barb2point0

Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking...

2011-09-21T02:25:00.000-07:00

Just in case the technology goes horribly wrong, or I am struck mute, I thought I had best upload the links for Second Life somewhere so that you could explore them at your leisure.

The homepage for Second Life makes it look very social and not too educational at all. There are introductory videos that give you an idea of how things will look, but they do not highlight educational purposes. There seems to be a lot of shopping...

To get started, the best thing to do is sign up and download the software. Do not get caught up in designing your avatar. You will have plenty of opportunity to play with that later. I started out as a giant nightmare rabbit and now look like a kind of a badly dressed skinhead space dominatrix. Through no fault of my own...

I usually scorn introductory pathways preferring to screw-up on my own, but the second life movement tutorial is not to be missed. Run through that and you will have the confidence to get around to different areas.

And now a side-note... To find educational content, you may want to explore The New Media Consortium. Salem State is a member and we have access to space in Second Life through them. They did an interesting survey last year about Virtual Worlds that also includes a file of educational projects that may be of some interest as well as a list of other formats for virtual worlds that I had never heard of.

Here is the philosophy of the NMC's use of Second Life.

Here are some links that second life gave me to get more information:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Main_Page

https://secure-weh7.secondlife.com/community/support/php

And here is a list of educational institutions who have a presence in second life.

2011-02-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

Just checking to see if I can turn my picture into a live link!

Timeline!

2010-04-02T18:51:00.001-07:00

A student's blog led me to this great timeline application. I am testing out the embedability. (Okay, that is not a word, but it should be!)

Embedding video!

2010-03-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

I want to make sure it is as easy to embed an animoto tp this blog as I think it is!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Let's see...

The ABCs of 2.0

2009-02-28T13:09:00.000-08:00

One of my students posted a great list of the applications she had been exploring. She is truly a librarian among librarians!

WIKI week

2009-02-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

I am teaching an online course at Salem State College on Emerging Technologies for School Libraries and I want to remind myself for next time to have the students make their wikis PUBLIC! I have spent a goodly portion of this evening scrounging around sending access requests. Or if they want their wikis private I need to make granting me permission part of the assignment! Live and learn...

New Teacher 2.0

2009-01-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

Hi New Teacher Cohort!

Welcome to the lightning fast overview of web 2.0 for educators. I am going to run through a handful of online applications that can be utilized in learning communities. If you want to learn more about these tools, check with your buildings Media Specialist. There is also an online course that looks at these in-depth that will (hopefully) be offered this summer through Beverly Schools.

Our first tool is Gmail. Yep, a plain old email account. Why am I showing you this? Well, because right now your work email is currently being run through squirrel mail. (I am not being mean, this is really what it is called.) You have my deepest sympathies. With Gmail you can have your work email (and up to 4 other accounts) imported into one easily managed page. You also have a short-cut to signing in to other google applications. And finally, they have an amazing search capability that means that you never have to spend precious time searching for that email that you just can't remember where you put. Google is taking over the world - why wait? Hop on now...

Next up are wikis. Wiki is just a strange sounding name for "instant website". (It is a Hawaiian word meaning "fast".) You have probably heard of the big momma of all wikis, wikipedia. They are also incredibly useful for classroom work. You can view Wiki's in Plain English which handily explains them. You can also look at this list of links to educational wikis. Wikis can be used in the classroom and also for organization.

Social Bookmarking has a number of uses. The most obvious is the convenience of having all your bookmarks in the same place. This place, for me, is delicious. You can just visit the site, or if you have a dedicate computer you can download the very convenient tabs. The other is the handiness of the tags. These words allow you to find websites that you have tagged based on how you defined them when you put them on your delicious site. Lee LeFever also has a Social Bookmarking in Plain English film.

RSS is a way of getting subscriptions to blogs and websites. They are all brought to a comon page, like google reader, so that you can acces them all at once and don't have to go searching for updates. Common Craft also has an introduction to RSS in Plain English.

Flickr is a fantastic photo hosting site with many educational benefits. If you want more you can check out these links about flickr.

Blogs are incredibly versatile for classroom use. You can take a look at Blogs in Plain English to see what they are and then hop over to this list of educational blogs to see them in action.

If we manage to cover all these tools and still have time left - we can take a look at twitter. I am still trying to brainstorm a classroom use for it so if you have any ideas, let me know. For now, it is just fun! Twitter in Plain English tells you why...

