This was a great class and such a worthwhile project!

I have created a blog for my library entitled, "Voices From the Inglenook." Please click on this link if you would like to follow what is going on in the Cold Spring Library.

Voices From The Inglenook



Thank You!

Week #9 Thing #23

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I loved the Image Generators, getting re-acquainted with del.i.ci.ous, and the wiki lesson. I could see how I could really use these with my students and for my teaching. I am so fortunate to be teaching is a school that has a 1:1 laptop program for grades 3-6 and these tools make my job more exciting and more meaningful to my students.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I love technology...and by loving it I have to constantly learn new things. This program was a great example of learning by doing. It gave me so many ideas, practical ideas that I could take right away and use.

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I have been thinking of designing some units modeled after this format for my own students.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

I gained the most by the "things" that made me do something. So maybe more of those.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

Absolutely! I also really appreciated being able to take it for credit through Fresno Pacific University.

How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote CSLA learning activities?

School Library Learning 2.0 gives you a chance to learn about this exciting new technology and it serves as a model for how we might teach in a Web 2.0 world.

Week #9 Thing# 22

This was a new world for me....all these books available online for download. With the advent of readers amazon.com's Kindle, I realize that this is a new possibility for readers...to download the books either to read or to listen to.

I found the World EBook Fair site a little confusing but I went to the regular Gutenberg Project site. It was interesting to see the top 100. I was a little surprised to find The Outline of Science as number 1. I looked at Pride and Prejudice just to see what it would like like online. This would be helpful if you needed a passage but I can't quite imagine curling up with my laptop.

LibriVox was the most interesting and I could see some possible use for students to listen to books. This might be especially good for learning disabled students. The site was having technical difficulties when I looked at it so I wasn't able to do any searching.

I enjoyed looking at the "Best Places to Get Free Books" link. I went to manybooks.net and searched in the Young Readers section and looked at Aesop's Fables.

But all in all, I guess I'm still going to stick with actual books as my first choice--the paper, the typography, the illustrations.....hard for me not to prefer that.

Week #9 Thing #21

I keep trying to figure out a way to use podcasts but I'm not sure why I can't seem to get too excited about them yet. I looked on Education Podcast Network first and looked at Willoweb. I'd heard about Willoweb before. The podcast I listened to was a 4th grade class talking about renewable energy. What I got from this is that this is another way for students to demonstrate what they have learned. It sounded like they were enjoying themselves and it was very professional. Still, I found I couldn't get really excited about it. I listened to another podcast from a school in Scotland and wondered if there was some way two schools could collaborate on a project. That might be interesting.

I went to Podcast Alley and found Book Bites for Kids. This were easily found by searching for "children's book reviews." Subscribing on Bloglines was a snap. However when I listened I found the first part of the podcast a commercial for life insurance and the actual podcast started out with some technical difficulties. I don't know...

I think I'm more of a visual person and actually I don't listen to the radio much. It's almost a case of overload. So I'm not sure I'll use this tool but it was interesting to look into it and I'm going to keep trying to come up with applications for my library. Right now, I'm using Garage Band and recording little podcasts with my Bookworms (1st and 2nd graders) to have them practice fluency and see how they have progressed each month. That's as far as I've gotten with podcasting. We seem to like doing the video book reviews on the blog, but I could see that little booktalks might be another way to use podcasting.

Week #9 Thing #20

I'll have to admit I spent more time searching around YouTube than I thought I would. I had fun watching old commercials, I wondered how people have time to do things like Library Dominos, Conan the Librarian was really funny (might use that one with my students at the beginning of the year), and March of the Librarians was hilarious.

What I like about YouTube and what I don't like about YouTube are almost the same. It's enormous. There is so much on it that you can find almost anything and there is so much on it that there is a lot that is worthless. This is, of course, the dilemma we all face with the amount of information to which we now have access. Teaching my students how to search is a huge responsibility.

