Thing 16 - Digg

I watched the video KN recommended, and then I watched 2 other videos - one from MSNBC interviewing 2 guys that host Diggnation, and then another one on Forbes.com with Digg CEO, Jay Adelson. The more I work through "the things," the more I realize how completely out of the technology loop I am! The 3rd video I watched, Putting a Price on Digg, was uploaded on November 22nd, 2006. They claim (at that time) 1 1/2 million users a day! Jay Adelson mentioned the term the wisdom of the crowd several times during the interview. I can go with the consensus of the crowd, but maybe not with the wisdom of the crowd. I'm a great believer in the William Penn quote, "Right is right even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it." Digg is an interesting concept. I like that there are categories within Digg (Technology, Science, World and Business, etc.). This is definitely one of the Web 2.0 tools/applications that bears out what I read on Thing 2 - that we are the Web and we are teaching the machine. I can see the appeal of feeling like individuals have the power to determine what is important. I dig it!

Thing 15 - Delicious

I've used BackFlip in the past to save my favorite websites, but I haven't used it in quite awhile. I'm glad to learn about Delicious so that I can get all of my favorite sites into one place that is accessible anywhere anytime! Here's my account - just 3 sites in it right now - but I'll be adding more soon: Elaine's Delicious Account . Delicious is easy to use, and I like the tagging feature! The other day I must have spent an hour looking for a website that I used to teach inferencing last year. It was on my favorites but it was lost when we reimaged. If only I'd had it saved to Delicious!

Thing 14 - Tagging

I like the idea of tagging. It's just a way to organize or file information that is meaningful to the user. I teach my kids to search Horizon using the general keyword because they don't know the official subject headings and often aren't able to find books that way. I'm going to go back and add tags/labels to my posts. My favorite is my rating of the Things - Good Thing or Not So Good Thing!

Thing 13 - Twitter

Okay, this is one application that I really don't get in most situations. I can see its application when you're waiting to hear minute by minute updates about a big event, but in normal everyday life, it just seems silly. Why would anyone want to know that I'm sitting at my computer working on my 23 Things? It feels narcissistic , on the one hand, and stalkerish, on the other. I signed up, but I didn't really want to. My Twitter account is IGTBQ. I have one tweet!

Thing 12 - IM

I love IM! I use it a lot to ask a quick question of colleagues. It's one of the most helpful tools we have at school. I took a look at the Text Messaging Abbreviations. Wow! I had no idea there were so many!

KUTGW! YTG! VBS!

Thing 11 - NING

I tried searching NING and didn't find much, so I ended up googling using NING in my search and had much better luck. Here are a couple of NINGs that I came across that I loved!
Teacher Librarian Ning This ning was created by Joyce Valenza and looks up to date. Lots of activity going on with this ning. There's a group in this ning called Web 2.O in the Library World with lots of discussion about how real librarians are using Web 2.0 tools in their library instruction. There's also an elementary school librarians group. This ning is one I'll follow and maybe even join!
Library 2.0 This ning is dedicated to all things Library 2.0. I loved looking at the videos - especially the "hot dog" book reviews uploaded by Doug Valentine. Here's a link to Doug Valentine's videos on Glogster: Hot Dog Book Reviews. They are SO cute! Doug Valentine, Dr. Loopy, is a librarian in Melissa ISD at McKillop Elementary School. He needs to come to GP to do a workshop!! How much fun would that be!!! I also found him on the Classroom 2.0 Ning.

Things 9 and 10 - Blog Readers and RSS Feeds

I just finished setting up my Google Reader account. That is one cool application! I subscribed to GPISD 23 Things and then my own One Thing At a Time and put them into a 23 Things folder. Then I went in search of more blogs to add - I love looking at blogs! Mostly I look at blogs that have to do with crafting or decorating or cooking, and one day I'll add them and create a folder for them. Right now they are saved in my favorites and I have to open each one up to see if it's been updated. For this purpose, I decided to work on my professional blog collection. I found a couple of great articles in SLJ online that recommended blogs, so I looked through those and added them to my reader and put them in a folder named SLJ Recs. So now I've got oodles to read, but I already feel more professional! Here's one of my new favorites:
Jacket Knack: Thoughts on the Cover Art of Kids' Books!
Here's another one that I already love because Betty Carter used to talk about Roger Sutton a lot:
Read Roger. He's the editor-in-chief of Horn Book.
Just for fun, I did a search of Dr. Carter on Horn Book and found her mentioned 189 times, many times on Roger Sutton's blog!! Love that Dr. Carter! I always wanted to grow up to be her!

