Summing it all up...Learning 2.0

Lifelong Learning I liked the ideas I could understand in the presentation and they mirror what I have learned about reading and language acquisition in my master's program so I think that it is important to try new things and be learning in different ways. I think it is good for students to see adults as lifelong learners also. I am excited to try new things. Blogging I have changed my mind about some blogging. I got my undergrad degree in journalism and love to read well-written work. A lot of blogs are not well-written and there is a lot of blather out there. I was anti-blog but found that there are great blogs by some well-known and lesser-known writers. So like everything, I guess it boils down to finding what you like and I found several blogs I am following loosely now. Photos and images This is my strong point. I have published photos in several national magazines and I love photography. I have used a lot of photo-editing software and used sites like PhotoBucket for years and years. I like some more than others but love the cool effects and things you can do. I am getting better at using brushes and though I am just a dabbling amateur, it is interesting and there are lots of videos online to help improve photography skills. Wikis I was enthusiastic about the Wiki but it won't work for me. So I am trying to regroup and create a Google Docs account that will hold all of my important documents. The wiki is a good idea if others are willing to contribute but my school decided it was too much work. So I am moving my concept of what I wanted. After playing with Google Docs, I wish I had worked with that and had that option instead. Skype It was interesting. I would use it more if I had friends in foreign countries or out of the area. I may get a camera so we can Skype in an author visit. I am really liking writers@random and Scholastic for their short author videocasts. Play! Again I like images and my bookshelf so this was fun. Kind of interesting. Social Bookmarking I am not a book marker. So far, I am also not a social book marker but I will have to play with it more over the summer as I have time. I want to integrate some of my lessons with online tools and sites so it may be a cool thing with the mobile lab. RSS, Newsreaders Not as into newsreaders because I don't have tons of time. I guess I am a go when the "spirit" moves me to read and research. I am kind of old school and love the newspaper...I love the smell of ink and worked at a newspaper for years. Twitter Ah, Twitter. Ah, tweets. It makes me feel like a twit actually. I am not sure I like the shorthand and hash tags associated with it. It almost seems unreadable. I got on a few famous people's twitter feeds. Duane "the Rock" Johnson is as boring as anyone else though he is in better shape. He is cute. That is all I know. Spring Break I loved spring break. Online Video Watched these a ton before the assignment. I like book trailers. I like youtube videos that are instructional, about teaching and books and done by authors and how-to videos, especially book repairs. Who knew I would be a book repair junkie? And I have to listen to a little SheDaisy while I cruise youtube. Podcasting Still on the fence about podcasting. My main experience was a little boring though it had such promise (personal journal podcasting). I have listened to some NPR podcasts and KSL does one with Doug Wright since to try again. I am unmoved by the appeal of podcasts. It may be my job. After meeting the needs of 250-350 students in a day and hearing their stories, book reviews and ideas, I like a wee bit of silence. I was raised on a ranch in a remote area so a podcast of quiet and a cricket may be what I need. Tag Clouds WORDLE Wow. This was the most frustrating of the learning 2.0 assignments and it leads me to something. I couldn't find very well written help instructions on several sites (Skype, Wordle and Podcasting) I had to go to youtube or google and find instructions and those sites need a bit of help writing clear, concise instructions. If these services want digital immigrants to catch onto their techy sites, products or ideas they should make it clear and easy, not frustrating. I didn't like Wordle after I had to wrestle it to the ground and go to another computer. Google Docs I like Google Docs. I think that it will be a doable change for the documents and collaboration that I am trying to organize for my school. I think it will be tough to move around from school to school as I get working but I will get going with my ideas and add a few new things each year. ONE LAST THING I love funbrain, Poptropica and several of the other sites listed here. I am heavily into using the free sites think that there is value in students exploring the web on safe sites as well. I will continue to work on sites like webgarden for web questing and others. I know that teacher/librarians are fabulous to share ideas and resources to help each other and that is a great thing. Other things to try I have tried many and will work on them all over the summer as time permits. It will be my first break in 18 months that I am not attending two schools and I will have some time to lesson plan. I liked the challenge and learned some new things. There are other sites and skills I want to work on gaining like QR codes. I think it will also help to have an open mind and conceive ideas as libraries evolve.

