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.