I do like TeacherTube a little better in that it narrows down the material. My favorite video on YouTube is Yes We Can by Will.i.am. (yes, I'm an Obama supporter) followed by the speech Obama gave last week about race in America. What I find wonderful about YouTube is that there is access to this kind of material. I couldn't hear the speech because I was at work but I could listen to it on my lunch break. I found the Yes We Can video amazing just as a video but also as a new way to communicate with voters...young voters...on their terms...using a medium that they are excited about. This has implications for teaching as well.

Professionally, I liked the Librarian 2.0 Manifesto. So interesting with the Burning Man images. The one phrase that stood out to me was "responsiveness to change." That I think, is the key, both for us as librarians in this explosion of information and for our students. They will need this skill...responsiveness to change. We need to see this as a positive skill (or at the least a survival skill) for we are teaching them how to be lifelong learners in their world, not the world we grew up in or even the world of today. Responsiveness to change...it sounds so exciting, so hopeful.

Week #8 Thing #19

LibraryThing is a lot of fun. A great way to connect with other people about books. I had started a LibraryThing account a while ago but hadn't gotten around to getting back to it. I read some of the posts on Librarians who LibraryThing and found them interesting. Another way to connect with colleagues online.

I found that one of the books I'd added The Giver by Lois Lowry was my most popular book with around 5000 others listing it on their LibraryThing as well. The least was Princess Furball by Charolotte Huck. Oh well...that's one of my all time favorites anyway.

I had an idea that next year I might use this with my 5th and 6th graders. I have book club for all the grades and I'm always looking for a fun, exciting way for 5th and 6th graders to do a bookclub. Maybe, with parental permission, they could have their own LibraryThing for the books they read for the book club.

That's what so great about doing these 23 Things....all these new ideas!

Here's my LibraryThing page.

Week #8 Thing #18

Zoho Writer--WOW! This was so easy to use. I created my account and did a test document. In that document I added a link to my Library Blog and emailed it to myself and exported it as a Word Document. So easy! Then I thought I'd get tricky and post it on my SLL 2.0 blog. No problem.

I'm already thinking of ways I could use this with my students. They could compose documents after doing research (I also took a peek at Zoho Notes) and then post it to our Research Blog. It's a little more familiar than doing posting in Blogger.

I can also see its value in creating interesting emails to parents about programs in the library using video or images.

Very nice tool. Free, too! I'm going to pass this along to the teachers. Could be a great way of having kids take work home to work on it since the copy is saved online and it can be exported into Word.

I like this!

test document for SLL 2.0

This is a test document using Zoho Writer.  I can see that it is very easy to use and the toolbar looks familiar. 

I'm going to try a few things.  First I'll add a link to my Blog,  Voices From the Inglenook.

Next, I'll add an image.  This is Olive, our Library Cat.

This is really pretty amazing.  I'm already thinking of ways to use this with my students.

Week #7 Thing #16

(Sorry, I did this post out of order....)

I looked at several wikis and found the BookLover's Wiki interesting to me on a personal level. I'm always looking for something new to read and I liked the succinct reviews. The link to the Princeton Library was nice...too bad I live in California!

Blogging Libraries Wiki was interesting to me. My blog is listed there and it's nice to see all the others and check out what others are doing. It's amazing to me how many different ways there are to use a blog. What has been successful for me is the blog is a way to communicate with the parents at my school. It's kind of a PR tool and in these days of budget cuts it seems like a good idea to be sure people know what you are doing in your library and what a valuable program it is. It's sometimes easy to be part of the background if we're not careful. Libraries are a quiet place (well, most of the time) and not as visible as say sports or music programs. It's good to keep ourselves in view.

I liked the two class wikis even through they are high school and I'm in elementary. I can see using a wiki to direct a project--giving instructions and resources in the way of live links.

I could also see using a wiki for Parent Resources such as summer reading lists, or grade level reading lists, or special interest reading lists. Wikis are so easy to add to.

Week #7 Thing#17

I added something to the "Sandbox" and found it incredibly easy. PBWiki seems like a great program.

I've just entered the world of wikis with my 5th and 6th grade students so it was great to go to the California Curriculum Connections Wiki. I explored several of the wiki sites and especially like Joyce Valenza's wiki. It had some great ideas and tons of resources. It's almost overwhelming!

