Thing #10-Week 5 - Image Generator

willie with impression
Originally uploaded by geotech2009

Thing 10 - playing online with photos and image generators was the most frazzled activity yet for me. Due to variable speed of the internet and constant drops in bandwidth, working with photos is intensive. I was only able to save the photo of our dog, Willie. I tried several tools, again the Big Huge Labs, home of Flickr toys was the easiest, and smoothest. I tried the Cartoon Creator at the Image Chef, after two days, I got this message from them: "We're sorry - this feature is not compatible with Macs." NO WONDER...just wish that was noted on their home page. So, no ah has, and I wonder just how much I would use these generators in "serious" work for school or professional development, due to the time-intensive tasks. Fun, yet not something I feel is worth the time involved. Part of my learning style, sequential linear thinking, time = money; money = work; I like to work, but not this hard for the time required for the results. Cute dog however...

Thing #9 - Week 4 - Finding Feeds

I found feeds in a variety of places, including those that are familiar, such as ALA or by searching terms such as educational technology or school librarians. The links from Edublogger Awards to other sites, provided on the RavenAboutLibraries (RAL), were very extensive. I found those easiest to subscribe provided the orange logo for RSS, or those that asked me to subscribe via Google, with the icon in an easily discernable location--usually at the top or bottom. Those sites with extensive advertisements were very distracting, and I tended to navigate away from them. While I respect Joyce Valenza and her ideas, the blinking ads and opportunities kept me from subscribing. While i know RSS feeds may leave the ads off, i disliked the clutter of some commercially supported sites that some educators use.

From the awards list, I found 2 that were suberb: Edublogger with several extensive sites, linked together, and her observations about US culture were humorous--Sue Waters has her own personal blog linked to it where she comments on everything from high fructose corn syrup in Coke to improving the looks of your blog. I subscribed to her RSS feed as her tips are timely and useful. Recently she has an excellent piece on "The 4-Cs of Social Networking". In addition this site hosts blogs for students, teachers, and librarians.
Another useful site I found was a Brit named Jane Hart who publishes "Social Media In Learning", "a FREE resource aimed at all learning professionals who want a quick, easy-to-use, structured introduction to social media for formal and informal learning as well as a practical guide to using social media tools." The links from this site, never end!

Viewing various blogs is beneficial, to compare and contrast layout, ease of use, friendliness, etc. and help me to try to emulate these professionals as I develop my Librarian blog. I appreciate having a choice of spots to recieve the feeds, and I chose the Education page of my iGoogle site, so that, like the Anchorage Daily News, or New York Times, I have the latest news from Edublogger at my fingertips! Very cool.

Thing 8 Week 4 - RSS Feeds

Using Google Reader and igoogle as my home page has allowed me to subscribe to various RSS feeds, and have them available through those two sites, rather than clogging my email. I went to various news sites, adding some to the igoogle news page, and others as Google Reader, both of which eventually end up on the igoogle site--as I linked the Google Reader to the igoogle news page. I love the fact that I’m given the choice of where it’s delivered. I now understand how it's all tied together, and the simplicity of it is overwhelming!
I appreciated the tutorial provided in this lesson, and learned a lot about ways to increase use of RSS. Because I'm working on a blog for the local quilter's guild, many of whom have no idea what a blog is, let alone an RSS feed, I appreciated the help found on Problogger - How to make your RSS feeds pop!, specifically, "If your blog is on a non techie topic with a readership who doesn’t have much awareness of RSS write a post that explains what RSS is and how it can help them follow your site. Then add a link to that post under your RSS button to help educate them." This is great.
Providing simple ways for the library aides in our district to follow a library blog is important, and I found several useful hints on this site, and others linked from this lesson. I can forsee providing inservice instruction on how to use and get involved with such a blog.

Thing #7 Week 3 Technology Tools

The wealth of tools available to create and communicate is marvelous, and at the same time overwhelming to try and learn quickly. I believe the tools that enhance creating, sharing and social networking, specifically in a visual format (i.e. Flickr, Skype, YouTube, and Blogger) are very powerful media. Easy to use, streamlined and quick; these tools offer eduators a means to communicate with students, parents and peers that can build rapport and diffuse barriers. I like that all the things I've tried thus far are fairly simple (esp. if directions are followed!), and offer so much. With time, I believe I will use these visual technology tools in a variety of ways. What I find powerful is the sharing found in the online community, no need to reinvent the wheel, USE IT!!

