Mission Accomplished!

I think that our Learning 2.0 program has been very beneficial for me. I have learned about a lot of resources, programs, and technologies that are available and free, and that I would not have otherwise discovered on my own.

This program was very good for me because I tend to be a little hesitant to test and try out new things on the Internet. There are quite a few technologies that I would never have dreamed of finding or using, such as Twitter, tag clouds, RSS feeds, Skype, wikis, and blogging itself. However, having to explore these different programs by myself and as a requirement for this class has helped me to overcome my initial fears of new technology, as well as to help me realize that there is always something new to learn about and use to make life easier.

I really appreciated this program for its reliability as well. When exploring and searching for new resources, one has to be very careful of scammers and unreliable online programs. I liked exploring the links and sites that were embedded in each "thing" from our Learning 2.0 blog because I knew that they were sources that I could rely upon, and that they wouldn't give my computer a virus.

So Learning 2.0, I thank both you and Anne for all that you have taught me this semester. And I think it's safe to say that my mission has been accomplished - my quest for library science and media has been a success!

My Wordle

This is my wordle creation.

If you click on it, a new window will open, and the words are easier to read.

Listen to This: Podcasting

After searching a little bit for a school library related podcast, I decided to listen to this podcast from NPR, entitled Digital School Library Leaves Book Stacks Behind, about a school in Massachusetts that decided to get rid of all printed books. They have turned everything over to digital references. The school library now houses a cafe, easy chairs, and a few flat-screen TVs. Although the library has become a hub of activity for many students, there are some who feel that without books, this new library doesn't really feel like a library anymore.

I thought this podcast was very intriguing, and it brings up a potentially controversial subject for librarians, parents, students, and administrators. For instance, this school seems to have a large bucket of resources to draw from since each one of the 450 students that attends the school is provided with a school laptop. Also mentioned in this podcast is the fact that most schools don't have the budget or funds to afford such a drastic move to all digital. At any rate, the administration is tossing out its 20,000-volume collection of print materials for a database containing millions of online resources.

Another point of controversy is the concept of an either/or library. The headmaster of the school feels that it doesn't matter what type of resource (book or digital) is used by a student, as long as they are learning. However, students at this school no longer have the choice of using print materials and/or digital sources for research. They are now only provided with one option to choose from, and there are some who are not happy about the changes. Some students who were quoted in the podcast said that the library feels more like a study hall than a library. It's not the same quiet place where one could indulge in a good book.

I find it very interesting that the reporters for this podcast contacted the president of the American Library Association, Camille Alire, to ask her opinion on this course of action. She stated that libraries need to keep up with all the technological changes and advancements. And yet, I couldn't help but sense that she thought that this library had gone too far with their decision. Whatever her response, I think her opinion is one of great importance in a situation like this.

Learning by Video

I really like this Thing in Learning 2.0. I think that students learn a lot by videos now than they did 20 or 30 years ago. There are just so many resources available for our children now that it is mind boggling at times. I was so excited to explore TeacherTube. Before this class, I didn't even know that it existed! I've embedded a couple of videos that I found on libraries. The first is school related, the other two are more just for fun. :)

Video Contest Submission - Whitmore Bolles School Library

I really liked this video. This is a group of students who made their own video about their school library. I thought it was very creative. It's interesting to see how the media has influenced children in their view of who a librarian is and what they do. I'm referring to the shushing and shouts of "Overdue!". Hopefully, these kids have a librarian who does NOT fit this stereotype. They look like they are having fun, and I think they really do love their library. I also love that the girls are using atlases, a great library resource. :)

Sesame Street: Cookie Monster In The Library

I couldn't pass this Sesame Street video up. It's just too cute! And I love Cookie Monster. :) I hope that none of us ever get so perturbed by a patron that we lose our cool like this librarian, even though the patron is asking for an unrelated service. :)

A Day at the Library

I really liked this one too. Librarians should always have ideas and should not be afraid to suggest those ideas to others. I think this video is inspiring for librarians as well as students. I also think that the end line is true: we need to remember that we do have the ability to change the lives of our students and teachers. Love it!

Twitter. Hm.

So, Twitter. It was very easy to create my Twitter account. However, even after reading all the help articles that were cited on our learning 2.0 blog, I was still a little confused about how to use my twitter and create tweets. The tagging and @ sign posts lost me. But I will figure it all out with practice and "play".

I think that there is a potential benefit to using Twitter for the school library. It would be a great way to connect with a lot of students, who seem ever more technologically savvy than me. They could see announcements and tweets from the library all the time and know everything that is going on in their school's world of books.

However, I personally don't really like Twitter very much. I've always wanted to be a bird, but not exactly in this manner. Twitter just doesn't appeal to me. I think it's too similar to Facebook, and it seems a lot more complicated than Facebook. If I had the choice, I would probably let a library aide run the Twitter account for the school library, if I had an aide in my library. That way, we could still inform our students about goings on in the library.

