Thing 14 - LibraryThing

Everywhere you go you can make tags. Here is another place that you can catalog everything with tags. We should all be very organized after this whole 23 Things experience.

I can see using the LibraryThing to create book lists for teachers, to remember some great read alouds or to list books to be used with a particular unit of study.

It is so simple to add a book to your list. I still need to see how to name these lists for easier use. I am sure it is there. I just need to investigate.

I like the name LibraryThing, because... well, it is just that. A Library thang!!

Thing 13 - Online Productivity Tools

When I first started this thing, I did not think I would find much for me here. I looked at a few things, like Backpack and Remember the Milk. I do not think I would ever use these. They are a great way to get organized, but I don't want to be tied to my computer to always be organized. I also prefer the actual paper sticky notes instead of computer ones. Just a tactile thing I believe.

But then I started looking at PageFlakes and iGoogle. PageFlakes was cool. Liked it a bit but thought that I would not need to use it. 

I have now been using iGoogle for the last 45 minutes and forced myself to get off and write this post. iGoogle is addictive. There are so many things to add to your own page. I like the tabs at the top that I can customize for myself. Anything that I want to use to get myself organized and to keep up with the world are there. It is way cool. 

Is there nothing that Google can't do for you??

Now, have I found things to use with my students? Not really, but I sure did have fun for myself.  

I did look at Backpack. That is a different tool that iGoogle. I could see using that if you needed to keep up with lots of projects and communicate with others on a project. Again for my use in my school library, I don't see a use yet. 

The one thing that I like about all these 23 Things, is that I can remember these and hopefully find a good use for some of them. I am still amazed as to what is out there for us all to use that I had not idea about. This just shows how much the Internet has changed and Web 2.0 is a whole new world.

Thing 12 - Digg, Mixx, etc.

I looked at all four social media sites. The one that presented their site the best was Mixx. The tutorial was very good. Being able to watch a video of the site was more informative than reading how the site works. If I were to join one, Mixx is the one I would join.

At this point in my career and life, I can't see that I would use this a lot. I think the opportunity is fantastic. I just can't see myself being that tied to my computer that I would look there very often.

If I was working in a reference library, I might see a good use for it. However, I think there are better sources for sharing resources. The social side of this seems much more personal than professional. There is nothing wrong with that, but I don't want the computer to be my way of interacting socially.

It is very easy to share stories to one of these sides. I did that from the New York Times to Digg. Someone else had already shared that same story. But the ease of use is amazing. 

So many of these 23 Things are all inter-related. The knowledge I have gained in just these first 12 Things is great. But I am also finding that I am spending way more time on the computer learning these than I will eventually do in my day to day life. After I have completed the 23 Things, I will go back and use all those that will support me in my teaching in my personal life.

This continues to be a great learning opportunity!

Thing 11 - Del.icio.us/Pagekeeper

There are a few of these things that I have used before and del.icio.us is one of them. This is a great tool for our media department to use to share professional bookmarks that will help us with our curriculum. We have always e-mailed these sites to each other and then bookmarked them on our own computers. Why not share them in one place?

I will see if everyone wants to try this. I have some started already. The nice thing is we can make our own del.icio.us site or I can share my list with just the sites that I have marked to share.

I am also going to start a Pagekeeper site for my own media classes. This will be very handy when I do research with different grade levels. There are so many times that the students need to type an entire URL in and that takes time and also allows for many spelling errors. If they simple log on to our Pagekeeper page, all the resources will be right there.

I have now set the Pagekeeper list. How simple!

I will be anxious to show the students as we continue doing our research. Their information is just a click away. Plus I do not have to bother the tech person at our building to make changes to the web site. This is a resource that I can control and make the changes to my own curriclum as I see fit.

I did not explore Furl as I already like del.icio.us and sometimes there are just too many options and I need to stick with these two from Thing 11. But how nice to see all the options that are out there that I did not know about. :)

Thing 10 - Wikis

I do enjoy the Common Craft videos. They explain things so easily. 

I tried setting up a wiki for our district media department last year. Only one other person even tried to log onto it and no one has ever expressed interest in it. It is hard to have much of a wiki conversation by yourself. I will perhaps try again now that I am doing the 23 Things. However, there are very few people in my district doing the 23 things, so it may be a bit of an uphill climb to get anyone else on board. (If there are folks from my district reading this, let me know and we can start up. :)

I do see it as a great collaboration tool. You just need the people to collaborate with.

I just sent an invitation from wikispaces to my department. I will see if they respond to joining the wiki this time or not. :) Time will tell.

Thing 9 - Google Docs

I started a story in Google Docs. I posted it to my blog. Others could go in and change it, add to it, etc. I am still trying to see how I could use this with my media center. I see it more as a tool that our department could use to write curriculum perhaps. But it may be to awkward. Accessing from my blog is easy so I like that.

