Thing 23: Reflection

My favorite thing was Image Generators especialy Big Huge Labs.
My least favorite thing was Digg. I didn't like Digg for professional purposes because there is too much information that comes up that would be inappropriate for my students to see.
The most challenging thing for me was LibraryThing. I had a hard time using this at first and seeing the value in it. Thanks to other people's comments and reading other blogs I see what a valuable tool this can be.
I finally truly understand web 2.0 to the point that I can explain it and find tools that fit it.
This year I hope to use Image Generators, Library Thing, podcasts, wikis, and Flickr. i would also like to create a library introduction video using youtube.

I have enjoyed working through 23 things. Thank you so much for organizing this for us! It was a great experience!!!

Thing 22: My own 23 things

I loved doing the 23 things. I have learned so much. I work at an elementary library and so I don't have a staff. I would love to see our librarians throughout our district do a 23 things or our teachers at my school. I have learned so much that I would love to share as well as things that other librarians have shown me but I haven't gotten to teach my teachers.

I want to teach them what is web 2.0, Flickr, Flickr mashups, Image Generators, Delicious, Blogs, wikis, google docs, poll everywhere (www.polleverywhere.com), blabberize (http://blabberize.com), wordle, discovery educator network (DEN) and comic strip generator (I think this would be good for teaching vocabulary). I can't wait to develop my own 23 things and be able to teach my colleagues the great tools that are out there for them to use.

Thing 21: Podcasts

I have always used audacity. I had no idea there were so many programs for recording podcasts. I wish there was some sort of library list of podcasts for books. We create them but it would be so nice to have one central place to put them so that anyone could use them and we could use theirs. I found that the sites that were listed on our 23 things site were even difficult to navigate and find what I was looking for.
Our middle school librarians in our district have made their own lone star reading list and they create a podcast for each book on that list to try to get students to read them. I think they have done a fabulous job so I just wanted to share their work!

Texas Star Booktalks

Thing 20: You Tube

I am familiar with youtube and use it often along with tangle and teachertube. When I was in college we had to do a library lesson and post it to youtube.

I began looking at Texas libraries and saw book cart drills which was fun but I wouldn't use it...
Then I looked at elementary libraries and saw some tours. But one video caught my attention becuase it was a scene from a author visit at a school. So this gave me the idea to look for videos I could use for authors. My first grade teachers at school do a great job with author studies so I found some videos for them....
Todd Parr

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Eric Carle Interview

Robert Munsch Interview

Thing 19: Google Docs

My only experience with google docs was when one of our librarians took the time to put all of our collaboration files on there. She spent a lot of time doing it and then was told we were going to be moving to blackboard. The problem was that google docs wouldn't upload publisher files. I think that's interesting since it is one of the office programs. This is a very nice way to allow people to access information. I like that you can allow people to view only or view and edit files.

This would be a good way for our prinicpals to post information and have teachers access it and add information. In the library the only real reason I see so far to use it would be to collaborate with others.

Thing 18: Wiki's

I have worked in wikis without knowing what they were. I like that anyone can add to these if they are set up correctly. I think this would be an interesting way to have students write poetry, creative writing, even book reviews for a classroom teacher to grade. It would be nice to be able to log in from anywhere and grade them. I need practice in setting up a wiki so I could do it myself or help a teacher do it.
I know we can use wetpaint are there other sites that are even easier to use for creating wikis?

Thing 17 LibWorm

This is also a new tool for me. There were some links that were no longer working. In fact the first three I chose were that way...but then it got better. I had a hard time locating what I was looking for. I am not sure how to narrow down my search enough using LibWorm. I had a hard time locating useful information about the topics I searched for.

Thing 16 LibraryThing

LibraryThing has some neat discussions going on. Other than that I didn't see a whole lot that I would want to use. I do like that I can put inmy location and see upcoming events. That might be beneficial too....time will tell....
Did someone else find some part of this really useful for them? Please share, I feel like I must have missed something!

Thing 15 Digg

I have never heard of Digg before so this was a NEW experience!

An interesting new title I read..."Women spend nearly one year deciding what to wear"
Yes ladies, that's right.... according to a UK newspaper the average woman spends approximately 287 days choosing clothes during the course of their life time....

Another neat title: "The 10 coolest Things We Saw at the MythBusters Studio"
http://www.maclife.com/article/feature/10_coolest_things_we_saw_mythbusters_studio_0?page=0%2C0

The only problem with this site is that it is really easy to find content that is not appropriate for younger eyes. I work in an elementary school and I would have to mark the links I wanted and not use the actual digg site to show information becuase it seems like on every page there is an inappropriate link or inappropriate picture.

Thing 14 Delicious

I had seen delicious before but I had never created an account because I always saved library links at work and personal links at home. With so many of these new tools we have learned with the 23 things I have several tools I want to be able to use anytime. Now I can see how delicious will help me....and it will save me the frustration of not having the work link at home and the home link at work....

Here is my delicious page:
http://delicious.com/greenstephanie80