Sunday, September 27, 2009

Week 4 Thing 9

So, to my surprise I see that I already have Google Reader account. This must have happened when I did something else recently. So, I learned a few things about subscribing to feeds. I can't subscribe to web pages. My Ebay page where I watch Fenton glass Christmas trees didn't work on my Google Reader, nor did my other pages that I "shop" on. I see that the purpose of this Reader is to read, not to shop! So, I typed in "education" and "school librarian" and found some appropriate blogs. After adding the prerequisite five, I also added a hockey blog - just in case. They were pretty straightforward to add, although there were several steps involved. I guess I think the magic of the Internet should be quicker!

Actually, I do like the idea of this. I hate to spend more time looking for and at things online than I have to. I want to sit and read books!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Week 3 Thing7

In my somewhat backward school, I am one of seven teachers who have second grade classrooms. I have the title of powerpoint creator. Since we all had TVs installed over the last school year (I told you we are backward) everything that used to be a transparency can be a powerpoint. I make powerpoints that are animated and sometimes have sounds. Not always sounds because I have to share a remote for the volume with my neighbor across the hall, and if it's too quiet or too loud, sometimes I can't find the remote to adjust! I share my powerpoints with my team, and they share things with me, so the work is not as much as it could be. The kids like them. We also look online for things that have already been done.
We also can stream from Discovery.com. We have a smart board in our building, and I have created Jeoaprdy games for it. They take a while to make!
Technology is a slow process for me, but given my environment, I am just about right. When I read about what all of you are doing with older students, I feel Amish all over again!

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

Posted using ShareThis

Week 3 Thing 6

This is my trading card. Maybe I should have waited until after lunch to take this pic.

I'm willing to admit that if I did this same activity over and over again, I could probably do it rather quickly and easily. I'll also admit that it's tempting to make trading cards of my class for Open House. Oh, oh, it looks like I'm starting to find applications for all these new applications. Look out...

Week 3 Thing 5

What can I say? As usual, technology has not been my friend. Yesterday afternoon I wrestled with Blogger and Flickr to transfer my Flickr pictures to my blog. I had to stop because I was "becoming unreasonable". I have a heck of a time with technology. At a bonfire/party last night, I was talking to a friend who is taking intro to computer. Her homework for the week involved creating folders and putting things in them. AH, the good old days! My other friend took a technology class for her masters in education last summer. She made a nifty newsletter. I asked the assembled group if anyone knew how to link Flickr with Blogger. Conversation stopped for a few seconds, and resumed as people realized that I just wasn't making any sense. I speak in foreign languages sometimes without knowing it.
OH, well, as you can see, I got it. But not before I was nearly driven to tears (not really, I'm no crybaby). I tell myself every day - "I CAN do this!"

learning 2.0 004


learning 2.0 004
Originally uploaded by ahtram59483

Books are waiting in my closet in their boxes for their new home to be completed. Ed started building the bookcase to end all bookcases in June. We hope it's worth the wait.

learning 2.0 012


learning 2.0 012
Originally uploaded by ahtram59483

This is a picture of Kitty Kitty as seen through an open binder containing the AACR2R rules of cataloging. As you can see, it's too much for him, and he's chosen to take it lying down.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Things 3 and 4

So, now I have an avatar and I have registered my blog with the School Library project in California. So, now all the people there can see my idea of a blog, too. That's a little scary, but no more scary than all my classmates following my blog. This social networking thing gets very public. This reminds me to take down my YouTube book talk. I was dressed as a Gothic librarian. Not my proudest moment, but I'll do anything to get a good grade - I mean learn.

My Avatar

Yahoo! Avatars
Week 2
Working with technology can be frustrating! It took me 25 minutes of fooling around with my avatar (is that spelled right?) and not getting any changes to realize that I needed to download a newer version of Firefox. Things like this just come to me out of desperation. There are so many things that can be wrong so that my technology doesn't work. Every time I think I know what could go wrong, something new goes wrong. It's like cars - when I first started driving, every weird sound made me nervous because I didn't know what it meant, and if I would break down. Since then, I've driven so many clunkers that I know what MANY sounds and wobbles and bumps mean, and they don't throw me.
I think that computers change more quickly than cars, though.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

The First Two Things

This afternoon I completed the first two items on my list of 23 things. As a single mom in her forties who has recently switched from a blue collar existence (school bus driver, garage worker, cafeteria lunch lady, office cleaner) to a respected profession (second grade teacher), I have some experience with setting and meeting goals. For me, getting through college while working and raising three teens was the biggest goal I set. I had no idea how many obstacles would be in my way. I'm glad I didn't know, because I would have thought that I couldn't accomplish my goal and I wouldn't have tried. I handled things as they came up. Luckily, there always seem to be many people around who have gone where I am going before me, and I have been able to ask them how to do some of the scarier things. I definitely kept the end in mind. That's what got me through when I felt like forgetting the whole deal. I focused on things like making my house payment and still having money left over. I didn't have much confidence in myself at the beginning of my college career because I thought that if I had what it took, I would have gone to college 20 years earlier. As I completed classes successfully, my confidence grew.
As for point 7 1/2, Play, that usually has to wait until the work is done. In this class, those two things may turn out to be the same.