Thing #23--Copyright, Creative Commons and Congratulations

This course has shown me so many tools that I can use and show others. At first I thought the course would be a breeze because I am technology oriented already but a majority of the items I was not currently using and was flabbergasted with what is out there in tech land. My favorite items were, of course, the blogging information, social bookmarking, rss feeds and wikis. However, it is hard to limit myself to a few of them because I really feel that most of the tools can be incorporated into my library website. Podcasts, audiobooks, flickr, etc... are all items that my middle school students can utilize easily. The teachers in my school are going to love these tools. I can't wait to offer in-services to show them.

The only downfall was the amount of time devoted was way over the 23 hours. Each new tool I would get lost in researching and using and probably spent 2-3 hours on each individual tool. Even though I spent a lot more time on this course then I thought I would it was well worth it and I really enjoyed the class. I would love to keep abreast of any newer technology tools if another course is ever offered.

Now if I can just get our school to unlock the filter so my students can use my blog and some of the other tools at school . . .

Thing #22--E-books and AudioBooks

I've been using NetLibrary for my audiobook download. I like to listen to them while I am in the kitchen cooking since that is the only time my three boys are not harrassing me as much. I would like to try to download an audiobook and have it work through my blue tooth but haven't done that yet. I really like http://www.storylineonline.net from the Screen Actors Guild. The actors read the book, it has captions and sometimes shows the page. I consider it an audiobook and use it with my special education students that I get once a week. They love it and it is something different for them to experience besides having me read to them. The site doesnt have a lot of books yet but the books they provide are pretty good. Give it a try.

Thing #21--Podcasts

Just subscribed to two podcasts that I was interested in--School Library Journals and Hornbook Podcasts. I tried to find podcasts that only dealt with ideas for school libraries but really didn't find anything that fit the bill. I've used podcasts in the past when I could play them in the background while I was doing something else and liked to multitask in that manner.

Would be interested in creating podcasts with my students for book reviews this coming school year. Will have to try it out.

Thing #20--YouTube

This video was so funny. I'm always joking with my students about my blonde tendencies so this will be perfect for my blog. I've used YouTube in the past and haven't uploaded anything yet but enjoy searching and checking the videos out. I do find that I spend a lot of time trying to find what I want because of the vast amount of videos available and the tagging people use. I prefer to use TeacherTube for school related material because YouTube is blocked through our filter at school. The advanced search feature on YouTube will definitely save you time if you put in a few terms to look for and limit showing only videos based on their duration--which I like.

Thing #19--LibraryThing

As you can see to the left I added "my library" from LibraryThing. Huge Dean Koontz fan. I wish that you could click to select more than one book at a time, that is the only con to using LibrayThing. This is a really neat website and if it is easy to do I want to upload my school collection for everyone to use. I liked reading what others said about the books that I have already chosen. It's great to see what others are reading because I want to branch out to different authors and this is a great way to do that. Another great tool!

Thing #18--Online Productivity Tools

I used ZoHo Writer to publish the below scavenger hunt. Not sure how to get it so you can see the whole page but was impressed with the abilities the word processor came with. I am a die hard Word fan and thought the basic features given with ZoHo would be at least a beginners area with my middle school students. One of the things that I liked about Zoho was the fact that you could collaborate online with only the users that you added. This might be a plus with teachers that are hesitant to use wikis. On the downside, it does not import graphics that you may have in your document the greatest. You would have to upload the graphics separately into Zoho to get the same results as your Word document. Overall, it is something that I would love to use at school.

Thing #18--Online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.

SCAVENGER HUNT!

Let’s get to know your library a little better. Just like insects we are going to scatter all over the library to look for these answers. To be successful you are going to have to be like cockroaches and infiltrate every crevice in ??? Library. Your goal is to get all the answers within 30 minutes. If you get all the answers (on your own or with a partner) you will receive a small prize. If you get all of the correct answers and handed in your scavenger hunt the fastest you will receive the grand prize! Good Luck!

Questions	Answers
Locate/Write down the call number to the book titled “Where do they go? Insects In Winter”.
In “Where do they go?...”,besides California, where do butterflies migrate to in the winter?
Locate/Write down the call number to the reference book titled “Facts About The States”.
Using “Facts About The States” what is Nebraska’s State Insect?
Track down the picture book titled “Why Mosquitoes Buzz In People’s Ears”by Verna Aardema. On the cover of the book you will see that an award was given in 1976. What was the award?
There are movies for everyone at the library that can be checked out. List the one that is not lost, is a dvd and deals with an insect that could sting you.
Find the book with the call number 595.709 EVA—What is the title?
Check the indexin the back of 595.709 EVA for the Sowbug Killer and list how it kills its prey.
Using the World Book Dictionary in the reference area, list the pronunciation of an arachnid.
Using the World Book Dictionary again, look up lightning bug and write down the official name.
Find out how long lightning bugs live using theWorld Book of Knowledge.
There are many copies of the Guinness Book Of World Records. Locate the 2008 version in the reference area and list the name of the longest beetle and how big it gets.
Choose one of the books about insects brought from the school library and write down the title.
Library Computer—Open Library Website and click the POWER LIBRARYicon, click on EBSCO FOR ANIMALS, in the find area type INSECTS and press ENTER. Choose one of the insect articles listed and show me.
Use www.google.com and find a picture of any insect you want and show me.

