Winter 2.0 Fun is Launched!
Winter 2.0 Fun runs from December 1, 2007 - April 1, 2008. This is a repeat of School Library Learning 2.0 that was offered over the 2007 summer.
Join your colleagues to learn more about YouTube, podcasts, image generators, wikis, mashups and other web 2.0 tools. Now is your chance to learn, at your leisure -- in the comfort of your own home, all about these exciting new tools. This on-line tutorial will take you step by step through the use of many of the tools listed above. There are already many ideas posted on CSLA's California 2.0 Curriculum Connections wiki on how to develop library lessons and useful classroom collaborations. Join in this discussion and add to it, the many ideas you'll be getting as you work through the 23 Things of this tutorial.
With over 60 CSLA "Summer 2.0 Fun" graduates, you have lots of learning partners to call on and many of these grads will be your cheering partners. CSLA's Ed Tech Committee gives this special feature a new name: "Peer Cheers."School Library Learning 2.0 is a free, fun, and fabulous way to learn together and strengthen our collective educational technology savvy. There is a Continuing Education option through Fresno Pacific University (Course #IND 1149.)
Start today at http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/
Connie Hamner WilliamsCSLA 2.0 TeamPresident-elect, CSLACSLA2team@yahoo.com

If Connie's message about Winter 2.0 Fun has you intrigued, come on join in... I will be cheering on some of our new team members during Winter 2.0 Fun. Join us and learn about new and exciting ways to enhance your technology skills.

Week 9 Activity #23

This was a great experience for me. A couple of my favorite discoveries are Yahoo Travel Planner and Flickr. We took a fun vacation this summer and I was able to share it with my friends and family using Yahoo Travel Planner. Flickr will be something fun I can use for student book reviews.
Participating in this program has made me feel a little bit more in the know. There is so much out there to explore, it was nice to have a tour guide. It was great to get feedback from the CSLA School Library Learning 2.0 Team and others participating in the program. I loved checking out what others were up to. I was constantly visiting Ourlibrarymovesforward and Pagespace, they both had great ideas and experiences to read.
If another program like this was offered, I would totally do it. Every bit of information boosts the confidence. Trying new things can be intimidating, especially when given a deadline or time limit. Thank you so much for leaving plenty of time to explore.
Enlightening would be the word I would use to describe my experience.
p.s. Libladylib I dedicate this post to you!!

Week 9 Activity #22

ebooks and Audio ebooks. I have learned a little about them in my library courses, but I really do not know much about them. Gutenberg Project had plenty of choices, but not to many things I was interested in. I checked out other participants blogs to see if I could get a better idea of what and how to figure it out.
Our library moves forward had great information about getting these from the public library. I guess I now have the perfect reason to get an MP3 player. There is so much exploring I am going to do to really understand how ebooks and Audio ebooks work. I am excited to dig deeper.

Week 9 Activity #21

Podcasts.....heard about them, had no idea what they truly were. The tutorial on Yahoo Podcasts was a great introduction. A discussion with my teenage children was also a great introduction. We went round and round about the who, what, when, where and why's of Podcasts.
We discussed itunes, which is the most popular in their world, and then I showed them Yahoo! Podcasts and Podcasts.net. It was great pulling them into my world and chattin about the different ways of doing things.
I searched and explored and I listened, but I did not subscribe to anything. Once I have completed all 23 things, I will do some more exploring.

Prangstgrup Library Musical - Reading on a Dream PRANK!!

Week 9 Activity #20

How fun is this!?! My first YouTube experience was soooo much fun. I thought that Reading on a Dream was hilarious so I posted it to my blog. There would be no way that I would be able to keep a straight face during their prank.

I choose that video because sometimes I believe that our elementary library is a musical theater. I sing songs that go along with books and act out others. It's my own little off off Broadway show!

YouTube was fun to explore. It was amazing to see how many videos came up after searching "library".

How cool would it be to make short little video clips of students reviewing or even acting out their favorite books and then posting them to your school library website. This was a fun activity.

Week 8 Activity #19

I visited LibraryThing during Activity 11 and I just did a little exploring. This time I started a list of books and I even added tags. I tried adding a widget, but I will have to see if it worked.
LibraryThing is a great resource, there are so many great groups. It is very easy to use and it kind of feels like home. It is going to be great to have my list of books to refer to online.

