Thing #7

I could spend all day exploring the cool tools that Google has to offer.
I spent several hours using the Google Advanced Search and looking for information on Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. I even found articles about School Library 2.0 at School Library Journal. The ability to search for a specific file format lead me to all different types of Power Points that are already created that could be used in a setting with administrators and teachers. The article What is Web 2.0 by Tim Riley was the first to coin the Web 2.0 term and gave some good information about what all this "stuff" is.
I also spent a lot of time with my igoogle page. It was fun choosing the gadgets and then the themes and moving things around on the page. I spent several hours again and still didn't get through all the gadgets.
I can see this being very useful for teachers. They can desing the page to use all the things they need for the day. I am going to set one up for our school since a lot of this information we need for the morning announcements and this would put it all in one place.

Thing # 6

I love playing with the mashups! I could lose myself doing these. The one at the left is a movie poster created with the FD filckr toys. I was able to take the picture from Flickr and make a movie poster with it. I did not like the fact that you can not enlarge the font (or if you can I could not find it)on the top and the bottom. I can see the students creating posters for books they have read in the library. I have 3rd and 4th grade students make a poster for their favorite Bluebonnet Book for the current list as their ticket in the door to our voting party. I could see them creating these and putting them online instead of the old pencil and paper way!

I also looked at the Flicktionary game it is so cool, but it did not work and after several attempts I gave up.

Thing # 5

Flickr is a great tool for pictures. I can see so many uses for this site for teachers and students. So many activities came to mind for both the library and in the classroom.

This picture is titled Poster_Web2.0 and I chose it because it does a great job giving a visual of what Web 2.0 is all about.

Thing # 4

I have sent my email to Vaughn to publish my blog, and now I am listed on the libray2play site.

Thing #3 Creating a Blog and Avatar

Creating a blog has been more difficult than I thought it would be, not the actual creation of the blog, that was easy, but the creation of the content was rough! I thought about the title for the blog for a good 3 or 4 days before I came up with something, and I am still not completely happy with the title, but it encompasses my feeling that everything can be categorized under the "library" heading in schools.
Creating an avatar has also been a problem. For some reason the HTML/Java Script gadget was not working. I had to download the avatar as a picture and then put the avatar in as a picture gadget and it was there.
I have viewed other blogs while they are being created. This has been a wonderful bonding experience for the group of us who are meeting. "heavy sigh!"

23 Things........Thing # 2

Thing #2 - 7 1/2 Habits of Life Long Learners

There are 3 of the habits that seem easy to me. Confidence in myself as a competent effective learner, Use Technology to my advantage, and Teach and mentor others. Of course #71/2 Play is also one I embrace! I feel confident that I can learn anything given enough time. Technology is not scary to me and I like being able to teach and help others.
Probably the most difficult is to Begin with the end in mind. I know where I want to go or get to but I don't always consciously begin knowing what I ultimately want to get out of what I am learning.

23 Things........

Thing #1: This is going to be an awesome experience! Can't wait to get started.