Thing #12

I think that one of the important things about successful commenting is to be sincere and make it meaningful. I have been reading more and more blogs since I set up my "reader" account in igoogle. I have been a little overwhelmed with information and have not commented yet, because even though I would be sincere, I feel more like it would just be a comment like 'thanks for the info." Maybe that's ok sometimes too, but it seems like it should have more for someone to take the time to read it. I think a second important thing in commenting is to check back on the blog after you've made comments. If you cared enough to comment in the first place, make sure that you continue to participate in any discussion that is going on.
I have only made a couple of comments so far on our learn2play blogs, but will be checking back to do that some more. I have done some searching on google blog and found some interesting things, but have not made any comments yet. I searched 'library children's' and found several blogs. One was from the children's library section of a public library and it had a post from August about a library program that they had on scratch-which is a program that you can use to make video games. I can't wait to check this out, because my 8 year old has been asking me if he can go to a class to learn to make his own video games.

I will have to continue this #12 later when I have made some comments to some blogs!

Thing #11

This is going to be a great tool for my own personal library. I have so many children's books that I sometimes forget if I have the book or not, particularly in the series of Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer. I know I have more than 1 copy of some of the titles. By putting all of my books in Librarything, I will be able to check to see if I have a book before I buy. Or for that matter, if a colleague is looking for a book and I am not sure if I have it--it's right there at the computer to check. I also don't have to put the books in any sort of order, because if librarything shows a duplicate ISBN# it tells me. This will really help as I'm trying to put them on my account and my children mix them up as I am doing it.
I checked out a couple of the groups and joined the one that's called Librarians who Librarything. I already got a useful tip on how to use it as a librarian when helping people look for books. ShannonMDE wrote "I use it for Readers Advisory. Help I've read everything by James Patterson, Danielle Steel, Louis Lamour, etc.. Also, use it for send me a good western, romance, etc.. particularly useful for genres I don't regularly read." So if someone has read everything by a certain author, I may be able to help them find another author that they might like. I am really looking forward to using this more!

Thing #10

I played with all the image generators and I like 2 of them best. Image chef was very easy to use and especially easy to add to my blog. I just clicked a button to add to my blog, chose which blog service, put in my login, password and title, checked a box to put it in the sidebar and clicked post. It was simple. The puppy picture in my sidebar came from this generator.

I also liked comic strip generator. I had to save my picture to my computer first and then add it to my blog, but it was easy to use. There were hundred's of choices of comics to use. If students were going to create their own, it would have to be closely monitored though because some of the choices of pictures do have some bare bottoms, etc. The baby penguin strip and Scooby Doo were created in this image generator.

In the classroom, the image generators could be used in a variety of ways. In writing, students could make a single comic strip and put text in that uses feeling words. They could make a multi-frame comic strip and make up their own story. They could work out their math problems in a multi-step comic strip and it would make them show their work. In the library it could be used to answer questions that are frequently asked. The students and teachers would have fun with this technology.

Thing #9

Before I begin I'd like to add a note about Thing #7 and #8--I have to say that I am really using my RSS and several of the other igoogle features that I didn't mention. I used the document feature last night for the 1st time. From the computer lab at UHCL I saved a document and then viewed it later from home and even from work today. It is amazing how all I have to do is sign in to igoogle and I get my "set-up" and all my items. I also used the notebook to save some websites for further investigation. It is wonderful that I don't have to get out my flash drive just to do this.

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? I preferred searching by topic and depending on the tool--some seemed to give me more what I was looking for than others.
Which Search tool was the easiest for you?I found the blogline search tool easiest to use. I like how you could use the drop down menu to search for posts, feeds, citations or the web. I found several valuable feeds. Many are associated with School Library Journal--but topic specific. I am looking forward to perusing these on my Google Reader over the next few days to see the best.

Which was more confusing? For me syndic8.com was confusing or hard to get to what I wanted. It didn't give me much of what I was looking for like blogline did.
What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? I added one that is called School Library Journal Breaking News and I think it will be very useful on keeping up with the latest trends. Another is called Neverending search and it looks very promising as well. An additional blog is out of Australia and I love being able to see what the other side of the world is doing in their school library. The blog is called pretxts
Other ways I located blogs or news feeds was just by looking at some of the blogs and then looking at some of the blogs they subscribe to. I also just added CNN by typing in CNN.com and then copying and pasting the address. I have it giving me the top stories.
This RSS feed is just great!

Thing #8

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?
How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

I like the RSS and newsreaders in the way they save time. I set one up and linked all the blogs from our class as well as a few others. I have been checking the other blogs to see what others have said about the "Things" and many times have found that nothing has been updated since the last time I checked. I won't have to do that anymore! I also like the fact that if I want to actually go to the blog that I can click at the title of it at the top and it opens in a new window. This way I can see pictures if any were posted, since the RSS mostly just shows the text. I thought it just showed text but the pictures on the posts of the Librarian Philosopher show up on the feeds!

This technology is great for my personal life (as far as furthering my education) because I can more easily monitor blogs that pertain to library and keep myself updated on information that applies to my studies. This would be great also, if I had family that posted personal blogs, it could keep me informed on their lives as they post. I would like to keep my blog going after this class as a personal blog and give my family the link so that they can stay updated on my life. I have no family in Houston, so it would be a great place to keep them updated on my family along with pictures. I hope that I can set up an RSS feed for my inlaws (they have a computer, but mostly use it to play solitaire) so that they can check it for updates. I am not very good at emailing, but I think I could post once or twice a month and with the RSS friends and family wouldn't waste time checking my blog unnecessarily. We always do a Christmas letter and this year I am going to include my blog site in the letter.
Libraries can use RSS to keep updated on information and library trends. I think it has the possibility to keep you updated on book reviews. Since I am still learning in my pursuit of library science I am not yet familiar if there are websites that might regularly update information on reviews that could be linked to an RSS, but it certainly would be beneficial in selection.
Once I have researched it more, I can include the best news and blogs related to libraries in my RSS feed. Teachers could be taught how to blog and set up their own blog, then teach the students how to set up RSS to keep up with assignments from teachers. If teachers are working in groups or teams, they can keep each other up on planning if they set up each other in their RSS.
I imagine that professor's at University's could use an RSS to check the progress of their class when they have a blog assignment so that they don't have to keep checking the blog! :)

Thing #7

The google advanced search is great! I like looking for powerpoint's that are already made. I put in the word 'math' and 'place value' and got some really good finds. One was even a race that was interactive for a student to do independently. I am going to share these with the teachers tomorrow. I am also definitely going to share how to search for documents on subjects that are already created. Even if they are not exactly what they want, they give something to work with that can be revised. It sure beats starting from scratch!
I also really liked exploring google earth . It is great for social studies and geography. You could study everything from street maps to city maps. The 3D functions are great. It is also a great way to bring famous monuments right into the classroom--like the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore.
I also created my own igoogle page. I love the games and animal pictures. I keep adding more games and revising my page. It's alot of fun.

Thing #6 complete

I really like all the things you can do with pictures--and it is so easy. In a library, the possibilities are endless with the creations. With the speech bubble captions-you could take pictures of students with books they enjoyed and add their comments about the book and then put them up in the library. With the trading cards--you could use them as a business card of sorts to the students. But you could also use the trading cards to promote books--Hints as to the story to give a clue about what the book is about to spark some interest.

With the framer--you could also promote books with pictures of students who had read the book. You could also use it for awards for reading--post the students of the week from each class. There is so much to explore at the fd's Flickr Toys. This will definitely be on my favorites menu.

Here are a couple more fun things I made!