Google Docs and a survey...

My school just switched to Google Docs so here is a program I can use. I am also moving some of my email accounts. I have five with college, work, college, personal and family and that is too much information to sanely manage. So I am excited about the uses for Google Docs and liked the tutorials though they were a little basic. I created this survey and hope it works: If not, I shall eat my hat since I have tried sending it about 4 times and had little luck. My Google Doc wouldn't attach to the canvas account but it may be some type of issue since it is a work account. There is no access to my work but I think that as I continue to learn Google Docs, it will be easier. I like the calendar feature. I can see it for lesson planning. Thanks for your patience ladies...survey information to come. Michele

WORDLE

Wordle.... I am not sure how I feel about Wordle. It was okay once I got it working but it took 3 days, 4 people and three computers before we could get everything configured and done. The process was so frustrating, that it isn't something that I would revisit a lot. I have read and reread the help section and done the problem solving ideas. I enjoy graphics and have done a lot in several other programs that seemed more user friendly. Again our resident Techspurt, Jen VanHaaften, said she sends it to her nieces and nephews for birthdays. They can print it out and mount it. My first few attempts were in odd fonts and hardly readable. Then it took names and put the first name no where near the last name even though I gave them different lines. As signs go, it is a new and different approach. I kind of like the final version. Wordle...

Podcasts...

So I found one that was interesting. It is called an Old Fashioned Girl by Cara at anoldfashionedgirlcara@gmail.com. She talks about being a girl/woman and what makes it interesting to her. I am not sure I would have listened but the title is one of Louisa May Alcott’s books and I liked that book when I was younger. I was interested in the personal journal podcasts. That seems like an interesting genre and fictional journals are so hot now. Not so much with this one which was disappointing. Cara talked about what she did for Easter and that she made a ham. I can do those things. It isn’t wildly interesting to me. She also does another podcast called Stars Hollow with her husband, which is about the Gilmore Girls. I don’t find that interesting. Most of her first entry was about liking coffee, not tea. She likes Belgian Truffle coffee. She wanted to wear her new shoes and now that she has moved from California to Wisconsin, she is contemplating wearing wedge shoes. She is going to wear them because they are “bejeweled with brocade” and she bought them “online”. Next time I will go for a Ted Talk if I ever podcast again. If any of you would like the priviledge…http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/an-old-fashioned-girl/id149202010. Not my cup of tea or coffee, but I don’t drink those. Not my cup of Stephen’s Raspberry Cocoa either. But I applaud her courage in trying to share ideas even if I wasn't her target audience with content.

I love to repair books...everyone has a fettish

I am sure that everyone has something. Emalda Marcos had shoes. For a librarian you would think it would be books. For me it is book repairs. In my free time, which I haven't had for a while, I love to reclaim old books. I have altered them, read them and often repair them too. Here is a favorite repair link.

Twitter...

Sarah Milstein's article on Twitter for Libraries (and Librarians) at states "For example, a library could share all kinds of news that patrons want. Short messages can tell people about events such as readings, lectures, and book sales; newly available resources; or changes in the building hours. One message a day or one a week could share a tip on finding or accessing information online or in the building. Twitter posts can link to interesting news stories about literacy or about libraries. When appropriate, the posts can link to a library’s own website and blog for more in-depth information." With all that in mind... I am not a Twitter girl. I joined Twitter a couple of years ago and couldn’t really find a use for it. As a children’s librarian, it may be something I would work toward in the future. I really liked Jen’s library tweets so it may be something that I use if I moved to a school with older students. The tweets that I read directed me back to websites for the actual articles so it is just a type of advertising shorthand to me. I don’t have any friends, family or kids that tweet…so I will let that one just ruminate. Tyler Whitesides is coming to my school tomorrow so for his visit I send out a parent email, added the notice to the parent newsletter and created a slideshow with pages from his book and info about him that ran in the affected classrooms on their SmartBoards and on the bigscreen by the school office. I can see a lot of use for social media, especially for library content and advertising. Twitter just isn’t my personal choice.