WEBSITES

Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Entomology Insect Illustrations

http://www.life.uiuc.edu/entomology/illustrations.html

Researchers to pay $12 an ounce for fireflies

June 23, 2008 12:06 pm
As the season begins, collectors are looking forward to the prospect of having fun, helping science and earning extra money at the new, higher price of 42 cents per gram or $12 per ounce (approximately $1.65 per 100 bugs). Scientists at the Promega Biosciences in San Luis Obispo, CA, use the insects for public health safety testing of food. For more information, please contact the Firefly Project, c/o 122 Emory Lane, Oak Ridge, TN 37830 or call 1-888-520-1272. The e-mail address is fireflyproject@yahoo.com.

University of Florida Insect Records

http://ufbir.ifas.ufl.edu/

Nature Recordings and Pictures

http://www.naturesongs.com/

Iowa State University's Tasty Insect Recipes

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood.html

Central Pets How To Care For Insects

http://www.centralpets.com/pages/insects/insects.html

Clemson University Arthropod Museum

http://entweb.clemson.edu/museum/

Insectclopedia

http://www.insectclopedia.com/

Insect Game—Bug on a Wire

http://www.miniclip.com/games/bug-on-a-wire/en/

Thing #17--Add an entry to "Sandbox" Wiki

Just got done adding an entry to a wiki and found it really easy to do. I am overwhelmed by the ideas (almost 60 of them) about how to use wikis in the classroom. I have an inservice that I need to start preparing for in late August and am wondering if I should talk about RSS Feeds or Wikis. I think the teachers will like the control of the RSS Feeds over the Wikis but would like the Wikis over the RSS Feeds for collaboration with the students on projects. Have to research it further to see what I am going to do.

Thing #16--Wikis and how libraries are using them

My favorite wiki that was in the list was the Library Instruction Wiki. This wiki has tons of stuff for all types of librarians. I like the fact that there is a place where many contributors have added/deleted information for others to use. However, I do have two questions. How large of a file can you upload? And, if you want to use it for a school project can you limit the users that can add information?

My current website can only have files of less than 2.0 mb uploaded. Heck, some of my powerpoints and flip videos I created are well over that limit. Using a wiki to post my resources would be a great service to my school library--especially for the booktalks that my students will be creating this coming school year. The only thing that I am concerned with is the privacy issue. While I think it admirable that a student can submit a booktalk, edit it later at home and then resubmit a better version, I worry about the types of vandalism that could occur.

If I create a link to the wiki on my website and offensive material is placed on the wiki then I would be held accountable and my website would be filtered from school use. This is something that I definitely don't want to happen.

I can see teachers using this to give information to students and to create online courses but I would have to create an actual wiki to see how much work is involved and to also see how limits could be set so it is not vandalized. Some of the wikis had content that was not updated because of the vandalism factor and the information was then posted on a blog or website.

I would like to use a wiki to post all my handouts, booktalks, and videos for the students. This might enable me to have more room on my website for other services that I can offer the students too.

Thing #15--Perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries

Into a new world of librarianship--

In this article Michael Stephens discusses the ways that librarians can sharpen their technology skills and library services offered to their patrons. While most people think that Library 2.0 encompasses only technology trends there are other facets that need to be evaluated. Are we meeting the needs of our patrons? Are we providing the services from past years in newer, more efficient/effective ways while adding new ideas and materials?

Listening to your staff, patrons and community members will help a librarian figure out what services are needed. Using Instant Messaging, wikis, blogs, mashups, social networks, etc... are all the current trends but to decipher what is really going to benefit your patrons is what is most important. Staying current doesn't mean that every new technology will work for your library.

While I agree with the jest of the article it is hard to acquire newer, more efficient and cutting edge technology on a school or even a small-town public library budget. What will work on my home computer may be blocked at school through the filter. A growing majority of our students have more technology at home and know how to use it more efficiently than our teachers because we are two years behind in purchasing or updating our equipment.

I am constantly researching new technologies to make my library run smoother and more welcoming for our technology savy students but it takes a lot of work to find "free" tools that our school will allow our overworked technology department to download into my library lab. I try to give training sessions on anything new that I think our teachers could benefit from using in the classroom as much as I can and this class has shown me a lot of neat tools they can use. Now I just need to get them to come to the library for an interactive look and hope they like them as much as I have.

Thing #14 Exploring Technorati and learning how tags work with blog posts

Since I am new to posting to my blog I was not worried about tagging my writings to reflect the information in my blog for others to read if they wanted. I signed up for Technorati but have not seen any of my posts so far but I was searching their site and found other sites to review.

