Thing #8 - RSS Feeds

I didn't even know what an RSS feed was. The intro video was very interesting as well as the article. I did set up a google reader. By far, this has been the hardest yet. It took me awhile to understand it and work through it. But now, I am excited. I already have a bunch of blogs listed on my google reader. Today, I was looking at something on the Library of Congress website and saw the RSS symbol. I was excited because I knew what it was and was ready to add it to my Google reader site. I think this allows me to have everything in one spot and will save me so much time. I also feel that the blogs/news/sites that I have listed in my Google reader will be used more because I find it easier to go to one place. I think it will be nice if I can set this up and use the Share with Friends tool so that I can share it with other librarians or teachers. It would be a great way to share curriculum. I also feel that you could use this for book reviews. I feel really smart today because I learned something new!

Thing # 7 - Google Tools

I thorougly enjoyed exploring the google tools. The two things that I explored further were the google alerts and the igoogle homepage. I set up some alerts to my email and I will see if they begin to show up. One of my alerts was dealing with health and the other alert was dealing with sports. I really enjoyed igoogle. I was able to explore the fun tools and set up my homepage. There is so much you can add and enjoy. I really enjoyed the Atomic Learning homepage. I am going to show it to our technologist to see if there is any information that can help our teachers. As an education tool, google notebook and google documents can be used. You can actually set up one of these accounts for a class. I am concerned because our school is so strict on internet use that we would have to monitor the use of these tools. Google Scholar is something I will share with our literature teachers. There is a wealth of information out there for them. I have used google advanced before but never realized you could search by file type. I was able to do that and found some great powerpoints that I could use with my classes. There is a wealth of information here to help me as a librarian and our school in technology.

Thing #6 - Mashups and 3rd Party Sites

Wow! Mashups are fun! I especially liked the Big Huge labs fun toys. I never had even heard of a mashup. I learned that it is taking a site and matching up some of its applications with applications from another site. I liked bubblr where you can take pictures from Flickr and match up bubble cartoon writing with the pictures. Students can use these as a writing activity. There are endless opportunities that students as well as teachers can use as tools. I was able to make a trading card. Students can make trading cards as their book report. Students could make movies telling about books. Students could use many of the applications in order to do multimedia projects. I think that this would be a great acitivity to share with teachers as well as the students. I could always make posters, jigsaw puzzles, etc and use as teaching tools. I look forward to using many of these mashup sites during my lessons this year.

Thing #5 - Flickr

I thoroughly enjoyed exploring Flickr. There is so much that we can use with our students and faculty. I love looking through all of the creative commons pictures. I found myself looking for relaxing and nature pictures. I used a picture of books because that is what I have been doing all summer, catching up on my reading. I can't wait to show people at school how we can use Flickr. I spent a lot of time enjoying the pictures and I know I will spend more time looking through them.

Love to Read

Thing #4 - Joining the program

I was able to get my blog registered and was accepted into the program. I am really excited to learn all of the 2.0 web technologies. I feel that I will learn a lot through Library2Play and will have a lot to share with my faculty and students in the fall.

Love to Read