Week 9: Podcasts, Video & Downloadable Audio
#20. Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos.
Ahh, YouTube -- now we're on familiar territory. I like many things about the site. The only thing I don't like is that some of the videos require inordinate buffering time, even with a high speed connection.
Here is a YouTube video tutorial of how to use Sketch Up:
I also discovered, just yesterday, http://www.veoh.com/, where one can watch not only videos but also TV shows on one's computer. I've just signed up, and this morning I installed the viewer required. I looked over the list of TV shows available, but didn't see anything I was interested in watching yet. (I'm not a big fan of TV.) It allows uploads of videos, too, but I don't have any that I'm interested in uploading.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Week Eight, Assignment #19
#19. Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.
I created an account at LibraryThing. I added 6 books that I own that I have either read recently or I plan to read shortly. I found LibraryThing easy to use. I'm considering using it to list all the secondhand books I've bought that I've set aside and forgotten. I have a box of them upstairs, and a selection of them on the downstairs bookshelf. I forget about them -- you know, too many books, too little time. LibraryThing should help me remember what I'm planning to read. Here's the link to my account: http://www.librarything.com/home/joanneLMT2
The mystery novels had a lot of people sharing the titles. The tango books were another story. Two other people shared my interest in one title, and no one else but me was listing the other one.
I found that LibraryThing has a widget I can embed on my blog. Here it is:
On Del.icio.us, I discovered this article about LibraryThing and its making available a million bookcover images to users: http://www.librarything.com/blog/2008/08/million-free-covers-from-librarything.php. Since we usually encounter copyright restrictions on using book cover images, I thought there might be some professional interest in this open source distribution.
I created an account at LibraryThing. I added 6 books that I own that I have either read recently or I plan to read shortly. I found LibraryThing easy to use. I'm considering using it to list all the secondhand books I've bought that I've set aside and forgotten. I have a box of them upstairs, and a selection of them on the downstairs bookshelf. I forget about them -- you know, too many books, too little time. LibraryThing should help me remember what I'm planning to read. Here's the link to my account: http://www.librarything.com/home/joanneLMT2
The mystery novels had a lot of people sharing the titles. The tango books were another story. Two other people shared my interest in one title, and no one else but me was listing the other one.
I found that LibraryThing has a widget I can embed on my blog. Here it is:
On Del.icio.us, I discovered this article about LibraryThing and its making available a million bookcover images to users: http://www.librarything.com/blog/2008/08/million-free-covers-from-librarything.php. Since we usually encounter copyright restrictions on using book cover images, I thought there might be some professional interest in this open source distribution.
Week Eight, Assignment #18
Week 8: Online Applications & Tools
#18. Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.
I've set up a Zoho Writer account with the username joanneLMT2. I've imported a few documents that I might want to access from other computers.
Here are my discoveries. Zoho's Sheets are equivalent to Excel Spreadsheets. (I had no idea what "sheets" would be. I'm not used to this open source stuff.) Zoho Show lets you do prsentations (equivalent to PowerPoint, I expect). I sampled Zoho Mail. When I get to school, I know I will find this access point is blocked, as per school district policy. I'm embedding my Zoho Chat box here:
I'm finding this chat box very interesting. I've logged in and out to test whether any viewer can see the messages being sent. It appears they can't, that I have to be logged in to review what was said.
I've used Google docs in the past. We learned about this more than a year ago, from our library supervisor.
#18. Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.
I've set up a Zoho Writer account with the username joanneLMT2. I've imported a few documents that I might want to access from other computers.
Here are my discoveries. Zoho's Sheets are equivalent to Excel Spreadsheets. (I had no idea what "sheets" would be. I'm not used to this open source stuff.) Zoho Show lets you do prsentations (equivalent to PowerPoint, I expect). I sampled Zoho Mail. When I get to school, I know I will find this access point is blocked, as per school district policy. I'm embedding my Zoho Chat box here:
I'm finding this chat box very interesting. I've logged in and out to test whether any viewer can see the messages being sent. It appears they can't, that I have to be logged in to review what was said.
I've used Google docs in the past. We learned about this more than a year ago, from our library supervisor.
Week Seven, Assignment #17
#17. Add an entry to the Pennsylvania Curriculum Connection wiki.
I went to the PA Curriculum Connection wiki but I couldn't immediately play in the sandbox or edit a page because I didn't have the invite key. I emailed the administrator to ask for the invite key and she sent it to me. I then had to look around a lot before finding a place I could make an entry. There's supposed to be a sandbox, and I expected to find one with lots of other people's comments, but there's only a sandbox homepage with a welcoming message and a link to PA Curriculum Connections. It didn't look like a place for me to make a comment or to "play" with friends. I finally found a page under "Online Learning" where I felt I could make an entry and not mess up the main design of the site. I added the PA Online Web 2.0 link on this page: http://pacurriculum.pbwiki.com/ONLINE.
