New Library Blog for KCUSD!

I did it! I created a blog for the library techs and LMTs where I can post informational news that I used to send via e-mail. I hope this helps organize all of the information I send each year. I also got the Tech Dept. to open up blogspot.com and blogger.com for teachers. When the head of the Tech Dept. (my co-chair of the district Technology Committee) saw how I was going to use the blog, it was not a problem convincing him to allow it. Now for some of the other Web 2.0 tools.......

This is our library blog: kcusdlibraries.blogspot.com

Week 9: Exercise 23, School Library Learning 2.0 Summary

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I really liked, and am using regularly, Del.icio.us. Not only can I find my bookmarks anywhere, but on special topics I can see what others are finding--what a great collaboration tool. I also want to explore blogs and wikis for our library techs and me to use for communication. Our monthly meetings could involve more training if we could communicate the housekeeping chores via a blog or wiki.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I have really balked at learning about Web 2.0 tools. I didn't think I could handle all of this information, but I am so glad this opportunity was offered. It has changed the way I view Web 2.0. I can do this! That's what I find most amazing. I want to share this with our Instructional Technology Trainers (ITTs) because they are the ones willing to explore new products/ideas in technology. I think they would run with some of these ideas. I see myself as the advocate for opening up some of these sites in order for the ITTs to explore Web 2.0 tools with their students.

Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
That I would turn into an advocate for opening up some of these Web 2.0 sites for instructional use AND encourage my colleagues to participate in this online opportunity (I already e-mailed all of the ITTs about this).

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
At the beginning, some exercises were very time-consuming and it was overwhelming. Left to explore on our own during the latter exercises was very beneficial. I definitely liked the exercises where we had to post to our blog what we did/produced. You have to "do" in order to "learn."

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
A definite YES!!! Summer is the best time; I felt I had the time to devote to this project. I don't think I would have worked as hard as I did if this opportunity had been during the school year.

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?
Web2.0licious!
Web2.0fabulous!

Week 9: Exercise 22, e-Books and Audio eBooks

The World EBook Fair site has a variety of collections to choose from--for example, Government Printing Office, Women Writers, and the 1000 e-books for One Laptop per Child program that had classic older titles for children and young adults. The Internet Archive is interesting--many older books that are available for free; some real old children's books.

I liked the Best Places to Get Free Books site--a large list of sites of free books to download. I liked the Gutenburg Project Top 100--you can see the list of the top 100 downloads without having to search for specific books and being disappointed when you didn't get any hits. Actually, I like the Gutenberg Project website better than the World EBook Fair site. World EBook Fair has way too many things that I'm not interested in. The Gutenberg site is a little more manageable, especially for a school site library.

I enjoyed looking at the LibriVox site for free audiobooks. I listened to part of Romeo and Juliet.

I really don't know how much I will use these sites. I guess if I couldn't find a book in print this would be the way to go. Using free audiobooks for the classics would be good for teachers to use in the classroom or students could listen to the audiobooks in the library.

Week 9: Exercise 21, Podcasts

I had limited library news results with Podcast.net (that I thought were interesting). Yahoo Podcasts had several good ones. Both Podcast.net and Yahoo Podcasts had Book Voyages - A school LMT podcasts reviews of children's literature and interviews with authors and students. I like this one because it focuses on children/YA book reviews and authors. I heard the podcast where Bruce Coville is interviewed. I subscribed to this podcast and it appears in my iTunes and Yahoo podcasts, but I couldn't get it to post to my Bloglines.

Through Podcast Alley I found LibVibe, a library news broadcast. I was able to add this RSS feed to my Bloglines. Very cool news. Podcast Alley had quite a few good library podcasts.

Education Podcast Network - I like how it's geared to teachers and you can select podcasts by subject matter. However, it would be helpful to have a search box.

iTunes - There isn't a search box so I couldn't search for library news (I'm not registered with iTunes, so maybe that's the problem). Anyway, I went through the podcasts that were listed and found Spanish Success that had five Spanish lessons. I e-mailed my husband the information so he could experience podcasting--he's listened to Spanish lessons on audiotapes in the past. These were pretty good lessons--simple, with explanations as to why words are pronounced a certain way.

