Thing 23 - Reflection

Well, I am feeling very accomplished, and glad that I spent the time learning these "things"! I did go back and watch the video that we started with, and I have had my eyes opened to the whole idea of students feeling as though they need to "power down" to attend school. The idea that Web 2.0 takes us beyond simply being passive receivers of information is intriguing. We have moved from html, a non-user friendly code which was all about form, to XML, which is a user-friendly platform that is focused not on form but on content. I am also intrigued by the whole question "who will organize this information?", especially as I am a library media specialist. WE - US - I - YOU will organize it, manipulate it and use it, is the answer. I am interested in seeing where this new world will take us. Tagging, done by us and shared with others, is so different from the idea of cataloging as it is done by the authority of the Library of Congress.

I am excited about using what I have learned, but I am also reserving judgement on some of this, as I do not think there has been enough time for us to really see the educational results. I recently read a review of a book called "You are Not A Gadget" that sounded fascinating, and I have ordered it for the high school library. The review states: "Computer scientist and Internet guru Lanier's fascinating and provocative full-length exploration of the Internet's problems and potential is destined to become a must-read for both critics and advocates of online-based technology and culture. Lanier is best known for creating and pioneering the use of the revolutionary computer technology that he named virtual reality. Yet in his first book, Lanier takes a step back and critiques the current digital technology, more deeply exploring the ideas from his famous 2000 Wired magazine article, One-Half of a Manifesto, which argued against more wildly optimistic views of what computers and the Internet could accomplish. His main target here is Web 2.0, the current dominant digital design concept commonly referred to as open culture. Lanier forcefully argues that Web 2.0 sites such as Wikipedia undervalue humans in favor of anonymity and crowd identity. He brilliantly shows how large Web 2.0–based information aggregators such as Amazon.com—as well as proponents of free music file sharing—have created a hive mind mentality emphasizing quantity over quality. But he concludes with a passionate and hopeful argument for a new digital humanism in which radical technologies do not deny the specialness of personhood." -Publishers Weekly, January 2010.

Bottom line: we do need to explore and continue to use technology WHERE it makes sense, not just because it is there.

Thing 21 - Wikis

I have always been a bit confused about the difference between blogs and wikis- but I guess it is just that the wiki is more "group-owned" and the blog has generally one author who receives comments from others. I guess another way to describe a wiki is that is is like a google doc, except that it is a website instead of a document. Again, as with podcasts, I don't see myself searching out wikis, but it is useful to see what is out there and what potential there might be for my creating one on my own. I looked at the educational wiki search engine, and was disappointed to see that they were organized in alphabetical order by title (NOT useful!!!), although a keyword search could be used to narrow the search. In my exploring, I did see one obstacle that I first witnessed on the Arbor Heights elementary school site- when looking through discussion and history, it became very apparent that one guy is handling most of the work. It seems that in many cases, it may start out as a collaborative idea, but may end up being on the shoulders of one person. The wikihow site seemed silly to me- perhaps it was just the ones that I clicked on, like "how to get your boyfriend to read". I sometimes cannot get past my need for authority on the site: I keep thinking, "who wrote this?!" I did see a nice collaboratiove project on the comparison of the seasons of the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere with an American School and a New Zealand school: this, it would seem, is an ideal use of the wiki.

Thing 20 - Podcasts 2

I took a look at the Education Podcast Network, and clicked into Secondary school podcats. My complaint here is that the titles are not helpful, and they are not organized by subject, so I feel as though I am blindly clicking in (also, several were not available when clicked on). There were also only 20 listed under Secondary schools. I then tried Podcast Alley. I was pleased to see that it as possible, as you suggested, to browse by genre- however, under Government, for instance, it showed 18 podcasts, but once you entered the gov't section, there was actually only one. The fact that they are not specifically created for educational purposes, as you mentioned, creates another obstacle here. In thinking about podcasts, it seems to me that I might not be specifically searching for podcasts. The point is, if I come across them, for instance, within our subscription databases, I will not be intimidated. I used my itunes to subscribe to three NPR podcasts. I am getting on a plane to L.A. tomorrow and will listen to: NPR's Culturetopia, NPR's Books and NPR's StoryCorps! It was Easy Peasey, as they say..... I can also see the benefit in learning to create one, and will try to do so this year, using Audacity, to perhaps create a booktalk for an English class.

