BeachDreamer's Blog

Thing #23

2008-07-28T18:18:00.002-07:00

Well my brain and fingers are sure glad to be here! Ha ha on the "A fair(y) Use Tale from You Tube it was great and I would love to use that with my 6th graders! Wonder how long it took to put that together? Creative Commons is a neat site that I plan to return to and explore some more. Web 2.0 WOW is what I have to say I have learned so much. The tools and new technology are easy to use and understand. I (this is weird) really liked the tutorials I felt they were simple and to the point , except for the Ebsco2.0 flash movie it was well "yawn" missing something. I loved creating the Avatar and exploring wikis. Teacher tube was a hoot, I went for the funny and creative stuff, del.icio.us I can't wait to get that up and running at school, I enjoyed the creativity of Flickr and most of the sites overall. I liked setting up my blog and reading the others and the feedback, thanks Ann. The textbook (this is also weird) was an interesting and informative read and I wish I could keep it!
What didn't I like, the TIME CONSUMPTION, think I averaged around 4 hours a session at least and the really scary part is I am all enthusiastic about these new tools and I am afraid that I just won't have the time to implement them the way I want to once I get to work, I hated all the registering, user name, password stuff but that is done and I won't have to do it again anyway. and last BRAIN OVERLOAD!
For the new kids on the block I would plan lots of time nothing is fast when exploring all these new tools so plan a large chunk of your day. Get a partner from the class to blog about difficulties, frustrations, and to share the fun stuff, Ann and Katie are great but a partner would just be that lot less lonely! Have a good fast connection!
Ann and Katy thank you so much for the effort that you put in I hope you feel that it was all worth it as I certainly do, it was everything I was hoping for and more.
Last thing, is this site going to stay around? I know that I would love to be able to refer back to it and explore the links again and again.

Thing #22

2008-07-28T18:18:00.001-07:00

Ebooks are great for some I know that lots of people enjoy them I personally don't. I think that having a free site is great though and would definitely share this with all. It took way too long to download onto my computer but then again I do not have the best or fastest here at home. I can't see my patron computers handling the download either. I could see this in a classroom setting or as with tumblebooks I could do a presentation to a group of kids. I really didn't think much of the free books site as most asked for donations of so much a year isn't that just like paying for a subscription. I did find a link through the site that really had free books about engineering texts or college type books which would be great for an individual looking for that particular subject so... not a lot I could see for me on this one at this time.

Thing #21

2008-07-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

Podcast I found it hard to find a site of podcast that I liked at first I didn't like Podcast Alley or podcast.com. I found okay podcast on them like the Harry Potter podcast Pottercast in which J.K. Rowling was talking with others about the last book. and I found Justonemorebook a pod cast about children's books but I didn't like the sites all that well. I did find ODEO which is much more to my liking and there i found some interesting podcast like a story Goblin Lullaby, in Podcastle under literature. I found podcast to teach you french or Chinese but my favorite under literature was the Merriam-Websters word of the day. Today's word was Xanadu and example I will use for this word is to me Alaska is not my Xanadu! I could see doing Podcast for information gathering within a business community and within a school community I could see students and teachers/Librarians using it for reading or just discussions about what was read. I already have the RSS feed for itunes in my blog reader as that is the site I usually like to download my music for my ipod so I didn't want to add another at this time.

Thing #20

2008-07-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

Teachertube what fun. I posted Shake It Up! to my blog as it seemed to fit so well to what we are realizing and learning about right now! You can view my choice at the top of my page. I liked teachertube I found it interesting and informative! I didn't like the fact that I lost another hour of the day but oh well. I think it would be fun to explore this further with some fun reading things to do with kids might have to try one on my own first to see how easy it would be to make time wise. I think also if you found a video that was short and good about library issues it would be great to have students view. Is teachertube available to our district??

Thing #19.1

2008-07-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

Ah SLED I love it! Anyway the flashmovie for Ebsco 2.0 was interesting in the fact that the new search features are really promising. I especially liked the smart results, source type options, subject search images with it the search results and the breadcrumb trail. I didn't like the flashmovie itself for the lack of sound, but I never liked silent movies anyway. Glad I didn't find any major recalls on my automobile! I set up a folder and a journal alert for School Library Journal. The search interfaces for the different grade levels were nice with the elementary the most eye catching and easiest to use. I did like that in the High School level they had college prep. and careers. Oh also on the elementary search I liked the teacher resource page wonder how come they don't have a Librarian resource page?? Hey did anyone catch the plus and minus signs on sled so you can make the font appear smaller or larger. pretty cool I say. I could see having the Ebsco search interface on my computers for the kids to research subjects that way sure a nicer option than Google. For the teachers I could share in my wiki new or good articles, images and other forms of media so that they could access if interested. I liked the Auto Repair page and will refer to that alot! other things I liked was the SLED toolbar, and off of that I like the QuickRef and AK History, oh and the AK news! The consumer health database is interesting but I think I will still refer to my home medical bible when in a panic, but since I wasn't today it was interesting to see that they had options of images and video under the medical term that I typed in the search box.