Podcasts could be very useful for a library media teacher to keep up-to-date; however, it's the time involved to listen, just as the RSS feeds for blogs/news. And I can't listen while I'm working. I am not an auditory learner--I'm a visual learner. So my mind tends to wander if I have to listen only. Podcasts may not be for me. :-(

Week 9: Exercise 20, YouTube and other video sites

I really liked the Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto video on YouTube, but the video below from TeacherTube is my favorite: Pay Attention. Teachers and administrators would benefit from watching this video because it shows how we need to meet our kids where they're at. I loved the cell phone example for data collecting. I really liked TeacherTube better than YouTube. Anything goes on YouTube and TeacherTube is a little more professional. I can see using videos on the library website for booktalks by students, instructions for projects, tutorials, and more. There is a use for this in school libraries.

Week 8: Exercise 19, LibraryThing

I added 10 books to my LibraryThing. Everyone has Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and four others of mine were very popular also--Seabiscuit, Tuesdays with Morrie, Who Moved My Cheese?, and Water for Elephants. There is a place to look at the conversations about the books in my library. Seven of my 10 books had postings. It was interesting. This is the link to my list of books: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/cdoerksen (I've also placed a "chiclet" on the sidebar linking it to my library). My Random Book list widget from LibraryThing is on the sidebar. I also posted a "Recent Reads" widget on the sidebar. This was fun!

It was nice to see some examples of how libraries are using LibraryThing on their websites.
This has real possibilities for school libraries.

I also liked the LibraryThing blog.

Week 8: Exercise 18, Online Productivity Tools

See my Zoho Writer posting below. It was pretty easy to publish it to my blog.

Google Docs was also pretty cool with the ability to do spreadsheets also. I really like the list that was created with all of the Web-based Productivity Applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and calendars and planners. However, the Zoho Planner links to the Zoho Show.

First Zoho Writer doc

Zoho Writer looks like a Microsoft document. There are many of the same tools in the tool bar and some new ones. I am going to figure out how to save and share documents. This could be beneficial. I'm trying to figure out how this would be used differently than wikis to share a document.

I like how easy it is to share a document and have access without being at my personal computer. I can now begin work on a document or continue working on a document by copying it to Zoho Writer and then continue working on it without lugging my computer with me if I have access somewhere else. Then I can e-mail it or just copy the document to a Word document on my computer. Hmmmmmm....some real possibilities. And I like the sharing aspect also, although the receiver must be registered with Zoho Writer to see the document.

Oops...just learned that I can export the document and save it as a Word document, PDF, HTML, a text file, and others. This is great! Forget my last paragraph!

I will now try the anchor icon. Cool...it is a hidden text box. The emoticon choices are also cool.

There's also a way to digitally sign documents, but you must register with Echo Sign.

I really like this online tool.

Week 7: Exercise 17, Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki

I placed my avatar with some text in the Sandbox portion of the California Curriculum Connections wiki. It wasn't too difficult to do.

I visited the California Curriculum Connections wiki and looked through all of the activities that had been posted in each area. What a great resource! There are some good curriculum activities posted. Once again, there is a need to get some of these Web 2.0 tools unblocked in our district. To ask students to use these tools at home when some students do not have access to a computer would be unfair and we would be adding to the digital divide. These activities have sparked some needed conversations with our Asst. Supt. of Curriculum & Instruction and our Tech Dept.

I am beginning to see the value of wikis and how they can be used with student groups in library projects.

Week 7: Exercise 16, Wikis

Before I respond to this Exercise, I want to note that I figured out how to add my Shopping Rollyo Search bar to my blog from Week 5, Exercise 12. It's posted in the left column. I actually had it figured out back then, but my search bar looked different. After reading CSLA's tips, I figured out that I had to select the gray, white, or red search roll in order for it to look like the Rollyo search bar. Yeah!!!!

I also was able to figure out how to make my blogline public (Week 4, Exercise 8). You can find it at: http://www.bloglines.com/public/cldoerk Another success!!!!

Now back to this week's exercise......
SJCPL Subject Guides - I looked at the Harry Potter subject guide. I liked the "If you liked Harry Potter..." then a list of books were given. Only librarians at SJCPL can edit the wiki and add books to the list. What a great selection tool!

Book Lovers Wiki - What great book recommendations! I'm going to read some of these!

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki - WOW!!! What a wealth of information! Another tag for Del.icio.us.

CSLA Conference 2007 Wiki - This has potential, especially as we get closer to conference time. I am looking forward to hearing about the restaurants in the Ontario area.

The Albany County Public Library Staff Wiki - Interesting. It could work for our district libraries by having LMTs/techs post how they do certain things in order to come up with standardized procedures for some areas. Rather than having me collect all of the responses/data, they could be posted from each school site where everyone could see and contribute. Then I could compile the results.

