New Start

Finished City of Fallen Angels. It was a super slow book. The plot finally got intense towards then end and things started to move. I did get to the end and thank my parents for buying me the new one because the cliff hanger for that book was insane. I'm still working on City of Lost Souls. So far so good. I'm over halfway through with it an I like it a lot. Not really appreciating the Twilight-esque moments though. Clary has taken to whining over Jace the way that Bella pouted over Edward forever, and much like Bella used Jake, Clary is using Simon. The difference is that Simon is smart, stable, and mature enough to walk away and fall for Isabelle instead. YAY Simone! Clary does have her Bella moments and I'm getting sick of reading about how everyone is looking at each other through their eye lashes. I'm not really sure how one manages that. I actually tried it...not that easy. Oh well, it's still a pretty good book and it helps that it's not just being told from Clary's point of view. Cassandra Clare definitely has some mad skills.

SUMMER!

Ah summer vacation! How I've missed not writing papers and stressing about grades. Haven't had that opportunity for a while. Oh well. So far it's been a pretty good break, just been working and reading during my lunch and fifteen minute breaks. I just finished Doubletake, the seventh installment of the Cal Leandros novels, by Rob Thurman. It was a pretty intense read and I'm super excited for the sequel that's supposed to be out next March. It's gonna be GREAT! Of course I am getting tired of long dead races of monsters that keep coming back when they shouldn't be. Oh well, makes for grand adventures and massive conflicts. Right now I'm in the middle of City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare. So far so good. Bit of a slow starter though, so I'm struggling a bit. I've got to get it done though because the next one just came out a few weeks ago. I've also got a giant stack of books to get through over the vacation, before I have to go back to school and drowned in my endless pile of HW. Any good books out there by anyone happening to be reading this? I would love to know what you got.
~Happy Reading!

Thoughts on Learning 2.0 and ITLS 5030

It feels like the semester has lasted for about a million years. It's been a grand adventure though. I've really enjoyed the class, and I feel like I got a lot of interesting information that I can use if I ever make it into a school library someday. I also think I've found some interesting resources that I can use everyday, just for fun. I don't know how much I actually absorbed from my class notes, but I do know that I learn a lot by doing and I have done a lot for the homework and assignments required for class. I had a lot of fun looking over the resources for this blog and then testing them out. I really didn't know how much I could do with a Google document. This has been a grand adventure and I'm probably going to keep up and look for new experiments to test out on this blog. Along with recommending books and finding new ways to play with the internet. This semester has been hard, but it's been a blast! If you have any suggestions of things I should check out, please comment.
Happy Reading!

Word Cloud

Podcasting

For this post I was told I should go look for podcasts involving School Library Media topics. It took me a year and a day to find some, I probably wasn't looking in the right places, but I finally found one I thought was incredibly entertaining. It's a series of book talks posted by a librarian to this site <http://nancykeane.com/rss.html>. When I was listening to some of these talks I got an idea. Not only should I read some of these books because they sound great, but I came up with a project I could use with the students, if I ever make it into a school. See I happen to have access to a microphone that plugs into an iPod and allows you to record things and then transfer them directly to a computer when the iPod is plugged in. They are fairly cheap and easy to use. I figure that one of the best ways to get students to read is have their friends recommend books to them. The way I would use this would be to have students record their short reviews of books and then transfer them to a hard drive or computer for me to post either to the library website or my blog. This would get students creating their own media and motivating each other to read and find new books. I would, of course, send a permission slip home with the students so that I can get the ok from parents to post their childrens' voices online. If i understand correctly this would help with the media literacy component of the SLM core as well as partially fulfilling the implied mission of helping children develop a love for reading by introducing them to new books through their friends. I'm gonna have to look into other podcasts and find some more interesting information I might use someday, but I thought I'd share that idea with all of you.
Happy Reading!

The Library Matrix

For this post I found a movie related to school libraries. I really liked the way this particular video explained the idea of a library as more than just a place that houses books. I also appreciated the fact that they stated that the librarian was there to help find information rather than sit there and glare at people who are too loud. The people that put Library Revolutions together did a great job at showing some of the nearly limitless resources that the library has to offer and they did it in a way that easily relates to students of the digital age. Granted, not everyone will get The Matrix references that the video is based on, but using a big part of popular culture to explain a semi-complex idea like the library makes it all seem a lot more relate-able and less complicated. Here's the video, done by students from KU. The URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAViPFzr8sM&feature=relmfu. Enjoy, and happy reading!