FLICKR!

2008-12-07T17:45:00.001-08:00

media connetion
Originally uploaded by barbfecteau

I learned so much today just playing around with flickr! There are tons of really fun things you can do with it. But first we have to slog through explaining it and setting it up. Don't let me get distracted by any shiny objects along the way! I read a chapter of BLOGS WIKIS, PODCASTS AND OTHER POWERFUL WEB TOOLS FOR CLASSROOMS by Will Richardson and I highly recommend it. I am going to upload the flickr chapter onto the BHS Library website. If you like it you might want to think about purchasing the book. It is an excellent tech guide for teachers.

And now on to flickr!

No cute little movie about how flickr works today. Rather I will walk you through some of the features, then we will sign up. There is a slighty less cute than usual movie and then you will know how to sign up for a flickr account. Once you are in we will upload some pictures and look at what flickr allows you to do with them. After that we are off to more fun with image generators! I have some good flickr links in my delicious [Use flickr as your search tag!], they are almost all lifted from the Richardson chapter. I will post them below as well.

Here are some links to explore. As usual, your assignment is to play with these links for a half hour...

Classroom uses of flickr

Jane Goodall's Camp on Flickr

What can we do on flickr? On flickr!

Flickr Creative Commons

Flickr Tools Collection (not all educational)

Hi Everyone!

2008-11-24T13:58:00.000-08:00

Looks like thie RSS is not as fun as delicious...

RSS and Social Bookmarking - Staying on top of it all!

2008-11-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

RSS feeds and Social Bookmarking are excellent ways of organizing your online life.

For social bookmarking, we will look at del.icio.us. We will view a little film about social bookmarking, then I will show you my account and the different features and uses for it. The main ideas behind delicious are public access and tagging. After we look at the site we will sign you up!

Next we will look at a film about RSS feed. They allow you to get website updates sent directly to you. I will show you my reader and point out some features. We will talk about uses and the we will sign you up!

I will also, if time permits, show you a couple tools (stumbleupon and technorati) for beefing up your feeds and delicious, should they need beefing.

Blogging in the Classroom

2008-11-08T04:14:00.000-08:00

Let's start with this excellent apologia from Gordon Brune - a fifth grade teacher and blogger.

Without a doubt, the nature of literacy is changing in our society. Blogs, a journal style website that combines text, images, and links to other web pages, are one new technology that has played a large role in reshaping our literate environment. Blogs are beginning to appear in large numbers in schools, and the rationale for their use in school is numerable:

Blogs provide a space for us to share opinions and learning with multiple communities.
Blogs foster ownership and choice.
Blogs provide a worldwide audience, compelling and motivating us to share our thoughts, opinions, and learning.
Blogs provide an archive of our learning over time, facilitating reflection and learning.
Blogs provide an opportunity for collective and collaborative learning.
Blogs are interactive by nature, thus creating enthusiasm and for writing and communication and engagement in conversation and learning.
Blogs provides the opportunity to discuss responsible public writing. We can learn about the power of the published word and the responsibilities involved with public writing.

Blogs in Plain English show a nice overview.

blogger.com is the spot for all my blogging needs!

Classblogmeister is the brainchild of David Warlick - you have to attend one if his seminars to use it but it is a nice place to look at blogs and it allows teachers to completely control student blogging.

Here is a huge clearinghouse of sites on educational blogging.
If you just want to look at classroom blogs then this is the direct link. This includes a kindergarten blog, a fifth grade class blog, an online "refrigerator door", and a high school blog where students put up the content.

WIKIS for the Classroom!

2008-10-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

Resources for Wikis (thanks to Carol Kelly at Salem State for this tremendous list of resources)

Before you jump in you want to look at Wikis in Plain English at teachertube.

Now go ahead and start playing! The two premier places for educational wiki hosting are wikispaces and pbwiki. They both offer wonderful services to educators and are extremely easy to use.

Want to see how educators are using wikis in schools?

Here is a case study from Lindsay Grant.

Here is a fabulous set of links to wikis in education.

Wetpaint’s wikis in education site.

10 Best practices for Wikis in education

If you want a more detailed explanation, check out Will Richardson's Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.

Professional Development Classes

2008-10-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

I am facilitating 4 professional development classes this fall.

