Week 3 Thing 7

Technology has definately changed the way we do research. It is a little scary for a librarian these days, as we move away from trusted, valid sources of information into the world of Internet research. We are trying so desperately to get students and teachers to either evaluate their Internet sources or use online databases (which are a hard sell and often limited severely by budgets).
And then there are the ever present "Powerpoint projects". I am so sick of teachers assigning students to present their information in a Powerpoint instead of a research paper. The writing, organization and presentation of information all suffer.

Here's hoping I can get a few more staff converts this coming year to:

• The research process
• Using a mix of resources for research
• Using a mix of presentation methods

Week 3 Thing 6

Had some fun tonight with Flickr stuff. The best 3rd party site was definately Big Huge Labs. The other applications were a little hard to use. In Big Huge Labs, I made a trading card and a mosaic. Very nice. I will use the mosaic of my 08 family reunion pictures to share with others when I go to the 09 reunion.

I think the students at my library will love some mosaics of them using the library.

Week 3 #5 Flickr

Exploring Flickr is fun....it could also suck up hours of my time.

I registered and found some interesting archival images from the South Wales State Library

Then I looked for images of the Seattle Public Library which I plan to visit in November. I have heard that it has unusual architecture. There are lots of photos of the outside but I decided to post one interior shot, of the unusual escalator.

I also uploaded some photos from my computer to my flickr account. Now I can share them with others.

Week 2 #4 Blog Registered

Blog was registered with the CSLA team.

Week 2 Thing 3 Avatar Adventure

Finally got an Avatar on my page. The instructions from the School Library Learning 2.0 page were missing a step. Obviously, other people managed to figure it out. I must be losing my touch. They forgot the step that says "Click on Add a Gadget". You can't get to the HTML page element without that step. Maybe the page elements have changed since they wrote the instructions. Anyway, I figured it out finally and have my Avatar up.

Week 1 Thing 2 Lifelong Learners

Lifelong Learner
I have always valued learning new things. When I was a computer teacher and there was a new technology or a new software program or a new method of integrating technology into the curriculum, I would be responsible for passing it on to the students and the staff. To make myself "jump off the diving board" and learn it well enough, I would create a workshop for teacher on that technology, register it with district Professional Development as a site or district class and advertise a date. Then I would have to go out and learn that skill and learn it well, since I had to do a class on it!
Then I got out of technology and into library. One of the things that I like about that move is that even though there are new books and new Internet sites and new methods, there are also classics. When I taught computers, it felt like there were never classics that I could fall back on .... no one wanted to be using old websites or old technology methods; I had to be constantly updating and learning new things.

When I left computer teaching over 4 years ago, I stopped trying to learn new technology things, other than the basics I needed to do my job as a library media teacher. I was burned out on that. But now I am ready to jump in and learn a few new things; 23 new things, to be specific!

So, my goal is to learn about emerging technologies. I will figure out what tools I need as I go along. I want to finish this no later than December 2009, which means I have to get as far as possible this summer. I want to integrate at least one new technology to my lessons this coming year and discover at least 6 new websites.

Here we go

Here we go.....and here I go into the wild world of school library technology!