Thing 17 - My Choice

I looked at about 9 different sites from the Webware 100 list, and I think I'll add Webware 100 to my Delicious account. This will be a great resource to return to if I want to "up my skills" in new technologies. The ones I chose to tell you all about are listed below, with brief descriptions:

• Good Guide This site is a good one for consumers wanting to preview products in order to select items that are environmentally friendly, safe, and healthy. You can search for something, let's say a soup. The results will rank by rating in each category (Health, Environment, and Social), as well as an average rating on all three criteria. Then you can sort the results by price or by ranking -- and you can filter them by other criteria. For example, you might wish to see highly-ranked soups that are low in saturated fats, or low in salt. You might wish to see floor cleaners that are fragrance-free, or that weren't tested on animals. Reportedly this site will soon be available in an app for an iPhone -- irrelevant to me, but a great idea because of its portability.
• Aviary I love this one -- it's a replacement for Adobe's expensive suite of programs like PhotoShop, Illustrator, etc. With this free web tool, people can not only edit photos, but also edit vector images, adjust colors, apply visual effects, and more. People can also collaborate on a project. I think that a background knowledge of what's possible to do with these tools would help -- or else plan on a steep learning curve and a significant amount of time devoted to learning how to use Aviary. But this is definitely one I plan to use - and would maybe offer a workshop on this in the future.
• Hulu My son had already told me about this one, and I had a hard time imagining that producers of movies or TV shows would voluntarily post their products for people to watch on line -- for free! But here it is. When I learned that there is a valid business-plan reason for them to share their content, it made more sense. They believe that viewing shows boosts DVD sales -- and the stuff is only posted for a limited time online. So if people want to see a show, they'll need to buy it for future viewing. I can tell that this is true, because I looked for the last episode of "Monk," and all I could find were clips and interviews. Bah. -- But I COULD watch this week's episode of "NCIS." Yea!

And now, for the one I will promote, dig into more deeply, etc. etc.:

• diigo This is a content sharing and bookmarking tool -- but I like its uses for research. In our big6 lessons we emphasize students' interactions with the written word -- the reading, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, etc. Students are taught how to identify the main idea(s) in an article, highlight (or underline) the main words, summarize them in an annotation along the side, and then paraphrase the idea or fact into their own words on a Notes Page graphic organizer. Diigo would help with the highlighting and annotating (they call this 'adding sticky notes') part of it, allowing students to save paper, to use a cool Web 2.0 tool, and yet still accomplish the goals of reading, writing, and thinking. (One reason we've focused on these skills is past observation of students doing too much copy-and-paste when "doing research." They would capture words without really reading or understanding them, and then would regurgitate them in some kind of pseudo-written product -- really more of a plagiarized collage of words taken from various articles they'd found online.
• The bookmarking and tagging features are like Delicious (hey, does this mean I can eliminate ONE of the many useful sites on my list, to consolidate features under one useful window? Yea!)
• One possible disadvantage to diigo is that you have to download a free toolbar -- which subsequently allows you to bookmark, highlight, save for later, send, or do other things with webpages that you're viewing. I was able to download the toolbar -- but haven't yet rebooted my computer to see if it's still there. On your home computer, this should not be any problem at all. And diigo is FREE!

Here is a video which shows what diigo is, and how to use it:

Diigo V4: Research ~ annotate, archive, organize from diigobuzz on Vimeo.

Thing 16 - ScreenToaster

Since I couldn't get the embed thing to work, here's the URL for my ScreenToast: http://www.screentoaster.com/watch/stUEpWQEdIRFtZSFVZX1JaVldd

I had a lot of trouble getting the audio to work, but after some superhuman rescue attempts by Deb Friedman, I was ready to go for my 5th attempt at recording the same no-script how-to video. (So if I made mistakes or repeated myself, blame the repeated efforts.) By and large, however, I like this THING a lot! Now that I've successfully completed it, I can imagine making many more instructional videos to post to our website for new staff, for mini-lessons (how to do a mail merge, for example), how to set up your library account so that you can track your circulation, how to use SWAN to find a book -- and then how to get the library to order it for you -- and so on , and so on, and so on.

