Thing #23

Before I start by summarizing my experiences with 23 Things, I have to say something first...

I'm Finished!!!

Seattle Municipal Archives' photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives/

1. After working through all 23 things I had a few that I really enjoyed and will continue to use after this experience: mashups, iGoogle, GoogleReader, LibraryThing, and photostory.

2. I would say that my lifelong learning goals have changed because I now realize there are so many tools out there that I need and want to learn about. Just working through these 23 things, I realized there is so much more I could be doing at school.

3. I had heard about, and even used, some of the tools/programs from 23 things before starting, but I found a lot of things that I wish I had when I was teaching in my own classroom. I can not wait to share some of these with my teachers.

4. Change the format? Nonsense, I like it the way it is. You have incorporated some of the tools we learn about in your format.

5. Yes, I would participate in another discovery program.

6. Influential

Thing #22

I explored the Teacher Librarian Ning - http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/.

Teacher Library Ning has a lot of features: several groups you can join, Blog, Forums/Discussions, videos, photos, activities, School Library Journal Podcasts, etc. I really liked this Ning and I felt welcomed the minute I opened up the link. I read several of the forums/discussions and wanted to join right away because I could relate to the problems they were discussing and had comments to add. I think Nings are a great way to start interacting with people around the world with the same interests... in this case being a librarian. I think making a school Ning would be a good way to get my staff interacting with each other and maybe even promote collaboration.

Thing #21

I played around with Photostory and fell in love with it. I have decided that I will start posting my pictures on my personal blog using Photostory. The one I created above is from my wedding.

Audacity and Photostory are great resources for school libraries. Both could be used to review books - either by the librarian or students. Photostory would be a great way to introduce new books and promote special programs. I plan on exploring both Audacity and Photostory more and hope to use both at work and home.

Thing #20

I got the above video from YouTube and it is a librarian's manifesto about becoming a 2.0 librarian and making her library 2.0 compatible.

I also got this video from YouTube. It is called March of the Librarians. It is a spoof of the movie March of the Penguins. It is about the 2007 ALA conference in Seattle. It is really cute.

I think it is important to allow teachers and librarians to have access to sites like YouTube and TeacherTube. Not only can a lot of the videos be used to help teach the necessary curriculum, but they can be used to show students that they can also create their own videos. Wouldn't it be awesome to give your class an assignment that involved them creating their own videos and posting them on TeacherTube? I noticed several student-created videos on there already.

Thing #19 part 2

I chose to play with Comiqs, which won 3rd place for Fun Stuff. Comiqs lets you create your own comic strips using photos, either ones they provide or your own. The amount of people that have created and posted their own comics is unbelievable. I think Comiqs would be a great tool in the library or classroom. A librarian could use it to create signs for the library to promote new books, book fairs, and other programs. I think students would get a kick out of creating their own comics. Creating a comic using Comiqs could be a easy and simple project to help end an unit.

The part that I liked the best was after you created your comic and published it, Comiqs gives you the option of posting it in different spots - blogger, flickr, etc.

I started my own comic called The Question of the Day. The first one is just below this post.

Thing #19 part 1

The Question of the Day from BJE_Librarian on Comiqs

Thing #18

I chose to explore Google Docs. I think there are many advantages of using Google Docs, especially when you are working collaboratively with other people. I have had many group projects and there have been times that I have received attachment after attachment with the newest updated version of the project.

I like that the document stays in one place and then the collaborators can fix and change the document without creating more versions of it with a never-ending attachment trail. However, what happens when you realize the first version was the best? Can you get it back? I like the idea of Google Docs, but I think I would still try to save the different versions just to be on the safe side.