It's STILL cold!

It's STILL cold!
Me infront of A library, har har!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

At last....Thing #23!!!!!!!!!

My favorite discoveries were Google Docs, Diigo, and the websites that were made to alter photos. Not only could I see myself using these tools, but I could also see myself using them in the classroom and I could see my students using them at home, and everything is free!

I have not been to college in years and being able to complete this program showed me that even though learning can be challenging at times, it could still be fun, attainable, and empowering. I definitely have a sense of accomplishment and feel that I did not have to be afraid of the new technology that I was about to encounter, it would just be a matter of time before I could completely figure things out and use everything with ease.

I learned about blogs and wikis, things I always knew of but never tried to figure out. I can blog! I can now have my own something online! I will soon be able to post all kinds of things! Each new skill/tool has triggered and rush of ideas to my head!

I’ve never experienced a program or concept such as this. Self-driven learning was induced and with each accomplishment and intrinsic reward was released. I cannot think of anything else that needed to occur. Now that I really now how a program like this operates, I could safely say that I would definitely participate in another discovery program like this one if the opportunity presents itself.

My learning experience in one word? CHIC

Thing #22 Ninging

Ning is  like a cross between a blog, a web page, and a facebook page.  I think that this could be used as an official class page to post work, videos, assignments, thoughts, opinions, and ideas.  It could be used as a wiki amongst faculty and staff for collaborative purposes.

Thing #21 You Want Ice Cream!!!

I love Photostory! It could be used to create book trailers, reports, albums, and my all-time favorite?: Invitations. I created this Photostory invitation for one our committee's socials for the faculty and staff for our school. I got the picture from Microsoft Office and the music from Freeplaymusic.com.

Thing #20 Tubes!


Teacher Tube and Youtube are sites that where people post videos.  Using these sites can be good because they create sharing and learning opportunities.  Unfortunately, these sites could also be used to exploit others.  On Teacher Tube, I found a song about the water cycle and a video that some 3rd graders and their teachers did about their school cafeteria's food.  I'm not sure what happened after she posted it; I still don't know exactly what to say.  I experienced some sort of awkward visual moment.  I did find a nice video about the island of Saint Thomas on Youtube.  Embedding the video was pretty easy, thanks to this assignment!

Thing #19 Lovin' Lulu!

Lulu is the coolest site ever! I’ve always wanted to write some books and publish songs and this, my fellow Flower Sniffers, looks like the easiest way to make it happen! On Lulu, you could sell, publish, and/or even buy books, music, and other things! I still have to do a little research on book-writing, but so far, to me, getting 80% of everything doesn’t sound too bad. Libraries and schools could use this website to publish their own products. That would be neat if it could be used to create products for fundraising! I’ve already created a class magazine with my students, where we handwrote, laminated, and hand-bound everything. It sure would be nice to create something that looks somewhat more professional! This year, I discovered three young writers in my classroom for the first time! I promised them that I would try to figure out what to do with their little series books that they’ve been selling to their friends for 5 and 10 cents! Such young aspiring authors!

Thing #18-Gogle Docs

Wow! Again, I have more reason to appreciate Google. Being that my laptop is only a few months old, I did not want to get download-happy, so instead of downloading Open Office, I chose to check out Google Docs instead.

 I like Google Docs because there literally thousands of different types of templates and formats available. This site encourages and purposely facilitates the execution of sharing. I actually have students that have computers but don’t have Microsoft Office. Instead of my having to try to figure out their Microsoft Works documents or Windows Vista or Office 2007 works, which are not compatible with my school computer, I could just simply direct them to use Google Docs. I think that the different templates stimulate creativity. Another great feature about this program is that it’s free to its users.

The only things that I can see as disadvantages are the simplicity of the toolbar and the mere fact that it is only available to those who have the internet. I’m not sure if it could ever really be available on disc because Google Docs is constantly being updated and amended.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Thing #17-Rollyo; I finally figured it out

Flower's Rollyo

Creating a Rollyo is kind of like crossing an rss feed with a bookmarking site.  Honestly speaking, I think that I may have finally gotten it right after multiple,multiple tries.  To me, the sight was kind of confusing.  As a matter of fact, I'm still  not comletely clear on the exact things that this site does.

Thing #16 Wikis

Posting/editing the sandbox wiki was so easy!  There was a time when I would have been completely confused and in the dark about posting. I have grown in leaps and bounds since the beginning of the semester! 

Wikis are like a continuous, permanent discussion board.  It could definitely be used in the classroom during student presentations, where, during, before, and after each performance, classmates could share their thoughts, opinions, and give constructive feedback.

Thing #15-Librarian 2.0

Come to us, please!!!??!?!?!?! I ,myself, wonder if so much technology will dominate and influence our patrons to the point to where no one needs our help. Many people like to say that nothing can compete with Mama’s homemade______, but because they live by their mother, they settle for store-bought instead. I hope that the “need of the library”-culture could be preserved and maintained. I’ve already heard talk of teachers being replaced by online learning. Could librarians every truly be replaced?


The Librarian 2.0 is kind of like the teacher who works hard to create a learner-centered environment. The librarian works hard to have the needs and desires of their diverse patrons met. Clarification and facilitation are to be the two key goals that drive the librarian into action! By addressing the needs of all of their students, the librarian must be sure that equity for all learners could be achieved.

Thing #14-Technorati

A few weeks ago, before I even got to this post, I stumbled across Technorati; I was trying to find out Toshiba satellite laptop tricks.


I learned a little about my laptop from someone else’s review. Unfortunately, when I performed the keyword search for “school library learning 2.0”, in spite of trying the posts, tags, and directory, I did not find anything. When I looked up kettlebell, 34 blogs came up and no tags or posts popped up.

When I looked for popular blogs, I only found video blogs and tag words. I thought that more detailed information would have popped up, but it didn’t.

We use sticky notes to pinpoint important information. To me, any kind of tag is just fine, because it helps to lessen the amount of searches and time it takes to find information. It could also help someone to mentally and virtually organize information better. It could also help student understand how subtopics, topics, and categories are and how they could be organized. I could definitely see students using these types of websites to help them pinpoint or narrow down their research topics as they relate to teir projects/expereiments.