                                                                                                                                               

                                        

Book Bird

The thing about Twitter is that it has a tendency to turn into mental vomit. I'm not really a huge fan of this particular means of social networking. Of course, it's such a popular site that it seems kind of difficult to manage things without it. I have found several authors with accounts and I think Twitter is a good way of keeping up with their latest projects. I Know how excited some people can get about upcoming books so it's always good to keep up with what people are doing. I also like the idea of using Twitter as a means of communicating with students. I think that if communications can be opened between librarians and teachers then twitter could possibly be used to pass along possible research ideas or sites that might be helpful. It might also make a good way to let teachers know about some aids they could use in their classrooms. Overall, I may not like the idea of mental vomit on the web, but I do think that Twitter could be a handy tool in a library. I will probably continue to use it and develop my skills with it so that I can make Twitter a powerful tool for information in my future library.

RSS Feeds

I really don't know a whole lot about this. I do know that you can use the RSS icon to save links to blogs. In case you were wondering the icon looks like this:




It's kind of an annoying little beast, but it's pretty useful if you can see it on a page. As far as I can tell, when you use it you bookmark a page to be able to read it as soon as it is updated. One way I've noticed that it can be used is to subscribe to blog feeds. Depending on the blog the link can be added to your Google Reader, or it gets saved in your bookmarks. I used it to subscribe to a couple different blogs. the first was a blog set up by the School Library Journal. It's titled Good Comics for Kids. Here's the link if you're interested: http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/goodcomicsforkids. I really liked this blog because Graphic Novels have become such an important tool in teaching kids how to read. Not only that, but they are an easy reader for those who may not read as well as they might like to. It's always good to get new ideas as to whats out there in the Graphic Novel market, and what is safe for children, since some can be a bit sketchy. Another one I found that I really liked was http://www.freetech4teachers.com/. I really liked this and found it really handy since I'm always looking for handy new ways of using technology, and I'm sure that when I actually have a job in a school somewhere this blog will be particularly helpful in instructing with technology. I also really like this blog because it give links to websites that teachers can use to collaborate with one another and swap ideas regarding lessons following the criteria of the core. I'll have to give you more blogs when i manage to get a hold of some I like, cause right now I'm just not finding them :D
Happy Reading!

Diigo: Not a Pokemon

I've been using Diigo for a while now. Only just recently did I discover that it can be used for education. I, as a student, have need for a decent bookmark site that will save my sites for access on any machine. It saves me the trouble of having to e-mail links to myself. For those of you who may not know what Diigo is, it's a social bookmarking site. You can bookmark websites, take a picture of the site and save it to the server, and you can surf through other people's bookmarks and comment on the pages. I went and did a little looking through some of the popular bookmarks and I found several involving education, like ideas for lesson plans, handy teaching tools, popular books to read., etc. One gave different ways that educators could use Pinterest in their classrooms. I really like Diigo, it's pretty handy for saving links for papers, copying online receipts, and other stuff I'm sure to use more when I have an actual job. I suggest you go check it out and experiment with it for yourselves.
Happy Reading!

Signs, Library Things, and Custom Search Engines. Oh My!

 

I created this to serve a couple different purposes. First was the requirement to put a generated image on my blog and second was for a Folklore and the Internet class that I've been taking. It was fairly easy to make, but not neatly so easy to save to my system. I had fun with it though.

     The other thing about this post, here's where the books from the title come in. I created a Library Thing account. I think this is a wonderful web service. It's a great way to get book recommendations out to students, friends, family, etc. I really liked putting a virtual library together and then making a widget to post to my blog and Wiki. I seriously think that this would work even better, had I an actual audience to view my posts. I 'm sure that someday it will all be slightly more useful though. :D

  This is also the day I create and post my own, custom search engine. When I get it up, if it's not up when you look at this, you should check it out. If it is up when you read this, you should still check it out. Maybe it will be awesome! :D

Happy Reading!

Skype?

You know, I'm sure there are plenty of great ways to make use of Skype in a school library. Chatting with authors, for example. We used Skype to chat with Bob Berkowitz (bad spelling) in class the other day, it was great. I'm just having a problem with it on my computer. It's just a little invasive at the moment, and I would love nothing better than to uninstall it from my system. That would probably not be the best idea since I need it for class, but oh well. It's applications are amazing. You can video chat with whomever you wish and it doesn't cost you a cent. Of course you can do the same thing with Gmail so I have a bit of a problem with this, but I guess that's ok. My computer is super old and doesn't like a lot of new programs, which could be why I have so many problems with this. I'd have to try it on a different computer to test that though. As a tool, Skype is great. If I had the inclination or the need I could use it to chat with authors, reference librarians, family, or other people that could add to my learning (or the learning of others). It's probably a whole lot cheaper than flying people out to give a seminar or something. I'll have to try it on a different computer to see if I like it any better and I'll let you know what I think later.
Happy reading!