November 3 - Wikis
Wikis can be collaborative online spaces or a quick and easy alternative to traditional websites. Learn the many ways they can be used in an educational setting.

November 10 - my birthday, far to important to spend on web 2.0!
Barb's birthday in the past has involved the entire month of Barb-vember - from the time the candy his the floor on Halloween to the time the turkey hits the table on Thanksgiving, it is all about Barb.

November 17 - Blogs
Weblogs are growing at a tremendous rate. This workshop will demonstrate how to create a Blog and some good examples of classroom uses. Participants will learn how to set one a blog and use it for your own educational purposes, for you and your students.

November 24 - RSS and Social Bookmarking
These organizational web tools allow you to manage content that you can use with your students. RSS feeds allow you to get website updates sent directly to you and del.icio.us allows you to access and tag your bookmarks from any computer with internet capability!

December 8 - Flickr and Image generators
This workshop will show you how to use Flickr, an online photo application that makes images accessible to your students and image generators that allow you and your students to use digital photos to enhance learning.

Now to figure out what to say!

Barb

Social Bookmarking, RSS and Social Networking

2008-10-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

There are three topics for this post. The first is Social bookmarking. Since this is a short little "Getting 2.0 Know You" {heh, I should trademark that...] presentation I will just show you one example for each.

Social Bookmarking:

RSS Feeds:

Social Networking:

Information Commons Model

2008-09-23T06:21:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Carol Kelly for sending me this bibliography on the information commons model currently being used at colleges and universities. How forward thinking would be the school who attempted to set this up k-12!

I will attempt to pretty this up at some point, for now it is a little wordy and a little light on the links.

Selected Commons Web Sites:

Henning, Joanne. “Information Commons Study Leave”
Personal Web Site of Joanne Henning, Head, Reference Services, McPherson Library, Univ. of Victoria, Canada.

McMullen, Susan. “The Learning Commons Model: Determining Best Practices for Design, Implementation, and Service”
IC Web site created by Librarian Susan McMullen during a sabbatical from Roger Williams University (Bristol, R.I.) Currently includes photos and information about: Bridgewater State College, Connecticut College, Mount Holyoke Colle, Simmons College, Univ. of Mass., Amherst, Wesleyan Univ.

David Murray “Information Commons: A Directory of Innovative Services and Resources in Academic Libraries.”

Barbara Tierney and Russ Bailey Information Commons Program
University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Coalition for Networked Information, Collaborative Facilities
Dartmouth College & Coalition for Networked Info.

Herman Miller Online White Papers
Topics include: New Ways of Learning (A View of the Changing Campus: How Learning Environments Can Support Changes in Higher Education; Creating a Culture of Sustainability: How Campuses are Taking the Lead; Paradigm Shift: How Higher Education is Improving Learning; etc.)

IC Flickr… Infocommons
Inspiring variety of information commons photos posted by ICs from all types of institutions.

Kate Edger Information Commons Publications
University of Auckland Library, New Zealand

Selected Books and Reports:

“The Academic Library in 2010: A Vision, Report of Symposium 2010.” American University Library, Washington, DC, March 14-15, 2005.

Bailey, D. Russell and Barbara Tierney. Transforming Library Service Through Information Commons: Case Studies for the Digital Age. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2008.

Bazillion, Richard J. and Connie Braun. Academic Libraries as High-Tech Gateways; A Guide to Design and Space Decisions. American Library Association, 1995.

Beagle, Donald (with contributions by D. Russell Bailey and Barbara Tierney.) Information Commons Handbook. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2006.

Bennett, Scott. Libraries Designed for Learning. Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2003.

Building Blocks for Planning Functional Library Space. American Library Assoc., Library Administration and Management Assoc., Buildings and Equipment Sections, Functional Space Requirements Committee; Scarecrow Press, 2001.

Eckel, Peter, et al. On Change III – Taking Charge of Change: A Primer for Colleges and Universities. American Council on Education (2000).

Haas, Leslie, et al. The Information Commons [SPEC Kit 281]. Washington, D.C.: Assoc. of Research Libraries, 2004.

Oblinger, Diane and James L. Oblinger, eds. “Educating the Net Generation.” EDUCAUSE, 2005.

Oblinger, Diane, ed. “Learning Spaces.” EDUCAUSE, 2006.

Schader, Barbara. Learning Commons: Evolution and Collaborative Essentials. Oxford, 2007.