Thing 19 - Podcasts

Can I first of all say that I just LOVE the CommonCraft videos- they are so perfect in every way! Absolutely anyone can understand the Plain English videos. They should have them for everything.....I could not get the Great Educational Podcast videos to work, so I just went on to explore podcasts. (It is, as we speak 90+ degrees outside, and it is 4pm- I am tired and hot. Why am I telling you this? You'll see...) What a pleasure to choose an NPR podcast, and stretch out on the couch in the AC with my eyes closed! I listened to NPR's Culturetopia, http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=89697153 and loved it. I plan on subscribing to a few, and figuring out how to download them onto my Ipod, which I have so far used only for music. I also checked out the vocab minute from the Princeton Review: http://feeds.feedburner.com/princetonreview -that is DEFINITELY going on my library homepage! I also listened to booktalks for students at http://nancykeane.com/booktalks/podcast_list.htm What a great way to have students recommend books to each other- I am going to start podcasting with English classes this year! I then listened to an Internet Safety podcast http://www.internetsafetypodcast.com/ with the author of a book called Ethics in the Information Age. It was 40 mins. long, though, and I can't imagine teachers sitting that long without something to look at. (Teachers are the worst audiences, in my opinion!) This is another great Thing as far as I am concerned!

Thing 18 - Slideshare

I will definitely do some digging here and see what may be helpful to use with information literacy/research classes (boy, Shift Happens is OVERWHELMING!!!!). I did creat an account and plan to upload a powerpoint that I use with Public Speaking classes on how to be a good presenter. In the meantime, I will embed a popular slideshow with some incredible paper sculptures....perhaps this is what we will do with all of the paper that we no longer use since we collaborate online with Web 2.0 :)

Astonishing Paper Sculptures from Jeff Nishinaka

View more presentations from Nubia ..

Thing 17 - Productivity Tools

As I mentioned in another post, I use LibraryThing and love it. However, I have private settings. I think it would be more useful to make my tags and bookmarks public- perhaps I could link to them within my research pathfinders. I think I'm ready to take that next step.

As for trying new things, I signed up for Remember the Milk, which bills itself as a task organizer. I loved the title, to start with! I am feeling overwhelmed with getting one daughter off to college this weekend while we also pack for a trip to visit my other daughter in L.A.- I thought that two task lists would help me feel less overwhelmed- NOT TRUE! The site is not very user-friendly- you have to dig for a "how to", and the FAQ page went on forever- no thanks!

I then tried Trailfire, thinking that it would be useful for classes to create an annotated web trail. I just didn't find the site useful. It was not easy to search existing trails by subject area- they did have a tag cloud, but there were some really bizarre (as well as really obscure) tags. I did click into a few random ones, including a Webkins trail- there was nothing new or unusual, only 5 sites and one was Wikipedia. I can't see how I would send students here.

Maybe I'm just not having an open mind, but, with all the new tools I am learning, I don't see the need for looking for more- it's interesting to know so many are out there, but I feel as though my plate is full as it is. I am interested, though, to see several whiteboard presentation site links- I do not presently have a whiteboard in the library, but in the future would like to see that added- in that case, I will explore these. (Matt- it would be good to keep this blog up and running so that we can have access to these links down the line!) I also hope to utilize the calendar options in our district email this year- so the need for additional calendar productivity tools would not make sense. It makes better sense to utilize the ones that we have in place with district email.

Thing 16 - Google Docs

I have used google docs with our collaborative work on WITLS, so I have some practice with it. In order to practice, I uploaded a file with interview questions that I would share with a group of people on an interview committee, asking them to review the questions and add other pertinent questions. I can see this being a great help, and will definitely use it more now that I am comfortable with it. I created a spreadsheet of favorites, and shared it with my family members. Not sure who I'll hear back from- if they do not have a google account, can they access it and edit? If they are too busy to stop and create an account, they may not get right back to me. We'll see....
As for using this in school, it's a no-brainer for committee work. I also will try using the Windows 2007 feature this year with the Publishing software. The Journalism class uses Publisher to create their newsletters, and I need to get up to speed in order to help them.

Thing 15 - RSS 2

I think it was a smart thing to make this cleanup another "thing", or else I would have never gotten back here and seen just what it can do. My only complaint is that the subscription area in the left column is scrunched down at the bottom and I am not sure what the rest of the stuff above it is used for! I'd rather have my subscriptions all up at the top.

I subscribed to a Google Alert for "Rules of Engagement", a televison show that my daughter just started working on. Much that came up was related to the war in Afghanistan, so I had to add "television" to the alert. I read through the rest of my subscriptions, and decided to unsubscribe to 2 or 3 of them. I also went into "Manage subscriptions" to create folders for the following: family, news, library/tech, and books. I find that much of Google Reader is intuitive- I have been able to figure it out without needing instructions.