Happy Places

2008-07-26T11:32:00.001-07:00

My Zoho writer document

Where are our happy places? Are they a real place? A time in history? Just being with someone?

I have many happy places, pretty much anywhere with my family, a certain summer in my teen years, the church where I married my husband, a really great book! The happy places are endless. But the one truly happy place where cares would just fly away would be on a beach on a warm summer day just watching the waves that is a truly happy place for me!

Thing #19

2008-07-26T10:08:00.002-07:00

Library thing is a cool site I enjoyed it. I put 11 of some of my favorite books under my account and it was interesting looking at the comments about those titles. I really like the images, links, recommendations, ratings and popularity. Some of my titles were very popular. All my books had a high rating (of course!) some had lots of members and a couple not so many. I liked that I could change the cover of my book so that it matched the copy I owned. The group links were fun to go on and see what others are talking about. Harry Potter is definitely the most talked about under the 4 groups I went to. I liked that the Hogwarts Express group are reading each book and conducting discussions by groups of chapters, very fun to read peoples thoughts and insights to a book. I can't for some reason figure out why the link isn't working on my page it seemed fairly simple, which means it is and I messed it up somehow but I can't figure it right now and will look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow!http://www.librarything.com/ltsw/mySearchWidget.

okay maybe this one will work...

Thing #18

2008-07-26T10:08:00.001-07:00

Zoho writer is great for a writing tool. I like its features and the idea of sharing is great. the emotion cons are fun and I played around with the image feature some. I posted my test document to my blog, it's not much but good enough to play around. I could see this being used for those that don't have word or works. And being free is also a plus.

Thing #17

2008-07-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

Good site I like the wikis what a great way too share. It was a nice refresher to go back and look at what has been done helped set it in the brain again. I would love to use wikis both in school and between us at LMS sure would be a nice way to share ideas!

Chapter 10

2008-07-25T14:58:00.001-07:00

I must be crazy but I went on to read chapter 10 as my choice chapter. I do have to say that this textbook is one of the most interesting that I have read. I chose to learn more on different sites that the text highlighted as I felt these would be good sites to look and explore for the school setting. This chapter is well worth a note, it does talk about sites that we have already covered in this class but it gives more also it has a step by step approach, see Blogmeister: on page 202 or why you might want to visit a certain site such as Photo story 3 on page 200. Tux paint looks like something I can use with little guys especially as it does supply color pages. Num Sum was easy to work and manipulate which is nice as excel always frustrated me when I wanted to get rid of or change things I never really got what I wanted. Num Sum didn't give me exactly what I wanted in the time I gave myself to play with it but I did get close with no frustration. I would recommend chapter 10 as a high-light and refresher for just everything that we have been doing.

Thing #16

2008-07-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

Wikis are great and this is the tool I think would benefit me in promoting, sharing and collaborating with the teachers, parents and student in my school. I would love to see a site for LMS and our community of school and public libraries to have wikis also. The wikis that I explored were the teacher/librarian wiki, it was okay I was disappointed that when I looked under lesson plans for books it turned out to be mostly work sheets, ugh! Booklovers wiki I liked the children's book reviews that were reviewed by the kids not adults. But probably the most interesting wiki I came across was under library bloggers wiki I went to school libraries and then visited California Dreamin about school libraries by Rob Darrow his site was interesting and informative but he had something else which was the YouTube lecture given by Randy Puasch who did the "Last" lecture, Randy passed away today so I went ahead a watched his lecture from September 7,2007 it is a 1:16 minute lecture and WOW what a speaker. Well worth the time to listen.