White, Peggy, Susan Beatty and Darlene Warren. “Information Commons” in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Marcel Dekker, Inc., Online Published: 03/03/2004, pp. 1-7.

Selected Journal Articles:
Albanese, Andrew Richard. “Indiana Univ. Builds Another Info Commons.” Library Journal. 129:18 (Nov. 1, 2004) pp.22ff..

Albanese, Andrew Richard. “The Future is Now.” Library Journal. 129:7 (Apr. 15, 2004) pp.32ff..

Bailey, Russell and Barbara Tierney. "Information Commons Redux: Concept, Evolution, and Transcending the Tragedy of the Commons." Journal of Academic Librarianship 28:5 (Sept. 2002) pp.277ff.

Bazillion, Richard J. and Connie Braun. “Academic Library Design: Building Teaching Instrument.” Computers in Libraries 14:2 (1994) pp.12ff.

Beagle, Donald. "Conceptualizing an Information Commons." Journal of Academic Librarianship 25:2 (March 1999) pp. 82ff.

Beagle, Donald. "Extending the Information Commons: From Instructional Testbed to Internet2." Journal of Academic Librarianship 28:5 (Sept 2002) pp. 287ff.

Bollier, David. “Why We Must Talk About the Information Commons.” Law Library Journal. 96:2 (Spring 2004) pp. 267ff..

Church, Jennifer. “The Evolving Information Commons.” Library Hi Tech 23:1 (2005) pp. 75ff.

Church, Jennifer and Jason Vaughan, Wendy Starkweather and Katherine Rankin. "The Information Commons at Lied Library (UNLV)." Library Hi Tech 20:1 (2002) pp.58ff.

Cowgill, Allison et al. "Implementing an Information Commons in a University Library." Journal of Academic Librarianship 27:6 (Nov. 2001) p. 432ff

Crockett, Charlotte et al. "Integrating Services in the Information Commons - Toward a Holistic Library and Computing Environment." Library Administration & Management 16:4 (Fall 2002) pp. 181ff.

Dallis, Diane. “Reference Services in the Commons Environment.” Reference Services Review 34:2 (2006) p. 248.

"The Fate of the Undergraduate Library: Views of Six Librarians and one Faculty Member." Library Journal 125 :18 (Nov 1, 2000) pp.38ff.

Gardner, Susan and Susanna Eng. “What Students Want: Generation Y and the Changing Function of the Academic Library.” Libraries & the Academy. 5:3 (July 2005) pp. 405ff.

Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 161 (December 1968), 1243ff.

Green, Marybeth and Daniel V. Eastmond. “The Information Commons: A Public Policy Report.” Quarterly Review of Distance Education. 6:4 (Winter 2005), pp. 409ff.

Halbert, Martin. "Lessons from the Information Commons Frontier." Journal of cademic Librarianship 25:2 (March 1999) pp. 90ff.

Holmes-Wong, Deborah, et al. "If You Build It, They Will Come: Spaces, Values, and Services in the Digital Era." Library Administration & Management 11:2 (Spring 1997) pp.81ff.

Huber, Mary Taylor and Pat Hutchings. “Building the Teaching Commons.” Change 38:3 (May/June 2006) pp. 25—31.

Hughes, Carol Ann. "Facework: A New Role for the Next Generation of Library-Based Information Technology Centers." Library Hi Tech 16:3-4 (1998) pp. 27ff.

Hughes, Carol Ann. "Information Services for Higher Education, A New Competitive Space." D-Lib Magazine 6:12 (Dec. 2000)

Kratz, Charles. “Transforming the Delivery of Service: The Joint-use Library and Information Commons.” College & Research Libraries News 64:2 (Feb. 2003) pp.100ff.

Lee, D.R. “Constructing the Commons: Practical Projects to Build the Information Commons.” Knowledge Quest 31:4 (2003) pp.13ff.

Lewis, David. “A Strategy for Academic Libraries in the First Quarter of the 21st Century.” College and University Libraries 68:5 (Sept. 2007) pp. 418.

Lippincott, Joan K. “New Library Facilities: Opportunities for Collaboration.” Resource Sharing & Information Networks.17:1/2 (2004) pp. 147.

Lowry, Anita. "The Information Arcade at the University of Iowa." Cause/Effect 17:3 (Fall, 1994) pp.38ff.

