Monday, October 26, 2009

Week 8, Librarything

Today has been a busy day. First I used Zoho Writer to publish my last post directly - and easily, I might add, from Zoho to here. Now that's the kind of technology I like. My next stop was to librarything where I saw several books authored by Dr. Lesley Farmer. Apparently Dr. Farmer is a prolific author. That's pretty interesting. Maybe there is some good reading - for after graduate school is over!
Anyway, here is the link to my librarything list. These books go with my webquest, which if you've been keeping up is a second grade PA animal report.
I'm hoping my easy day with technology holds out until bedtime.

Week 8 Thing 18 maybe

Hi Everyone!
You are reading my test document on Zoho Writer.  This reminds me an awful lot of a wiki, only not quite so mysterious. 

Friday, October 23, 2009

http://clarion-bb.sytec.passhe.edu/courses/1/2009FALLLS589.W2/db/_1337252_1/generated_page.html

my web quest

Sunday, October 18, 2009

webquest on PA animals

I have created a second grade animal report project on Pennsylvania animals. I have noticed since placing it in our class DB and on our sandbox Wiki that getting it to open seems to be an issue. I will try it again here.

PA Animals Webquest
Nothing. Let's try plan B. I tried saving the link to the desktop and pulling it into the blog. No good.

Saving as a word doc. No attachment icon. What to do?

What if I added it as an image? NOpe.

Let's try again. Still no.

New try.

It's miserable to post a failure, but I can prove that I did it with a Word doc. Never mind, I can't attach it!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Success!

Week 7 - Thing 16

I have created this Voki. I found directions for it in the sandbox wiki. I need to go back to that wiki to post there, but I needed to send this Voki somewhere, and it wouldn't post on the wiki. I didn't want to waste it! Children in China are......... never mind, that's not true anymore. Children in China are soon to be academically outperforming the children I teach. OK, the link doesn't work. I have tried to get this thing going for about 40 mins. Now I am stopping. I also can't get rid of th link, so don't click on it. It takes you to a page that says that there isn't a page. It was a nice Voki, a husky dog that talks.
On to the assigned posting - I think that as with mash-ups, people often don't even know that they are looking at a wiki. Many of the ones that I sampled looked like simple web pages. I guess that's one of the hallmarks of a wiki - their simplicity. As Chad F. Boeninger says in his chapter for the class text Library 2.0 and Beyond, Wikis find uses as communication tools, as collaborative process tools, and as research guides for library patrons. Although I found the initial idea of working with a wiki to be intimidating, it is a very easy way to clearly communicate with people that I don't talk to but need to work with.

Beoninger, C. F. (2007). The wonderful world of wikis: applications for libraries. In N. Courtney's Library 2.0 and Beyond. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Week 6: Things 13, 14, and 15



I can see the potential of Delicious as a research tool. My personal list of bookmarks at home is not too long, because I try to not sit around at my computer when I am not working or doing my grad school stuff. At work, my list of bookmarks has grown. After putting some websites onto Rollyo last week, I was glad I kept the bookmarks because Rollyo was so slow. Delicious adds another step for me when I find a new website that I like, but it is a good way to organize all the sites that are saved. They can be bundled into topics, so I save time by not having to look at all of them to find a particular topic. Of course, this makes sharing information easier because I don't have to be at my own computer to access my bookmarks. As a librarian and educator, I can share my bookmarks and let coworkers and students see a particular group of websites.

Library 2.0 means to me that information is now a two way communication, rather than something that the reader had transmitted to him/her through reading and comprehending a written page. As I read about Library 3.0 and 4.0,

Dr. Wendy Schultz
Infinite Futures

To a temporary place in time...

in the OCLC Newsletter blog Next Space, I started to wonder when the down time occurred for people when they let ideas take shape in their minds. Sometimes I wonder if we are teaching students how to think, or just how to access lots and lots of information. I saw at the end of the Library 4.0 entry that the benefit there was to be able to sit quietly and maybe just read something. School librarians must help ed ucators to decide how to best use technology to give students access to information but also be judicious in not allowing constant, frenetic information gathering without critical thought.


The idea of Creative Commons is one whose idea has come. This dovetails perfectly with a 2.0 society where ideas and concepts are formed collaboratively. There is such an abundance of ideas made available on the Internet that the idea that each one can be completely protected is silly.

Michael Casey made some excellent points in his chapter of the book Library 2.0 and Beyond, about how a library could use a system like Amazon's to have patrons rate books. I'm not like this, but lots of people enjoy blogging about a genre they like to read. The more methods a library can employ to get people interested in communicating with each other about its materials, the more effective that library can be.

Casey, M. (2007). Looking toward catalog 2.0. In N. Courtney (Ed.), Library 2.0 and Beyond (pp.15-23). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Week 5 Thing 10

Rollyo could be renamed Slowyo. I like the idea of having my bookmarks all together and searchable. But Rollyo is really s-l-o-w. I am reading a magazine while I wait for each new screen to come up, and I will have to figure out a different way to link my Rollyo to this post because it takes so long that it keeps dumping me off. My goal is to set this thing up - and get some shut-eye! My Rollyo is for second grade powerpoint and jeopardy game resources on a variety of topics.
http://rollyo.com/ahtram/grade_2_resources/

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

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week 5 thing10

I am making my fourth attempt to place my poster from Bighuge labs onto my blog. They said we could do it. My slide show never materialized. I don't know why - my project got stuck on the screen where I am to upload my Flickr photoset, which I made just for the slide show. After 45 minutes of trying to figure that out, I fave up and made a poster. I hope it works this time. This is like Christmas, but when you unwap the gifts, you get nothing inside!

Hey! It worked! An early Christmas miracle!