Thing #15

2008-07-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

Of the perspective reading that I looked at the one I wish to comment on is, Away from the Icebergs, his thoughts on the "just in case" collection is an area that I have been working on in my library the staff area I didn't even think to look to see what is available for the older stuff online that can be accessed by the teachers or maybe even scan them onto a CD for access that way! I am well aware that I need more education on the newest and latest tech. I think with the implementation of blog sites a library community could help each other address the need and prepare for the needs of our patrons in our community. I will always feel that a library (especially in a school setting) is needed and I'm not talking job security for me I just feel that a library too many is a safe and peaceful retreat to a world that is already hectic, loud and demanding. What is important to the future of libraries is yes provide access to online and new technology tools but to still provide a retreat to breathe and explore without demands or rush.
The direction that a library is going with technology is needed. I feel that it has always been a libraries job to house the newest and greatest forms of information. Our job isn't changing a library it is evolving a library and we as librarians have to evolve with it. The goal of a library has always been to house information so our house is all that is changing not the goals. For me this means just realizing that the library needs to keep up with the demands, I will still promote as always but in new and what looks like a fun direction. I will look more to spending my budget on tech vs information books which the information or subject in them is available online. I need more education on the techno toys and that is where my focus will be so that I can strengthen my library to as always serve my school community.

Chapter 9

2008-07-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

Chapter 9 New schools had some interesting concepts like the education based site that could make suggestions on a lesson based on an individual students strengths and interests thus making a student feel empowered and an ability to solve a problem he/she may face with the teacher as a person who teaches and guides a student to achieve certain goals on their own. What kind of disturbed me was the mention of a teacher selection based on a student and the teacher having the same type of learning style first off a program based on a students style should already have met this need and I feel that students can learn the lesson of working with different style by needing to be able to work with those that don't always work the same way I feel that this is more in keeping with the preparing of a child to the lessons of dealing with the pressures of everyday life in the job arena than always catering to. Different styles can help us all to learn adjustments and a new outlook on a problem or situation. I do love that this chapter is about recognizing that every child learns differently and that difference needs to be addressed not put in a box!!!

Thing #14

2008-07-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

Technorati was a great site but you learn pretty quick that there is a difference in how you search for your keyword. When searching keyword search for the school library learning 2.0 I found that there was a different result with the main page compared to the tags compared to the blogs. I really liked the blog directory page and the tags I felt these took me to what I wanted to see. Loved the top 100 blogs fun things to explore and I totally got off track from what I was supposed to be doing...anyone go on boingboing and see that really cool periodic coffee table who wouldn't want that in their house?!!! I was a little disheartened to see that when I went on a search of "yoga" the main page had some inappropriate sites that referred to a subject I wasn't looking for! but did find neat things under blog and the tag sites that did refer to the type of yoga I like!! Would love to look at this more when I have more time.

Thing #13

2008-07-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Del.icio.us is delicious! Lots of potential here and of course another way for me to get sucked in!!! SO much to look at and with that said here is my findings I went to, 100 unbelievably useful reference sites you've never heard of/teaching tips there were 1512 people who have saved this tag. Under this tag I looked under dictionaries and more ( I love words, use em all the time don't cha know!!) and looked under the first tag OneLook, what a great site, in the search box I put my word which I spelled wrong on purpose to see how it would handle that, it took me right to where I wanted to go gave me the definition, images, video and more links! I went to another find called Is it protected by copyright this had been saved by 1052 people loved the slidertool tag for copyright! I viewed some of the comments by others and all seemed just as wowed as me by these tags! I would definitely use del.icio.us but will wait to set it up on my work computer as I can see so many uses for it there. Here at home I think I will continue to use my favorites but guess whats on it so if I change my mind!!!!

Chapter 7

2008-07-22T18:12:00.001-07:00

Online safety and security a good chapter about this all important set of topics I was especially interested in the "Cyber Awareness Survey" that was talked about on pages 141 and 142, I like how the questions over all were answered correctly and I hope that the students questioned would really act as stated to handle those situations and not just telling us what they know should be done and then not do it. Many kids today are aware I think of the dangers but it amazes me when I hear from the kids that the people they talk to online are considered their "friends".
Ethics I like the code that is on page 147 and would love to post some of that over my public computers. Schools block so much and for good reason but I do question how educators will be able to effectively teach or demonstrate all the new tools with out access to many of these sites it is going to be interesting in the future to see how schools are going to be able to safely provide these tools with all that is out there and available on the web.

Thing #12

2008-07-22T18:12:00.000-07:00

Voice threads are great I have heard them before on SLED when I have listened to elders share their stories. It is a wonderful resource and if I could have found my mic (teens swear they haven't touched it!) I could of added sound to my thread that I created. I embedded it to my blog and tried to email it to a contact, that would be you Raven about the web 20, just to see how it would come out. I could see this in a learning environment very easily and could even see adding it to a library site to introduce new and exciting titles or to help in the understanding of copyright rules. Lots of ideas to go with this one!

