Thing 23 - Final Thoughts

I am pleased and proud to have finished with the 23 Things on a Stick, even if I did have to do it in two rounds. Sometimes I was frustrated with how long it took to complete a thing if I wanted to do a good job of understanding the concepts and then blogging about them. I was always happy when the Thing addressed a concept I was already familiar with, like the assignment calculator and the ELM tools. Sometimes I was familiar with similar tools: for instance, Picasa and Shutterfly instead of Flickr. I like to work with photos so anything to do with photos was a hit.

There was a lot that I didn't know and struggled with. Sometimes the hours went by quickly and other times I had to force myself to do each section of a thing. The idea of RSS feeds seemed like a good one and I subscribed to both some blog feeds and some podcast feeds. I still intend to download the podcasts to my ipod so that I can listen to them on my walk. It's on my list of things to do for this week.

I didn't really care for the social networking sites or Facebook or Myspace. Just not my thing, I guess. YouTube as well seemed like such a waste of time in general, although I have found some good things there (generally not in the "most popular" section, though.)

I really learned to make use of the tabs feature in Safari (not a Thing) so that I could switch back and forth between my blog, the 23 Things on a Stick Blog, and whatever Web site I was looking at, all basically at the same time. My sons have been trying to convince me that tabs are the way to go, and I agree with them now. I also learned to put my thoughts into a blog draft while I was working on each Thing and then just clean it up a little to post. If I waited to blog until I finished a Thing, I couldn't remember what I wanted to say.

At this point, I'm ready to let go for a couple of weeks and work on some photography. Then I'll come back and pick a couple of Things to get really serious about applying to my work life (or home life.) I've also bookmarked Library 2.1 and intend to work through some of their things. 

In closing, this was a great experience. I discovered some new things, was reminded of some old things, and would do it all again--but it was much easier to do during the summer than it was during the school year. 

Thanks so all of your hard work, 23 Things team (and for reading all of these blogs--must have gotten a little repetitive). You have a lot to be proud of, too.

Thing 22 - What Did I Learn Today

How do I plan to keep up? Well, having started in Round One and finished in Round Two, the first thing I'm going to do is go back through the 23 things on a stick and review all 23. Maybe I'll do some of the challenges. I have some bookmarked items to go through and plan to focus on three or four items  that I find especially interesting. I don't know that I'll continue to blog about my experiences although it does work as a form of notetaking, I guess. I haven't decided where to find the time--maybe on Saturday a.m. instead of reading the paper. 

Thanks for putting this together. I did learn a lot and look forward to learning even more as I trundle along on my own.

Thing 21 - Beyond MySpace

View my page on 23 Things on a Stick

Thing 21 continued - Beyond MySpace

I joined 23thingsonastick.ning. I uploaded a photo that I took while we were on vacation to the North Shore last week and then left a comment for another person who had recently joined. I hope she looks back so that she can read it. As you can see, I added a ning badge to my blog as well.

Truly, I had no idea there were so many ways to connect to other people out there. I just don't know that I have the time, at least not right now. I'm still focused on trying to use the productivity tools that are associated with computing, and I see many of the social networking things as diverting me from goals that are more important to me.

I do belong to WebJunction and a couple of listservs. Guess that'll have to be enough for now.

Thing 20 - Libraries and Social Networks

I established an account on Facebook and joined the following groups: Childrens/YA librarians, 23 Things on a Stick, and Library 2.0 Interest Group. I chose those groups because they are in my area of interest. I also wrote on the wall of the 23 Things on a Stick group.

I can see where young people like MySpace and Facebook. It allows them to maintain friendships regardless of their physical location. I thought that MySpace was a little easier to navigate than Facebook. For some reason I seemed to have trouble grasping the interface.

I enjoyed looking a Hennepin County Library's MySpace page. I thought that they were very creative in modifying the layout of MySpace to accommodate the needs and interests of a library setting. Young people could link directly from the Denver MySpace page to online databases--I thought that was cool as well. I am ambivalent about whether I would want a library presence on MySpace, but it's something to think about.

Thing 19 - Podcasts

I  looked at MPR's podcasts and also at the podcasts listed on the Educational Podcast Directory. I subscribed to MPR's Grammar Grater podcast using iTunes and also to Learn Spanish, Spanish Pod 101 from the EPD. The subscription process was very easy on both. Now I just have to learn how to load them on my ipod so I can listen to them there. I could either listen to them while I walk or in the car.

In terms of using the directories, mostly it's just a matter of adjusting to the interface. I don't like a lot of advertising, I like to be able to browse by category, and it helps if there is some sort of rating, although I don't always go by that either.

