Week 8, Another Thing: Jings

One tool that I have discovered and used are Jings. I really like using Jings to communicate with the staff at my school. Jings give you the ability to do screen captures and record videos of onscreen instruction - your voice can be added. I have used Jings to show our staff how to use some of our databases. The ones I have made all include passwords, so I will create a quick one later on to show you how they work. Check out the site at: www.jingproject.com/

Week 8, Thing 20: Nings

A few months ago I joined two Nings: the Co Teacher Librarian Ning and the Power Libraries Ning. I have spent time on both nings. At this point I can see the value of nings as a networking tool, however I have not had the opportunity to use them to their fullest advantage. My biggest problem with all these tools is having the time to use and fully explore them.

Week 8, Thing 19: Google Earth

The first time I went to Google Earth, I spent an hour exploring Rome. It was really neat going back and looking at all the places that I visited a year and half ago. This time I went to the Grand Canyon and looked at that. I also took the view of the night sky, the moon and mars. I think our astronomy teacher would like using this feature with his classes.

Week 8, Thing 18: Slideshare

Today I checked out and registered for Slideshare. WOW - powerpoint presenatations on just about every topic imaginable. If you need a new Power Point, don't create - borrow one that someone else has already created. A quick way to collaborate.

Technology Enabled Research

View more presentations from Alex Hardman.

Week 7, Thing 17: Podcasts

I went to Learning Out Loud and look around. I found some useful stuff and dead links too - so it wasn't a perfect world. As a librarian the part that interested me most was finding complete novels listed. I thought that this would be a valuable asset for our school. We have more and more students needing to get assigned novels in an audio format. We have limited copies of CDs and Playaway titles. I was really encouraged when I found many novels that available that are in the public domain. This is a great resource!

Week 7, Thing 16: You Tube

The one thing I love on Youtube are the plethora of book trailers. This is a fun way to advertise current or upcoming new releases. People get really creative and some are very professionally done.
">

Week 6, Thing 14 Voice Thread: Adding to Your PLN

Spent the last 90 minutes playing around in Voice Thread and stumbled upon this one about PLNs. I was kinda excited so I joined it. Voice Thread seems like a great learning too, but I am trying to figure out how to use it with classes - especially at the high school level. Do you just have all your students join on their own? Most of the kids at our school have their own email address, although I know of a few that don't. I can't see them operating out of a teacher's account. If you are using Voice Threads at the high school level - fill me in!

Week 5, Thing 13, Google Docs

Google Docs are really amazing. Here is the special Google Docs icon I created last year for the library webpage, it is hotlinked to our District's special Google Docs account page. Last year I had instruction on Google Docs and I sat down with a few teachers and explained the concept but I it didn't really go anywhere. TEACHERS: imagine giving a group assignment (power point, reserach paper, short story, spreadsheet) and all group members could work separately on the assignment but at the same time! As long as they have internet access, they could work on it. No more emailing half of the assignment to each other and trying to come up with one working document. No more - I can't do the presentation because my partner is absent or forgot their flash drive. "Talk to me, Goose. Talk to me!"

Week 5, Thing 12, Wikis

Wikis are pretty cool. It is a way for you to post and share information and have all the others who are need to also have the ability to post and share. I created a wiki for my library webpage. It is designed as a forum for students to comment on the books they are reading. It is truly a work in progress at this point. I have only added a few genres and books, but i will be working on adding more. I need to get a trusted student/staff to help in administration so they can create some new pages.

I also made a comment on our Web 2.0 tools Wiki Sandbox. I added my Glog that I made for Week 2. I really see a lot of potential for Glogs and I am already working with a few teachers to replace traditonal posters and Power Point assignments with glogs.

Banned Books Week!

Banned Books Week: September 26th - October 3rd. Here is the display I created for our library. I used many of the books found on ALA top 100 Challenged book list. I was surprised at how many we had on hand. I also plan to post a list up by the circulation desk. Last year the students were amazed at how many of their favorite books had been challenged over the years.

Week 3, Thing 8, Comment

I made a comment on Warner's Wondering because I was specifically looking for someone who had already done a Glog - hers was great! So far, I have enjoyed Glogster most of all the new programs that we have studied.

http://warnerswonderings.blogspot.com/

Week 4, Thing 11, Wordle

I was impressed with the finding the value of a word based upon how many time it appeared in the website, article, story, etc. I made the following Wordle using the text of the US Consstitution. I find it interesting that the most prominent words are States, United and State. This would have been neat to use on the September 17th for Constitution Day. I did play around with the font and colors.

Week 4, Thing 10, Delicious

Okay - I've created my Delicious account. I didn't add much other than the bookmarks in my Favorites. I was able to Tag most of them. I really like the tag option because then I can quickly search a website I am looking for based upon the tag. I was a little put off by the use of "freshest" to describe websites - that is a term my son uses to describe shoes.

Skype for work and fun!

Last week Scott Sanders (BTC) installed Skype on my work computer. I already had it on my home computer and had been using it to talk with my daughter who is currently working in Korea. On Saturday I was in California for my mom's 80th birthday. While everyone was showing up for the party I brought my daughter up on Skype and she was able to video chat with all my family. Every Wednesday, Scott and I have a morning meeting - this week we opted to meet via Skype. Then we added another co-worker and had a conference call - although that was audio only. Scott and I had other discussions using Skype during the week. Way cool!

Week 3, Thing 9, Twitter

I created my Twitter account. What I have learned so far is that people need to follow Nancy's advice - if your account is for business - keep it business. If it is personal - keep it personal. If you say you are going to be reviewing teen fiction, don't tell me where you are going for dinner.

Week 3, Thing 7, Google Reader

I have now set up my Google Reader account and several RSS Feeds. I plan to be up-to-date with what is happening the the library and publishing world.

Blogs, Glogs and Passwords!

Is it just me?? I think I think I am nearing login name and password overload! If it wasn't for Password Keeper in my Blackberry there is NO way I could keep track of all the new usernames, logins and passwords that I have created in the past few weeks. How many more accounts will I have when we are done?

Week 2, Thing 6, Glogster

Glogster is my new favorite! Stop by the library today and let's discuss how we can use this amazing tool for your next class project.

Week 2, Thing 5, Trading Card

My most recent activity was to make a Trading Card for myself using Big Huge Labs. I linked my new Big Huge Lab account with my Facebook account so I could grab one of the pictures from there. Linking the two accounts gave me tons of picture choices.

Week 2, Thing 4, Flickr picture

I Love Books
Originally uploaded by Weeping-Willow

I love Books! I was looking for an interesting pictures of books to post and found this one. I really do love books. In fact I read a few this weekend. I created a flickr account and posted this message to my blog from flickr.

Week 1, Thing 3, Copyright

Wow!! I watched and read all the information about copyright and fairuse. Although I feel like I know a lot about print and image copyright, I really had no idea about video copyright. I've downloaded guide for Copy of Best Practices for Online Video. I will be making a copyright link for our library web page and adding some basic copyright information as well as link to the video information. We do have Flip cameras in our school for classroom use. Students will need to be aware of proper ways to post and cite information just as if they were doing a paper in MLA format and citing their sources.

Week 1, Thing 2, Email blog address

I emailed my blog address to Nancy White. In case you stumbled here and want to come back:
http://paynespassage.blogspot.com/

Week 1, Thing 1, Create Avatar

I created my Jedi Librarian avatar. I was hoping to do a Sith Librarian, but I had to stay on the side of good this time.

My first post!

I am working on my first blog as part of a Web2.0 tools class I am taking with my school district. I am excited about learning new technologies and sharing them with fellow educators and anyone else who happens upon these pages.