MacWhinnie, L.A. “The Information Commons: the Academic Library of the Future.” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 3:2 (2003)
pp.241ff.

Malenfant, Chuck. “The Information Commons as a Collaborative Workspace.” Reference Services Review 34:2 (2006) p. 279ff.

Miller, Michael. "Anticipating the Future: The University of Michigan's Media Union." Library HiTech 16:1 (1998) pp. 71ff.

Oblinger, Diana. “Leading the Transition from Classrooms to Learning Spaces.” EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 28:1 (2005), pp. 14ff.

Orgeron, Elizabeth."Integrated Academic Student Support Services at Loyola University: The Library as a Resource Clearinghouse." Journal of Southern Academic and Special Librarianship 2:3 (Spring 2001 )

Pierce, Jennifer Burek. “Next Stop, Information Commons.” American Libraries 35:4 (April 2004) p. 87ff.

Sinclair, Bryan. “Commons 2.0: Library Spaces Designed for Collaborative Learning.” EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 30:4 (2007), pp.1ff.

Spencer, Mary Ellen. “Evolving a New Model: the Information Commons.” Reference Services Review 34:2 (2006) p. 242ff.

Tompkins, Philip. "New Structures for Teaching Libraries." Library Administration & Management 4 (Spring 1990) pp.77ff.

Whitchurch, Michael. “Information Commons at Brigham Young University: Past, Present, and Future.” Reference Services Review 34:2 (2006) p. 261ff.

Administrators 2.0

2008-09-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

September 16 Web 2.0 presentation: Blogs and Wikis

This workshop will introduce these popular online collaborative publishing formats and highlight their uses for students, teachers and administrators.

Extremely brief intro to Web 2.0:

During the early years of the web (90s) the internet was used mostly to retrieve and move information. Although there were aspects of what is considered web 2.0, for the most part, particularly in education, the web was essentially considered a place to find things out.

The phrase web 2.0 refers to the read/write web. There are tools and applications that allow you not just to access the information of people with the wherewithal to set up websites, but to work collaboratively with others, coordinate your internet usage, broadcast your own content and create communities.

In a 2006 study of web 2.0 applications, R. Hogg and other researchers from the University of Dresden distilled the essence of 2.0 as "…the philosophy of mutually maximizing collective intelligence and added value for each participant by formalized and dynamic information sharing and creation." Couldn't have said it better myself!

Blog is short for web log. Originally they were essentially lists of links that people would use to keep track of things of interest they had found in their web-surfing. You can read more about them in a previous blog presentation.

The things to remember about blogs is that they are posted chronologically. So it is a good way to document a journey, work a course, keep a journal, convey new material and communicate changing news. You can even use them in place of handouts when doing a presentation.

One of the most popular ways to use blogs with student is journaling. This is enhanced with blogs because of the ability to have people respond in the comments section. The comments in Sharon's blog allow her to answer questions about her process. The comments in Maeve's blog allow her fellow students to express their solidarity on the need for more frequent and consistant technological professional development.

Many teachers use blogs to communicate with parents and students at both the elementary and high school level. The high school blog uses last names which is rare in student blogs and should be discouraged. But in reality, the blog, if used for educational purposes and with moderated comments, is not a danger for students.

Administrators might keep a project blog which can be private or invitation only. Say you are, oh, I don't know, building a new high school. This would be a great way to keep chronological track of your project. You can get a cadre of support people who can comment supportively when you are feeling overwhelmed.

Blogger, which is owned by google, is my blog site of choice, but wordpress and edublogs are both options that are nearly as user friendly.

Wikis - "wiki" is a Hawaiian word that means fast. And wikis are essentially instant websites.

Because of their immediacy they can be used for really interesting and collaborative purposes as evidenced in the short film WIKI'S IN PLAIN LANGUAGE.

Three types of wikis are open or public wikis that anyone can access and edit, closed wikis that anyone can view, but only the wiki administrator and those they invite can edit and of course private wikis. I would show you one, but I can't - they're private. Aren't you paying attention? No one can see them without permission, no one can edit them without permission.

Wikis can effectively be used with students for collaborative work like this excellent AP history review site.

Teacher (or librarians) can use them to make an instant website like the one for the BHS library. They are also excellent, as evidenced in the video for when people on different schedules need to collaborate on a common project. Sharon and Joanne, two of the LMSs who are sharing libraries are working on a wiki to help keep things organized. Ann and Pam in the BHS wellness department have begun a wellness department wiki to keep themselves organized and as a storehouse for wellness information.