Week 8 Activity #18

How cool is this! It looks just like Word with all of the tool bars and menus and stuff. I am going to type my blog here and see how this whole thing works.

My computer just booted me off and I was curious to see what happened to my work. I logged back in to Zoho Writer and it was under my docs. This is excellent! You can use this anywhere. I really like it and I am going to do some more exploring.

That was totally easy, I typed it up and posted it directly to my blog. My son is going to college this year and I am going to show him this. Zoho Writer is a great discovery for me.

Week 7 Activity #17

It was great to see all of the ideas that everyone has to share. I am a visual person, so it was great to read all of the posts in the Photos and Images section. Most of the ideas are things that we have learned during the process of SLL2.0.

Being a Library Media Tech for only 2 years I really do not have that many ideas to share, so I did not post anything. It is exciting to me to see things that I can use to make the library more fun. And already my wheels are spinning and I am looking forward to the new school year.

Week 7 Activity #16

Finding out the meaning of the word Wiki, (something fast), was a great beginning. I didn't know that you could update, edit or change the information on Wiki's. Now I understand why this advantage of fast updating can also be its disadvantage. With editing made so easy, how do trust the source?

Discovery Resources has great articles that explain the world of Wiki's. I checked out the Wiki for the CSLA 2007 conference and I didn't understand it. Then I read the resource, Using Wiki's to Create Online Communities and it was much clearer. It would be nice to know good places to eat or visit where the conference is taking place and people who know the area can post to that Wiki.

So you want to build a wiki? gives a list of points to consider when starting up a Wiki. I have mixed feelings about these Wiki's. On one hand I think it is cool that you can update and edit, but on the other hand it seems like there is not enough control. The jury is still out on this one. I am going to check out some blogs to see what others have to say.

Week 6 Activity #15

Where do you fit in Library 2.0 in a 30 minute library visit once a week? I began reading the perspectives from the beginning of the list. There are still so many terms that go along with this whole 2.0 thing that I do not know, that I began to get frustrated. Then I read A ripple effect.

Working at an elementary school with a budget of $580 does not give me much to work with when it comes to technology. A ripple effect gave great ideas for small libraries to succeed.
Have a plan and concentrate on one thing at a time. Promote your services. Ok, I have books and a website. My plan this school year will to be to work on our library website and promote what services we do have to offer so that the faculty and students become more aware. Empowering my patrons will empower my library.

Besides PTA and state funds, what other ways do libraries get funds? What grants are out there? How do you find them?

Week 6 Activity #14

Claiming my blog was easy until I got to the spot where I had to choose a "handy button" for people to mark my blog. When it comes to copying things and then placing them in the right spot in my blog for them to magically appear, I really suck! PageSpace and Libladylib have tried to help me, and I try, but I guess it is going to take more practice.

There are so many new things to check out and sign up for, that I really cannot remember what I have or have not signed up for. Technorati is fun to look for things, but I do not think my elementary school library would use it. Tags make it easy to look for and find things, kind of like a neatly organized filing cabinet. I have got more exploring and tagging to do.

Week 6 Activity #13

Del.icio.us... I was just going through the bookmarks on my computer and weeding them. Tagging would make it so much easier. My son just graduated from high school and at one of the graduation parties a mom (who always brings something so yummy to eat) said that she will pull recipes out of magazines and put them in a three-ring binder. Del.icio.us is an online three-ring binder. I have so much more research and work to do, but I am excited that I can organize my bookmarks with tags.

How cool would it be to have a tag with favorite books of elementary school librarians. Discovering fun new things to read to the students is the best part of my job, organizing them is not. Del.icio.us seems to be a great tool to help.

The Del.icio.us checkered box does not show up on my toolbar even though I followed the directions. I read the note in the Optional section of the activity, but I still could not figure it out. There is more work to be done here.....