I subscribed to a Delicious tag for "Journalism", as I will be working with that class this year for the first time. This tag may be too general- I may have to narrow it, we'll see. When I clicked on the orange feed widget at the bottom of the page it did not take me right to Google Reader, as the video showed. It said I was subscribed, but in order to have it show up in Google Reader, I had to cut and paste the URL. It was good to remember that that there is more than one way to do things - that is usually the case with most things! I also subscribed to NYT news headlines. I plan on taking a look at many of my email newsletters to see if I can switch them over to subscriptions in Google Reader. This seems to be the way to go! Rather than being overwhelming, it can actually help to manage too much information in one place. (on a side note, I read two book reviews that looked great, and am ordering the books for the high school library: one is called "Rewired: Understanding the igeneration and the way they learn" by Larry D. Rosen, PhD).

Thing 14 - Delicious

As I mentioned in thing 13, I already had a Delicious account. I may decide, though, to start from scratch, as I uploaded all of my bookmarks and am going through the process of adding tags and deleting sites that are no longer helpful. It would be great if Delicious automatically deleted non-working sites, but I don't think that is the case...I also need to play with adding the buttons to my browser- I use Mozilla, mostly, at school, and Internet Explorer at home. I also have Vista at home (ugggghhh!!!) and it has way too many obstacles for web 2.0. I do, however, love Delicious. I also use LibraryThing for social bookmarking- it is a web catalog of books that I have read, and I can add tags and see what other users suggest. It is great- I highly recommend it.

Thing 13 - Tagging & Social Bookmarking

Tagging and social bookmarking are the perfect solutions to too many websites! I had so many sites that it was ridiculous- even though I had created folders for those sites, it was just too much. Of course, the other issue was not having sites at home that I had bookmarked at work (I noticed a couple of years ago that our network at school seemed to save bookmarks with your login, so I was able to access bookmarks from different machines, but it was still unwieldy). I found a way to import my bookmarks into Delicious, but it has been a long process to add tags and make up for the switch from folders to tags. I also seem to have issues with the Delicious and Tag buttons- they don't always show up. I need to play with it once I get to school to see if I can be automatically logged in when I go online. I thought it would be interesting to create a tag cloud using my blog:

access account ago although appropriate barbara blog blogthis bookmarks buzz class college comments create creative delicious discussion email facebook flickr folders google home images imagine issue life lyons obviously personal posted professional save school share sites social students tag teachers template think twitter uploaded used video visual wilton work years

created at TagCrowd.com

Thing 12 - Widgets

I have wanted to play around with widgets for a while. I'd like to replace the text titles of our databases, for instance, with widgets that are logos for the databases. I just haven't had....time! Here is a cool widget with a word of the day in languages of the world, which I found on an education site:

Internet Polyglot

Here's my Voki: what a cool tool!
Get a Voki now!



So far, I've had the most fun with widgets and mashups (lions and tigers and bears!) I can see using Voki to get the kids started on a task. I wish the recording could be longer than 90 secs! I am getting comfortable adding code, although the blog is so simple....I am starting to think about changes I'd like to make to the library webpage, and how overwhelming Dreamweaver can be...not as user friendly, so to wander off from the blog and apply some of these things will be a challenge. I am curious about our new web platform. Hopefully it will be as user friendly as this blog! I am on other Social networking sites- I am on Facebook, although I am VERY low-profile there. I use it to keep in touch with family and friends. It's great for sharing photos, news. I keep thinking about the comment the student made about having to "power-down" to come to school. As a library media specialist, I want to be sure to meet the kids "where they live" - in the online world. I can also, hopefully, model the importance of unplugging to have meaningful, face-to-face contact.

Thing 11 - Connect

There are not many people with blogs in this group, but I did comment on the two that are listed. I had collaborated with an AP US class that blogged last year, so I have experience with this. I also read the articles on commenting, and I believe that, as professionals, these "rules" are somewhat second nature to us. Obviously, we should be respectful, succinct, helpful and add to the discussion when possible. I think that giving students immediate feedback, not only from their teacher but from their peers, is one of the most powerful parts of blogging.

Thing 10 - Video 2

This is one of my favorite videos of all time:
Jessica's daily affirmation


Whenever I have a bad day, I'm gonna play this one!
I have a blog for book suggestions. What would be great is to have students use a flip camera to get book suggestions from each other, and add it to my blog!

Thing 9 - Video

Youtube is something that I have enjoyed very much, although mostly for personal enjoyment. Now that we have the use of it (as teachers) at the high school, I imagine that I will use it more. I now have an account, and left a comment on a video that my daughter uploaded three years ago (she actually produced in in the fall of 2005 for a college science class.) It is clever and funny, if I do say so myself, although I won't link it here, as it is for a college level audience, and therefore not always appropriate. It was done as a rap song, and I left her a comment to say it only gets better with age!

By using Youtube, teachers can work against the idea that students have about having to "power-down" when they come to school. The biggest challenge is to find the time to find videos with educational value, preview them for appropriateness, and save them in a place where they can be accessed when needed.