Thing 8 - Image Generators

I could spend hours here! Here's my beautiful daughter!


Here are some educational applications:

Students can create fact files on a topic that they are studying. It just makes a fun place to park their research! The picture I used is from a photo I took of a zebra at the State Fair!


Here's a great pic to use as the title slide in a PowerPoint presentation when students are doing a states research project! Using this template, students can add their name to any state license plate. So fun!

How about this for the title slide in a PowerPoint about countries?

Make a character attribute mosaic. I used letter L for Lilly.


So many fun things to do!

Thing 7 - Flickr and Big Huge Labs

Awww!! So cute! Brinkley was so good to pose for this picture!

Here are a few ideas for ways to use with students:

Add a caption to a picture to express a character's thoughts or emotions...

Add a caption filled with biographical information to a photo of a person that they are studying...

Let the kids use a digital camera to take a picture and then add descriptive captions bubble map style...

Thing 6 - Flickr and Mashups

Way cute! I enjoyed creating my name, but I could never figure out how to save my name altogether. I ended up saving and uploading each letter one at a time. If I could figure out how to save words rather than letters, I can see that this would be a really fun way to practice spelling words - an educational application, but not necessarily a library application.

Thing 5 - Flickr

I just finished uploading pictures to Flickr from my day at the State Fair with my little sister, Annie. We had such a fun time that day! Thnaks to a neighbor who used to be president of the State Fair of Texas, we had VIP passes and parking. Annie and I spent a lovely October day together visiting the exhibits, sampling corndogs and fried butter, playing games on the Midway (I actually won a penguin by throwing darts at balloons), and rocking with the Commodores!

Here's the link to my Flickr account. This was fun!

Thing 4 - Custom Google Search

I created my custom Google search on Martin Luther King Jr. . I've created lists of sites using Filamentality (which I like because you can use hyperlinks instead of the URL itself and you can customize the list). When I was creating the custom search, I didn't really understand what it was going to look like when I finished. I was thinking that the kids would be seeing this:

because that's what you see when you click on the URL to it. Then I saw it on my igoogle page (top photo) and then it made much better sense. I just added it to the bottom of my blog. also. I'd need to be sure to help my students with keywords to help them search the articles and find the information that they need. What I do like is that the search yields the sentence the keyword is found in. The students can then scan the article or use the find feature to locate the information they are looking for.

Thing 3 - Google Docs

I already had a Google account and have used Google Docs for gathering information from colleagues with *limited success. I like the idea of using it to make surveys (about books, reading, etcl...) I watched the video and read through the information at Google for Educators and have made note of the following:

• accessible from anywhere at anytime
• don't have to e-mail back and forth
• groups of students can work on an assignment at the same time from different locations
• on the video, it said that the teacher can tell who is doing what on the document - that's a neat feature (there is a slide presentation that shows how this works)
• don't have to "pass the paper around the room." Great for interactive planning and cuts down on meetings (great for planning purposes)
• teacher can add comments like in Word (I like this feature and have used it in Word and e-mailed it)
• the *downside is that all of the users need to have a Google account and be comfortable using this application - looks like it would be worth it in the long run.
• I can think of lots of ways with teachers/staff...now I just need to think of a way to use it with elementary students...perhaps just the fact that they can share it with the teacher is enough. That way students could get feedback right away.
• great YouTube of Google Docs In Plain English

Thing 2 - Library 2.0/Web 2.0

I just finished watching the video (V) and reading the Library 2.0 article (I skimmed the Web 2.0 article) and was struck by the following ideas:

• a blog is created every 1/2 second. Did I read that right?! (V)
• we are the Web (V)
• we are teaching "the machine" (V)
• 100 billion times per day, humans click on a web page (V)
• "L2 challenges library orthodoxy on almost every level" - so how does this impact what I do in my elementary library? How does L2 change my definition of library? (L2)
• I like the idea of IM for virtual reference (L2)
• I don't really understand how gaming fits into the definition of library. I guess I think of it as a gimmick to get patrons into the library. (L2)

In looking up further information (trying to get clarification on the difference between HTML and XML) I found this great resource: W3Schools .