Thing #11

2008-07-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

Play day was alot of fun I played off the short list of Web 2.0 winners I know you said to choose one and go with it and I did, I spent almost 2 hours on the site listed under Real Estate called Zillow.com I loved looking at homes for sale in an area that my husband and I are looking to move to in a few years. I've always liked looking at real estate anyway so this was a natural for me, unfortunately this site probably isn't really good as a lesson for elementary students so not real useful there but the word was play so... What I really liked about the site is that it came with an interactive map with the homes icon displayed in the area it was for sale so you could see if it was close to an airport, water or shopping. The site gave the demographics of the area which I thought to be very important and it provided photos and information but very limited, the site wanted you to register for more information which I did and that was easy, once I registered I was given tabs to choose from such as seller or buyer and it gave helpful hints related to the tabs. There was a discussion page with people asking for help on plumbing to warped floorboards. Good site I liked it and will visit often! I did explore a few other sites that caught my eye, under music I visited Last which allowed you to watch some great music videos that was fun! and I looked under Upcoming in the category of Events for my hometown I was informed that there were no popular events coming!!! What I didn't like about these sites is the time I lose every time I go on one! The computer is a time sucker and I am always amazed at how much time goes by when I am on one. Thanks for the Travel IQ game it was fun but really showed me that I am not as smart in geography as I thought! I did visit some Ning network sites under cooking and book clubs but I chose not to join one it just seemed too overwhelming and then not a lot of members on a site that I thought I would want to join especially as I don't' see myself using what I did see. I wouldn't mind possibly starting one of my own so that it suits what interests me but that will have to wait for another day.

Aside,

2008-07-21T21:22:00.002-07:00

OKAY, so now my image from image chef is now on the main page!

Thing #10

2008-07-21T21:22:00.001-07:00

Okay the online image generators are fun and I looked at FD toys, the comic stripe one and then Image chef. If you look under older posts you can see the picture I generated! I liked playing and I can see using this to wow students with but I can't see a lesson at this point for it except to mention it and show what it can do, maybe I am too tired right now! I did earlier play with lolcats generator as I have a pet cat but was disappointed as her picture was to big and didn't look good to me and I couldn't figure out how to adjust size either at the site or with my own computer, didn't check flickr or photoshop might have to play more in the morning. I played some with photo picasso but it froze my computer (its old) soooo...anyhoo that ended that!!! Goodnight everybody and have a pleasant evening.

Chapter 1

2008-07-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

Chapter one was interesting to me as it touched on many issues that I personally feel strongly about. I found with great interest the "Old Way" definition on page 21 under "schools and change" it states that teaching students to just recite and test information learned is the old way, excuse me but isn't this pretty much what NCLB to an extent is all about or has become?? I have always felt that removing the creative process of learning wasn't the way to prepare our students to free think a problem when on the job. Please don't get me wrong kids still need to learn how to write, do math and science but they also need exactly what the "New Way" is saying to learn which is to collaborate, share info, to be creative and work well with others. Students need to be taught skills that will enable them to be productive employees of the future. Their future will involve the skills of reading, writing, creativity, problem solving, a foreign language or two and the technical skills to advance them to an employable level that needs to begin at the elementary level.
What is scary is how many companies are finding it more attractive to hire and run their businesses outside of the U.S. The United States must restructure its education policies to prepare its future employees with the skills to compete with foreign labor markets. Will we be able to do what it takes to make this happen such as investing into the technology needed in our schools, creating attractive benefits that keep companies in the United States and so forth. We have to invest now for this future.
Schools and libraries play a major role in preparing for the future but they can't do it alone. Voters need to step up and let the politicians know that none of us want to be "left behind".

#9

2008-07-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, lots out there! I checked out the links and discovered some great sites! I found blogdigger easy to use to look for news and put in my zip code, it didn't give me anything related to and said couldn't find any results for my search. It did give me a link to an rss feed for the weather of my hometown so that was a great link and I added it to my blog page. So blogdigger was easy but didn't give me what I was looking for initially. I loved Topix as it took me right to what I wanted and was really an interesting site for the current news with my local news first. I could easily get to the commit page though at first I missed the reply as it was only 1 sentence long and with everything else on the page I didn't see it, I am sure it had nothing to do with that whole see what is right in front of you!, I did feel though that the commits could have been highlighted better. I did go to ebedublogs and found a great website to classroom 2.0 so I added that to my subscription space. It is a great site with anything from "how to upload PowerPoint on the web" to Teaching writing with the Web 2.0 Media blogs. As with any link or site there is always unuseful links to me anyway maybe to someone else it is useful. I find the initial search time consuming and that is frustrating but now with them on a useful page for me I can go straight to them so the time factor isn't a problem now, until I start linking to other sites anyway!!!