I haven't seen any examples of how school sdministrators could use wikis, but it seems like online assessment portfolios for faculty would be useful and simple to set up on wikis. One school has a Wiki hall of fame to honor those who have done examplery work.

Wikispaces and pbwiki both offer excellent free packages to educators and are easy to work with.

Let's get down to library business...

2008-09-05T02:02:00.001-07:00

This stern-faced avatar is here to remind me that this blog is work! And I had better treat it as such. No more Dr. Horrible, no more funny pictures...

Okay, who am I trying to kid? I will still have both of those things, but I do need to try to keep up with all the new apps that keep coming in.

I went to an open house yesterday afternoon for the Salem State Program and realized that I have a HUGE learning curve for the cataloging course. Although I think we are calling it Emerging Technologies which sounds so space-aged! [Of course my husband points out that we have been in the space age since 1957 so that is not as exciting a descriptor as I think.]

Also, I am working with Judy on 2.0 presentations for administrators, updating the [extremely successful, if I do say so myself] summer course and developing another professional development series on 2.0 with Alix!

Needless to say, I need to find a forum to keep all this going. So I believe this will be the place. I like that I can go back and use the previous blog post for some portions. I also think I will use this for posts about RSS, wikis, etc... Then I can link them to the library wiki - or even start a new one! I have gone 2.0 crazy.

Here is a thought I had in the middle of the night when I was pondering how much of my life I am going to lose to Twitter once I master it. [Twitter is like a tiny instant blog. The writer - or Twitterer - composes a <140 character message. Why? Because they can.] In between writing the last two sentences I spent 20 minutes playing with twitter! (I am ipsofecteau, if you care to keep up...) And this brings me to my point. I have decided that for me text is like potato chips. In this life you only have so much time to consume either thing. So you had best never pass up the chace to do so.

My picture of heaven is a giant library (of course) with floor to ceiling shelves, big windows, comfy chairs and a little storage room filled with a never ending supply of Lays Ripple chips and diet Coke with lime. Because you see diet Coke and potato chips cancel each other out. It's science. Or magic. But I digress...

Practicing Embedding Video

2008-07-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

Grooming is so important...

Blogs - communication that sticks

2008-04-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't have the kind of blog that people go to every day or use subscribe to on their RSS feed. Frankly, for me blogs are less about entertainment and more about cataloging!

The first blogs I ever saw (back when they were referred to as web logs) were just lists of links that the blogger wanted to record so that they could get back to them when they needed to. It was more similar to a bookmark list or a del.icio.us page. Since blogging exploded a few years ago there are many different types of blogs - teen angst journals, political diatribes, pop cultural fun pages. Most magazines and newspapers have added the immediacy of a blog to their regular websites. Writers and even fictional characters are blogging.

Now I have to admit that some blogs I read are for entertainment value like mimi smartypants or the qc report. They are both mommy-blogs but with a twisted sense of humor. I even write for a very low brow entertainment blog in my spare time.

But blogging has a real use for my library in that my information is constantly accessible and there can be a constant flow of communication. I have six different blogs that I use for work.

The one that used to get the most action was my schedule blog. I have since switched to a wiki because of it's more linear format - but the blog was a quick, handy option that can be set up in minutes. With this blog the library schedule was accessible to teachers 24/7. They looked at the posted schedule and then email with their requests for library time. This is the one blog that I updated the most. I updated it through zohowriter,which allowed me to use their word processing application and post directly to a blog.

My favorite of my school blogs is the one that I developed a few years ago to document my summer reading every book on the summer reading list. It started out in a journal format and has ended up being a site that reviews the summer reading titles and gives other recommendations for reading. I used to post at least a few times a month and but now it is mostly in the spring when I am picking out summer reading books and pretty consistently in the summer.

The oddest of my blogs is the BHSL blog. This has been used for showing what the library fund raiser tee shirt looks like, listing good sites for country studies, saving a online lesson for a teacher, supplying a book-list for a student and posting a collaborative lesson for a class to do in the computer lab with a substitute! I don't even look at it unless I need to warehouse some kind of information, but I have certain posts saved as bookmarks on the school computers by topic.