I have downloaded Audacity, but have not used it. We have used GarageBand for podcasting at school and that is quite easy once you get the hang of it. My students did some nice podcasts about our school, but we are still struggling with posting them on our Web site. 

Thing 18 - YouTube and Other Online Video

OK, I can't believe I'm missing the Twins/Sox game to watch boring video on YouTube. Honestly, I am amazed that some of this stuff gets as many hits as it does. I looked at some Google video and it wasn't any better.

I didn't really have any trouble using either site; I just didn't find much that I thought was worth watching. I'm surprised that people thought it was worth posting.

I do have a good YouTube story to relate, though. A couple of years ago, a German foreign exchange student came to me looking for footage of Adolf Hitler giving a speech for a history project. Easy to find, you would think, but she wanted it without the English translation so that she could do the translation herself. Not so easy to find. We finally found some on... you guessed it--YouTube!

Anyway, here are two videos: the cat one is funny and the other is thought provoking. The Machine is us/ing us is one that I have used in the classroom occasionally.

The Machine Is Us/ing Us

Funny Cats

Thing 17 - ELM Productivity Tools

Our library makes extensive use of the ELM databases. Other than our electronic encyclopedia, they are our main source of electronic information. However, I went ahead and did all of the exercises anyway. There is always something new to be learned; sometimes just a change in interface causes glitches in my brain.

I went to the Star Tribune and did a search for pets and foreclosures and then established a search alert for those keywords. The process was simple and one that would be good for students to do, especially when they research current issues.

I also did a search for Second Life and libraries in Academic Search Premier and created an RSS search alert for that as well.

I created a test Web page using Page Composer and found it very easy to do although I don't know that I'll ever use it. I added a background, some text, a web link, and a horizontal rule, and moved some things around. I also added a link to an article on using digital video in the classroom from my results folder. 

I couldn't manage to save the Web page. It may have been because I was working in Safari. If I have time, I'll move to another computer and try it on Explorer.

I went to ProQuest Newsstand Complete and completed that research exercise, includin e-mailing the results to myself as a Web page. I also completed the NetLibrary exercise, although the book that I was searching disappeared when I logged in to my Pioneerland account so I had to choose a different book.

I am pleased to say that the English department and I have shown our junior and senior English students all of these tools with the exception of Page Composer, especially those that are taking college bound courses. Sometimes they even use them! I have also used them in my own research, especially when I was taking the coursework for the media program, but also since then. 

Thing 16 - Student 2.0 Tools

I have a link to the Research Project Calculator on the my media center's Web page and have bragged it up to several teachers. I don't know whether they use it, but they should! Especially good are the teacher support materials for projects that utilize presentation slides and/or video. It gives excellent advice on coaching students to put together a project that communicates a clear message, rather than getting caught up in the fun aspects of the medium. I hadn't thought of running them off and putting them in the library, but I might do that. Sometimes it's easier to flash something on paper than it is to lead a teacher to a computer. And, of course, sending out an e-mail with a link doesn't guarantee they'll go there. 

I also took a quick peek at the U of M's assignment calculator and that looked like a good resource for teachers of AP or college classes. 

At any rate, if anyone reads this, it's a great resource.

Thing 15 - Online Games and Libraries

For this thing, I watched the video tour of Second Life, read the article "Eight Myths about Video Games Debunked," read the FAQ on the Charlotte and Mecklenburg County Public Library's Teen Second Life presence, and listened to YALSA's podcast interview. I also went to Info Island Blog and skimmed that. 

While I would like to try Second Life (the book discussions and the masked ball sounded really fun), I decided I just don't have the time right now. Perhaps next summer. I don't even know that I want to spend that much time in a virtual world. I like seeing and talking to people face-to-face.

I spend a lot of time talking to my young adult sons and nephews about what's out there on the Internet and have become convinced that it's like anything else: some good sense and self-control go a long way toward making it a safe place to be. In defense of MMOPRGS, one son has had a subscription to an MMOPRB called EVE for about 4 years now. I have come to believe that it has broadened, rather than narrowed, his horizons. He talks to and interacts with people from all over the world and I would guess has a better handle on how other people see Americans than many of us do. They also have some pretty good discussions on all kinds of mundane things like child rearing and using credit cards!

I think that there is a role for libraries in many places on the Net. It's probably not part of the mission for my little k-12 library, but I'd like to think that it's out there for those of my students who spend a lot of time on the Internet outside of school hours.

