom's and Dad's spare bedroom. Students choose to pay attention in class or they don't. Just yesterday afternoon my daughter stopped by for a visit. She picked up a textbook from her anthropology class and read an essay entitleld, "Hard Times Among the Neanderthals." While reading that essay she was checking her text messages and responding to them. Like one of the students in the video said, she is a multi-tasker. I do hope, however, that we never get rid of classrooms and move to online education exclusively. Human interaction is vital. Learners need to use all of their senses to gather information and process it.

The discussions about Library 2.0 are very exciting to me. We will be able to get information into the hands and minds of so many people. I look forward to the changes in cataloging so that searching for books and other information will be easier for the patrons. Michael Stephens had excellent suggestions for using Web 2.0 tools such as IM, mashups, and MySpace profiles for collaboration, and connecting with users. While I can imagine some wonderful things taking place in school libraries, the reality is that we are prevented from utilizing these wonderful tools. Students and teachers are blocked from images, wikis, blogs, social networks, and email (the students) while at school. Unfortunately, many of my students do not have computers and Internet access at home. We are not preparing them to be successful if we don't provide them with the opportunities to become familiar with the uses of technology.

I loved the end of Dr. Wendy Schultz' comments. She is the futurist who commented on Library 3.0 and Library 4.0. She suggests that there will be a time when people will need or have access to a "knowledge spa: meditation, relaxation, immersion in a luxury of ideas and thought...a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library."