Saturday, July 28, 2007

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.

Monday, July 23, 2007

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.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

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?