Thing 14 - LibraryThing

I made an account on LibraryThing, added 7 books, and linked it to my blog on the right hand side. Some of my books were quite popular, others not so much. Actually, I can see using it just to keep track of the books I have read from the school library. I can think of a few students who might access it to see what is available. I thought that Brook Berg's librarything was a good example of some of the things that might be done.

I also read some of the group talk from Librarians Who LibraryThing. They had a very interesting discussion going about whether or not loving to read is a good reason for becoming a librarian. Evidently love of reading is not the reason many have become librarians. There were also threads on computer rage, odd things found in libraries, strange bookmarks, and many other more mundane library topics. My library is pretty boring compared to some others!

Thing 13 - Online Productivity Tools

I've had a Yahoo account for years, and I do keep a calendar on that. In fact, I just sat down a few days ago and entered all of the pertinent dates for the new school year. (It's not that I am so organized; I was putting off another, more important task!) 

Because I am on Thing 13, I also spent some time on my Yahoo home page, which I had never done before--deleted a bunch of modules, but kept the weather, scoreboard, top stories from the AP, and the movie show times. 

Added Note to Self and To Do List, which seemed to me to be a better choice than yet another Web site like Ta da list or Remember the Milk. One of the things that I like is that you can minimize all of the modules, which gives my page a much cleaner look, while still allowing me almost instant access to information. I also added a Yahoo! bookmarks module along with a Bookmark it! marklet to my browser. I will probably use this rather than del.icio.us because it keeps everything in one place even though it doesn't allow me to share the way that del.icio.us does. Also, I quite often have my Yahoo calendar up throughout the day if I'm spending a lot of time on the computer.

When I get back to school, I might also talk to the tech people about an online calendar for scheduling the computer labs--it's something that we have discussed on a number of occasions, but have never found an online calendar that we really like. 

I bookmarked Zamzar immediately. I have a lot of students who come in wanting me to open documents that they have created at home and then can't open at school. Even the tech people send them (the students, not the documents) to me! Most of the documents that they bring in can be converted for free. I think that this will be very useful.

The PDF converters might also be useful. I have Acrobat Professional on my computer, but most of the staff do not. Either one of these sites could rate a quick demonstration on a staff inservice day.

I liked the intuitiveness of Stikkit and created an account, but when push comes to shove, I will probably use the extra features that I added to my Yahoo account. I'm all in favor of simplicity when possible.

Thing 12 - Social Media

Ok, I have "reddit", but I don't know that I can "digg" it because it don't have enough time in my day to "mixx" "newsvine" with my subscription to the Star Tribune. Seriously, I went to all four sites and poked around, read some articles, and watched some videos. It was interesting to see the ways that a Website can massage the distribution of articles (most recent, most popular, etc.), but I don't know that it would drive my reading selections, although it might influence them on occasion. I was amused and sometimes confounded by what people found worthy of posting to the Internet, especially in terms of video. 

I did post two Washington Post stories that I read, one to del.icio.us and one to Digg. 

Of the four sites, I liked newsvine best, probably because after a casual browsing, it seemed to have the most articles, etc. that I actually felt like reading. I also like its layout and its code of honor.

To sum it up, I see these sites more as productivity detractors than enhancers. I prefer to make my own reading decisions and I don't feel the need to vote on anything. I did put newsvine on my del.icio.us account and am moving on to Thing 13.

Thing 11 - Tagging and del.icio.us

What can I say? Tagging and del.icio.us didn't do so much for me, although I will readily admit that it can be very useful to have a bookmark source on the Web rather than on an individual computer. So, I did create an account and did some exploring of other people's bookmarks. I found a couple of nice websites on photography and design through that exploration and discovered that there is at least one other person from my school on del.icio.us (she had also bookmarked our school website)

The one library account that I like was the one that was organized by Dewey. 

All of the teachers in our school are required to have Web pages and most of them post links to those.