It is hard to search for noteworthy information at times. Some sites hit the mark with information and then others have not posted in a while. Blogging is great at times but it seems to me that everyone is starting to do it and then how do I tailor the search to limit what I see and then how relevant is it to my project?

For example, I searched for "middle school library" or "middle school libraries" and came up with a lot of blogs. Out of the hundreds that appeared only two gave me information that I could use to help my library. How many hours did I spend on this . . . 3.5!

Thing #13--Learning about tagging and discovering Del.icio.us and other bookmarking sites

Unfortunately, Del.icio.us is blocked through our Intermediate Unit for our viewing at our school. This was horrible because my Library Resources page on my website was getting too long and the sites I had listed there for others to use were wreaking havoc on code and not displaying correctly.

I searched a lot of bookmarking websites to see if I could have one place where my students could go for my resources and found mister-wong (http://www.mister-wong.com/user/jgpotts/). I love the fact that the students can use a tag cloud to locate terms that they would like to search for. Before they would have to click a few items to get to what they wanted but now they can either click on the cloud or go to my bookmarks and type in the title. So far, this has not been filtered out at our school. Mister-Wong is very easy to use and the tech people get back to you ASAP.

I add sites to my favorites but I also add them to mister-wong. Or, you can upload all at one time, weekly, monthly, etc...

I love it.

Thing #12--Rollyo

http://www.rollyo.com/lamslibrarylady/lams_library_tools/ is my Rollyo Search. On my website (www.lamslibrary.org) I found websites to help teachers, other librarians and students with their information gathering. What I like about Rollyo is its ability to grab your search term and place it in the right area on the sites listed in your own personal searchroll. What is the difference with Rollyo and a bookmarking site? The bookmarking site lists your favorite sites for all to see and use. The Rollyo site will search those sites automatically (or any site you list) and give you the results. Now I did notice that it didn't pick up on all the sites I gave but it did search a majority of them. This can help in research projects where similar sites are used to gather information. For example: when I give information literacy instruction to my students I always give them a list of sites to use, starting with the most important first, (Power Library, Grolier, Netrekker and Mister-Wong (my bookmarking site), and sites tailored to middle school researching. Now I can still give them that list but explain that some sites for researching can be accessed all at one time by using Rollyo.

I am not sure if this is something I would use until the bugs are out of the system. What I do now is when a teacher comes in for research and gives me their list of websites that they want the students to use I place this information on my website under the teacher's name. So the students would go to my website, click on Library Resources and then click on Presentation Materials. I still tell them to go to Power Library, etc... but then they would also go to the resources that the teacher listed.

Thing #11--Explore Web 2.0 Applications and Ning

Can I just say WOW on using Picasa http://picasa.google.com/. This is another wonderful feature made by Google. You do need to download it (free) and load it into your computer with a few quick steps. When you open the program it instantly locates and organizes all the pictures on your computer. You can then edit them as you normally would with other Picture Editors with a lot of options to use.

One of my favorite things is the collage feature. You select your pictures you want to use and then click on collage and it puts them together automatically for you. (example on the left). You can also create a poster, screensavers, make your pictures into movies, etc...

You really have to try it out to see all the neat features it has. I took a whole bunch of still images from movies that have libraries in them and put together the collage. Maybe I'll enlarge it as a poster and have it as a quiz for the students when they enter the library to see how many movies they can guess on the poster for a small prize.

Thing #10--Online Image Generator

I used http://www.imagechef.com to create this picture. It has tons of options that you can do to pictures. A big plus for me also was the fact that there was not a lot of inappropriate advertising on the page. My middle school students can login to this site and use it with very little instruction.

Very easy to use and you didn't have to sign in. A majority of the other "free" image generators an email address is needed to create a user account. The less email I receive from sites I use infrequently--the better.

Thing #9--Useful School Library/News Blogs

I typed "school library grants" for each blog search tool that was listed and out of all the resources given for help in locating blogs on the net there were three that stood out for me: Topix.net--interesting because of the local news, Google Blog Search--very ease to use and Blog Pulse--targeted what was being blogged about at that current time and helped with a few blogs that could give further information about grants.

The others were okay but I found myself overwhelmed with the searching of information when you did pop up a blog. Just like clicking on link after link after link on a website because you get sidetracked I found myself doing the same thing with many of the blogs.

I did find a blog called newtoolsforschoollibrarianship which was created by someone on the School Library Learning Team and thought the blog was very informative. I added it to my Google Reader to keep abreast of anything new going on in the field.

Thing #8 RSS Feeds

Just set up some RSS Feeds through Google Reader and really like the amount of time it will save me. Now I can check for library grants, favorite quotes, TeacherTube, new Web 2.0 tools and look at my social bookmarking site I use all in one area. Talk about time saver. Using this tool at school can show others how to bring all their favorite websites that they check daily to one location. At first I didn't even want to bother with RSS Feeds because I thought it would be too cumbersome but now that I got the hang of it I am only frustrated that a few websites I really would have liked to add didn't have the capability to RSS yet!