Thing #13

I really like tags. I can definitely see students utilizing this when conducting research. How cool is it that they can mark important web sites at school, and then easily locate these online from home? Extremely cool! Moreso, students can search for tags to help them find more direct information about their topics. I cannot wait to share this with everyone. The great part is after signing up for delicious I am! I can find a few to get students started and model how to use this social bookmarking site, and then students can reference my bookmarks to create their own and find new sources. This is great!

Thing # 12

When commenting on someone's post it is important to say something of value. The Cool Cat Teacher Blog makes this statement as well as reminding those who are afraid to post because they are new just how important it is to get feedback from "newbies." It is important to comment because it furthers discussion and is a main source of gaining information from a multitude of sources. I recently sought advice from the Goddess of YA Literature. After visiting Kathy Dempsey's blog, I viewed a study discussing the number of visitors to public libraries. It can easily be transferred into the school library as our students will be the ones looking for jobs in the near future.

Thing # 11

Library Thing is a great way to organize books. I especially enjoy the option to discuss books with other people online. My Library Thing is still in the beginning stages, mainly because I prefer Shelfari. For me the visual of the books on a bookshelf is nicer. Also, in Shelfari as you add a book, you go through incorporating tags, reviews, and other information all at once. I plan to suggest this to English teachers so that their students can have an accurate account of all they have read. After checking out the YA literature group, I was a little disappointed that people set up an entire discussion asking which YA characters people have crushes on when reading, but still collected titles of books I want to read or suggest for my students. All in all this is a nice site.

Thing # 10

This is a neat animation I tried. Image Chef is pretty cool and user friendly. Wordle was not nearly as easy to get for my blog. I made a wordle, but couldn't figure out how to get it on my blog. I will keep working on figuring it out, though.

Another cool tool is Dumpr. You can take a picture and make it into a sketch. It would be cool to have students take photos to represent their favorite book and turn it into a sketch or a rubik's cube. My Dumpr is of the Plain Janes.

Thing #9

As I searched for feeds to add to my reader, I liked using the Google blog search engine. It is easy to use and doesn't include pop-ups and extraneous material like topix.net. Technoratis option to search blogs or posts is nice because there are times I want to find a specific blog and others where I am looking for a specific posting. I found the blog MadChatter by Dr. Ruth Cox Clark. She offers great information about young adult literature, as well as children's titles.

Thing # 8

Okay, so I really thought that little orange box with the three white lines was just another annoying thing to delete in my email because it takes up space I don't have. Then I watched that wonderful video on teachertube and everything became clear. I can now follow blogs without having to waste time I don't have and get the important information I want without being bombarded by extraneous information. This is great to compile incoming information in a manner that doesn't waste time or space. In the library I can use different folders to keep up with different topics which works well for the many hats a librarian wears. I can have a folder for technology updates, young adult literature, children's literature, business administration, and budgeting to name a few. Personally, I am excited to use it to keep up with my favorite authors using the reader.

Thing #7

I love Google. Any time I need to find something, it is my go to search engine. However, I did not realize how many other tools Google offers. The first thing I explored was iGoogle. I love the tool that can be added to the page. It is now my home page so now any time I want to know what the weather is like, get the latest news headlines, or search for a video on youtube all I have to do is go home. I must admit I become slightly enthralled with the color game offered. After playing with this for a while, I went to the Google calendar. This is a great tool for librarians. You can create a calendar and put a link on a school wiki so that students, parents, faculty, and staff can see what is happening in the library. My calendar is only in the beginning stages, but I plan to add information and use in my classroom.