Our wiki (which we made on WikiSpaces) is called (for now) Random Research and Wacky Facts. To start with I had the sixth graders collaborate on the home page--picking the picture and writing the purpose of our wiki and the definition of a wiki. Then I had each student create a wiki page of their own. On this page they posted about tornadoes--a note taking project we had done several weeks ago. They had to be able to read their notes, turn it into a paragraph with correct spelling and punctuation and add a picture.

To give them the idea of collaboration, we made a page called Wacky Facts. Anyone can contribute to this page as long as they follow the protocol. They need to cite their fact and to use correct spelling and punctuation and sign with their initials.

My goal was to introduce them to the idea of a wiki but now that we've done that I can see how we could make several wikis. One that would be interesting is to doing a history of our school. It started in the late 1800's and I have some incredible old documents and photos I found in a box in the corner of an old paper room (!). Another idea I had was to do biographies of each teacher and have the students interview the teacher (using a template of questions) and post these on a wiki.

The skill of collaboration will, I think, be an important one for them in their adult working lives and even though the programs might change (and probably will) they should understand what it is to work in a group and collaborate on the Web.

Week #6 Thing #15

I liked this assignment. I took me from the interesting details of specific new technologies we've been looking at so far to the big picture. Library services need to meet the user's needs. What does Library 2.0 mean to me? It means I need to be willing to try out new things, to look at information acquisition through the eyes of my students today. I have a very fond memory of spending a rainy afternoon in the Huntington Art Museum studying and researching with my classmates at UCLA. We'd been invited to our professor's office and study--he was the curator of the museum. The books he let us use were old, fabulous. He served us tea. There was a little fireplace with a fire in it. On the floor were oriental rugs and I remember the soft ticking of an antique clock in the background. Now that was research in a heavenly setting for an art history student. But that was also in 1968. Things have changed since then and I am teaching students who will live and work in the 21st century. The way to access information is constantly changing...and that's both good and bad. Good in that if your source is reliable you can have up-to-the minute information. Bad in that every time you master one technology, there seems to be a new one to take its place. This is not a world for the faint of heart or mind or for those who don't like to learn new things. But I do, and I want my students to like that idea, too.

I read the OCLC articles and I especially liked the idea of the 3 icebergs. The first one--having a collection "Just In Case"--means that we need to let go of the idea of building a collection to meet everyone's needs. I find this especially true in the reference section and in non-fiction. However, I don't want my students to think that books have no value because that simply isn't true and my goal is to balance the wonders of the internet with the reliability of the published book.

The second "iceberg"--Reliance on User Education--makes me realize that even though I am a teacher as well as a librarian I need to step aside sometimes and be more of the "guide on the side" with my students. I need to find user friendly services for them and let them go. They are, of course, almost fearless when it comes to technology, and I need to capitalize on that.

The third "iceberg"--Our patrons need to Come to Us--is simply no longer the case and I need to be sure my students understand that they can access library services on the Web. For my students today and those in the future using the Web is analogous to my generation and the telephone. They have grown up with it. It doesn't seem miraculous to them. It's part of their lives.

We need to change course and above all be flexible, exploring the possibilities of Web 2.0 with our patrons and students. We need to be unafraid to discard what doesn't work best--be it a book, the card catalog, or a technological application. Flexibility and the ability to evaluate the worthiness of new ideas and applications is the key.

Week #6 Thing #14

Technorati is interesting and a little overwhelming. When I typed in School Library Learning 2.0 and searched blogs I got 22 hits. When I searched posts I got 1,411. I can see that in using this it would depend on what you were looking to find....blogs with a focus on your topic or just posts on a number of blogs.

I wasn't really surprised when I looked at what's popular and found that #1 was American Idol. I'd heard that more people vote on American Idol than do in political races. (Grrrr....) Today was the Geraldine Ferraro debacle and the Eliot Spitzer scandal so they were #3 and #4 and the candidate I'm supporting, Barack Obama was #7. I thought it curious that Hillary Clinton wasn't in the top ten.

I also searched for a local blog that deals with a controversy in my home town, Santa Barbara. We have a "little problem" with our newspaper and there's a blog that is chronicling it written by Craig Smith, a lawyer. I'd forgotten the URL but found it easily by typing in Craig Smith and Santa Barbara.