For classroom teachers, this could be a great teaching tool -- but for students, what wonderful practice in oral expression. Good for learning how to deliver information verbally (a Speech component of the English curriculum?), and also good for information technology skills -- how to "do" technology language and literacy. If they can teach it, they will know it themselves. I would limit the length of a video presentation - to teach how to be concise, and also so that the "teachers" don't lose their audience. So pre-planning (storyboarding, practicing, etc.) are important.

All in all, a good thing!

Thing 12 - Creative Commons

This might not be as wonderful as I had hoped. Finding content in CC is not very easy - I searched for music that our TV kids could use to save us some software money currently used to purchase copyright-free music for their TV productions. But I got caught in a seemingly-neverending loop of assorted websites. Some linked to Myspace and other music-distribution websites. One that looked promising (royalty free music library) charged $79 per "album". So the ROYALTY was free, but not the music. Most of the websites that were in the list when I searched for "copyright free music" linked to sites that don't have a creative commons link. This might not be useful for me. Or else I have to spend a TON more time on here learning to use it -- and you KNOW that students won't want to go to that trouble.

I guess this goes against the grain of my librarian soul which wants to make information easily available to students. It might be nice for people trying to license their own productions, but not so much for people searching for licensed works to use.

Final grades (on a 1-5 scale, 1 being low) for:
Usefulness = 2
User-friendliness = 1
Organization = 1

Thing 11 - Shelfari

I already have a LibraryThing account (deweyfritz), so decided to try out Shelfari. I had admired the one publicized by the LT South library media specialist, Kelly Gibson. It is much more graphically pleasing than LibraryThing - looks like an actual bookshelf, but allows for many of the same functions as LThing --reviews, groups, tags, and sharing with friends -- but this one ALSO allows me to keep track of books I've lent to friends (a necessity now that my brain no longer retains that information!) I can also build a wish list that I could share with those who buy me gifts. So all in all, for my personal AND professional life, I'm glad to be on a shelfari! (username deweyfritz)

Thing 9: Customizing my Blog

I added a poll (about New Year's resolutions), the Flickr slideshow, and a means by which people could easily subscribe to my posts via RSS feeds, etc. There were already several gadgets there -- a list of followers (with their pictures!), a Blog archive, and an "all about me" profile. So now I have 6 gadgets. More to come . . .

Flickr: Thing 8

My Flickr account screen name is "deweyfritz".

Having used Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, and other photo sharing websites before, I found Flickr pretty easy to use. Our previous 17-Things experiences with tagging also came in handy. I like the idea of creating folders (i.e. Collections) in which to gather groupings (i.e. Sets) of uploaded pictures - one problem with my other online photo accounts is that they tend to accumulate, and I need to browse through a bunch of folders to find the one I want.

As for the educational uses for Flickr, I am interested to look into that. I browsed the site for "library display" options, and found myself wishing that more librarians would post their pictures, because the ones I found were somewhat limited -- only one tagged with "library display winter", for example.

I found Alicia's and Melissa's and Allison's photostreams - though I have to admit it's because Alicia gave me the names. It takes so LONG to look through everybody's blogs to get those details. Sigh. (What a whiner, huh?)

RSS, etc. -- Thing 7

I didn't have to set up an account in Google Reader - when I went to that link from the 17 Things blog, it opened up my already-established account (I guess since I have a Google account, that was already included). And it showed that I already could "read" all the blogs of the colleagues I'm following for this 17 Things project.

I added three others:

• Blue Skunk Blog (Doug Johnson, of the Mankato (MN) public schools)
• Ed. Week
• Book Blogs - a place where book lovers share reviews, recommendations, etc. Bliss!

So -- I think this would be a good way to keep up with some people's progress, work, thoughts, etc. -- but as I keep gathering more and more of these "things", I do wonder when I'll have time to keep up. Theoretically this will all make "keeping up" easier and more efficient - and I believe it will -- but since I've done very little in the way of keeping up with other people's work and ideas in the past and still felt very busy, how will I add this to my plate?

I've heard other librarians say that they devote one period per day to their own professional development. Could I do that? Shut the door and just read stuff?