Motivational Posters Made Easy-Week 3-Thing #6

I spent some time touring around the various tools that work with Flickr. Ah if only I could remember my html a bit better. I created this motivational poster with fd's flickr toys, part of bighugelabs products that are great tools for the developer. I only wish the formatting didn't have so many spaces around the photos. like this photo: I want this text to wrap around it without the space to either side, but it isn't behaving!! It's an ongoing tweaking process.
I was amazed how many tools bighugelabs offers, one could play all day! I love the poster-making and playing card-making tools, and see that the use of these tools very useful in the librarian's teaching, Battle of the Books, curriculum planning, and communicating with students. Many possibilities exist. WOW is my reaction. I found a site that posted the trading cards made by librarians, with various projects profiled. One caught my eye, a local history project in New England, in which students took photos of local sites then wrote a paragraph about them and posted them on Flickr. when I search "librarians" on Flickr, it returned over 76,000 hits...some very funny posters, like Librarians in showercaps...who has all this time?

n.

AASL conference coming up

Going to Charlotte? ALA |
I just wanted to try sending this to my blog, cool tool


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Week 3 Thing #5--Flickr upload

Below is my attempt at uploading some photos using the Flickr blogging tool. I tried messing around with the formatting because I dislike how far away the text is from the photos. What I discovered is that I have to edit it in Flickr first, before it's uploaded. But it sure looked better on Flickr than it does here, stay tuned, perhaps in Thing #6 I can figure out how to fix it.
Just wanted to share my family & hobby with you; not too library-like, but it's how the stress of cataloging, weeding, processing, and teaching is dissolved, with a good squeeze of the kid, and twenty minutes of free-motion quilting, oh yes, a bit of vino helps too! :-}}

The grandbaby

The grandbaby,
originally uploaded by geotech-librarian.
This little guy is now 4 years old, my grandson and his parents

Week 2 -- Things #3 & #4

My blog is posted and registered with Ravenaboutweb2.0, and I feel a bit relieved. For several weeks I've been procrastinating, and trying to make an avatar without registering with Yahoo, but finally bit the bullet and used the suggested avatar creator. I didn't want do sign up for yet another web-based service provider who would have my name, but trying to use other avatar-creating sites was very cumbersome. Thank you for introducing me to Yahoo's service, and its useful creator, it was simple, once I got rid of that feeling of constraint. Now I will see if I can delete my name from them! So, I guess there's another habit I need to work on: #3, view obstacles as Learning experiences, one I thought I was positive about!
I hope to hear from some of you to commiserate our challenges that provide us with new ideas!

Week 1 #1 Getting Started

Hi, as you'll notice, I don't do things in sequential order as requested, like creating the blog (#3), then reading the 7 Habits (#2), and now Getting Started(#1)...don't know if there is a Week 1 #1, but everyone else has one, so why not?
I've read the Web 2.0 text, and find that it is a great reminder of how far educational technology has come since the Apple IIe...the locus of control, as LOGO always promised, is finally in the learners' hands. The creative commons is surely in the hands of our students.
I enrolled in this course to learn more about ever-changing technology that seems seamless to our students. I want to use the tools to learn to podcast, develop an online media literacy course, and have fun. I hope to do that this summer, although it's quickly slipping away!

Week 1 #2--Lifelong Learning

After viewing the 7 Habits of Lifelong Learning, I find that the hardest thing to do is to avoid the temptation to attain goals in a scatter shot manner, like leaping ahead to lesson 3 when I've not started lesson one. Perhaps that's the hardest habit for me, #1--begin with the end in mind, and determining the steps in a sequential manner to achieve the goal. Although I try to do that when teaching and project planning, I get easily sidetracked, with all the ideas, conversations and activities going on out there. I do not consider myself a random learner, but rather a sequential, organized one. Perhaps I learn more like a flow chart..if this interests me, I'll go there, never mind that I've skipped the first step, and missed out on important information.
The easiest habit, perhaps because it comes naturally for me, is #3, to view problems as challenges, opportunities to learn. I enjoy learning, the growth and mind-expanding prospects of knowing about new ideas and interaction with them and the possibilities that exist.