Thing 14

I find it very interesting that library 2.0 is intended to include library users as well as the web site creator to provide information and feedback. This would be an excellent way to make certain the library is meeting the needs of the community. The Librarians 2.0 Manifesto was relevant to me and I could relate to many of the ideas. It listed some items that affect me personally and I have areas I need to work on such as proposing new services even though some of my colleagues may be resistant. Web 2.0 is new to me, but it has been around for a while now. I do believe it is going to change the way we use the Internet. Many people use the Internet to connect with others and Web 2.0 is the way to go.

Library 2.0 means I need to be up to date with up to date with technology in order to serve my patrons. It will help me reach more individuals and improve my program by listening to their feedback. I think Library 2.0 has many possibilities for the future of libraries. To start, it will allow users to interact with librarians without having to be face-to-face. I would love to see authors using it to interact with the public especially if it were a public school library participating in literature circles.

Thing 13

I think I am really going to enjoy using del.icio.us. Many times I have wanted to share websites with faculty members, but had to go back to my workstation to find the url and then post it to an email. This is going to be a great way to share helpful websites with my faculty. Once I create my account, I will send the link to everyone so they can explore del.icio.us and my bookmarks. Personally, I have needed something like this in the past. When I am having to use a computer other than my personal one, it is sometimes difficult to remember url's or find the page I am looking for. I see this web tool as being very useful for educators everywhere. TLA is coming up soon and I hope many of the presenters are aware of social bookmarking. Many times we get a handout with several links and it would be much easier to give one link to find the rest of the websites.

Thing 12

I have joined Ning and myspace.com. Ning is similar to myspace, but I feel more comfortable using myspace. When I joined myspace I had my own personal tutor, my daughter. She is a pro at myspace (I don't necessarily like that) and helped me create my page layout, music, and inviting friends. It went smoothly and we had a good time working together. I do like that myspace allows users to chose their privacy level. I believe it is important for educators to be familiar with networking sites that are popular among their students. We need to be able to speak their techno language. It is much easier to teach and communicate with students when we are familiar with their interests. Some educators are creating myspace pages for their students. This can be used to post lessons, create discussion logs, and keep in touch. I can see some benefits from a library having their own page. Book discussions can be viewed by the public, list of books can be posted, popular links can be added, and author's that have sites can also be found much easier. The uses are endless and I believe Ning, myspace, and facebook will reach more people than library websites. Click here to see my page. Check it out!

Thing 11

I love Library Thing. I cannot wait to go back and continue adding books to my list and seeing other people's libraries that are similar to mine. Check out my book list! I can see so many educational uses for Library Thing. This would be a great site to use for GT classes. Many teachers have summer reading lists for future students. They could post the books on their Library Thing page and students would be able to see the exact book needed and read the reviews before reading the book. Another use would be for a teacher to create a list of books the students will read throughout the year. The teacher could plan with the librarian to create a list of books that are available in the school library. The teacher could then require the students to read the books during the school year as they are available.

Thing 10

I have been looking through the many image generators and I cannot believe how many are out there. It would be fun to print them out and hang around the school. I'm not sure how the post it image works yet, but I think it would be a great tool for teachers to use when evaluating students English papers. Students could post their papers for review by the teacher and the teacher could make comments without actually writing on the paper. I think image generators have a multitude of uses. This is new to me so it will take some time to become more familar with using them.

Public Page & RSS thoughts

I was reviewing Thing 8 and decided to try and create a public page. I don't know why I was worried about it being difficult. It was super easy. Here is the link to my public page.

I have been telling my husband about RSS feeds and what they do. He is now interested and will be learning this week how to create his own feeds. I love checking one page for all my news. I am looking around for new feeds to add to my reader, but I need to be careful. I find that it is easy to put too many items into my reader and then not have time to read it all. I have used Bloggers site to search for new feeds and it brought up thousands of sites to choose from. I need to narrow my search area.

Thing 9

I used the discovery tools and looked through all the sites provided to see how they might help me locate RSS feeds that would be of interest to me. I did locate one using Bloglines search tool. It is a children's book review site. Most of my feeds came from sites I visit frequently so I didn't really need to search for them. Another search tool I liked was Syndic8.com. I tried Feedster a few times and each time the site was down. I liked how the page looks set up and will try again later. It looks more user friendly than the other sites I reviewed.

Thing 8

For a while now I have wondered about the RSS button. I finally know what it is and I am using it. It was very easy to set it up and add url's to my page. I have always enjoyed reading the news and now it is even better. I am able to link to what I want to read without getting a lot of information that I don't want. RSS usually allows the user to be very specific in what information it delivers. Plus, I can delete it whenever I choose to.

As a teacher, it would be especially helpful in social studies. Many countries are frequently changing names or leaders and RSS feeds can keep students and teachers posted about countries they are researching without a lot of other news. Personally, I am using it to stay on top of new cars (I'm shopping around), new technologies, and news events. As a librarian, I want to be able to see when new books are released. I have a feed for Book Sense and now I am trying to add an RSS feed from the NYTimes bestseller list. I am having a little trouble finding the url for this particular site.

