Week 6 Activity 14

I looked at Technorati and searched for “School Library Learning 2.0.” I found 1688 hits in Blog posts, but then went back and put quotation marks around the words and that narrowed it down to 165 hits. When I search tags, I found three. I did not find the Blog Directory.


Exploring the popular blogs, searches and tags was not surprising to me. I was disappointed to see Harry Potter listed under Paris Hilton, however.


It is a surprise to me how much time people must spend blogging, talking with people they do not know, about what interests them. I am still not sure about tagging because I haven't been able to see the del.icio.us video. I will come back to it when the video is emailed to me or the site repaired.

Week 6 Activity 13

I could not get the video, so had trouble seeing how del.icio.us works. I looked for someone ahead of me in the course and commented on her blog and asked about the video. Fortunately, she saved it to her computer and offered to email it to me. I am waiting for it, but will continue to explore this week's other sites. This networking is very helpful!

Meanwhile I took the LibraryThing tour, but did not join. I do not have time to catalog my own books. I looked at Middlesex, the novel I am currently and saw what tags members had given it. I'm still not sure I understand the purpose of tagging. I need to see that video. :)

I get it!!! I registered for a del.icio.us account and tagged the sites I have been bookmarking throughout this course. Now I can also find them at school when I hopefully will want to share what I learned with some colleagues! When I find something at home that I want to use at school, I will not have to jot it down or email it to myself, instead I will tag it and open my delicious account ant there it will be!

Questions and Crutches

I created a new Avatar to practice what I learned. The new background symbolizes the two learning curves I am experiencing. Recent foot surgery has me struggling to maneuver on crutches and so many new technology tools has my mind swimming with ideas and questions. I decided the Avatar was the most fun activity to date so I went back to it and created a new me! I like it. Do you?

Week 5 Activity 12

I created a searchroll for my first research project of the school year. Traditionally the seventh grade health teacher has her students choose their own topic for an extensive research project. We guide them to reliable sources and teach them to evaluate other information the find on the World Wide Web after they have explored the sites we suggest.

Here is the link to my Middle School Health searchroll.

http://rollyo.com/srowland/middle_school_health/

I expect to use this to be extremely useful and time saving for the students, teacher and me, if I can actually use it. Our county filters all blogs, forums, emails, etc. from students and teachers. I teach a course at the community college and cannot even access the discussion board from my desk computer at school.

Week 5 Activity 11

I joined the Teacher Librarian Ning. I had never heard of Ning before. I liked the middle school librarian group and think I will go there often. I actually haven't finished my profile yet or posted the blog, but I will. I think it might turn out to be one of the most useful tools I have discovered in this course.

The other tool I enjoyed was called Eventful. It posts all sorts of events at any location you type in. I wish I could search by county rather than city, as I live in a small town and our whole county is made of up rather small towns, so when I'm looking for a play or festival, I might have to search quite a few places. The local newspaper usually is sufficient for me, but I will see if this tool proves useful.

Week 5 Activity 10

After exploring some generators, I decided I might use the Captioner and be able to teach middle school students to use it. It was one of the few sites I found where I could use photos stored on my computer. Most want a URL and although, I have begun to use Picassa, I did not see how to easily get those images into the generators.

How could anyone help but love such an adorable puppy!

I found Captioner at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/captioner.php

Week 4 Activity 9

Imagine my surprise when I typed in School Library Leaning 2.0 in Google's blog search and the first hit was my last post! I wish it had been more profound!

For activity #9 I found some school library blogs to add to my RSS. The interesting thing is that Hey Jude from Australia looks identical to the School Library Blogs on SuprGlu. I think I will use these two more than any of the other sites I subscribed to.

The most interesting thing I read on the school library blogs was that there is new legislation at the federal level for school library funding. Currently, our libraries get all the Title V money that comes to our district. It isn't much, but at least we are not sharing it with other places it could legally be spent. I was happy to see that there might be new money coming our way.

Week 4 Activity 8

I created a Google Reader account and subscribed to three book review sites, two educational technology sites, and the cartoon site that was listed in the School Library Learning 2.0 course. I actually discovered that by being a Google Subscriber already, they had preselected some news sites for me. I went into managing accounts and removed the ones I did not want to read and kept the Google News site. I am not sure yet how much I will use RSS.

Week 3 Activity 6

There are some very creative things people are doing with photos using the Mashups and 3rd Party Sites. The trading cards and magazine covers are excellent ideas that could be used in learning activities for students, if the sites were accessible to our students. I might be able to direct students to them, so they could use them at home for projects, but our county blocks these sites from school use throughout the entire county.