News reader...whose blog am I reading?

So I wrote this post and it didn't publish. So I am rewriting. I don't follow tons of bloggers or library blogs. One I do like is Shannon Johns. She is a local librarian at Centennial Jr. High in Kaysville. She found that Hunger Games was more popular than this year's Newbery winner. She ran a fun March Madness style game letting students read and vote to find the Newbery. I love Newbery's and often like the honors as well as the winner. Last year's winner is amazing. Moon Over Manifest is a fabulous book. It has deep, well-conceived characters and a really interesting plot. You can find Shannon's website at this address: I also love the Dewey blog at: It sounds so nerdy to love Dewey but sometimes I don't understand why they classify as they do and so I have a lot to learn and this is interesting to me. I also like The idea of open source libraries is intriguing to me. I also like her take on technologies. I bookmarked a bunch of blogs that were interesting including: Shannon Hale Heather Brewer and my favorite writer's blog...Laurie Halse Anderson Lot's of good stuff to read as I get time...

More on Blog Following and News Feeds

Blogs I am following: I found a fun blog by a librarian who really loves to try techy stuff online and one I met in real life. I am interested in Open Source and the idea behind it since I read an article about a district in Iowa that is not using textbooks anymore. Teachers from the district took the common core, downloaded their best lesson plans, links, information and ideas and created their own textbooks and it is trending slowly across education. In the past textbooks have been expensive, sometimes biased and often off-target meeting the needs of students. Much of their information was affected by the opinions and ideas of the publishers and with few publishers and not much to choose from, it became a problem. Also larger states and districts had a lot of pull in what was in the books. Open source teaching is an idea whose time has come. Teachers and librarians can pull from current, relevant resources and ideas and help students make connections to their real lives. I also like My other site is Shannon Johns school website for her library. She did a sweet 16 reading contest in March that shadowed March Madness to have students read the books the Newbery committee would have been considering. She also followed the similar contest online where writers read the books and chose their favorites to move ahead for the final four and winner. Their school found what I have found with my older students, that Hunger Games is still king and the newbery winner will take a while to click. I have loved past winners and honor books--Moon Over Manifest is an amazing period book with really good writing and very well-developed characters.

So next we explore Newsreader… It seemed like a simple process and helpful. I don't follow many websites because I don't have the time to read it all. This seemed like a great way to pair it down and follow at my convenience. However, I went to site after site and couldn't find the icon at the bottom. I couldn't find it on the ALA site, or AASL hotlinks, I couldn't find it on the Newbery Award site with committee information. I did find it at ksl.com and was excited to see that they would let me follow by type of news. I opted in for national and local news but not sports, since I don't need that feed. And that seemed really interesting. I did find a link to join the AASL wiki at: I also think that I would spend time at this website and found that some of the newsreader links were bookmarks or attached to my yahoo account. Someday, I hope that instead of having to login to tons of sites, you would have a master site you could login to everything and personalize it to meet your needs. As I played, I joined Google+ but don't spend much time watching entertainment. I opted in for National News and Politics, since it is an election year. All of that information is with my email account on Google however. I am interested to explore more as I have time over the summer.

More learning...more ideas Diigo, Technorati and more...

So I explored Diigo which did have some interesting tools like highlighting and post-its. I am already synced with FireFox so I won't use it to duplicate the bookmarks I have listed. I have tons of bookmarks.

