Monday, August 9, 2010

Thing 23: Summary

1.What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I think Rollyo was one of my favorites.  I think it has much more appeal than a bookmark site like Delicious.  It was a lot of fun to use and so easy after I watched the video!

2.How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
In the short-term, this program is helping me get my required professional development hours.  However, in the long term, it's helped me realize that there's so much out there to keep learning about and I have to stay on the up-and-up if I'm going to be a good teacher, librarian, and Web 2.0 authority!
3.Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I think that this program helped me focus on ways to use these things within a library setting.

4.What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
Hmmm, I can't really think of anything.  I love that you offer it to people not in SBISD.

5.If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
Yes.

6.How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?
Useful

7.Now go and comment on some of the other Players' blogs?
Done and done!

Thing 12: Commenting

1.  I liked how Blue Skunk talked about asking yourself "Are you contributing to the conversation?"  I also like how Cool Cat says that you should hyperlink to your post if you talked about the same thing.  I think those two aspects are super important.  It's letting the blogger know that you truly are reading what they're saying and perhaps validating their post.

2. I also commented on http://www.shelfconsumed.com/.  This is a blog written by a librarian coordinator for new librarians.  It gives all sorts of neat stories and helpful hints.  The article I commented on was the struggle between the book the KID wants and the book the TEACHER wants the kid to read.  The post showed a great way to help difuse the situation and work towards a compromise.

Thing 22: Nings

The Ning that I joined belongs to my district at http://friscoisdlibraries.ning.com/.  I find nings to be very similar to wikis. Although, as opposed to a wiki, there is a discussion feature that appears to allow for quick communication between users.

After reading another student's blog, I joined Sarah Dessen's http://sarah-land.ning.com/.  I know middle school and high school-aged students love her books and it's nice to be able to stay up on those types of things.

Thing 21: Podcast

Here's a podcast I made as a booktalk for The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  I created it using PodBean.com and since I learned how to embed media in the last post, I embedded it here!


It's fun to create these types of things.  It'd be nice to embed these into a library's blog or website to get students and perhaps even parents excited about these books.

Thing 20: Video Streaming

You Tube Video


I have embedded my own videos into my blogs, but never something from YouTube.  This was fun!  I also enjoyed having a minute to search for education-related vlogs and videos.  Yeah!

Thing 19: Web 2.0 - Pandora

I LOVE Pandora.  This tool is a streaming music site that, based on your music preferences, streams music you like.  For example, if I were to set a "Lady Gaga" channel, it would play songs by Lady Gaga and other musicians that have songs related by beat, rythym, etc.  It is SO nice not to channel surf the radio.

I think this could be useful in the library to stream clean songs into the library for student enjoyment.  Not only that, but it could help students find related music within a genre.

Thing 18: Online Productivity Tools

Google Docs: I've used this a LOT in my Master's degree.  I have use this more as a document hosting tool for my portfolio as opposed to a collaborative tool.  A lot of my peers have stated that they've enjoyed using it for collaboration.  I have found with Google Docs that oftentimes the formatting of documents ends up changing.  Saving things as a pdf helped, but then you can't collaborate.  It definitely has its pluses and minuses!

Open Office: This was a life-saver when I bought my new computer! I couldn't afford to buy Microsoft Office but was in the middle of my degree and had to write a bunch of papers! I was able to use several of the tools.  It was a little hard to get used to at first, but it was really helpful.