WIKI WIKI WIKI WIKI WIKI

Well dear reader here we are again. I am super behind, as per usual for me. Worst blogger EVER! Since I'm behind you get a post a day until I'm all caught up again. This should be a grand adventure! Anway, this lovely post is, as you may be able to tell, on Wikis. For a class assignment, the same class this blog was created for, I was asked to create my own wiki page. I did. It's still in the developmental stages, but when I finally figure everything out it will be AWESOME! Here's a link if anyone wants to check it out and leave feedback as a comment to this post: http://get-thee-to-a-library.wikispaces.com/ . I actually think Wikis are great ideas. My mom's got one for her English and Humanities students, and she's creating a section that her English students can use to collaborate on their group Shakespeare assignments. They can also use the Wiki to post their assignments to create an entire book, or newspaper since the assignment is to create a news article of events from the plays they read. I like that. An online space that can be used to work on group assignments is incredibly convenient, speaking as a student, because it is always a pain to try and get a hold of everyone in the group and find a time that they can all get together. A wiki can also be a great source of information to the populace. I managed to add a calendar to mine, it can have important events added to it so that anyone can find out about events going on that day/week/month. Of course, my calendar has nothing on it at the moment, but it's the thought that counts. I also figured out that youtube videos can be posted to the site. I figure that this is an opportunity to introduce students, parents, and teachers to new books by using book trailers, talks, soundtracks, etc. Right now I've got part of a soundtrack for To Kill a Mockingbird posted. I actually created that video as a final project for another class. Anyway, I think the Wiki is a great opportunity to introduce books, collaborate on assignments, help parents know what their children are working on, assist teachers in their lessons, I also had a teacher use her wiki as a means for students to chat with the author of a book the class was reading. The list is pretty much endless at this point. Those are just the big ones I can think of right now. Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think. It's still under construction.
Happy reading!

An Experiment in Pictures!

Well dear reader, I took these pictures. Just as an experiment I made a collage of them to see how it would come out.

I used bighugelabs.com, but I discovered that wasn't quite as user friendly as Picassa. This website had more options of fun things to do with photos such as creating a jigsaw puzzle, a motivational poster, movie posters, and calendars. These options would be great to use with book covers, maps, and other useful visual aids. As far as the mosaic option goes though, I would use Picassa. It was a little more user friendly and you can see the product before it's finished. I'll have to experiment with the other options to let you know how those work out.

Life Long Learning Habits

For me, at least, it is really hard to set goals. Usually I just do stuff without having goals in mind, and I can see how that is detrimental to effective learning. I write things down in an effort to get them done, but for some reason things very rarely go according to plan.
I have found it easier to take responsibility for my own learning, even when it seems like an impossible idea. It was a really hard decision to make in high school when I was taking concurrent enrollment and distance ed courses. The second semester of my senior year my facilitator had me sign up for 21 credits worth of college classes, in addition to two high school classes I still needed to graduate. I managed to get "A's" in both the high school classes, but the college classes were a bit more trouble. I failed two out of the seven and that was definitely not my brightest moment. I ended up talking to both the professors to see if there was anything I could do to fix the mistakes I had made during the course of the classes. There wasn't, but I was able to take responsibility for my actions and my grades (I had friends who had their parents talking to teachers when their grades weren't high enough). It was hard to take responsibility for my classes, but it was something my parents always taught me to do. That's probably what made it a little bit easier.
I have a hard time viewing things as challenges rather than actual problems. I can eventually sort things out, but it takes time and patience that I don't always have. Time I've got, patience is a little harder to come by.
As far as confidence is goes i have very little. I have a lot when it comes to writing a decent English paper, but very little when it comes to anything else I happen to be doing. I've been told I learn quickly and I'm fairly easy to teach, but I don't have a lot of confidence when it comes to applying the knowledge I gain. It's something I've been working on for years, and I have improved in leaps and bounds. I'm just not quite there...yet.
I have managed to make technology work for me when it comes to learning and accomplishing projects. I guess that's one thing I am sort of confident about. I know how to use a computer, and I usually know how to find whatever I'm looking for in a search engine. That's one of the things my parents have spent a lot of time teaching me, how to find solutions to problems and answers to questions. Technology has been a big part of that for a very long time. I remember spending hours creating PowerPoint presentations and surfing Microsoft Encarta just to see what else I could do and what I could learn. Managing technology turned into a game and it's one I still play frequently. Maybe a little too frequently.
I'm not the best teacher. I can learn, I can experiment, but I have a hard time sharing what I know with others. I have this tendency to get easily frustrated with people when they ask me about things I know. I find myself thinking that if I know something, then they should know it too. I know that's not the way things work and it frustrates me a great deal when I know what I'm doing and someone else steps in to ask why or what. Like so many other things I struggle with, I have improved a great deal in recent years. I still lack some of the patience required to constantly explain my knowledge to others (that's the reason I'm not an English Ed major), but I expect that with practice all things will improve. Including my lack of confidence in my abilities and my lack of patience with others.