Thing #8

2008-07-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

I also am going to give up on the putting the week if that is okay since I am playing catch up anyway so I am just going to list what thing I am working on. I created an RSS through Google reader I subscribed to 5 various sites that included news and politics, cooking and do it yourself home improvement site. Wow really pays to look at the number of postings that you get with each subscription I already have some 50 articles to look at just with those 5 subscriptions!! Well for my personal life I can see that I will enjoy the recipes and the do it yourself projects, the news sites though I really already follow with news sources that I already have in my favorites so I find it easier just to log on and go to my favorites vs signing onto another site. For school I could see having an RSS set up with articles that reviews children's books or sites geared toward a particular subject such as a feed for the Mars lander/exploration of or some fun math game sites. I feel that libraries could use sites such as these for patrons to access easier the major newspapers and latest news, weather and sports information if that library had the computers that could be used for perusing. Libraries could also create their own subscription group with the latest reviews and library news to share with other school or public libraries.

Week 3, Thing 7

2008-07-18T14:19:00.001-07:00

I have to say that right now after playing with flickr I now REALLY love my digital camera! I have downloaded pictures before and have done photoshop but I really like the ease that flickr provided so I could download my pics and send them easily to friends, family and groups. I really like that I can share my pics in other ways and retain anonymity. Digital cameras are easy to use, create cool effects (black and white and sepia tones) and so on. I also love the instant delete for the not so good pictures and that you can see the pictures right away. Old cameras you had to wait for pictures to develop and couldn't delete the bad ones! Just wish I could afford the really fancy digital!!!

Week 3, Thing #6

2008-07-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Well the FD toys site was fun and I just had to try the Warholizer! I will put the image of my dog that I used on my blog page. I also tried out the bead art and that created some interesting images I likes the squares verses the round beads the best. I also created a trading card of my cat and will also include that on my blog site. I could see Katie what you meant by time consumption and getting caught up in all the different sites and links! I think using these types of mashups would be a fun project to do with students.

Week 3, thing #5

2008-07-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well Flickr is fun, downloading the pics was easy, selecting the ones I wanted was easy and even after reading what each definition was I found I still didn't get it right! Sorry I sent so many of my pictures to our group... I didn't mean to I was working on a stream and pushed buttons, gosh you have to be sooo careful. So I did option one by downloading an image that I liked on to my page, the image is one of mine though, I marked it public so does that still count? I like this picture because I was just trying to see if I could get a picture of the inside of a flower, what I got was a surprise as I thought the picture turned out beautiful and I like looking at it so right now it is my favorite on flickr! I also set up an acct with flickr as I know this is something I definitely plan to return to and possibly do something with it a lesson for the kids.

Week 1, thing #3

2008-07-16T15:11:00.002-07:00

The Seven and 1/2 habits presentation has a lot of what I have always felt to be true in the ways of learning through experience, practice, hands on and play, not always by testing. I think though the hardest habit that I will have to overcome with be lack of confidence, case in point my first two blogs plainly state I tend to get complacent, fear of the unknown and wariness, all of this really is just a confidence issue in myself when dealing with the new. The easiest habit(s) for me is the play or the teach and mentor others as I love, reading (play) and sharing my love of books and reading (mentoring and teaching) so those two are a tie.

Week 1, thing #2

2008-07-16T15:11:00.001-07:00

Boy do I have some catching up to do here!!! I am excited to finally get my hands on and have the time to play around with 2.0. Blogging as I stated in thing #1 is fairly new to me but so far with the Google set up it has been fairly painless, "go figure!!". I feel that the issues of security and basically just putting myself out there is the most worrisome.
I can't wait to explore all the sites and play with them. I have definitely not kept up with the fast paced world of technology. I got very complacent with my click and gather method of computer usage. The textbook is right, technology is literally transforming every aspect of our lives whether I am ready for it or not. This class will at least take some of the mystery and scariness away!

Week #1 thing 1

2008-07-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

Well after a bump in my road I can now try this out for myself! I am both enthusiastic and wary of posting myself on the World Wide Web I am more comfortable with not sharing myself with the world but oh well here we go!!!