Thing #21 Podcasts and Audio Books

This technology is really cool. I explored Audacity. That was a really cool site. I plan to use this site and make some podcasts with book reviews. There is so much I could do with my middle school students. My microphone for my computer is not working right now so I couldn't add voice to my podcasts. I am looking forward to making podasts for some library lessons. I loved photostory. I can't wait to share this with our middle school broadcast journalism teacher. I was able to create two vidcasts with photostory. I will share the one of the two vidcasts that I shared. The vidcast that I created was about my son's First Holy Communion.

Thing #20 You Tube, Teacher Tube, and Zamzar

I have really enjoyed search You Tube and Teacher Tube. There are some great resources here for teachers and librarians. You do have to take time sifting through videos to find the one that is right for you. The downside is that you may find a video that is good for you but one thing in it doesn't apply to you or your school. You really can't edit it to take the one thing out like you can edit a powerpoint. I think there are great videos that teachers and librarians can use. I thought that some of these can also be used in a training or staff development for teachers. I have found a video on Teacher Tube that I would like to embed into this blog. It is a video about Elementary orientation into the library. I hope you enjoy watching it.

Thing #19 Web 2.0 Awards List

I enjoyed looking at a lot of the awards link from 2.0. I had fun with the fun and games category just playing around but didn't have any thought of how to link it to the library. I also enjoyed istats because I have recently lost 96 pounds and this is a free tool that can be used to track your exercise and work out. Google Earth is a great website. There is so much value to it. Not only is it fun, there is great information available. When a teacher is teaching history, you can visit Google Earth and actually explore the place where students are learning about. There are so many pictures attached to Google Earth that it gives students visuals on what they are learning about. I think it will be a great tool for students and teachers in the library. The other website that I enjoyed was 50 matches. This was a simplified search engine tool. It only allows web sites that have been bookmarked or strongly recommended and it only posts 50 searches. So, you don't have to do a lot of weeding through websites yourself. The only downside I saw to it is that sometimes I didn't get enough from the 50 sites that it chose. There may be too much weeding through of websites. This would definitely be great for younger students who are using the internet for searches. It is a great tool to tell the teachers and technologists about.

Thing #18 - Online Productivity Tools

I went into exploring this activity with a negative mind. I worked for a school district that had went away from Microsoft Office and subscribed the whole district to another tool that was supposed to be interactive. We had a lot of problems with student work created at home that was Microsoft Office with it converting to the other program. Teachers also had problems as well. As you can imagine, it made it hard for me as the librarian and technologists at the time to help people. It was very frustrating. But, I thought I would explore at least one of the free tools. I like the word "free" if really does work. I decided to explore Google docs because I already had a google account. It worked very nicely. I created a spreadsheet and a word document using it and I had no problems. Everything seemed easy. I saved them on my account. Tomorrow is going to be the catch all. I am going to go up to school and try to open these documents and use them at school. I will print them out and see how that works. I felt like it worked nicely and I can store the documents from home on google docs and then open them at school. I still like Microsoft Office because I am so use to it. I don't want anything to go wrong with the two different programs interacting. I would think that it would be the worse disadvantage if there was a problem with the two programs interacting. It will be interesting to see and another tool that we can use.

Thing #17 - Rollyo

I loved the video that one of the Library2Play players made. It made it so much easier to understand. I wasn't sure I was going to like Rollyo but I understood his Teacher Tube video and was able to download some bookmarks, find another persons search and add it to mine, and also make my own searchroll. Here is teh link that I created for my searchroll titled Library Lessons. http://rollyo.com/tfishman/library_lessons/ It was a lot of fun. I would like to add some more of my links and make this available to the teachers. I have a lot of good information that will help students search and get through all of the yuck on the internet.

Thing # 16 - Wikis

I never knew what Wikipedia meant. I always knew that it was an encyclopedia that anyone could contribute to but now I know the underlying meaning behind it. I think Wikis could be of great help for our teachers or our students. There are many wikis that could be set up, either with curriculum or a certain topic. Students could add to the information around a project. Teachers could add to the information around a certain staff development project. I went into the sandbox project and posted a wiki entry. I was able to read some others as well. A lot of the links that were provided while working on Thing #16 were excellent. I especially like Joyce Valenza's posting. I like all of the different wikis that were set up. I liked the book lists that can be added to and changed. I also liked the wikis on podcasts. There are a lot of wikis out there for me that can help me become a better librarian and I can also contribute back to them. But, I would like to set up a wiki this year at our school, maybe try it at the Junior High level with a teacher. We could start a wiki on the Catholic Saints. It would be interesting and fun to try. It will be nice to integrate the technology that I have learned into our school little by little.

Thing # 15 - Web 2.0; Library 2.0

Good Question - What does library 2.0 mean to me or my school? I really enjoyed what Michael Stephens had to say in the article Into a New World of Librarianship. I feel that it is very important to have a user-centered library where users can access the library from school and home. I also feel that the user should be a part of the library planning. It will take collaboration from the user and the library staff to work together to continually change and plan the library to reach the needs of the user. The library should be a place that meets the continual change of people, the web, and technology. We are the providers and we should always be on the cutting edge. It is always my privilege to provide an atmosphere where the user and myself can work together. That is what library 2.0 means to me, everchanging, everserving, evercollaborating, always looking towards the future.