I searched for my own library's blog in posts and read a nice comment from a blogger in British Columbia.

Regarding the advantages and disadvantages of tagging...tagging is easy, quick, no rules to follow. That the advantage. The disadvantage? No rules to follow. This means no consistency and the way I tag might not be the way you think I would tag. But all in all, I think it works especially in a world as fluid as Web 2.0.

Week #6 Thing #13

I've had a del.icio.us account for a while and I love using it. As a research tool, I can direct my students to it and have them click on the tag on the right hand side and get the links they need. This can focus their research and keep them on sites that I know are safe. I'm just getting ready to use this for a mythology project in which I'm collaborating with our art teacher. The students are doing ceramic medallions of gods and goddesses and they will research their god or goddess, then post this research on our Research Blog with a photo of their finished art project.

I love the access. I can find my bookmarks from any computer. I also refer parents to my del.icio.us page for helpful bookmarks.

I explored some of the libraries and went to the San Mateo Public Library's del.icio.us page. (I did this because I used to live in San Mateo and spend lots of hours in the library when I was in high school there) I really liked the way they had organized their tags in concordance with the Dewey Decimal System.

del.icio.us is a nice way to introduce students the a positive social networking site. It's great to browse the popular sites and popular tags. It's a way to explore the vast resources of the web in a friendly and more focused way.

Week #5 Thing #12

Select...santa barbara bookwormdigital ethicsSearch The Web

The idea of Rollyo is interesting. I can see how I might use it for research lessons with my students. It would focus them on specific websites and I could control which websites they would go to. I had a little trouble getting it to work. I made my search about digital ethics--I'm doing a parent meeting on this next month so I had a list of websites to put in. After I made my Rollyo I wasn't sure how to get back to it. Maybe it's getting late and I'm tired but it wasn't clear to me. Then I tried putting the little graphic search engine on my blog post....again, kind of confusing. It took me 3 tries but I did it. I'll look into this again....it seems like a good tool.

Week #5 Thing #11

The Web 2.0 Awards list was great. I looked at the Books section (of course) and got hooked into LibraryThing. I set up my account and added some books--some of my own and some of the books in my library just to see how it worked. What fun!

I have voluntary book clubs in my library and I am always looking for new ways to entice my 5th and 6th graders. Having them set up a LibraryThing account might be perfect. They could write reviews of books and also find other books they might like.

I have been using iGoogle for sometime now...I like having my email come up on that page and love all the little gadgets....the weather, the clock, the Zen thought for the day. I have a CNN news gadget, too, and with all the election news it's been great to just click on a story. I've played around on Zillow, too, but have found recently that it is not reliable. For a while it had my house priced accurately but recently it went way up...totally incorrect.

This activity has been really fun....loved exploring.

I joined a Ning, but found it hard to keep up as I belong of CALIB and LM_Net. Between checking those each day along with my regular email and Bloglines....just can't fit any more in!

Week #5 Thing #10

ImageChef.com Flower Text


Oh my....this is just too much fun. I looked at the image generators and found this on Image Chef. I can't wait to show my students how to do this!

You can fine Image Chef at: http://www.imagechef.com/


Have fun!

Week #4 Thing #9

Search Tools for Blogs--this isn't something I had spent much time on before and I found it very interesting. I've used the Bloglines search and sometimes felt it returned so many hits it was overwhelming. I've gotten many of my feeds from reading other's blogs and either clicking on a link or looking at their blogroll but that can be a random way to find new blogs. I liked Google Blog search because it's so clean and simple and familiar. Topix was very interesting--I especially liked the local section and top news. Blog Pulse was fascinating. I typed in Obama just to see what would happen and of course I got tons of hits. After typing in School Library Learning 2.0 it was fun to read some of the posts from people who are doing their 23 things at the same time I am. Feedster wouldn't load (or maybe I wasn't patient enough) so I'll count that as my most confusing one.

Knowing about these different search tools means it will be easy for me to search for a topic that is of interest to me both personally and professionally. I like that!