I like the easy of use of Google Docs. I looked at Zoho Writer also and that was fine, but I think I prefer Google. You can do anything at Google. :)

I think the issue is getting everyone comfortable with finding the document and making the changes. With everyone's busy schedule, I think it will be difficult to get people on board to use this.

I think the way we can work on a document in such a global way is amazing. Our Founding Fathers would be blown away. This is when technology can be so powerful and yet the ease of use is pretty simple.

I will share my document with others and see if anyone wants to make changes. It would be fun to see those changes appear.

Thing 8 - E-Folio

I already have an e-folio account. This is an activity that we use at Hamline for one of the technology courses. I think many teachers have found value in having information about themselves and their professional activities posted here. This was one of the 23 things with which I was a bit familiar. :)

Thing 8 - Picture Trail

I just spent some time at Picture Trail. Sometimes, I don't even know what I have done, but I end up with a cool slide show. These sites are so user friendly with all kinds of choices to arrange and manage a slide show. I changed this quite a few times and the final product just changed each time on my blog. The communication of the computers behind the scenes still amazes me. I have imported so much html language and really don't even know how to write any html. There are so many untapped resources on the web and that is exactly what this 23 Things is going for me. It is showing me all these untapped resources. Now I just have to remember where they all are and use them. I can really see how having students or your classroom or your library have a blog is the way to go. You can show kids how to post these kinds of things and open up communication between home and school. I need to think how to do this so it is quick and easy. Creating a link from my school web site to a library blog would be so easy. I think I am on to something!!

Trip to North Carolina

Thing 7 - Twitter

I set up a Twitter account. I put in a couple of friends and family. I will see what happens. I just liked the name Twitter. Perhaps it will prove to be an interesting thing to see what people are doing. I will check back to this post soon and let you know.

Thing 7 - Communications

I am having a bit of trouble seeing how to use IM in the work arena that I am in. We are all so busy all day long, that to sit and converse in IM during the day would be next to impossible. E-mail is great. We talk a lot that way. We share lots of ideas and information in this format. Blogs could catch on and perhaps that would be a good first step in getting our department to try an new thing. Some of us have a 23 Things blog and we could start there.

I really don't see text messaging ever being a part of our media department either. I text message often to my own children and it works great. Both of my children (age 15 and 20) text much more often than actually talking on their phones. I use to have to worry about them using up our minutes. With unlimited texting, our bill is actually lower now. :) But again I don't see doing that in school. The video of the text messaging was interesting. I could see colleges using that much more than K-12 education.

Thing 6 - More Image Generation

Big Blue Labs has so many choices of things to do! I made a trading card. I could see using this with kids. It would have to be controlled in that you need to have the correct pictures available to them. But what a fun way for them to personalize some school project. Another great presentation tool. Using it as part of a PowerPoint would be great. I just have to think how to do it easily and safely. I get way excited about how to use this with kids, but time is a big part of things. I only see the kids for 30 minutes a week. I need to get some of the classroom teachers into using technology in this way. It can open up a whole new world to them and the kids. (The teachers are a harder sell than the kids :)

I also added a slide show from Flickr on my blog. That is cool!

Thing 6 - Online Image Generators

Image chef - Yet again a new area on the web that I had never explored. Some of this image stuff is way too much fun. You can lose yourself very easily. Made my own little sign and posted it to my blog. I still like it when someone smarter than me creates these sites and then lets the rest of us come and point and click. I now need to try the big huge labs again and try making a trading card. I know in my playing yesterday, I did make some chia pets. Nothing better than an interactive chia pet. :)

Thing 5 - More Flickr

Mashups ...
Big Huge Labs ...
Who knew these were even out there? I am sure many people did, but these were new to me.

What fun. You could get lost here for days playing with the features. I just had fun making a picture of my media center into a puzzle. Now I want to go play with Flickr color Pickr.

Just the fact that you can take an ordinary picture and jazz it up is great. This would be a fun and easy way to make more interesting brochures and promotional items for your programs. We all use pictures. Now we can use Flickr's.

Thing 5 -Spell with Flickr

I now have an image at the bottom of my blog which spells out the name of my school. It was so simple. :) I am so amazed that there are so many smart people that make these programs do all the work and then we can come along and use them with such ease. Isn't it nice that everyone out there in cyber world is kind and is willing to share? What a simple idea, but fun to use. I like my letters!

SMARTBoard teaching area

100_0221
Originally uploaded by g.seaburg

As I have experimented with Flickr, I am now trying to upload a picture of my media center into my blog. The step by step directions are very good, but I must say it did take some time to find just the right place to do this. I am hoping that when I finish typing this and post the entry, that it appears. Then I may try it again to see if it works. I can see some good uses for sharing photos on the personal side of my life. I still need to think how I might easily use this on the teaching side of my life.