Reflection

I have to say that this has been a good use of my time this summer. Web 2.0 is not the mystery to me that it was in the past. I wish every librarian in my district had participated. I like the idea of exploring these sites on my own rather than sitting in workshops. My favorite thing was Facebook since I had already discovered it. My least favorite thing was probably Library Worm. I enjoyed discovering Library Thing and Delicious and plan to keep using these. I set up two accounts for Delicious and hope to be able to share bookmarks with colleagues when school starts again. I wish Goodreads had been on here. I know teachers that are already using it successfully in their classrooms. I've already established an account there, it has book discussions, and a place to keep track of all the books you've read.

Thing 22

We were not required to do the 23 things. I felt like it was something I needed because I always feel like I'm a beat behind when it comes to technology. I know that there are a couple more librarians in my district who are doing it too. It would be great to adapt this for the other librarians in the district as well as for the teachers in my school. However, I don't feel comfortable enough to be the one to adapt it. I've learned a lot but I've struggled too. I just don't feel like I have a handle on all of it yet.

Podcasts

Being a very visual person, I'm not fond of audio books. I have to say I feel the same way about podcasts. I much prefer videos and don't know why people wouldn't prefer to see and hear information rather than just hearing it. I know that there are teachers at my school that use podcasts successfully so I can understand that there is a purpose for them. I can see using them for information or short booktalks, but my attention span can't deal with some of the longer podcasts I found. So I listened to the shorter ones. I had high hopes for the booktalks I found but frankly wasn't overwhelmed or tempted to go check the books out. The audio quality was good though. Even so, I can't imagine subscribing to any of the podcasts I listened to today.

You Tube

Thing 20 was a fun assignment. I love You Tube. I found a wide variety of library-related videos from book cart drills to book trailers to speed knitting in the library. I watched informative videos on Tex Share and the K-12 databases. One orientation video I saw seemed long in length but short on practical information. It was mainly 4 minutes of shots of the library with a brief history thrown in. I do think the orientation idea is a good one though if it includes basic procedures and rules for your library that your students will need to follow all year. I think my favorite videos are the book trailers and this is something I would might like to get the kids to do with me next year. Another fun thing my students would enjoy on You Tube are the author interviews. What a great way to put a voice and face to their favorite authors. I wish there were more.

Google Docs

I was not aware of this google feature. I successfully sent myself a link to a document. The laptop I use at home does not have Word on it so I love the idea that I can go to Google Docs and generate documents and store or share them there. This is a feature I will probably use in the future.

Wiki

I use Wikipedia all the time. I realize there is a lot of controversy about the accuracy of the information but I find it an extremely useful starting point for research and as a source for quick information. Before this exercise, however, I had never clicked on the discussion button before. Very interesting, I must say. Right now I am reading The Stolen One by Suzanne Crowley and as it has to do with Katherine Parr, her article is the one I looked up for this Thing. One of the interesting things I discovered when I clicked the discussion button was a heated controversy over the spelling of her name. Now, my question is can literally anybody edit and add to Wikipedia, even me?

I set up my wiki page with only a little trouble. I didn't realize the subpage needed to have a name unique from everybody else's. Once I went back and read the comments and discovered this crucial bit of information, I was able to create my 3 sub-pages of more than anyone really wants to know about me.

LIBWORM

I did not find much of value in this particular thing. There is way too much information on here and not enough that looks interesting to me. Also, some of it was out of date like the post about the Twilight movie coming out and this came up on the first page of results. When I clicked on Web 2.0 I got a lot of foreign language entries. Then there are the pages and pages of results. I just don't have time for this website. I thought some of the book reviews I found were interesting, but I can book reviews in many other places. I may try the Worm again some day if there is something specific that I am looking for. But just browsing, I wasn't impressed.

Library Thing

Now this is a site that I love. I've been playing on it for half the day now. This was probably the easiest site to join. Put in a username and password and you're in. I started out by adding books I own. This alone could become an obsession. Let's see how long it takes me to put all the books in my personal library into Library Thing. Then I joined a couple of groups and posted some comments. I love the idea of a group for book lovers. I want to put a plug in here for goodreads. I love this website and would encourage everybody to check it out. I have teacher friends who are using this site with their students. Anyway, it's two thumbs up for Library Thing. Again, I don't know how much time I'll have to devote to it though.

Can you Digg it?

I'm not sure I dig Digg. The first story I tried to view shut my computer down causing me to question the safety of Digg. I'm not one to give up that easy so I tried Digg again on my laptop the next day and was able to look at several stories. I will say that Digg is interesting but I don't really see it as something I will use all that often. I chose not to join Digg at this time but I could change my mind later so I can Digg things.