Week #4 Thing #8

I set up my Bloglines account about a year ago and I use it constantly. I like having one place to check to find out if there is new information on the blogs I read. On a personal level, we have had a real problem in Santa Barbara concerning the owner/publisher of our local newspaper. Without going into detail, after subscribing to the paper for 30 some odd years I cancelled my subscription in protest. This left a gaping hole in my connection to my community. I found that many others had done the same thing and three excellent blogs "sprang" up to fill the void. I read them for news about the problem and for local news. It's not quite the same as having a newspaper each morning but it's better than not knowing what's going on.

For my students, I have shown them Bloglines and explained how it works and why it is good to have one place to check your feeds. I even have a former student who has his own blog and it's great to be able to show my students when he makes new posts.

On the negative side, sometimes I feels overwhelmed with all this information. I have had to pare down my feeds a little because I just couldn't get through them all. But I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I had to check all these different blogs--I probably wouldn't do it! Thanks to RSS I at least have a handle on it.

Link to Voices From The Inglenook

To answer the request for a link to my library blog....

It's called "Voices From The Inglenook." The Inglenook is a cozy place to read by the fire and amazingly enough we have a little room with a fireplace in our library. You can find the blog at:

http://csslibraryblog.blogspot.com

There are links to other blogs for our library there as well. We have a Library Skills Blog, and a Research Blog which I use with our 1:1 laptop program.

Week #3 Thing #7

I love technology. I saw a demonstration of an Apple IIe computer way back in the early 80s and I was hooked. I had to have it. It's been amazing (to use an over-used word) to watch and participate in the revolution that technology has brought about and nowhere is that more apparent than in education. From that first Apple I now have a laptop and my library is completely wireless with students from grades 3 though 6 bringing in their own laptops to use with me during their library skills lessons. It's kind of like a dream....

With that, however, comes a great responsibility. I spend quite a bit of time discussing, talking, and doing lessons about what it means to be a "digital citizen." We talk about internet ethics and safety, plagiarism, cyber-bullying, and critical evaluation of websites. I feel I have an opportunity to instill some of these values in my students because they are young and still listen to me--well, for the most part. The technology will continue to change, but the values and ethics need to be there as a constant.

The other challenge I face is balancing the technology with the other part of the library that is its best part--books. It's so easy to get sidetracked with these fabulous, fun, and exciting technologies and lose sight of that enduring pleasure of curling up with a good book. It's a challenge for me as an adult and a real one for my students.

Week #3 Thing #6

Olive Library Card
Originally uploaded by jpedersen

Wow....I thought this would be much harder to do. Making a trading card using a photo on flickr was so easy. I can't wait to use this with my 3rd graders. They just did some online research about animals and this would be a fantastic way for them to present their material! They'll love it!

This is what is so great about these new technologies....they are so motivating. I'm looking forward to learning more!

Week # 3 Thing #5

Olive the library cat
Originally uploaded by jpedersen

I already had a flickr account but the funny thing is that I forgot that I had carefully posted some pictures of my house and its contents for insurance purposes. I live in a beautiful area but it's a high brush fire zone and having pictures like this in a safe place is a good idea.

The picture from my Library is Olive, our library cat. I got Olive for $2 at a garage sale and the students love her. We use her as an avatar for the children when they are posting book review videos on our Library blog, "Voices From The Inglenook."

It's great to be working through these "things" and be reminded of all the amazing tools there are out there to be used.

Week #2 Thing #3

I love learning. So in thinking about the 7 and 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learning I had a hard time coming up with my easiest and my hardest. The winner for the easiest has to be #4--my confidence in myself as a competent and effective learner. I have always loved school and it's where I've always been most comfortable--from the time I started Kindergarten to my present job as an elementary school librarian. I love all aspects of learning, even the frustration of not understanding because although it tests my patience, I like the feeling of accomplishment when I finally do understand.

To be honest my hardest learning habit is #1--to begin with the end in mind. Since graduating from the formal educational setting I have often started journeys in learning without any idea of where they might take me. No regrets, but if I had been more focused on the end I might have accomplished more (or possibly even made a little more money!)