23--I am sadly finished.

I do not want to be done--now I have no "real" excuse to explore. Give us more. This was a great experience. My final comments are posted under "Diana" on the main web page. If I can just remember all that I learned. I am a very hands on and visual person. This was just what I needed. As I worked my way through the "things" I found myself putting them out there for my students to use. I had the tech unblock a site so that my students could use it for what it actually was--not sure he even new that. Fun. What can you do differently--nothing. I only had problems with one or two things and it was probably that I did not give myself the time needed to explore. Life is busy, but this program gave me the opportunity to learn to help others better. Yes.

Thing 22

Web junction and Minitex will be my reminders and trainers. I love this “stuff” I feel it is my job to let kids know what is available and teach them how to use it. If we do not encourage our students to use what is available to them in the technology world, I think we have let them down. I also subscribe to other school media specialist blogs and that helps keep me on track as does the training that I try to attend. I do feel a bit behind however. Thanks for the help.

Thing 21--Other networks

I had the most fun with Web junction. It offered so many things that I can use in the future. I also enjoyed our very own social network...Could we use one in our library--yes--carefully. Would it get out of control--probably--is that a bad thing--depends. I would need to think this over. I am not sure what I am supposed to add to this blog from the nim site--I created my own account and found the network that created the account for this. Any ideas?

Thing 20 Facebook and MySpace

I have had a site on Facebook for almost 4 years now. I love it. It started as a way to communicate with my college – age daughter and now I communicate with family and friends of my family who have accounts. It is wonderful to connect to friends all over the United States and the World. I have posted on walls, added photos, posted comments on friends’ photos etc. The only thing I will not do is allow high school students to have access to my site or be my “friends”. They think it is cool that I have a site—being old and all—but I tell them not to bother to ask—it is just too much of a problem. I don’t want to know!!! Many graduates have added me and that is just fine. I don’t do groups too much either, I like just keeping things basic. I explored MySpace and have a lot before too. I have seen it change and grow—not always to my liking. It has become much more secure and that is good. I think we need to educate our kids more on how to use social networking sites safely instead of taking them away. It is part of my curriculum.

Thing 19 Podcasts

I enjoyed the podcasts from St. Cloud State. It was interesting to hear the challenges of other libraries and the personal perspectives. It would be nice to be able to use them either through the mp3 players or on the net, but again, many are blocked to staff and students. I can understand some of the reasoning. I would like to you books on mp3 players--I think the kids would embrace the technology.

Thing 18YouTube Video post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJlkplvYdgA

Cookie Monster in the library

Thing 18--You Tube

This was a fun thing to do. I watched a video about a library workout--fun and then watched a class about library 2.0. It was very good and informative. I could see using this on the library website to show the development of the media center, locations, etc. It could also be used as a training tool--however it is blocked. TeacherTube has a lot of great videos for educators and is accepted by most servers.

Thing 17--ELM productivity Tools

These are great tools to use. Some are a little confusing, probably because they are different than what I am used to using. I took the challenge ones too this time to see what I could do with those. I got everything to work except the first one..and I still don’t have a clue as to what I am doing wrong. I enjoyed the rest though and only wish that I would have known that those tools existed when doing some extensive research. I will have some students use the tools as well and explain the advantages to college research when they do. Great!

Thing 16--Research calculator

In classes that I teach, my students are required to access and use this information. It teaches planning and shows them that they need to get away from the fly by seat of the pants for research papers and projects. Both tools are extremely useful and linked through the site.

Thing 15 Games

Virtual games seem to be an educational tool that can be used by all. I can see using it in an educational situation. The ideas seem to be easy to relate to. I had problems downloading the information, so found it difficult to work with. It looks to be very interesting.

Thing 14--Library Thing

Neat!! I did not know anything about this and my mind is awash with the possibilities available for its use. It is a great way to offer recommendations to students through acdess to an account for them. I could see one for different reading levels and grade levels or teacher levels..it could go on from there--link to follow--(I forgot my password--grief!!!)