In May when someone e-mailed me for permission to add to this page, I looked around and saw that the page itself was redundant. Someone else had set up the page, but their postings were listed on other pages, so I deleted the "Online" page. Other people who wanted to post there would be better advised to post on one of the other available pages.
I'm wondering where other people who are following this "23 Things" online tutorial plan for PSLA are making their entries on the PA Curriculum Connection site.
I went to the PA Curriculum Connection wiki but I couldn't immediately play in the sandbox or edit a page because I didn't have the invite key. I emailed the administrator to ask for the invite key and she sent it to me. I then had to look around a lot before finding a place I could make an entry. There's supposed to be a sandbox, and I expected to find one with lots of other people's comments, but there's only a sandbox homepage with a welcoming message and a link to PA Curriculum Connections. It didn't look like a place for me to make a comment or to "play" with friends. I finally found a page under "Online Learning" where I felt I could make an entry and not mess up the main design of the site. I added the PA Online Web 2.0 link on this page: http://pacurriculum.pbwiki.com/ONLINE.
In May when someone e-mailed me for permission to add to this page, I looked around and saw that the page itself was redundant. Someone else had set up the page, but their postings were listed on other pages, so I deleted the "Online" page. Other people who wanted to post there would be better advised to post on one of the other available pages.
I'm wondering where other people who are following this "23 Things" online tutorial plan for PSLA are making their entries on the PA Curriculum Connection site.
Week Seven, Assignment #16A
#16A. Take a look at California's Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki.
I took a look at it. I can't say I want to play in the sandbox, but I did it anyway.
You can see my sentence with a link to this blog here: http://calcurriculum.pbwiki.com/SandBox
I took a look at it. I can't say I want to play in the sandbox, but I did it anyway.
You can see my sentence with a link to this blog here: http://calcurriculum.pbwiki.com/SandBox
Week Seven, Assignment #16
Week 7: Wikis
#16. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them.
I went to pbwiki.com and found the note, "You don't have permission to comment on this page." I thought pbwiki was something I had access to. When I went to Joyce Valenza's session at last year's PSLA Conference, I found out about her pbwiki and I was able to access information on it.
I set up an account with pbwiki, so now apparently I can create a wiki, but since my school district bans access to any and all wikis, there's not much point in my trying to find a way I can use this in my school library.
I just went looking at Joyce Valenza's TeacherLibrarian Ning site, to see what I could find about pbwiki. I used the "search" feature, but only came up with the suggestion that librarians use the pbwiki for their libraries. I hate when I have to spend time searching for stuff like this. There's definitely an overload of librarian possibilities in my brain. On the positive side, along the way I saw some things I might want to go back to look at again.
#16. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them.
I went to pbwiki.com and found the note, "You don't have permission to comment on this page." I thought pbwiki was something I had access to. When I went to Joyce Valenza's session at last year's PSLA Conference, I found out about her pbwiki and I was able to access information on it.
I set up an account with pbwiki, so now apparently I can create a wiki, but since my school district bans access to any and all wikis, there's not much point in my trying to find a way I can use this in my school library.
I just went looking at Joyce Valenza's TeacherLibrarian Ning site, to see what I could find about pbwiki. I used the "search" feature, but only came up with the suggestion that librarians use the pbwiki for their libraries. I hate when I have to spend time searching for stuff like this. There's definitely an overload of librarian possibilities in my brain. On the positive side, along the way I saw some things I might want to go back to look at again.
Week Six, Assignment #15
#15: Read some perspectives on Web 2.0. Future of Libraries.
I'm reading the "Away from the 'icebergs' " perspective and I agree with Rick Anderson's views on the "just in case" collection. When I do collection building and I see the areas in which my middle school library is deemed lacking, I have the sneaking feeling that no one will ever check out the books that the "collection development experts" want me to buy. I don't need a "just in case" collection when all the information my students want is on the Internet. Collection development made sense when all materials had to be print materials, but that's not how students want to obtain their information these days.
Library 2.0, for me, means using the resources available on the Web to make information accessible to my library patrons. For school libraries, there are limitations imposed by our tech department, based on receiving government funding. It is against our school district rules to be able to access email other than school district email, blogs, instant messaging, wikis -- any means by which students can send or receive personal messages from non-approved personel. As I understand it, this restriction is related to our district receiving government funding. We didn't use to have this restriction -- it's all come about in the last couple of years.