Thing 10 - Wikis

I love the concept of wiki's. There is something about the idea of people writing collaboratively and synergisitcally that really appeals to me. Realistically, I probably would have difficulty giving up control over any wiki I started, except to a small group. I think that you have to have a belief in the basic goodness and intelligence of people to unabashedly embrace the concept.
I have a son who reads Wikipedia the way that I used to read the encyclopedia, and in my own perusals I have not come across much that I thought was misleading or incorrect. People tell me that Wikipedia is the place to go for articles on technology and the Internet. All that being said, I once saw a student deliberately vandalizing an article on minerals that he should have been getting information from, so I know that that kind of activity also happens. Rather than a banning of Wikipedia, I would rather see teachers (and media specialists) emphasizing the need for a variety of resources in a variety of formats when students are involved in research.
I would like to see the students and larger community in our district do a town history or school history wiki. The public library could get involved along with the nursing home. Another possibility would be something like the Princeton Review wiki. Students could post book reviews under genre sections or grade level sections.
I really enjoyed the Albany County Public Library wiki--not because I would like to do one like that, but because I was impressed by how useful it appeared to be and by how well documented their training procedures seemed to be. I also visited the Blogging Libraries wiki. Of the six wiki's that I clicked on, 3 were current, 2 were not available, and 2 had no recent posts. It would be nice to have some sort of rating system, or at least a date when the last post was made so that you would know which blogs were likely to be interesting to you. Otherwise, it seemed like kind of a waste of time.
I edited the 23 Things on a Stick wiki. It was easy to edit, and I enjoyed reading the previous edits, but it might have benefited from having some sort of organizational format developed before the editing began.

Thing 9 - Online Collaboration Tools

I have a request in to get permission to edit the Declaration of Independence, but the person who grants requests is out until 7/3. Therefore, I am on to Thing 10 in the meantime and will edit this post after Independence Day. How fitting!

I do think that these tools might be of some use to teachers who are working in site committees and need to either come up with or edit documentation. I also have a couple of teachers who have groups of students who do some complex projects. This might be an option for them, too.

Thing 8

Thing 8 - Share Your Creations

Above is a cube that I made on PictureTrail. I am amazed at how many photo sharing sites there are on the web. I use Shutterfly sometimes because I make photo books on occasion, but I don't post many photos on the web.

I first tried to post by just copying and pasting the code into my blog but that didn't seem to work, so I went back and found that I could autopost to Blogger which worked very easily. One of the things that I really liked is that when I changed the cube in picturetrail, the changes were automatically reflected on my blog. Cool! Now that I know it works, I'll go back and play and little more.

I did find the ads somewhat irritating, even though you could skip them. While I understand that they bring in revenue that keeps the site free for users, I guess maybe I don't want to use them all that badly.

Thing 7 - Web 2.0 Communication Tools

I have used e-mail for many years. I have three accounts: an official school account, an official home account, and a yahoo account that I use when I want to remain more anonymous. I use the school account frequently to talk to teachers, administrators, vendors, colleagues, etc., but not often with students. I find that e-mail is more effective than a telephone call in many cases. 

I IM very little and never with school personnel or students. I did have a very positive experience recently though, IMing through a home computer router problem with tech support. 

Texting is not my thing, but it is my son's preferred method of communication on his cell phone, so 0n occasion I text him just to prove that I can do it. Our students are not allowed to have cell phones, so texting is not something that would come to my library any time soon. Interestingly enough, I just learned that texting requires much less signal than an actual phone call, so if I'm ever lost in the woods, I hope that I remember to text because the message will be much more likely to get through!

I have attended several Minitex webinars and have found the information to be useful. I really do like being with other people when possible, but the webinars are more practical than driving somewhere. I also went to the OPAL archives and listened to a YALSA Teen Tech Week presentation about using videography with teens. We have 3 0r 4 teachers who assign video projects and many students use the video cameras that can be checked out through the library. I do many 7-minute tutorials on video shots and video editing for kids.

Thing 6 cont.

I made this image in Image Chef. The "Spring - Almost here" image on the side was also done in Image Chef.

Thing 6 - Online Image Generator

This was a fun thing to do. I almost burned the banana bread because I was playing with photos rather than paying attention to the timer. I'm already planning to show this site to the science teachers. What a great way to do minerals (in addition to famous scientists.) Here are two of the images I created on Big Huge Labs. Can you tell that I have cats?

Thing 5 - Fun with Flickr

I tried to create two images using the Flickr mashups. The first one is a puzzle. I used one of my photos and that one worked out very nicely and easily. I also tried to spell with Flickr, but I couldn't get that to work. As far as I could tell, I was supposed to paste in the html code, which I did, and everything looked OK on preview, but when I posted, all I got were red x's so I deleted it. Very frustrating. Now it's getting late, so I'll try to puzzle it out tomorrow.

Thing 4 - Flickr

I have been exploring Flickr for a couple of hours now. I watched the Common Craft video since I already have a Yahoo account, I decided to create an account in Flickr as well altthough I didn't upload any photos. There seems to be a group for every conceivable type of photo: I looked at cat photo groups, library groups, abandoned buildings groups, etc. I finally decided on a photo from the North Dakota group, since that is the state that I grew up in. We don't get to go back nearly often enough and I miss the scenery and the wide-open feeling to the land (not so much the winter weather, though.) This photo is by Jason Oz. This is the link to the photo. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1399/1425914732_bd2048f80a_d.jpg

I don't know that I would use Flickr for media center photos. If we had any, we would probably just post them on our web page on the school district site. I might use it for personal photos, although I also have space on Shutterfly. I used Shutterfly to make a book of photos that I had taken of my sister-in-law's extensive flower gardens, and I was impressed by how customizable the book templates were and the quality of the books when I received them.