I have also used blogs for professional development. I did a Research for the Humanities presentation for high school teachers and Alix Woznick, the middle school librarian, and I did a tech talk for new teachers. Once you have your presentations on-line it allows you to do as much or as little talking. I used this blog (No link - just scroll down!) to help facilitate a course through MSLA about web 2.0 tools. The format was very convenient - all the students created a blog and we communicated through the comments section.

Speaking of comments, if you are using blogging with students make sure you moderate your comments. It was mortifying when I was showing an administrator my summer reading blog and noticed a comment directing me to "Visit Candi's web cam!" Blogger now has letter recognition for its comments, but the occasional spam does come through. Comments are a very important part of blogging - the collaborative nature of writing something, putting it out on the web and receiving feedback is powerful for educators and students. If you have moderated comments, moderate quickly. It is a real kick for beginners, okay - for anyone! - to see something they have written appear right away.

Getting started blogging is a snap. There are many places you can post your blog. Blogger is the biggest and most user friendly. Edublogs is an excellent choice for educators as is Wordpress. Livejournal is an oldie but a goodie. And myspace and facebook both have a blogging component, but the social networking aspect can make them a less desirable choice for a school blogging host.

If you are thinking of starting a blog for your school library, take a look at the many examples on the blogging libraries wiki!

You can put as much or as little effort into a blog post as you like. The convenience of having all your links in one spot is wonderful. And it is quick and easy. This post, that hopefully will give you at least a half hours look at blogging in general took half that time to put up! (That is the posting and adding of links, your mileage may vary...)

New Ideas

2008-04-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

This is my last post of the MSLA Web 2.0 class. After this post, I will re-dress my cheerleader avatar into a more traditional librarian and move on. I am thrilled that I will be facilitating this same type of class for professional development in Beverly. There were a lot of things I had not looked at before this course, and I consider myself pretty up on edu-webby things (Thanks, School Library Journal!) but Rollyo and some of the 2.0 award winners were new to me!

I tube, youtube, we all tube...

2008-03-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

I wanted to paste some helpful old html and put up a video here, but my school doesn't allow youtube access! Oh the humanity!

It is not really a content based decision, but rather the amount of bandwidth used when 1200 students decide to view POTTER PUPPET PALS or "I'M xxxxxxx MATT DAMON" all at the same time.

I have to say that you tube managed to suck up a good part of the month of August for me this year as I spent much of it catching up on the lives of the two fine gentlemen pictured above. Hank Green a eco-blogger and his brother John, a YA author, decided to forgo textual communication for an entire year and the result was brotherhood 2.o. Every week day they would trade off a 4 minute or so video blog about whatever caught their interest directed at their brother. As the year went on their viewers became part of the family with secret siblings from as far away as Australia and the UK. I was thrilled to learn that one of my students is a Nerdfighter! The Green brothers even took over youtube for a day with awesome results.

I have kept up with my one family far away by posting the occasional video to youtube and I have plans to begin uploading book talks for summer reading if I ever find a way to put 32 or so hours in a day!

Speaking of summer reading - a topic I will become even more obsessed with as the spring progresses - youtube was even mentioned in this summer reading story about my very own high school!

Must order books, podcasts and ebooks later...

March Already?

2008-03-03T07:03:00.001-08:00

The nice thing about blogs is that they are such a great way to keep track of your progress. The not-so-nice thing is the feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize that the one blog you feel like you are keeping up with hasn't been updated in weeks! Whoopsie...

The course is almost over and the weeks I have not posted on look a little like this:

Week 6 Tagging: I am not a big fan of tagging because it makes me all OCD and I obsessively check to make sure that all my tags are uniform when I really should just be moving on. However, I do love del.icio.us because I now have my bookmarks with me whenever I am online! I also love stumbleupon which may or may not have been mentioned. It feeds my big fat del.icio.us bookmark collection.

Week 7 Wikis: I love the idea of wikis, I even love wikipedia! But I never use them. I have lots of good ideas for classroom use of wikis. Again, all theoretical. But someday I will be called upon to teach about wikis, and I will be ready!

Week 8 Online Applications and Tools: I use zohowriter to put my library's schedule online so that teachers can just email me with their needs. It is so handy and they consistently update it making it even more user-friendly. As for LibraryThing, I love it. I wish I could devote more time to playing around with it. I may use it to catalog my home library this summer. And yes, I do realize how demented I sound using my time off to catalog more.