Library Bloggers Wiki - A great place to find school library blogs.

Sample school wikis - It was good to see how classroom teachers use wikis with their students. I sent the AP World History wiki site to our high school AP teacher. The teacherlibrarianwiki was great! Another tag on Del.icious!

The library wikis I viewed are controlled by who can edit them--registered librarians only from the wiki library site. What great resources these wikis are! I was reluctant to use wikis and didn't know there were wikis for library resources. This exercise was very enlightening to me. I particularly am interested in the library wikis--I think I can trust them. As mentioned above, I would like to start a library staff wiki in our district in order to cut down on all of the e-mails sent back and forth with needed information. Now, I need to find out if I can get a wiki-hosting site unblocked.

Week 6: Exercise 15, Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and Future

The article that really caught my attention was Dr. Schultz' article, "To a Temporary Place in Time..." This article went beyond Web 2.0! Web 3D, Library 3D, Library 4.0 - Oh no! I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, "Lions and tigers and bears--oh my! I'm barely feeling better about Web 2.0 after these exercises I've been doing. I can't imagine "virtual collections in the 3D world, where books themselves may have avatars and online personalities." I think I will be retired by the time Library 4.0 comes into existence with "libraries as mind gyms; libraries as idea labs; libraries as art salons." This is beyond my comprehension right now.

I really liked Michael Stephen's article, "Into a New World of Librarianship," because he discussed the skills we will need to deal with the Library 2.0 world. I totally agree with him. Stephens states that Librarians 2.0 need to embrace Web 2.0 tools (which many of us are doing now by partipating in this online tutorial). We need to be on the cutting edge of technology/Web 2.0 or the public is not going to see a need for librarians (as we are seeing in some cases now). I have really struggled with using the Internet totally for research--we try to have teachers have the students use both print and non-print in their projects. However, if Internet access is where districts are going, we, as LMTs, need to make sure that we make ourselves indispensible in teaching Internet/Web 2.0 research skills. However, many of the 2.0 tools we are learning in this tutorial cannot be accessed at the school sites because they are blocked. We need to be proponents of Web 2.0 and convince administrators and the Tech Dept. of the advantages to using Web 2.0 tools. For example, I really like Del.cio.us and was going to tag a website at school but Del.cio.us was blocked. I will be talking to the head of our Tech Dept. next week. It is crucial to have access. I have the password to unblock the site, but I want to make sure he knows that I am doing so and it has educational value. I think teachers should have access and be taught how to use Del.cio.us. In fact, they need to go through this tutuorial and learn about Web 2.0 and understand what their students are doing, particularly at the middle school and high school levels.

Library 2.0, for me, means library media teachers need to meet the students at their Web 2.0 level and provide them with opportunities to perform using the tools they use everyday. We need to guide students who don't have access to computers with projects that use the Web 2.0 tools so that they aren't left behind and the digital divide can close. Last, as Michael Stephens says, we need to be "trendspotters." We need to pave the way for technological advances in our district.

Week 6: Exercise 14, Technorati and Tags

I searched "School Library Learning 2.0" under the searches suggested and came up with the following observations:
Posts - Actual posts from people regarding the 2.0 assignments and other non-related School Library Learning 2.0 posts - Search resulted in 1060 blog posts
Tags -Tags are highlighted in the posts. When I searched again putting quotations around "School Library Learning 2.0" I then received relevant postings from the 2.0 group. Tags are very important.
Blog Directory - You get the actual blog websites of people - Search resulted in 10 blogs. When I put quotation marks around the topic, the results were 5 relevant blog sites related to the 2.0 group.

Popular Searches:
Blogs - Ranked according to how many people have added the blog to their Favorites and according to how many times it has been linked to
Top Searches - Posts and blogs of all the most popular things that are in the news or the latest rage--YouTube, iPhone, Paris Hilton --Who has time for all of this?
Tags - The music, videos, movies, games, DVDs, news, and blogs that people are talking about right now. They are rated by how many links have been made in Amazon.com, YouTube, Internet Movie Database, etc.
I found it very interesting that we don't know how good these popular posts/sites/reviews are, only that people are linking to them, so that must mean they are authoritative/reputable. HA! Of course, I was interested in the Movie postings.
These popular searches are a fun way to learn about the popular culture of today and to keep up with those teenagers!

