Thing 8: Communication -- Web 2.0 Style

Okay, here goes. You are really trying to teach an old dog some new tricks here. I have spent a good bit of time reading everything in this Thing. I can't figure out how to get Instant Messaging in my Gmail account. That is my email account through the school board. I have been on the receiving end of a chat a couple of times when people were trying to remotely fix a computer or software problem. This was helpful because the library phone is not near the computers and the school is not allowed to give me a cordless phone. I can't figure out how to initiate a chat. It is after 6:00 p.m. and no one is at NEFLIN. It is Spring Break in Alachua County so none of the other media specialists are available. I could not figure out how to access chat in my personal hotmail account either. I can ask my Digital Native daughter when she gets home later tonight.
I do not IM or Text message either. I would not do either at work as I don't sit at the computer with my email open that much. I think it would be discouraged by the administration. I have tried to imagine how it might be used. All school board faculty and administration have email accounts and I do use my email frequently to share info, ask questions, forward good ideas, etc. I can email faculty at my school as well as at every other school in the county. I can email the Media Supervisor, AV equipment repair, computer repair, tech people, Media Specialists and Media Aides. We use email for interlibrary loan, to set up meetings, field trips or programs, etc. I find this very useful and efficient although when we first started using email it was tedious and cumbersome and I avoided it whenever I could. I can't even remember the program we were using.
What I know about IM and text messaging, I have gathered from others, mainly my children. I remember a teacher from a number of years ago, whose son went away to college and she discovered they could IM each other. It was the first time I had heard about it and she was very excited about it and explained how it worked. My son and daughter use IM, although I think my daughter does more because she has her own laptop. My son is in to text messaging. We gave him unlimited texting on his phone for his high school graduation and he uses it all the time. Sometimes it is very annoying. Recently, I took him out to dinner so we could catch up. He kept looking at his phone because he was being text messaged. I thought it was rather rude. I think my son and his friends do not bother to plan ahead, they just text each other or broadcast about a party, movie, going to the mall, or going bowling. I find this frustrating because I rarely know what he is planning or doing. (He is 18 and a college freshman but he still lives at home so I like to know where he is.)He does have permission to text me late at night so I will know where he is and what he is doing. He does not need to do it often which is good because I have to pay for each text on my phone but it is a good back-up option. Maybe once or twice, I have wished I could text a family member with info. One thing that concerns me was that in one of the articles I read, text messaging was promoted as a way to communicate while in class or when you need to be discreet. As a school librarian and a parent who is paying for college tuition, I do not think texting should be allowed in the classroom. I have recently seen a couple of articles addressing this very issue.
I was finally able to bring up an OPAL program and view it. It was a useful way to learn about something right on my desktop. My mother instilled in me the value of being a life-long learner so I always enjoy learning new things. As a certified media specialist, I have to renew my teaching certificate every so many years, so I usually apply for CEU's or points towards my renewal. How would I earn them viewing OPAL programs? I guess I would have to work that out with my supervisor.

Thing 7 --Online Image Generator

This is the image I was finally able to generate and upload. I have been working on this all day off and on. I tried Big Huge Labs, Image Chef, and the Generator Blog. I tried to create a cube with Big Huge Labs but I must have been missing a step. I wanted to print and use the cube with a new curriculum we are using this year. It would be fun to create cube dice of book parts, book genres, characters, fairy tales, etc. to use in games. I tried Image chef but again I think I was missing a step. I looked at the Generator Blog but I have to be very careful what I choose to use with my students since some are visually impaired and all are mentally handicapped. I have to make sure my images are very literal and recognizable. Also some choices were inappropriate for use in a school setting or with children. I could spend a lot more time on this but I need to move on.

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

I looked at Flickr Mashups and explored a bit. The thing that is most frustrating for me is that when you put in a term (eye, heart, lighthouse, whatever) you get all kinds of photos that do not seem to be related to what I want at all. I have always used Google images or Good Search images and had no problem finding what I want. I CAN spend time looking at all the choices to find just the right thing. Anyway, I used Good Search Images to find these individual pictures, saved them to my pictures, then inserted them into a Publisher page. Once I had them arranged the way I wanted, I grouped them and saved that as a picture. I then inserted that "picture" into my blog. This took me about 10 minutes which was a lot faster than it would have taken me with Flickr Mashups. Also, I wanted to select the image I used for each letter which I was able to do. Using Spell with Flickr, did not allow me to pick the image I wanted for each letter. Working with handicapped students, I have to be very literal, so I select my images very carefully. I also have to consider my vision-impaired students.
This was fun to play with and I would like to incorporate some of these pictures into some of the SMART Board lessons I am creating. I already use this technique to create posters, flyers, forms, newsletters, etc.

Thing 5 -- Flickr

I hate to keep repeating myself and sounding negative but why Flickr? My daughter advised me not to read all the stuff about it and just jump in and try it. I ended up very frustrated and had to go back to the beginning and read. I still haven't figured out how to make this work for me. I have also confirmed the fact that I am the kind of person who learns best by being in a class or workshop with a live person demonstrating how to use these things. That is how I have always learned what I know about the new technology. I learned to use Google Images (which is now blocked by the school board for inappropriate material) and Good Search Images to find the pictures I want. Then I save them and insert them into Publisher (my program of choice) or Power Point or whatever. These searches seem much more efficient than trying to use Flickr. I have been doing this for years to create posters, flyers, calendars, newsletters, invitations, etc. and I think I have gotten pretty good at it.