Thing 8 - Mashups

....What else can I say? I could waste alot of time having fun! I'll have to think about how this would best be used with a class...obviously, art classes would have a great time with it. Creative writing journals could also be given a wake-up call! I tried the montage using the tag "metaphor", an idea I picked up from the video, and I thought it could be a great enrichment idea for an English class- click on each photo and name the metaphor it depicts. I could see alot of these being enrichment activities. A fun activity for mentor group, too.....hmmmm.....
Next I went to big huge labs and used the FX application to give a photo specials effects. I took this photo on a hike in NH, here it is, followed by what it looks like in charcoal, from the FX application:

Thing 7 - Flickr 2

Obviously, Flickr is a neat site with lots of creative potential. I liked the video suggestion (from thing 6) of searching with the tag "metaphor". I can see Flickr being used with creative writing and visual literacy lessons. I can also see art teachers using it to start discussions about visual design. I do have concerns about students using this, when questionable stuff can come up. I also find that I need to always think about separating my personal life and my professional life with Web 2.0 applications. I am happy to see that I have the choice to make certain images public, and others private. I can also imagine needing to upgrade my account, as I have only uploaded several photos and have already used up 10% of my allotted space for this month!

Thing 6 - Flickr

I am finding that most of these tools are intuitive. The most frustrating thing is that they can't all be accessed with the same passwords! I wish I could have a home page with all of this linked and passwords embedded....

I can imagine using this site with a class, but I prefer the Library of Congress site and AP photos....you don't have to sift through so much junk, and you don't have to worry about copyright. I found, through an advanced search, a Creative Commons photo taken in Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house- of a bookshelf in a stairway- I like the monochrome quality and texture of the rocks. (...and I know Matt H. will appreciate it!) Here it is:

Thing 5 - Blogs 2

I feel comfortable searching for and subscribing to blogs in different ways. One thing I noticed is that many of the movers and shakers are starting to use twitter and ning and facebook rather than the blog....is the blog becoming passe? For instance, I found on several pages that the twitter and facebook widgets were up front and center, while I had to scroll down to find a subscribe button. Hmmmm....also, Ning is Joyce Valenza's preferred way to communicate, it seems. Do we have access to Ning in WPS?

Once again, I am trying to keep this managable so that it can become a usable thing for me, rather than an overwhelming thing.....

Thing 4 - RSS

As I mentioned in my post on Thing 3, the blog universe can be overwheming. I have decided to start small, with some of the very best inspirational sites. I created a LibraryTech folder, where I have subscribed to three blogs: Joyce Valenza's School Library Journal Blog, entitled Neverendingsearch; David Pogue's NYT Tech blog, and the blog of the Unquiet Librarian, a high school library media specialist whom I admire. I also created a file called books, where I have posted the Librarything author blog, and Unquiet Librarian (yes, I have her in two folders, as she is prolific!). We'll see how it goes.

My biggest confusion right now is that I am not sure where these posts will pop up. When I originally created my google account, I created a gmail address, thinking that I had to do so. I have my wilton school email listed as an additional address. However, my iGoogle page (which was created with the gmail address) does not show the blogs that I subscribed to. I guess I'll have to play with it. I also did not find the last video (creating folders) on the 23 thing blog to be helpful. The woman did not explain things well at all- I did better just figuring it out on my own.

Thing 3 - Blogs

So, I spent quite a bit of time pointing and clicking into blogs- some were very useful, some not so. It is so easy to be pulled off in so many directions, and to lose site of where/why you started! I suppose the best thing to do is to add links of the best educational sites to my favorites, and check them now and again. The most useful thing I think I pulled from Thing 3 is a list of 30 ideas of how to use blogs in the classroom. I am definitely going to use this. I have already seen first-hand how useful blogs are in AP government, as an example.

I got a chuckle when I read the blog from ISTE on critical thinking in web 2.0- one presenter called critical thinking "crap detection"!!!

The biggest obstacle here? TIME to keep up! Maybe RSS will help.....onto Thing 4....

Thing 1 and Thing 2, or, "Here I go again..."

I started 23 Things in February of '09 through the State of CT, and got through some, but not all of it. Here I go again! As for the YouTube videos in Thing 1, I had seen the first of the two- very compelling stuff, good to be reminded about the importance of technology in the lives of our students, and the idea that many feel they have to "power-down" in order to come to school. The second video was interesting as well....the fact that the move from HTML to XML allows for focus on content, and format becomes very user-friendly.

I have two concerns as I look forward to this challenge: First of all, I find that my "non-digital" learning style has me frustrated with the nature of learning web 2.0: it is always changing, and therefore what I learn today may be irrelevant tomorrow! Secondly, I cannot get past my librarian way of looking at authority: web 2.0 is all about collaboartion, and blogs are 21st century news sources, but I can't help saying "who WROTE this?"