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!