Weebly website - Thing 6

After working with Frontpage for several years to create and edit the RBHS District website -- and after struggling with an online class to learn Dreamweaver so that I can introduce more "bells and whistles" into the district site, this was my first experience with an online web creation tool. My impressions:

• the result is pretty and professional-looking (kind of like how PowerPoint improved the look of classroom presentations over the previous hand-written overheads or typed-up (or even word-processed) outlines)
• The options for layout are limited. For example, I wanted to have four columns of photos, but was limited to a 2-column layout. And adding more rows to the "table" of columns wasn't very easy. I did figure out how to split each column into two columns (resulting in four narrower total columns), but text had to wrap, as the width of each column is pre-set. In other words, the webpage creator is limited to using design specifications pre-set by the creator of the Weebly program. This was a bit frustrating.
• Adding pages was easy. Linking between pages was easy.
• Linking one word on a page to a section further down that page was not possible. (creating targets). On one of my pages, which will be very long if I complete it, targets would make navigation on that page much quicker and easier.

I will probably use a free webpage creation tool now and then -- especially if I'm helping a teacher to create a Curriculum Page - that way they can update links and resources easily as they adapt the lesson for future classes.

The limitations make it less likely that I will use it for the district website -- but then, I'm hoping we'll be going to a content management system for that site.

By the way, my weebly site is: http://jensenfamilysite.weebly.com

Thing 5 - Tweet!

My Twitter name is fritzdoreen

1. I found it very hard to find people that I was looking for - so just ended up signing up for almost-anybody. How do you know their twitter name to be able to find them? How do you know if they even HAVE a Twitter account? There are gurus in the world of educational technology, and in school librarianship, that I might want to follow, but I spent quite a while looking for them - even went to some of their websites trying to find a reference to their Twitter identity, and gave up.

1.b - I am following the following people:

• Creative Commons (find out more about using content responsibly?)
• Mindy Null - Downers Grove South librarian (but no content in her twitter account yet)
• Kathy Kreps - another west suburban H.S. librarian -- also just getting started in this Twitter stuff
• Alicia Duell
• Joyce Valenza - ed tech person
• Chris Anderson - the TEd guy?
• somebody called Delicious Over 50 - sounded like this person is "into" educational technology
• Also 4Libraries - a school librarian - don't know much more about this person

2. The article about using Twitter in education sounded interesting, but some of the reasons people have liked Twitter (getting lots of ideas in a hurry) I would accomplish using my listserv.

3. Some of the objections to Twitter (hearing about what somebody barbecued for dinner) are similar to my objections to Facebook. I'm tired of hearing that somebody is tired -- or had a rough day -- or they're cooking this or that for dinner. The status updates (really about the only thing I use FB for) become very repetitive for some people -- like they don't know what else to say, but feel compelled to say SOMETHING.

4. No, I don't think I'll use this tool. I'm all set up, so I can check it now and then, but I see it mostly as a time-waster.

Dee-Lish-Us way to save and share info

So - my Delicious username is fritzdoreen Add me to your network!
I added a few sites that I visit a lot - some of the gurus of educational technology and information literacy. Also some organizations useful for school librarians and educational technologists.

And just for grins, I added the Internet Public Library, which I hardly ever use any more. Maybe I'll find that information is more readily available via a simple Google search. But not that many years ago, this was a wonderful resource for reference assistance using tools not available in all libraries. Hmmm. Maybe another result of the exponential growth of credible (and not-so) information available on the Web.

I'd be interested in hearing how the information available on the Internet has changed other teacher's professional lives -- how do you find good, realiable, up-to-date information, new lesson ideas, resources, and other tools for teaching (and learning)?

Does the library have a role in helping you to find and organize this type of information? For example, did you know about the page on our website which lists curricular resources? Do you ever use it? Should it be updated? Should it be available, but in a different format (like Delicious)? Your thoughts and input, please . . .

Thing 2 updates

Blogs that I am following:

• Jessica Mauritzen ("I am chewing on 17 things")
• Noelle Bajohr ("C'est Moi"),
• Jame Holt ("Chew N Show")
• Patty Sarkady ("Technology in Education")
• Dan Mancoff ("Mancoff Chews on This").

Tags I have used so far include:

• libraries
• librarians
• organizing information
• role of librarian
• professional
• skills
• technology
• tools

Why Not?

How could I call myself the Department Chair of Library and INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY if I didn't participate in this new technology initiative? I look forward to learning new skills, new tools for learning, and finding ways to use these new tools with teachers, students, and others in our learning community. And I look forward to working with all the other "students" in this "class" - as we learn and grow professionally together.