My school library is able to use Web 2.0 blogs that are made within the School Center Web platform, for which our district pays an annual fee. It supposedly helps to keep students from accessing blog topics that would not be age-appropriate. (It doesn't block YouTube, though, and students access all kinds of materials on that, so blocking teacher access to many of the Web 2.0 materials -- like blogger -- really does not make a lot of sense.)
I'm reading the "Away from the 'icebergs' " perspective and I agree with Rick Anderson's views on the "just in case" collection. When I do collection building and I see the areas in which my middle school library is deemed lacking, I have the sneaking feeling that no one will ever check out the books that the "collection development experts" want me to buy. I don't need a "just in case" collection when all the information my students want is on the Internet. Collection development made sense when all materials had to be print materials, but that's not how students want to obtain their information these days.
Library 2.0, for me, means using the resources available on the Web to make information accessible to my library patrons. For school libraries, there are limitations imposed by our tech department, based on receiving government funding. It is against our school district rules to be able to access email other than school district email, blogs, instant messaging, wikis -- any means by which students can send or receive personal messages from non-approved personel. As I understand it, this restriction is related to our district receiving government funding. We didn't use to have this restriction -- it's all come about in the last couple of years.
My school library is able to use Web 2.0 blogs that are made within the School Center Web platform, for which our district pays an annual fee. It supposedly helps to keep students from accessing blog topics that would not be age-appropriate. (It doesn't block YouTube, though, and students access all kinds of materials on that, so blocking teacher access to many of the Web 2.0 materials -- like blogger -- really does not make a lot of sense.)
Continuation of Week Six, Assignment #14
#14 Continued
I just finished checking Technorati for popular posts, and I don't care for what I'm seeing. Boing Boing was listed as the most popular blog at the time I looked, and it had a posting about Cephaloerotica (erotica combined with the octopus). Is this supposed to interest me? I have better things to do with my time than to read this type of posting.
These are the 100 most popular tags today:
Apple Art Art and Photography BISNIS Blog Blogging Blogroll Blogs books Business Celebrities Christmas Culture Current Affairs Design Diary dreams and the supernatural Education Entertainment Environment events Family fashion Film Food Football Friends Fun Funny Games goals, plans, hopes Google hobbies Home Humor Internet iPhone Iraq jobs, work, careers Life Links Linux Love Marketing Media Microsoft Mobile MobLog Movie Movies movies, tv, celebrities mp3 Music Myspace News News and politics parties and nightlife PC People Personal photo Photography Photos Pictures Podcast Poetry Politics Quiz random Religion Religion and Philosophy Reviews Romance and Relationships School school, college, greek Science Shopping software Sport Sports Survey Tech technology Television thoughts TOPICS Travel travel and places TV Video Videos Web web 2.0 Weblog Windows wordpress Work Writing Writing and poetry youtube
I can't say that there's a single topic there that I'd care to spend time reading about. The only time I ever read a blog, it's school librarian related or tango related. (Ah, now you know my secret passion!)
I claimed my blog in Technorati. Here's my button:
Here's the button so you can add this blog to your Technorati favorites:
At the end of the process of claiming my blog, I see the note, "You have no authority yet." It's really not something I care enough about to pursue.
I just finished checking Technorati for popular posts, and I don't care for what I'm seeing. Boing Boing was listed as the most popular blog at the time I looked, and it had a posting about Cephaloerotica (erotica combined with the octopus). Is this supposed to interest me? I have better things to do with my time than to read this type of posting.
These are the 100 most popular tags today:
Apple Art Art and Photography BISNIS Blog Blogging Blogroll Blogs books Business Celebrities Christmas Culture Current Affairs Design Diary dreams and the supernatural Education Entertainment Environment events Family fashion Film Food Football Friends Fun Funny Games goals, plans, hopes Google hobbies Home Humor Internet iPhone Iraq jobs, work, careers Life Links Linux Love Marketing Media Microsoft Mobile MobLog Movie Movies movies, tv, celebrities mp3 Music Myspace News News and politics parties and nightlife PC People Personal photo Photography Photos Pictures Podcast Poetry Politics Quiz random Religion Religion and Philosophy Reviews Romance and Relationships School school, college, greek Science Shopping software Sport Sports Survey Tech technology Television thoughts TOPICS Travel travel and places TV Video Videos Web web 2.0 Weblog Windows wordpress Work Writing Writing and poetry youtube
I can't say that there's a single topic there that I'd care to spend time reading about. The only time I ever read a blog, it's school librarian related or tango related. (Ah, now you know my secret passion!)
I claimed my blog in Technorati. Here's my button:
Here's the button so you can add this blog to your Technorati favorites:
At the end of the process of claiming my blog, I see the note, "You have no authority yet." It's really not something I care enough about to pursue.
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