Feeding on RSS

My experience with RSS feeding and subscribing is a somewhat interesting one. As it may have been noticed, I had some issues using Bloglines and subscribing to RSS feeds while using the Internet Explorer browser. Setting up my Bloglines account was simple and easy, so no problems there. However, when I started searching for feeds to subscribe to, I kept having issues with adding feeds to my account. I tried several different techniques and sites to no avail. I finally decided to try using a different browser (Mozilla Firefox in this case) and was successful within one minute of opening the browser. Why I had problems, I will never know. It could have been me, my computer, or Internet Explorer. At any rate, I divided and conquered.

After creating my Bloglines account, I searched and scanned through numerous school library related blogs to find some that I thought would be interesting and useful to me in the future. There was no sense in adding blogs that I wouldn't look at after this class had ended. I wanted blogs that had good information on books, technology, libraries, and successful librarians.

I liked blogs that had non-novel-like posts. I know I don't have the time to read everything that I want to, so posts that are short, sweet, and to the point are very appealing. Some of the blogs that I perused were somewhat scandalous and superfluous in their content, and I wondered why they had come up in my searches. I did not like these blogs because they seemed unrelated to my query.

I decided to follow Seth Godin's Blog and Learning.Now for PBS Teachers. Seth Godin's Blog is a non-librarian blog about technologies and other musings by Seth Godin. It seemed to be an interesting blog, so I hope that there will be good technology-based things to learn from Seth Godin. Learning.Now is a very impressive site. Its focus is to help teachers and educators (librarians) integrate the Internet into education and the classroom. I really liked this blog because it is divided into grade levels, so lesson plans and suggestions are created based on the age group of students. I think this site has the potential to give me good ideas about teaching children about the Internet in a positive way.

Keeping Up to Speed

I really liked this article by Christopher Harris about libraries keeping up with the times and technology that fills our world today. I loved the title of his article - "Say Good-bye to Your Mother's School Library". It is so true! Libraries of three decades ago have been changed so much that a lot of moms wouldn't recognize them as the same "places of knowledge".

Mr. Harris sums up his reasoning for this title so well. In one paragraph of the article, he states, "Redefining the school library is not a response to some inherent failure on the part of the institution. It’s an opportunity for library professionals to engage in some exciting activities that will enable our institutions to remain effective in the midst of fast-moving technological change. It was school libraries, in fact, that led the way in the first wave that brought computers and then the Internet into our classrooms. This is about adapting, once again, to a new, perhaps even more compelling digital revolution, in which powerful new ideas are enhancing the way in which we function in an electronic information environment."

I love that paragraph because it tells me that libraries really are important, now more than ever, and that we need to become competent, techno-savvy school librarians if we want to keep our jobs. We have to comply to the times, or as Harris puts it, "we library professionals have continually sought to establish the media center as the central foundation of a school. We must persist in this effort." We need to do all in our power to promote the library, especially "to extend [our] services beyond the four walls [of our establishment]". And all of this means, becoming intellectuals of the Internet and its vast resources.

This is where Library 2.0 comes into play. Librarians need a resource that they can turn to for technological support and learning. Why not put it into a program like the one we are completing for this class? This type of program makes it so easy to go step by step and learn about all the different things that are available on the Internet. Even better, we don't have to waste our time looking for good resources because the sources for these programs are reliable. I think that all school librarians need to have access to library 2.0 programs to help them engage their students, teacher peers, parents, and school administration and remind their schools of the importance of libraries.

Technorati: A Blogger's Guide to Blogs

Technorati seems like a very interesting directory. I had never thought of a directory for blogs, but I guess you would need one when the said "blogosphere" is doubling every 5 or 6 months...

It looks like Books (yay!), U.S. and World Politics, Technology, Food, and Religion are well-represented categories in the blog world. There are at least 2000 blogs listed for each of these subjects. Some subjects that are lacking representation on Technorati are Tennis and Hockey in the Sports section and Pets in the Living section. Some subjects that aren't even listed include LIBRARIES......, education, collectors (of antiques, coins, stamps, rocks, etc.), biking, operas and plays, and so on.

When searching for blogs or blog posts, you get different results almost every timeyou search for something. When searching your topic of interest by posts, Technorati displays blog posts that are related to your topic. On the other hand, when you search for blogs about your topic of interest, a list of blogs is shown that is similar to your topic entry.

I think that Technorati is a good directory to have on hand. It is a great way to look up blogs that contain information and/or experiences of someone who is interested in the same things as you are. The only disadvantage that is apparent to me is that not all blogs are contained in this directory. However, this should be the case; people should be entitled to private blogging if they want it.

I'll take Diigo Please

After learning about these two social bookmarking sites, it seems to me that they would both be great resources for storing and sharing favorite websites online. However, out of pure convenience for myself, I would chose to work with Diigo over Del.icio.us, the main reason being that Del.icio.us doesn't comply with the Google e-mailing accounts. I didn't want to create yet another e-mailing account just so that I could use Del.icio.us.

Diigo also seems to have more features that would be very helpful with research. Some of the tools that can be utilized on Diigo include highlighting, sticky notes, listing, and tagging. I think that highlighting could be very beneficial when working on a research paper. With this handy tool, you can (1) highlight text that you want to quote or refer to in your research project, and (2) be able to find it easily without wasting time scanning the page for it all over again.

