Thing #22 and #23

Libravox and the Gutenburg project are huge in their scope of trying to give voice to all books that are in the public domain. At first I was concerned about the copyright issues but upon further study found that they are abiding by US law because they are based in the US and only using books pre-1923. International law however defines public domain differently all over the world. It makes me wonder what will happen to copyright laws and the interenet continues to take over communication. Because April is poetry month, I added a poetry RSS feed from Libravox. We added non-fiction ebooks to the Hulstrom Library this year and I can see application for them but still am totally against ebook fiction and get rid of print as is part of the mission of the Gutenburg Project.

I have really enjoyed learning more about Library 2.0 and some items that were totally new to me. I will be able to recommend these things to teachers as I collaborate with them.

Thing #21

Good Grief!!! I have been listening to podcasts all morning, at least I could do the dishes while I listened to Rick Steeves traveling around Europe in an author podcast from our own Tattered Cover. The number of podcasts was unbelievable to me! I enjoyed Uncontrolled Vocabulary (linked to the site)a weekly podcast about library topics from this website but also his very informative link to his wiki about podcasts. I am toying with the idea of creating book review podcasts with my student library aides - I think I need a microphone - perhaps an italk for the pods that we have...I better look into this!

Copyright YouTube Video Thing #20

Week #8 Thing #18 and Thing #19

I had no idea about Zoho. I can see that having the option to create word docs online makes your documents available anywhere and anyplace. It is very much like Word and easy to just begin writing. I added Library Thing to my Blog and had fun with this site!

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#16 and #17

I have been using wiki's (Hawaiian for quick quick) for about one year. I have collaborated with several classroom teachers. Here are the links to a few of them:
http://state-reports.pbwiki.com/
http://coloradobiographies.pbwiki.com/

We have had a little trouble with losing information this year on a shared wiki. I think I will recommend that students create their own wiki and then link their wiki to the classroom page so there can be the option of having their own control. I also liked the Princeton Book Share Idea for a wiki - I am guessing that they used LibraryThing to get their book jacket pictures.
http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library

Week #6 Thing #15

The Library 2.0 discussions were interesting to me. I think most school teacher-librarians try to respond to changes in information access rather quickly. The power library philosophy in Colorado adopts much of the web 2.0 change as the librarian is utilized all over the building to teach and work with information. I think this quote from School Library Journal and about library 2.0 sums up my philosophy - "Redefining the school library is not a response to some inherent failure on the part of the institution. It’s an opportunity for library professionals to engage in some exciting activities that will enable our institutions to remain effective in the midst of fast-moving technological change. It was school libraries, in fact, that led the way in the first wave that brought computers and then the Internet into our classrooms. This is about adapting, once again, to a new, perhaps even more compelling digital revolution, in which powerful new ideas are enhancing the way in which we function in an electronic information environment." This class is an attempt on my part to understand web 2.0 and to begin to incorporate it into my library. I do agree that the print encyclopedia may have seen better days and that the online encyclopedia are much easier to access for example but it will be a long time before I want to curl up with a good computer monitor on a cold day...

Hulstrom Power Library

Week 6 Thing #14

From what I can gather, a blog post is an entry made by the blog author. A tag is how you identify the information on your blog so that it can be ready identified by a search and included in places like Technocrati. A blog directory is available on blogs that are so large you need to search in them to find information. If your blog is included in Technocrati, it will "ping". The number one blog was Boing Boing and when I searched for "School Library Learning 2.0" I didn't get any hits. I did get 1,275 hits when I searched in Technocrati but most of the hits were people who are blogging about this class... It is unbelievable to me that there are 175,000 new blogs every day which will make Technocrati even more popular.

Week 6 #13

Del.icio.us is an interesting social bookmarking site. I wasn't familiar with social bookmarking but can see that this would be a way to organize my long list of favorites. The more that I learn, the more that I am beginning to understand the endlessness of Web 2.0 and the numberless resources that are out there. I searched under libraries and then sorted by the popular tags under library. I added the RSS feed to my blog and spent a lot of time reading library blogs and considering options for my library webpage and blog.