Here is a link to my Bloglines account.
I can't remember when I created this account, but I need to work on it soon. This is the link to my public page with Google Reader. http://www.google.com/reader/shared/01366153850376477684?hl=en

Thing 7

I have been exploring the Google's web tools for two days now. There are so many options with each tool that it is going to take a while to really understand how to use them. I tried to understand how to add a link to my blog so that others could view my iGoogle, but I didn't figure it out yet. Google calendar was really easy to get started. It is similar to other computer calendars and is very user friendly. I added iGoogle to my tabs on my Yahoo account. I like being able to customize my own homepage. Now, I can control what information comes up. I selected several areas that were of interest to me.

I think the calendar would be especially useful for teachers to keep track of events, testing, meetings, and more. Teachers always have so many dates to remember that it would be great to list them in one place and be able to merge it with their own calendar. Plus, they can access the calendar wherever they can get interet access.

Google alerts would be an excellent tool for studnets to use in Social Studies. Sixth grade is World History and much of the information is constantly changing. They could set up alerts for countries they study throughout the school year.

The Google Notebook would be an excellent tool for research projects. Students can locate information and add it to their notebook. They can organize the information as needed. All the data is kept in one location and will make their final project much easier when it comes time to put it all together. My daughter will be using this for her project on Montana.

Thing 6

Playing in the rain
Originally uploaded by kyra801

I am having a hard time stopping. I love all the different things you can do with Flickr Toys. I am already thinking of other fun things I can make with this new found "toy".

At my campus, we could use this to create posters of our Character of the Week and place it on the bulletin board. We also have a writing club that is working on printing a school paper. They could use this site to create interesting photos to put in the paper. Another great use would be during research. As a final project, students could search flickr for photos for images of their subject and then create any number of products.

I had trouble with mappr. The site would never work. However, the other sites worked great and I had fun exploring the many uses and ideas they provided.

Thing 5b

The new look.
Originally uploaded by kyra801

Our school is finally complete. This is the front entrance of our newly remodeled campus.

Thing 5

Dad, Kyra, Amanda, Rachel, & Bud
Originally uploaded by kyra801

Amanda's wedding day. June 2007


I created a flickr account this summer but I haven't added any pictures since then. I was not aware of the tutorials they offered. I went through them and learned some great things. I now know I can send pictures via email from my cell phone to my flickr account. One of the really cool features they now have is Maps. I love maps and I think it is neat to see where the photos were taken from around the world. It was fairly easy for me to understand how to add flickr to my blog. The problem I have is what picture to add. There are so many people using flickr and it is amazing the quality of photos that can be found on this site. I'm not sure how I can use this in my library program, but I will be thinking about some uses.

Thing 4

Blogging can be very useful in an educational environment. It is a great place for teachers to post ideas and lessons that were successful for them. Many times teachers re-invent the wheel when the information was already out there. Posting technology tips would also be helpful. Many people are afraid to try new things that relate to technology. If it were in a blog, they could follow the directions on their time at their convenience.

This is also a great place to post books during the summertime. Students could look at the librarians blog and see recommended titles. The students could also do book chats or recommend books they have read.

The more I think about blogging, the more uses I think of. The possibilities are endless. I think it would be great for keeping people in touch and updating them on events such as family or school. Instead of emailing everyone, you could post a blog and they can read it when they have time and not fill up their email boxes.

Thing 3

I just created my Avatar and it was so much fun! I didn't even know that existed on Yahoo! I was surprised that it was so easy. I had trouble uploading the Avatar, but I think it uploaded even though it told me there were errors to be corrected. I just did it over and when I finally decided to look at the preview I discovered it was on the page three times. Fortunately, it was easy to delete the extras. So far it has been fairly simple to navigate around the pages. I hope the rest of the lessons go this smoothly. I can't wait to show my kids how to create an Avatar. I'm sure they will be changing theirs frequently.

Thing 2

Of the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners the most difficult for me is probably the last one, Play. Don't get me wrong I love to play. However, it seems as if so many things always get in the way and need to be taken care of before I can play. At work, I am given so many extra duties that it is difficult to get everything done in a timely manner. At home, my kids schoolwork and activities take up any extra time I may have.

Another area of difficulty for me would be #3, view problems as challenges. This is not always a problem, but when I have to work for a long time to figure out how something needs to be done I can get frustrated. If it is really difficult and I don't have any help or instructions I tend to "shut down" and not accomplish anything. However, if I sit back and think it through I realize I need to break it down into smaller pieces.

The easiest habit would be #7, mentoring or teaching others. I love teaching! There is nothing that brings me greater joy than to share my knowledge with others and help them achieve their goals. This includes classroom teaching, professional development, and one-on-one with my peers. I have already helped several teachers understand some of the new technology on our campus. I hope that completing the 23 Things will allow me to teach others what I have learned. So far, the lessons have not been too difficult and I believe I will be successful in completing all 23 Things by February 1, 2008.

Thing 1

I am very excited to be getting up-to-date with the latest technology. I know I am far behind the techno world, but on my campus I am one of the few knowledgeable people when it comes to technology. I am hoping that what I learn in the next few months will be something my campus will want to learn. Blogging is a fairly new experience for me and I hope to finally understand it better. So far, I have read through the first 3 or 4 lessons and I think I am up to the challenge of learning so much in a short amount of time.

Although, I have heard of RSS news feeds, tagging, wikis, podcasting, online applications, and video and image hosting sites, I am not sure how to use them. I am especially looking forward to learning about RSS news feeds. I have heard just enough to peak my interest and I see it on my toolbar and would love to know how to use it. I am looking forward to learning about these things and being able to share my knowledge with others.