Thing # 22 - Ning, nang, and ping

I have been a member of both the TeacherLibrarian Ning and the TexasSchoolLibrarians Ning for at least a year, so I know a good bit about them. I think that Nings are a wonderful way to collaborate with others in your profession from all over the world. When the last Harry Potter book came out, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the TeacherLibrarian Ning had a discussion group totally devoted to discussing the book and the ending of the series. It was awesome! I got to share my ideas and thoughts about the book with librarians all over the world and read what they thought about the book! The Teacher Ning was great, I liked that it was split by grade levels and that you could join discussions that directly related to problems and ideas that you would deal with on a daily basis.

For me Nings are a wonderful example of the potential collaboration that the web currently offers! I am SOOOOOOO glad I live in today technological revolution ---- what a great time to be a teacher and a librarian!

Thing # 21 - Pods, casts, vods, and more!

I have been playing around with Podcasts and Vidoecasts for a couple of years now, and I believe that they have unlimited potential in the educational setting, especially in elementary! What a wonderful way for students to show what they have learned about a topic AND using technology for the final product!

Anyway, the thing about blogs and podcasts that is frustrating is that you can't directly load an audio file into a blog, so you have to have a place to host or keep your audio file or podcast, or you have to do a photostory. The file below is one I created when teaching a class on podcasts and videocasts, it is on the Alamo and instead of talking through the pictures I put in background music.

As a side note; in the previous "Thing" I did find a website that will "host" your podcasts and you can link from there, so there is a way to do it, it's just not easy!

Here is my pod/videocast:

Thing # 19 - And the award goes to.......

There were so many options!!! It was really hard to choose, but since I have done a lot with podcasting I picked Odeo to explore first. It is a site where you can store a list of podcasts for future listening and search other podcasts to find ones you want to hear. You had to register, it was free, but you did need to sign up. I thought at first that I would be able to upload podcasts I had created there, but for that they suggest you use one of two sites where you can upload and save your podcasts, so I went to Switchpod and registered for the free service that will allow you to upload 450 mb of audio files. Here is the link to my son's book review podcast that I uploaded;

Your podcast url:http://www.switchpod.com/users/philippi/Johnreview.wav

I also took a look at YourMinis, this site has a collection of Widgets that you can add to your blog, webpage, or Google page. It has everything from a weather widget, quote of the day, calendars, and even YouTube videos. I have just started playing with Widgets so this one was pretty fun for me!



I also looked at Farecast, a travel site. Our family goes to visit my inlaws twice a year and occasionally we do get a real family vacation, so this was a great site for me to keep an eye on the price of flights to New Jersey, and prices for Disney trips!

Thing # 18 - Online tools, or Can we really get it free???

I tried both of the word processing tools mentioned. I found that OpenOffice took a good bit of time to download but was useful when I got it loaded. I was however VERY impressed with the ease and simplicity of GoogleDocs. I also liked the way that you can share and edit documents with GoogleDocs. I have used GoogleDocs with a class that I am currently auditing, all of the students are located in different parts of the state and the U. S. and we were able to take a document and all look at it and make our comments and edits in one place without the hassle of emailing and sending a document all around to get the changes and ideas we needed to get a finished product. I think that both tools offer a viable alternative to Microsoft Office with the added benefit of sharing the document with others for either viewing or editing. It is like being in a "virtual conference" room and collaborating with others from all over the world --- what an awesome world we live in!

Thing #17 - Playing in the Sandbox!

The Sandbox Wiki was really fun. I have contributed to wikis before, but the fun thing about this was reading all of the comments of the other Library2Play players! What a good way to see what everyone else is thinking about this professional development tool and reading what other players are experiencing. Collaboration is the heart of education (at least in my opinion) and what better way to collaborate!

Thing #16 - Wicky, wacky, wikis!

I have worked with wikis for at least four years, thanks again to my incredible boss, and I think there are unlimited uses for them!!! In our school district we have several wikis that we use for a variety of things, we have one for posting new websites that are good for different subject areas, one that we posted reviews of "required reading" titles for our secondary schools, several that solicited thoughts and comments on different school district initiatives like new library construction, technology in libraries, etc.
Anyway, I even started a wiki to record family information from relatives all over the U. S., essentially a place to write down antidotal stories from our childhood about our long lost relatives. I think wikis a an awesome tool for sharing thoughts, ideas, and stories for anything! They allow us to share in real time with people who live all over the world, they really are a boon to us in this mobile information society.
As for education uses, it's a great way to share student thoughts, comments, and ideas in a common space, I even know of a school where they use a wiki for teachers to order lunch from a local salad and sandwich restaurant. What a great example of the use of digital technology!

Thing # 20 - You TUBE, I TUBE, let's ALL TUBE!

I have played around in both YouTube and TeacherTube for about 2 years now, and I have found many, many, videos that could be used for both student/classroom use and professional development use. I LOVE the ease of using Zamzar to download YouTube videos! Since that site is blocked in our district it is a great way to use these resources!!! What fun!

Below is a video that I found through Stephen's Lighthouse blog by Stephen Abram. It is a great way to give some educators today a "wake up" call where technology and our students are concerned. Hope you think so too!

From YouTube

Remember this site is blocked within our district, so to see it you will have to view it at home!

"A Vision of K-12 Students Today"







A really good video from YouTube about learning to "listen" to what stuiedents are telling us about their world and how they "learn" today!

Thing # 11 - And the THING is Library Thing!

What fun! I put in just a smattering of some of my favorite books into LibraryThing and it was so much fun!!! I put a widget on my blog that shows some of the books I read along with pictures. It was so easy and fun! What a great site for librarians to play with.

Thing # 8, or how to read your favorite blogs without going nuts!

I have actually had a Google reader account for about 6 months, it started slowly because when I set it up I didn't really have to time to play with it, after about a month I went in and began to add some of the blogs I like to read. I have been a dedicated blog reader for over a year --- I am really a "lurker" in that I like to read blogs and comment on them, I am just not a really good blogger. Anyone who knows me will readily tell you that I am MUCH more of a talker than a writer, hence blogging is not my "preferred" form of communication, but I really LOVE reading what others write!

Anyway to recap the assignments for this Thing I need to answer the following:

1. What do I like about RSS and newsreaders?
I absolutely LOVE the fact that I can get all of the new posts and information from my favorite sites in ONE place! And yes, it is VERY addicting, I check my Google Reader account at least twice a day. I also love the star and share features, this allows me to mark the posts that I want to refer back to and it lets me share the posts that I think others might benefit from.

2. How do you think you might use this in your professional and/or personal life?
Well, that is simple!!! I am able to keep up with the new ideas and news that help me improve my professional abilities and knowledge this in turn helps me to be better at my job and to help other librarians that I work with. Knowledge is power and this helps me be a better systems administrator and librarian.

3. How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
I think that as a librarian the first thing you can do is share this technology with others in your school or library, this will help others keep up with their interests both professional and personal. Recently I taught my Mom how to use Google Reader to keep up with the quilting blogs she likes to read, although we weren't in a library I felt like the librarian showing her a new way to accomplish something. In other words the librarian in me was able to pass the power of knowledge on to someone else, score!!! Also, there are so many great book review sites that would help any librarian keep up with what is new in literature, how can you miss with that?!?

Finally, I made my shared items on my blog, so if you look in the left column you will see the posts that I thought were worth sharing.