Thing #11 - Library Thing

I liked Library Thing, but it isn't for me. I love to read and I am a firm believer in utilizing the library; therefore, I very rarely buy books for myself. As a result, I have very few books to catalog. I think it would be very beneficial for a person who wants to catalog his or her personal library. There are some very interesting posts out there and a person could easily spend all his or her free time tied to the computer checking everything out. I did catalog some of the books that I do have and you can check out my bookshelf.

Thing #10 - Online Image Generators

Oh my! This is another one of the fun toys that you could play with for hours. I looked at several of them and there are thousands of images to play with - plus any of your personal photos you would like to enhance. I found that several of the ones that enabled you to add your own text and change fonts, sizes, etc. were a little difficult to manipulate (getting centered, etc.). Overall it was a lot of fun though. I could see this being useful in the library for adding images to the web page. Instead of placing a plain photo on the site, you can embellish it in hundreds of different ways. I am attaching a couple of images that I made.

Thing #9 - Finding RSS Feeds

I looked at all of the different ways of searching for feeds. I was surprised at the huge volume of feeds that are available. For someone that is still new to all of this, it was quite overwhelming. I found technorati to be VERY overwhelming - probably because of all the different types of things that are available. I saw some "interesting" pictures and articles related to celebrities on technorati - it's amazing what is out there! I think I liked the edublogs award winners site the best. Probably because it is someone's version of the best of the best. It was interesting to read blogs from people all over the world. After checking bloglines for about a month now, I do believe I like using the reader.

Thing #8 - RSS

I checked out google Reader and Bloglines. I've been using Bloglines for about a week now. Since Google Reader and BLoglines are basically the same thing I chose to use BLoglines becasue I already had an account set up from last year's staff development. I see the convenience of using the reader because you don't have to go to each site/blog to check for updates - the updates come to you. The biggest benefit is the convenience of allowing the RSS to search the web for you, however, the problem for me is remembering to check bloglines for new feeds.

In setting up Bloglines last year we had access to hundreds of sites and I knew there was no way I would look at all of it, so I deleted the ones that didn't interest me, kept the ones I liked and added some new ones. At first, I had some difficulty adding new sites. I tried cutting and pasting addresses into the subscribe box and I couldn't make it work. Once I added the link to my bookmarks I found it so much easier. All you have to do is go to the site you want to add, click the bookmarked link to subscribe and then when the name appears, check the box next to it and click subscribe at the bottom. The bookmark link to subscribe makes it so much easier to add sites to your bloglines account. However, I had to bookmark the subscribe link on each computer that I have been using.

I've been trying to think of ways to use this in the library and I honestly do not see myself using it with the kids. I think it is best used for me professionally because I can read about new updates in technology or library related areas and then share or use the info as appropriate.

THing #7 - Google Tools - again

One thing I forgot to mention was Picasa. I really liked the Picasa web album. I used it to send the faculty all of our school Halloween pictures. It is a great way to allow numerous people to see your photos easily. I plan to use it to send the faculty our Children's Book Week pictures. I like using Picasa better than Flickr because of the lack of access at school. Flickr cannot be overridden at school so I could use it at home, just not at school. If I'm going to use a web album I would have to choose Picasa.

Thing #7 - Google Tools

I played with the Google tools and in an elementary setting I'm not sure if any of these are beneficial since Google is blocked. It was extremely frustrating working on this at school because of the constant overriding that was needed. The Google calendar isn't for me because of the way I acquire information. I need to see my calendar in front of me to be able to access it easily and quickly. My favorite part of this "thing" was iGoogle. It was neat to be able to customize the search engine page. Once again, it wasn't very helpful to me because of Google being blocked at school.

Thing #6 - mashups

I had the most fun playing with the mosaics. I played with the id badge, poster, trading card and magazine cover toy as well. I think the Mosaic tool would be very beneficial in posting images to websites. I also used it to print out pictures from our school's Halloween trunk-or-treat. (One of the projects is included in this post.) It is a great way to print a lot of pictures in a fun and interesting way. The trading card feature could be beneficial for students to use if they have studied inventors or famous people. It could be an end product to showcase student learning.