Week #5 Thing 10, 11 and 12

10- I enjoyed all of the online generators. I made a magazine cover and a comic strip for a poster in my library based on a quote from the Library of Congress about works cited. I could think of several curriculum connections. We are working on Colorado biographies with the 4th grade and I think it might be great to have the final project be making a magazine cover for the Colorado person assigned to each student. I liked the poetry feature in Image Chef as we are trying to add more poetry experiences for our students and this would be a fun way to draw them into writing a poem or even copying an existing poem and playing with the layout. You could be lost for days in the online generators.
11- The Web 2.0 Awards are a wonderful resource for many things. I looked into the podcasting sites and tried to upload some music into my blog but had some trouble with the upload. I spent most of my time reading in Library Thing and could see using it to suggest where to go next with reading suggestions based on what you have previously read.
12- I spent quite a bit of time in Rollyo. I made an account and made a search engine in my blog. I can see that you could customize a search engine for your classroom based just on sites that you would like your students to access. I especially liked the site based on SJ Wired and added it to my blog. I wish I had more time!!!

Week 4 Thing #8

RSS - Really Simple Syndication. I tried to get an account in bloglines but still haven't received a confirmation email despite having given a second email address and going back numerous times to ask for another confirmation email. They must be having trouble today (I'm sure it can't be me :). Anyway, I then decided to apply for a Google Reader account which I successfully applied to the bottom of this blog! Google Reader has you sign up for packages unlike Bloglines which has you choose your own RSS feeds. Google will let you delete and add though. I will just begin with their news package. I did get a little sidetracked and thought that making an iGoogle page sounded like a great idea for a home page! I also added the Librarian Blog Page to the bottom that was suggested by 23 things. Now, I need to find some time to play today!

Owen and Jake Make The Cover!

My creation
Originally uploaded by Library Laura

Jake and Owen got to visit Washington DC in June of 2007 with Jake's 6th grade class. His Dad went with him! Lucky!

Flickr: Photos from Library Laura

Flickr: Photos from Library Laura

Week 3 Thing #5, 6 & 7

As you may have noticed, I really enjoyed the Flickr site and even got caught up in another site that helped me to put together a slideshow with photos from my library. Now, I am trying to figure out how to upload it to my webpage at Hulstrom which is proving to be difficult.

I attended Librarian Days at Metro State recently and one of the classes that I attended talked about upcoming trends for public and school libraries. They were all technical related trends and were geared toward attracting teenagers to the libraries through audio music and books. The public libraries are beginning to put their music collections on ipods and are developing listening centers with the ipods which can hold many cds at once. They also are downloading their books on tape to the ipods for listening centers. They aren't yet checking out the ipods.

Another trend was the introduction of Playaways. These are essentially books on ipods that hang on a lanyard. They are usually one book and come with earbuds for checkout. The presenter was very impressed with the warrenty which essentially replaces the playaway for almost any reason during the first year. Libraries are having huge success with the checkout and popularity of these playaways. I have ordered some for Hulstrom's Library and am interested to see how they do when they get here!

Hulstrom Options Library

Week #3 Thing #3

I uploaded my son's Washington DC trip onto Flickr and we have been tagging the pictures and remembering his school trip with his Dad. The slideshow feature is great!
On Friday and Saturday, I attended Librarian Days at Metro State. We were exposed to wonderful technology and 21st century learning and reference tools. I took a 1/2 day class on wikis and will be using those more for class research projects. I am surprised at how easy Web 2.0 is to navigate and write to the web. Digitizing the Libray of Congress and making those primary resources available through American Memory to everyone worldwide is such a gift and an incredible use of technology for good!!! I can't wait to use that site for teaching. Tomorrow, my goal is to take and upload a picture of my library from Flickr to my blog. Wow! Somebody pinch me!

Week#1 Thing#1

After listening to the 71/2 habits of highly effective learners, I think that the easiest of the 7.5 for me is to create learning toolboxes. I am always asking for help or taking classes, reading new books or trying new technology. The most difficult is the last one, taking time to play. I always feel guilty about playing as there is always cleaning to do, kids to drive somewhere and/or work to do.....my new goal is to try to play everyday!