The End - Summary

Wow! I can't believe I am actually finished! I really enjoyed these lessons and learning all about Web 2.0.I have to admit that I am pretty proud of myself and all of the new things I have learned. There is so much more to the web than just basic searching. I was a little bit scared at first when the idea of learning new technology was first introduced to us. But is has been a great learning journey!

#1. My favorite lessons were those that had to do with pictures and images. I loved animoto and flickr. I also had a lot of fun playing with the image makers and the mashups.These are things that I believe we can really use to make the library website more interesting and modern. The avatars were also fun to play with. I enjoyed changing my avatar every few days to match the season or the weather.

#2. As teachers,we are always encouraging our students to try new things. Learning something new can sometimes be intimidating but definately worth the effort. Working on the 23 Things has really helped me to take my own advice. If we are going to stay current in the everchanging world of technology, we have to become lifelong learners.In other words, we need to practice what we preach!

#3. I am amazed at how much there is to do on the web! I didn't know about even half of the things that we learned. I had never heard of social bookmarking, RSS feeds or Library Thing, just to name a few.I had heard of youtube and myspace but had never tried to use either one. I was really happy to find the creative commons site which hepled explain copyright.

#4.I thought all of the lessons were easy to follow and easy to understand. The directions were very straight forward. Anyone, even those of us who are not technology savy, were able to understand each step.

#5. I would definately take another course. I feel really proud of myself for everything that I have accomplished. I would never have learned all of these neat things if it hadn't been for these lessons. The only way to become lifelong learners is to keep learning. So sign me up for the next 23!

#6. The only way to really make learning the 23 Things worthwhile, is if we continue to use some of them in our library. I think that you need to choose several of the lessons that you really liked and incorporate them in your lessons, webpage,teaching, etc. I think the wiki and the blog would be great to use with our students and teachers. What a great way to share lessons, booktalks,teaching ideas, and suggestions. I am rally going to try out the blog with my students. I know they will enjoy it.

Thing #23

Ok, copyright issues have always been difficult for me. I will admit that when a teacher asks me a copyright question, I am not always sure if my answer is correct. The copyright comic book did help me understand a few things better. i.e fair use,public domain. I enjoyed the Disney character video on copyright. Would it be appropriate to show our teachers? To me, creative commons is a way for artists to share their work with the public without all of the restrictions of copyright. You are free to use these works as long as you abide by a few rules which are stated up front. You could use this in the library with music, pictures, and written pieces of work. Creative Commons makes me think of the game Guitar Hero where you play music on the guitar along with the original soundtrack. Would that be an example of cc?
My mother is making "grandmother books" for all her grandchildren. This is just a book of memories and pictures of her childhood to share with the grandkids. She didn't want to write 7 separate books, so she called the company and they gave her permission to copy the book seven times. This is a good example of asking the owner for permission to use their work.

My Girls

Thing #22

I think the animoto sight is really cool. I did get frustrated at first because I couln't get any pictures here at school to upload. I tried several times and even resized the picutes with VSO Image resizer as suggested. Nothing would work here at school. I finally just gave up and tried it on my laptop at home. I did get it to work really easily and quickly at home. So, I don't know if there is something at school that was preventing me from uploading pictures. If so, we wouldn't be able to use this on our webpage.

Thing #21

I didn't really care for the podcast session. It has been my least favorite so far. I had a hard time finding anything that really interested me and that I thought I could use. I also had a hard time getting some of the podcasts to play - this was frustrating to me. I'm not sure I really see a great need for podcasts in the library; maybe I just don't really understand them all that well yet. A teacher that is really computer savvy could let her students for the students to access. These lessons would be helpful for students that are absent or on extended leaves from school for medical reasons.

Thing #20

Youtube was fun to play around on. It is very easy to use and you can find videos on just about anything. I looked at several of the librarian videos - Conan the Libarian,the Angry Librarian, and the Bookcart Ladies. I like some of the features like the rating stars and the comments that viewers leave about each video. It would be neat to add video clips to our webpage. I know the students would really enjoy that. It would be neat if students could make their own videos for a class project and post it to youtube. My only concern is the filter. Would these be blocked at school? If so, they wouldn't be of much use for us as school. I found a really cute video of a little girl saying the 23rd Psalms. They showed this at chuch several months ago and I was wondering where they found it. Now I know! Take a look; it is so sweet.

Thing #19

I worked with gliffy and bubbl.us I have used Inspiration in the past but both of these are so much better because 1.) you don't have to download any software and 2.) you can access it from any computer. Students can begin work at school and continue at home which is a great advantage. I think you could use both sites for TAKS which is what we are all about. You could practice sequencing, timelines, etc. I really liked the floor plan feature on gliffy. Students could use this in projects when they have to recreate their rooms or house plans.I have to make a floor plan/seating chart of the libraty for TAKS/Benchmark testing and I am going to try gliffy. Anytime that the students can work/compose on the computer I believe that they will be more engaged in the lesson and the process. They like technology and like working on computers to create.