I really like tagging. I can see why students would like it also. Using Sear's or Library of Congress subject headings causes you to think about the "proper" way of cataloging items, but tagging is much freer and can use key words that most people would use to search. However, you need to be very careful in using quotation marks around specific searches as seen in "School Library Learning 2.0" or you will get some irrelevant results. I especially like tagging in Del.icio.us. What a time saver!

I was able to tag this post with a Technorati tag, created a link for others to save my blog to their Favorites. and I claimed my blog. I haven't created a watchlist yet, but I think that will be very beneficial.

SJLibrary2.0

Week 6: Exercise 13, Tagging and Del.icio.us

I really see the value in Del.icio.us. I have an account and have started "bookmarking" sites from this Web 2.0 experience. I really like the ability to view others' web sites that they have tagged on certain topics. And tagging is great! You can use key words to find websites that you have bookmarked which can be difficult to find using regular bookmarks or favorites. I haven't transferred all of my favorites to Del.icio.us yet, bet I'm working on it. The video tutorial on Del.icio.us was good, too.

Week 5: Exercise 12, Rollyo

I made a "Shopping" Rollyo with my favorite stores: Anthropologie, Liz Claiborne, Banana Republic, J. Crew, Nordstroms, Macy's, and Eddie Bauer. Then I searched for "white sweatshirt women" and it worked! I couldn't get the search box on my blog, though. That was very frustrating. I tried to follow CSLA's instructions, but it didn't work. I got a search box which didn't work, but it wasn't the red Rollyo search box which I have seen on other blog sites for CSLA 2.0. Oh, well. I can see a use for Rollyos when students are conducting research and you want to limit them as to where to search. BUT, that would require figuring out how to put the Search Box on the library website!

These activities are taking much longer than I thought. There are so many parts to each Week. I think I better just do what I can do quickly and not worry so much about doing optional activities. I don't want this to become frustrating because then I will not finish. And I do want to complete the "23 Things."

Week 5: Exercise 11, Web 2.0 Award-winning applications and Ning

I chose the category, "Travel," and explored realtravel.com I liked this site because it was "real people" blogging about their vacations. Their pictures were great, also. There is also a free trip planner if you register, which I did, but could not get the trip planner to work. I spent way too much time trying to figure it out. That was very frustrating. I was trying to plan a trip to the Tuscany area in Italy. I love that area. My husband and I want to stay there for a month and just travel to all of the little towns in the area. It's a beautiful place. So I looked at farecast.com It's a great place that tells whether you should book air flights now or wait for the fares to go down. Of course, none of the really good deals include flights from Fresno. :( But, my husband will like this website when he arranges flights for our trips. He's always looking for the best deal and tries to figure out when the best time to buy is. We fly a lot from LA or San Francisco, so this website will be useful.

I joined the Teacher-Librarian Ning. I was very impressed. There are groups within groups that you can join. For example, there is a YA Lit in School Forum Group which has some great contributions. Joyce Valenza has many sub groups. I think this will be beneficial for me--even more so than RSS feeds. You get to hear from the top LMTs in the country! I really enjoyed perusing the Teacher-Librarian ning. I also used my "Warholizer" picture that I made from FD Toys for my profile.

Week 5: Exercise 10, Online Image Generators

This was a fun exercise. The image to the right is about my son, James, who is a skater. And the heart represents how much I love him.

I used the image generator, Image Chef, at http://www.imagechef.com/ I chose the template, "Skater" under "Sports." I then changed the picture to a brown and beige tint. This was very cool.

I also experimented with FD Toys at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ I chose the template: "Warholizer" and uploaded my picture. See below. A very cool tool.

Week 4: Exercise 9, School Library Blogs/RSS Feeds

On the school library blogs that were recommended I found a post that recommended Outlets to Go, a 4-outlet portable strip, from Monster for only $20--great for traveling. Interesting what you can find on blogs.

Feedster - blog search for: California Library news. They have sponsored links which show up first. Not impressed.

Topix.net - Interesting...this website opened up to my town with all of the news, blogs, etc. about it. There's even a city forum with posts from people in my small town. I never knew this existed. I searched "public school library" but I didn't come up with any feeds.

Syndic8.com - Many feeds available on this website. This is the way to go to find feeds. I subscribed to Variety.com for new movie reviews.

Technorati - The tutorial was great! Searched for "School Library" blogs.

Google Blog Search - Searched: School Library Learning 2.0. Many blogs about this. Fun to read about us.

Blog Pulse - Searched: CSLA 2.0. Many of the participants' blogs came up. Mine included!