Make lists and tagging items on websites is also great when you start sharing information with other people (i.e. your students, school administration, teachers, and fellow librarians). And it gets even better: if you want to share information or links with a person who cannot access Diigo, there is no problem. You can send them the link anyway.

Diigo also makes it easy to collaborate with other people, as well as create lists and tags that are accessible to everyone. This could be a great way to get students involved with the library by helping them set up their own collaborative list of links for a specific class or research project.

The only thing with Diigo that I couldn't figure out was if it is fee-based. I assume it probably isn't, but you never know...

My LibraryThing

I LOVE LibraryThing. It was really easy to set up my own account and to start making a list of books that I have read. It is so fun to have a place where I can list all of my favorite books! I love it. Most of my books have a nice picture of the cover, which is even better. I can see all the books that I read as a little girl.

I think that LibraryThing has a lot of potential for a library website/blog/wiki. It would be great to have an account so the librarian could show new arrivals, works from a featured author, and/or books related to the theme of the month (Black History Month, Women's Month, Thanksgiving, Halloween, etc. etc.). It's an interactive way to show off books without actually "listing" them.

LibraryThing is something that I will definitely keep using after this class. And I LOVE seeing my favorite books cycling on my blog!! :)

Image Generated!

Here are two images that I had some fun creating....

A What?

So, I had no idea what a wiki was until I watched the Wiki's in Plain English Video (which, by the way, I thought was kind of funny:). And I still don't know exactly what we are going to be doing with our wikis quite yet. But I am sure I will learn in time.

I did learn that a wiki seems like a much simpler way of communicating with hordes of people when compared to e-mail. I also learned that the information on wikis can be edited by anyone who happens to view the page and who wants to add comments or new information. I didn't know that you could essentially make your own "wikipedia". I knew that people could change information on Wikipedia, but I never had thought that I could do so with my own wiki.

I was suprised at how fast and easy it was to create my own wiki page. I thought for sure I had done something wrong because it was so fast and simple.

I don't really know what my feelings on wikis are, seeing as I haven't really played with it and used it. However, I do like Wikipedia. Hopefully it will be something new and fun to learn about and use.

Mashed Up!

So, I took the spiral staircase to the bead art section at http://bighugelabs.com/, and this is what happened....

Radical.

Spiral Staircase

I found this photostream on Flickr too. I thought it was cool because the library has a spiral staircase. This is the Carl A. Pescosolido Library at the Govenor's Academy in Massachusetts. I couldn't figure out how to get the slide show into a blog post, so the picture is linked.

The Reading Tent

When I saw this picture, I instantly fell in love with it! What a cute idea to have a reading tent in a library!

I think this is perfect for elementary school libraries. If there had been a reading tent in my elementary school, I would have wanted to go there and read all the time. It would be a good way to entice kids to come to the library in the first place, to show that it is a fun learning environment. A reading tent could even be used as an incentive for good behavior.

Love it!!

This picture was taken by KYD Advisor at Crofton Downs Primary School in New Zealand.

Habits for Successful Lifelong Learning

Last week, I started the Quest. The Quest for the School Library Media Endorsement. I have embarked on a difficult journey, but the reward in the end will be worth its weight in gold.

To start out this Quest, I viewed a slide show by Lori Reed called Seven and ½ Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners.

The Seven and 1/2 Habits are listed as follows:

1. Begin with the end in mind.
2. Accept responsibility for your own learning.
3. View problems as challenges.
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner.
5. Create your own learning toolbox.
6. Use technology to your advantage.
7. Teach/mentor others.
1/2 Play!

After looking and thinking about these habits, I have decide that some of them do come to me naturally, but I can improve in all of these areas. I think that habits #2 and #4 are the easiest for me. I have accepted responsibility for my own learning in that I am paying my own way through school, and I want to continue to learn new things. I also have confidence in myself as a competent and effective learner. I feel very lucky to have this habit come naturally to me. I know that I can learn anything that I want to, as long as I put forth enough effort to do so.

Habits #1, #5, #7, and #7 1/2 have become habits over time, but could still use some improvement and experience. I try to start my goals with the end in mind, so that I know where I want to take my learning experience. Sometimes I get excited though, and dive into the work without thinking about where I want to end up. I have created a learning toolbox as I have continued to go to school. Nevertheless, I think more tools can always be added to the toolbox, and I don't think that I have discovered all the right tools just yet. I have taught and mentored other people in the things that I know how to do well; however, I think I need some more practice in this area, especially if I want to become a teacher. Lastly, I love to play, but I often have a difficult time finding a happy medium. I normally study more than I play.

I think that I need to work on habits #3 and #6 the most. I view problems as problems. I view challenges as challenges. They are not necessarily the same thing to me. Yet, I do think that problems can be challenging to overcome. I guess I just need to work on combining the two concepts together. Using technology to my advantage is a habit that I hope to start forming in this class, and to add to my toolbox. When researching, I feel much more comfortable with an encyclopedia in my hand than a computer mouse. I hope that I can learn to find good resources on the Internet during this class.