I am currently at a middle school, but plan to move to the high school soon, when the librarian there retires. I imagine high school "techy" students probably already know these sites and will be sure to ask to see some of their projects.

This week's work with photos has inspired me to discuss the whole WEB2 class with our computer lab teacher. She loves art and does some very creative things with her middle school students. I wonder how much she knows about Flickr, Picassa, etc.

Two years ago at CSLA I learned about Shutterfly and have created a few albums there. I do not like having my photos in two different websites, though, and might try to gather what is on Shutterfly and put them all in Picassa. Do I need to store them on my hard drive as well? Will I someday lose all my photos?

Week 3 Activity 5

I enjoyed exploring Flickr. I loved the images of Stonehenge in particular. There is one photo with a swirly sky above and another where someone must have superimposed two statues in front of Stonehenge.

I am not especially into photography, though, and would not want to post my own pictures for everyone to view. I am surprised to see so many family and vacation photos displayed for the world to see.

Week 3 Activity 7

This is a photo I had already saved in Picassa. I learned about Picassa when I was taking an ELD/SDAIE class last spring and had to draw map of my library. Rather than draw, I took several digital photos and learned to use Picassa to organize and publish from my camera. I liked the site and haven't used it since, so I was happy to learn it has a button that sends the image directly to my blog. Since both are Google products, Picassa knew exactly where to find my blog. It was quite easy.

I selected this photo from all the library pictures I have stored because the student is not facing the camera and cannot be identified. It is not the best picture of my entire library, but it serves this purpose well.

Week 2 Activity 3 (b) Avatar

As you can see, I have created an avatar. I am relaxing in my robe and slippers because it is summer, but my mind is still on my library. I am drinking a cup of tea as part of my relaxation therapy. My purple hat signifies my tendency to impulsively get up and go somewhere when inspired by my husband, my sons or a phone call from a friend, or my adorable, fun-loving granddaughter. "Girls just want to have fun" is my summer motto.

Week 1 Activity 2

I am definitely a lifelong learner. The fact that I became a library media teacher after twenty five years in the classroom is evidence that I do not shy away from hard work or new learning. I had never even searched the Internet or sent or received an email when I began the Masters program at San Jose State in 1998. Now I am able to create web pages. And this summer I am learning the Web2 skills that CSLA so generously made available online.

I enjoyed the PowerPoint presentation 7 1/2 Habits of Life Long Learning. Numbers 2 & 6 are my strengths. I am fond of learning and a self-starter. I had to go online to learn how to enable the cookie functionality on my browser in order to get my blog going, and after may tries in the Internet options under the tools tab, I finally googled "cookie functionality" and found simple directions.

My weakness is number 7. I am afraid of coming across as a "know it all" or of upstaging other teachers, so I do not teach others or mentor them as much as I could. My most successful times of helping teachers in my school are when they watch me show a student or a class how to do something on the Internet or with Microsoft Word. Quite often a teacher will come back after school or email me and thank me.

On the other hand, I love sharing what I learn with students. They often know more than me, and I also love learning from them. When I teach a student how to do something, for instance submitting work to an online folder, I will ask that student to help the next student who is ready, and so on. I know the value of teaching others so that your own learning becomes solidified.

Week 1 Activity 1

I was excited about the program when I first read about it on Calib listserv. I wonder where the term Web2 came from and saw it referred to somewhere in my reading. But I am wondering if this term was coined by librarians or will others recognize the term? It seems to me it refers to the second use of the Internet, which is a forum for posting personal responses and ideas, rather than merely a place to find information.

I began before the school year ended, but did not have much time to devote to it. So today, I reread the first three steps and have begun doing them. I love this kind of self-paced learning.

Week 2 Activity 4

I actually registered two blogs... one with wordpress and the other with blogger. It took me quite a while to figure out how to post a second message. It turned out on Blogger, I was not logging in properly in order to get to the dashboard which allows me to make a new post. My perseverance paid off. I also had to google directions to enable cookie functionality, which reminded me that I neglected to mention the resources available to me online to learn just about anything I need to learn about technology.

Week 2 Activity #3

My Contract

My goal is to complete the Web2 course before I go back to work August 15th.

The obstacles I face are pacing myself, finding help when I need it, and fitting this in with the other responsibilities I have this summer.

The tools that will help me complete this work are my desktop computer and my laptop. I might even buy that printer server I have been wanting ever since I got the laptop! My persistence and patience will serve me well with this project.

The resources that will be most helpful are the people on Calib and the Web2 team. I might even be able to call on the tech team for our school district if I need personal telephone guidance through some of the activities.

The path I intend to follow is to work at two or three weeks per week so I can finish by August 15th.

I will check-in at least twice a week in order to complete the activities.

Official signature... Sandra L. Rowland