Whoo hoo! Now I am all caught up and I will be able to sleep at night.

Week 5-ish?

2008-02-10T06:15:00.000-08:00

I think that this is the week I was supposed to explore and have fun with the internet. (Hopefully I haven't lost a week somehow. This has been known to happen.)

I went to the Web 2.0 awards page and looked around. Here are the sites I already used:

Bloglines
biblio.com
library thing
craigslist
pbwiki
ning
twitter
zoho
flickr
facebook
digg
del.ici.ous
stumbleupon
farecast
youtube

Here are the ones that look interesting:
writeboard
project stat.us
one sentence
ma.gnolia
fraper
podshow
netvibes

No THINGS for me...

2008-02-04T06:39:00.000-08:00

I have fallen off the Thing-doing bandwagon and have just started following the links of the people taking the course!

Thanks to Marnie's Thing 9, I stumbled upon this blog post:

Is it Okay To Be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

I pretty much nodded my head along with the whole post. We just viewed Did You Know at a recent staff development meeting and people were actually muttering wow during the film.

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with next!

Trading Card Fun

2008-01-25T04:00:00.001-08:00

I was looking at this weeks assignments on the original SL2.0 blog and found a link to a trading card maker! What fun. Here is my first attempt. I am already trying to think of things I have around the house from which I could fashion superhero costumes!

I think I am going to make these for my library aides. Or my children. Or my pets. (I am just kidding, I have no pets...)

In other news my school is looking at a one-to-one laptop initiative. I will be trying out my various tech manifestos here before I post them at school. Feel free to add your opinions!

Flickr - the Forgotten Wonderland

2008-01-18T03:54:00.001-08:00

I love Flickr. When I first started blogging and blogspot was giving me a little trouble because I insisted on using a Mac, Flickr was the only way I could import photos! Of course everyone has now admitted that Mac is here to stay and it is working fine. But Flickr is still fun.

I last used it to import some pictures of my vacation from a friend's account. Here is my favorite. I don't look particularly spectacular, but I am so happy! This was taken in the Maud Hart Lovelace room of the Mankato Public library in Mankato, Minnesota.

Maud Hart Lovelace is my favorite children's writer. She wrote the Betsy-Tacy books. I am pointing at one of the original illustrations by Lois Lenski. It is ia picture of Betsy at a library. What, me geeky? But wait, there's more. This picture was on my Christmas card this year. Good grief...

Avatars are fun!

2008-01-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

I didn't intend to do all the "things" as I went through this.

As a cheerleader I was told me job was to be enthusiastic and supportive and make sure I got to the tanning salon at least twice a week to keep my skin a healthy shade of "cheerleader orange". If you work in a high school you know what I am talking about!

But doggone it if I haven't gotten caught up in the fun! Did you know if you change your avatar on your yahoo page and you have it linked to your blog with html (as opposed to importing it as an image) that when you change it on Yahoo, it changes on your blog! So much for messing around with slinky outfits! It is a simple concept, but one that hadn't occurred to me!

Whoopee! I am off to try to find my old flickr account to tie to this blog. Web 2.0 is fun!

And I am not just typing that because I am a [fake] cheerleader.

Blog Links for 2.0

2008-01-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

So now I will add the blogs of the School Library 2.0 participants for whom I am the cheerleader.

Ann K.
Ann N. - The Open-minded Luddite
Anne- Librarianne
Annmarie - Bibliomagic
Barbara
Chris - My First Online Course
Colleen
Marnie - Newton Library 2
Pat
Patsy's Library 2.0
Paula - School Library Musings

not to mention

MSLA School Library Learning 2.0
and
MSLA Cheerleader blog

Bunches of Blogs

2008-01-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

I wasn't going to set up a blog because I already have a bunch, but it is a heck of a convenient place to set up information! I was thinking this as I went to look at all the bookmarked blogs I have...at home. Whoopsie! I guess I should have stuck with that del.ici.ous account after all.

If you are curious about my school blogs they are here.

booksplat.blogspot.com
bhslschedule.blogspot.com
bhslresearch.blogspot.com
fordlibrary.blogspot.com

And there is also my somewhat obsessive American Idol blog that I will be starting back up with this week!

thejoyofidol.blogspot.com

And please pretend you don't notice how much effort I put in to Idol compared to my school blogs!