Activity 12

My daughter and I had this big discussion (disagreement) about how to pronounce Rollyo. Is it Roll-Yo or Roll-E-O? However you say it, linking all of your favorite search places together is pretty cool. I love to do Sudoku so I linked my favorite sites together under a Searchroll titled Do U Sudoku. I have followed the directions to link it to my blog but I can't seem to find the secret. I began a quest to find blogs that were successful in linking their Rollyo and I found that PageSpace did it! So I left a comment and asked for a little more info.

Libladylib on Our library moves forward figured out how to put her name in lights. How cool is that! I am going try and to do it too!!

Activity 11

Web 2.0...hmmm...so many choices, yikes, what do I want to look at first. Library Thing was my choice. This is my second year working in an elementary school library and my experience matches my time. I am attending Santa Ana College and working towards a Library Technology Certificate. Library Thing has such a wide variety of library people and there were plenty of topics to choose from (I even ordered a shirt that says "Library Thing" hee hee...) It was great to see people sharing their experiences in work and school. I visited libladylib at Our Library Moves Forward and I followed her link to put my name in lights.
That was fun!!

Activity 10

This was a great activity. I went to Image Chef and chose the template of a heart and filled it up with books. Playing with the colors for the words and background was fun.

Then I went to Fds Flickr Toys and made a beaded image. It was interesting to see how the image changed with the choice of beads and colors. I figured out how to place my images where I want them in my blog by editing html. Maybe there is an easier way, but for this activity I just highlighted the html information pertaining to the beaded image, cut it and pasted it below my words.

Activity 9 and 10 ideas will be great to use next year in our library. We could have students review their favorite books and make them in to library trading cards. We can take a digital photo of them with their book and have them type in their review and place them around the library. Very exciting.

Activity 9

Searching School Library Learning 2.0 with Google Blog Search was a good place for me to start looking for RSS feeds. I learned how to link the google search in my post by visiting Helen's World blog. In it, she had asked how to create links in her post and a comment was left by Rob that explained how it's done. Way cool!! Topix was the easiest place for me to find and subscribe to feeds. I added Yorba Linda News to my bloglines. Continuing my search for feeds using Syndic8 was really confusing. The set up for searching wasn't friendly to me. I will stick with Topix for now.

Activity 8

RSS... I never paid attention to the little orange symbol, but now I look for it everywhere I visit! I am a weather checker, so one of my feeds is USAtoday weather. Got laughs is always a good thing... and who couldn't use the budget fashionista followed by a quick check of Dictionary.com word for the day. Right now, I visit bloglines daily because it is fun and new to me, yet I know that as I learn more fun things, it may not be a daily thing. It is very cool to just go to one sight and be able to access your favorite things.

Activity 7

Our district has monthly library meetings. At our last meeting we met in one of the computer labs and we were all given a chance to set up our own school library websites. It was so great to learn how to add pictures, scrolling messages, attach our Accelerated Reader test list, and other fun things that are happening in our library. If you get a chance visit our website at http://edweb.pylusd.org/echo/portal/public/default.aspx?un=lib0530&site=0530. (Hold the cursor over the scrolling message and it will stop so you can read it). It is a work in progress and I am excited about adding things that I will learn over the summer. I left a comment on Helen's World. She is really moving along and her blog is great.

Activity 6

We are planning an August Adventure and I was able to use the trip planner to show all of our stops up the west coast. Now our family and friends can follow along as we make daily entries of our trip. FD's Toys gives you so many fun ways to use your pictures. Making a mosaic of my children was fun.

Activity 5

I never knew anything like Flickr existed. It is a very easy way to share photos with family and friends. I signed up and plan to spend time during the summer uploading pictures to share. The tags make it easy for you to search and they also make it easy for you to get lost in the sea of photos.

arrrrggggggg!!!!!

arrrrggggggg!!!!!
Originally uploaded by venicewow.

Activities 3 and 4

Now that I have set up a blog, I have to figure out how to get to it. I registered it with CSLA and now it's time to get busy. I am looking forward to learning more fancy technology stuff over the summer. My avator was a challenge. I was so excited when I figured out how to export it and get it into my blog!

Activities 1 and 2

I created my very first blog!! After listening to the 7 1/2 habits, it was nice to see that I am a life long learner. I am currently taking courses at Santa Ana College in library technology. This semester I enrolled in the cataloging class and it has been a challenge. I love copy cataloging!!!