Diigo has interesting uses and I explored the education area and found ideas on reading and writing and read an article "What parents should know about 21st Century learning" which had good ideas. They talked a lot about using Skype in the classroom. It also had a short article on using World of Warcraft in the classroom. I wouldn't consider that but it is an idea and could be good for engaging boys in an assignment. Most of the parents posts were interesting but several were in Spanish. I could read those too, though one made no sense and looked like code-- OLE!

Technorati was also interesting. I am not sure what constitutes a lot but there were hundreds of blogs about every subject and popular subjects like autos had thousands of blogs. The smallest numbers of blogs were for sports with tennis and hockey having fewest blogs, tennis had 882. That seems like a lot of info about tennis to me however.

Information Tech had 35901 entries for blogs with them divided. I think it is amazing that there are nearly 13,000 about gadgets alone.

• Info Tech (23674)
• Gadgets (12889)


Read more: http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/#ixzz1rC5lXBqe

I looked up scrapbooking and found 1779 blogs. Most are for companies and businesses which makes it feel a little more like advertising. I don't mind that personally if they are up front about it and not trying to sneak it in like they are just newsy about such topics.

What categories are lacking? I am not sure. Since blogs are started by businesses and individuals who just want to share about an interest, it seems like those things would rule how much a topic is written about and how many blogs it attracts. I tried out the blog posts search tool as well and only got 3 items so the tool really narrows down the subject. I am sure all 1779 blogs talk about scrapbooking but may not use that term (it comes up as a spelling typo when you type it). So if you were looking for something very specific, it could really save you time. It may also miss information since it is just looking for a specific term and if you speak in general, not specific terms, it could be overlooked.

Christopher Harris in School Library Journal May 2006 stated, "Redefining the school library is not a response to some inherent failure on the part of the institution. It’s an opportunity for library professionals to engage in some exciting activities that will enable our institutions to remain effective in the midst of fast-moving technological change. It was school libraries, in fact, that led the way in the first wave that brought computers and then the Internet into our classrooms. This is about adapting, once again, to a new, perhaps even more compelling digital revolution, in which powerful new ideas are enhancing the way in which we function in an electronic information environment."

I am breaking it down one step at a time. The article talks about using a variety of ideas and technologies in the classroom. One that it mentions is using a blog or wiki with the class. My experience in INST 6030 has been that it is a good outlet and tool for writing. I took a class that was considered digital hybrid. It was half in-class and half online and I like it the best personally. We had a discussion board that was much more interactive than the blogs seem to be. You can discuss with everyone in one place at one time instead of having the discipline to skip all around looking for the blogs. It also encourages discussion. Attending the class half of the time keeps the deadlines clipping along and I have liked those classes very much. One of my professors who taught the hybrid class started every session with a synthesis of comments that had been on the discussion. It was a great way to really digest the information.

It also discussed the fixed vs. flexible schedule in the library. I agree to a point. Mrs. Jones may be in the library with second graders but unless they are doing self-checkout, the librarian is still needed. That is a lot of small people with tons of reference questions and they are still best served by the librarian.

I like the idea of Skyping with an author. I would need a bigger space to do and a camera. I think it would be great for writing centers to have an author presentation and have used recorded ones from writers@random and scholatic's websites.

The idea of moving the library is also interesting and works well. I go into classrooms with the portable computer lab to teach use of public pioneer, research tools including the Big 6 with topic research and when we go web questing. Being portable, adaptable and relevant help us as librarians to meet the needs of our students. I think that as we move forward, more technology will be integrated into learning and we will need to adapt. My concerns prompted by working with students and feedback from the librarian at Centennial Jr. High in Kaysville are two-fold. First we need to teach students to focus and use online time wisely. All year, their school has had problems with students hacking through the firewall to play games instead of study. Secondly, we need to teach students how to work effectively and know how to find accurate, reliable information. There are so many sites and they need to know how to negotiate information that is growing exponentially and it is a huge task to navigate it intelligently.

I liked the article by the way and you can find it on the School Library Journal website.