Mostly I just keep my photos at home on my computer, a dangerous proposition, I know, since I don't back them up to disk. On my computer I use Photoshop Elements for both editing and organization, and I make collections and tag through that application.

I was intrigued by some of the groups on Flickr. Many of them had photo contests, which I thought was a cute idea. I found a Canon DSLR users' group and I might join that or at least explore it further. Maybe I can get some help when my photos don't turn out the way that I think they should!

Thing 3 - RSS feeds

Well, I have muddled my way through RSS feeds. Since I am already a Google member, I set up my feeds with Google Reader. I added a couple of of my fellow participant's blogs, one who just a little ahead of me and one who is far ahead of me. Then I added a blog feed from the ALA and another from WCCO. For some reason, when I tried to add the WCCO feed, I managed to add Katy's Real Estate Connection instead. It provided a great opportunity to learn how to delete a feed subscription.

I used the keyword search feature in Google Reader to look for blogs about libraries and librarians. It shows the number of subscribers and the number of posts per week for each blog. I was somewhat amused to see the number of blogs with almost no subscribers and/or no posts. I stayed away from them, but I also stayed away from the ones which had 20+ posts per week. I didn't think I'd ever find the time to read them all! The last feed I added was Spanish Word of the Day. Vocabulary builders are always useful. Also not very time consuming.

I can see where this would be a useful thing for a librarian who likes to read blogs, but runs out of time in her day. I'm certainly not one of those. I suppose it's a little like finding a favorite colunmnist, but I don't have time for many of those either. Perhaps this little exercise will get me started.

Thing 2 - Web 2.0

My time is pretty much taken up with Web and Library 1.0. I love recommending books for students to read, and I buy books that they recommend to me. I'd rather spend my day teaching kids to work with photos and video than writing a blog. I enjoy collaborating with teachers on resources for student projects. Interestingly enough, it is two of our youngest teachers who are most insistent that students have both print and Internet resources for their projects.

That's not to say, however, that I don't see that "the times, they are a-changing." (Why else would I be participating in this event?) I have only to watch my 18-year-old son to know that our generations are separated by more than years. We both have phones: I talk; he texts. We both listen to music: I use the stereo; he uses his iPod. We both play games: I play board games with family or solitaire on my computer; he plays RPGs online with Brits, Australians, Icelanders, Europeans, and soldiers in Iraq. He reads news and articles from the computer; I run them off from the computer onto paper and then read them in the car or in the bath. But even he meets up with friends, buys books at Barnes and Noble, goes to the movie theater, etc.

I enjoyed most reading Dr. Wendy Schultz's "To a Temporary Place in Time." I, too, like to belive that "Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange." I think that libraries--and librarians--have time to adapt. Perhaps there will be more than one kind, or even two kinds, of libraries in the future. There is much said about meeting our constituency where it is at, presumably in cyberspace, and working with its cyberspace tools, but is that not also limiting if we confine ourselves to that? What about all of those constituents who don't care about Facebook or a blog and just want a comfy place to sit, or a librarian who knows how to recommend a good book and can remember their children's names? Or maybe they want all of the above!

So, I am going to try not to limit myself: I will read more about Web 2.0; I will move on to RSS feeds; I will make it through the 23 things by the deadline!! I'll steal the time from lunch hours, from television watching, from Saturday morning sleep-ins. But the second a kid walks through the door and wants help, I'm just so out of here...

Thing 1 cont.

I just added a site meter to my blog although my self-esteem will probably take a beating when I look at the count number. I was amazed at all of the ways that you can track the visitors who come to your site. Something in me sees that as rather creepy--a sort of "Big Brother is watching you" issue. On the other hand, I can see where a business would find that information useful for marketing purposes.

Thing 1: Set up a Blog

I have--I hope--just finished successfully setting up my blog. The most fun part was selecting the avatar and outfitting it. I never particularly liked playing with dolls as a kid, but I sure had fun creating an alter ego and an alternate reality instead of being library lady of the frozen northland.

I think that flipping back and forth between the instructions, the blog, and the yahoo site was the hardest part--that and refinding my spot between interruptions! I may have to find a quieter time and place for these explorations and reflections!

Now I'm off to check out some of the other blogs.