Thing13--Online Productivity Tools

I think the online version of Stikkit is great. I am a post it note fiend, since I can't remember anything for any great amount of time (especially 250 things a day). I already use the Cutepdf converter and have found that to be extremely helpfu especially in school where some online resources are used and we don't want changes made to documents. It is also a paper print saving device. I have a research paper handbook and the kids only needs parts at a time, so no need to format and find the page as in Word, but a quick find in PDF.
I used the iGoogle start page and it was fun to personalize. I won't use it as my home page,because I need too many of the links on my school server page.

Thing 12--Social Media Sites

Wow--this I did not know about--well maybe a little--but not the places to look to find them. It seems like a great way to keep ahead of the stacks of information that is processed each day. This could become a major aid to a researcher and to the media specialist at a school where time is a problem. Great idea for current events and report topics. I see endless possibilities I liked Mixx and Newsvine but not Reddit.

Thing 11 Tagging and Del.icio.us

I am all for organizing now if someone could tell how to keep track of all logins and passwords, I would be set. I was unable to open the podcast. The account I set up has a number of personal uses as well as professional. Researching for students would be a lot better organized if they could access this tool, however the pages are blocked in our system--as are many of the others.

Thing 10 Wikis

In order to teach my students how wikipedia works, I set a wiki and had them use it. Now they understand the reason wikipedia is not such a great resource as they might think it is. None had put 2 and 2 together to understand its concept. I have used wikis and posted to the one here.

Thing 9--Collaboration

Google Docs is a good place to work with a group on a document or a project. This works especially well when the group is not all located where they are easily accessible. I wished that I would have had this when I was in college. I used an invitation version for my online class students to teach them how to access it, build their own account and edit a word document and a powerpoint presentation.

Thing 8

Thumbstacks is a great way f making presentations available to anyone anywhere. It would be a good link to assist students with how to's in the media center through web links. Book recommendations link through shared non-editable databases would assist those who work in the building. I have worked with e-folio before when teaching a unit about career choices and have assisted students with construction. It is a great tool.

Thing 7

The productivity hints for email were very interesting. E-mail is supposed to be a time saver, but I often feel that it consumes my time more than it saves it. I thought the suggestions were very helpful. The school library uses email to communicate with other staff members. We don't have acces to students any longer. We used to have an instant message type of system in the past. It was extremely helpful especially when looking for "lost" books and over due items. I have had my own MSN messenger account for years and have used it extensively for personal reasons. I heistate to use it for school because of some of the problems it my cause. The same goes for my Facebook account. I actually use one of the webinars to teach students in my online class. They use tutorials about ELM.

Thing 6--Online image generator

Online image generator will be an interesting way to add fun sighs ad images to the media center. I can also transfer some to our web page to make it more interesting. I used the dog with Beware of Librarian and posted it on my office door....

Thing 5

I got the calendar to work--my "kids" well, not all of them, just the driver--the others I "adopted"...anyway, I cheated and uploaded from my computer. I could not get it to go any other way. Not sure what I was doing wrong. But at least it worked this way. Lots of cool ideas to use and my mind is racing with ways to use them in school.

Thing 4--Flickr

I uploaded a number of pictures to my account and found that this will be a great way of protecting them from a computer failure--of which my family seems to hold the record. It is also a great way to share with friends from all over. I usually used photoshares with the companies that print pictures and I may still do so. This would also work for my library and help the kids find legal pics to use for projects etc. The big problem is that the site is blocked by our filter as is this blog--thus the many posts in one evening. I like to work on this during my lunch time at work and share what I have learned witht the students. But it does not always link.

Thing 4: Photo

Thing 3 Learning About RSS

This was a little confusing to me and I had difficulty setting up the account. Maybe I just don't understand it as well as I would like to. I can see the purpose of it however. I could easily use it to make access to so many of the places that I go each day a lot easier and quicker. I am using the idea to teach to the kids in my online class. They did not understand the concept at first, but seemed to grasp what was happening a lot quicker than I did at first. RSS would have a place in a school library, but often many places are blocked to us.