Thing #15 Library 2.0

WoW! All of this information is getting a little overwhelming. I now know why our first "thing" was about life-long learners, because if we ever decide to stop learning the world and everyone else is just going to leave us behind. I'm not sure what my thoughts about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 are. At first, I thought it was terrific. Technology is awesome! However, I can't shake the feeling that as the world becomes more technology driven certain people are going to be left in the midst. I really liked what Dr. Wendy Schultz said, "libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities." My question is that as libraries and information become more engrossed in technology, are we going to lose that "community."

Thing #14 Technorati

The video about Technorati was very interesting. I have always wondered how things work on the internet, such as Amazon. Tagging information is just another way to get "organized". We have so much information today that we have to have some way to find that information again when we need it. I have begun using del.icio.us and everyone I tell about it has also started using it. I am somewhat OCD and tagging information feeds into that, and I love it!

Thing #13 Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is the "best thing since sliced bread," no pun intended. I am always bookmarking something on one computer and then I can't find it on another computer when I want it. I will no longer have that problem because of del.icio.us.

Thing #12 Rollyo

Rollyo was neat. I made a searchroll using the websites that I had bookmarked. I had trouble exporting my bookmarks, so I ended up cutting and pasting all of them. Thankfully, this is a new computer and I hadn't bookmarked a lot of websites. It seemed to work when I searched for "library internet use", however, it searched the whole web and I couldn't figure out how to change that. I also didn't know what my link was, is it just the URL?

Thing #11 Library Thing

Yea! Library Thing! I have found in Library Thing what I wanted to find in the RSS feed activity. I liked the groups titled "children's fiction" and "children's literature". They had suggestions, as well as reviews, and summaries of children's literature.

I think I might use this activity to post what I am reading so that my students can see it. I will also use it to keep track of what I have read and what I think about each book. I read so much that sometimes I forget what I have read and what it was about. This will help me organize my reading in a managable way.

Thing #10 Image Generators

The image generators were so fun. I spent hours playing. My favorite thing was the "dummies" cover I made, because I actually googled "Copyright for Dummies" in the past to try to find something on copyright.

At the beginning of the year, I have my kids decorate a folder and over the year we put our creative writing activities in it. At open house, in the spring, the students get to share how much their writing has grown with their parents. In the future, we could use image generators to make very unique covers for our creative writing folders.

Students could also use the image generators to make unique pictures that could be used instead of posting their actual photos. This would help when you have some students whose parents do not want their photos on-line.

Thing #9 More RSS Feeds

I am not sure if I am understanding RSS feeds. I tried all of the RSS feed search sites that were suggested and I found the experience very frustrating. I wanted to find something on book reviews that were written by children, but was unsuccessful. I found a lot of news information but no book reviews. I did find one search that located news information for my area of the city and I thought that was kinda neat.

I explored the sites on the Edublog awards and was excited when I found something on the Second Life. Second Life was mentioned in class on Thursday and I had no idea what it was. Now I know what Second Life is and where to begin if I decide to participate in it or develop something for my children to do. It might be neat for students to use Second Life because it involves buying things just like in the real world. However, I would have to do a lot more exploring before I would let them do something like that. I would need to make sure that it was both safe and educational for them to use.

I again I found this "thing" very frustrating and my least favorite because of that frustration.