I had fun with this exercise, but still too much to remember. I remembered to put some of these websites on my deli.cio.us site, though, but I need to go back and tag the rest.

Week 4: Exercise 8, RSS Feeds

I subscribed to five RSS feeds--professional and personal. My favorite is the New Movies RSS feed. I am a movie fan. In fact I saw Ocean's 13 on Thursday--I was the only one in the theater at 11:30AM. I went on the spur of the moment and it was a great diversion! Vacation is great! Getting back to RSS feeds--I think Rob Darrow always has interesting technology information and I would rather go to his blog rather than sift through all the various blogs, so I subscribed to his. I also liked the Reader's Club Latest. I'm glad the 2.0 Team put that on the list. I had already set up a Bloglines account at my Infopeople Workshop last Friday, so I spent most of my time searching for RSS feeds. My only concern is keeping up with the feeds and going to Bloglines often. I can see getting bogged down with too much information. But it's better than trying to read everything that's out there. I could not figure out how to make my bloglines public, even with all of the instructions. My username is incorrect. I get the link, but the RSS feeds are not mine. Oh well.......time to move on.

Week 3: Exercise 7, Technology

On Friday, I went to an Infopeople's Workshop on Web 2.0. I had signed up to attend months before CSLA came out with their School Library Learning 2.0. It was a great overview of what we will be covering here AND it didn't overlap with what I had already done--created a blog and used Flickr. What I did learn about was del.icio.us and RSS feeds. Although I had heard about del.icio.us at the CSLA Conference last November, I didn't come back and play around with it. Now I know the advantages of it versus Bookmarks/Favorites. I really think I will use del.icio.us. RSS feeds was another Web 2.0 feature that I think I will use. I know that's Week 4's "Thing." So, I am very anxious to get started on that. Joe Barker did the Infopeople workshop and did a good job of giving background information about Web 2.0. A few of us also had lunch with him and he talked to us about nings. I feel I'm really learning the 2.0 language and have a better feel for what our students are using.

Week 3: Exercise 6, Library Trading Card

I wanted to use my avatar for this trading card and after many tries, figured out how to upload the avatar to the card. I tried uploading from Flicker, then from my computer, and now that I think about it I'm not sure how I ended up doing it. I'm sure there was a much easier way. If I had used my own picture, it would have been much easier. You can see the pixels on this picture. When prompted by Flickr Toys whether I wanted to upload to Flickr I decided not to. I don't know if that was the right thing to do or not. I saved the trading card to my computer, then uploaded it to my Blog. I did download the Flickr Uploadr, though, and that is slick! What an easy way to upload your pictures to Flickr!

Week 3: Exercise 5, Explore Flickr

This is a picture of one of the libraries in my district--Jefferson Elementary School. I was able to upload 4 pictures of different libraries in my district to Flickr. I created an account and was able to use Flickr's blogging tool AND Blogger's photo upload feature to post my photos from Flickr. However, I decided on this one to finally post. Being able to save a post in Draft form is very handy. Flickr was an interesting site. I think I would use it more for finding pictures of things I might use, but not for uploading my personal photos. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. I'm still thinking about how I would use Flickr. As much as I enjoy our vacations, I can't imagine people being thrilled about viewing my pictures--I know I don't have the time to spend viewing pictures online.

Week 2: Exercise 3, Blogging

OK...I was put to the test already with creating/manipulating my avatar (Habit #3--View problems as challenges). Thanks to the CSLA 2.0 Team for giving instructions on how to export the avatar. I viewed this lesson as a challenge and not a problem.

So far, this online experience is well worth the time. I have learned so much already!

Week 1: Exercise 1, 7 and one-half Habits

For me, Habit #2 is the easiest for me--Accept responsibility for your own learning. Whenever I know I need to learn or hone a new skill I will always sign up for workshops or online courses (such as this) to help me implement current strategies/programs. I am a lifelong learner. I probably could have stayed in college forever. There is so much out there to know and not enough time to learn it all. I am very excited about this online opportunity because although I have attended sessions on Web 2.0, I have not gone back to my office and actually used the online resources about which I learned. This online project will give me the opportunity to "use" what I learn.

Habit #3 is the hardest for me--View problems as challenges. I view problems as problems. Once the problem is solved, that's when I can look back and say it was a challenge (but only if the outcome was positive). I don't like puzzles I can't figure out and many problems are like that. So I need to work on this Habit and I am sure I will do so during this online course because I 'm sure there will be times when I will view some of the activities as problems because I won't be able to figure them out.