I did sign up for a Flickr account but I seem to have lost it or I am unable to access it. I have added a couple of pictures to my favorites so I will see if I can upload them.

Okay, I could not figure out how to upload. So I found this picture on Flickr by doing a search for "Hershey's Kisses" (my favorite candy) Not everything that was found had to do with Hershey's kisses -- shoes, bird on a wire, toilets, etc. I also found some things that are inappropriate for a school setting so I would have to think carefully about using this at school with my students. Once I found this picture, I saved it to "My Pictures" and then inserted it by selecting the picture icon and browsing my pictures. I selected this picture because I love lighthouses and kisses. I think this is kinda cool. I collect lighthouses and I have visited several in Maine, Florida, and other places on the east coast. This is a west coast lighthouse so it is new to me. Oh, the picture is by stormygirl. When I saved the picture, the info was not saved with it which is kind of a pain because I had to go back and find the original picture and write down the name of the photographer. Well, I have to go teach a class in 2 minutes and I have been working on this for about an hour and a half. Time to move on.

Thing 4 -- RSS and Newsreaders

Will someone please tell me if this is going to get fun? I don't know. Maybe I am missing something. I have spent the entire afternoon on this Thing. And here in North Central Florida it is a beautiful Sunday afternoon -- sunny, light breeze, a great day to be outside and I am stuck inside here at the computer. GRRRRRR. My neck and shoulders hurt. The only good thing is that there is a bird feeder just outside the window I am next to and there have been lots of birds around -- cardinals, finches, a blue jay.
Anyway, I read the info on RSS feeds and watched the video. These videos are really helpful. I used Google Reader to set up an account. But then I could not find anything to subscribe to. None of my keywords came up with any sites or blogs that I was interested in. Next I searched through my bookmarks to find RSS feeds on my favorite sites. Of the 45 bookmarks, only one had an RSS icon. And I could not get that one to work! So I went back to the NEFLIN 23 Things blog and used some of the feeds they had identified. I did find a few interesting sites to check out. But it all comes down to time again. When will I have time to sit and read these articles???? I rarely read the newspaper, except on Sunday and not always then. I do listen to the local news on tv in the morning while I am getting dressed and eating breakfast. If I am home at 6 or 6:30, I usually watch the news while I am cooking, eating, or cleaning up dinner. I listen to the radio in the car while I am driving to and from work. I have stacks of magazines at home and at work that I am saving to read sometime but I don't know when. (And my family and my boss really want me to clear this stuff out.) But I don't know when I would ever access this Google Reader to read more stuff. I can't do that at work because I have too much to do. Also, most of my favorite websites have a place for me to enter my email address and they send me new info as it comes out. I get it when I am already checking my email.
So, I don't know how I would use this in either my personal or professional life. I did find one useful item and that was a site or blog on Library Grants. I would use that to apply for grants for the school library.
I really feel like I just don't get it or I am missing something.

Thing 3 -- Blog Search Engines

Well, my first reaction is . . . blogging -- why? who cares? Why would I want to spend my valuable time reading the ramblings of strangers? But, I gave it a try. I looked at Technorati. I did enjoy looking at the White House blog and I will use some of this in my teaching. With Technorati, I found there was lots of repetition from one tab to another. I can get a lot of this information from TV or radio or the newspaper. I would much rather listen to the radio while I am driving, or have the local TV news on while I am getting dressed, making my bed, packing my lunch, and eating breakfast in the morning. On the week-ends, I enjoy sitting down with a cup of tea and the newspaper. It is much easier, time efficient, and more enjoyable that having to turn on the computer, wait for it all to come on, and search for this kind of info. I don't quite understand Technorati Authority. Isn't it just another popularity contest? Just because a blog is popular does not mean it is authoritative. I felt maybe I was missing something. So, I decided to compare 3 different blog searching tools: Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Ice Rocket. Since I am a cross-stitcher, I decided I would look for cross-stitch blogs. In Technorati, I found 4,000 + blogs but I got some blogs for "Lilo and Stitch" (not exactly what I was looking for). I did get hung up here trying to print free patterns. Again, where is there enough time to do this? I tried Google Blog Search and got 300,000+ blogs. How do you sort these out? I would like to note that when I first set up this blog for the 23 Things, I just went to Google and searched "cross stitch blogs" and I think that search was just as satisfactory. I also tried Ice Rocket and got 13,000+ blogs. I liked that I could read a short entry before I selected a blog. This helped me weed out blogs I was not interested in.
One pet peeve that I have about blogs is the lack of correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Why don't people review and correct their blog posts before publishing them? It is not that difficult but if it is not done it makes one look ignorant or at least careless. If you don't care enough to spell and write properly, why should I care enough to read your blog?
And I still maintain that I would rather spend my time cross-stitching than sitting at a computer blogging and reading about everyone else's cross-stitching. It has occurred to me that I might find new patterns or ideas of things I would like to stitch or gadgets that I would like to have but between the local cross-stitch shop and the online "Needlework Show", I have enough ways to spend my money!!

Thing 2-Last comment

I am finally back to 23 Things even though I am still on Thing 2. I have read all the articles and I have a few comments that I want to make and then I will move on. First of all, I really don't like reading the computer screen, so I printed the suggested reading articles, put them in a notebook (Katy thinks this is really silly) and carried them with me to read when I had a chance. I read a couple of them while waiting at the doctor's office. So, here are my reactions.
"Away from the 'Icebergs'" by Rick Anderson
This gentleman is employed at an academic library and I believe that he is out of touch with public schools. Does he assume that everyone has a computer with internet access? I work with students who are developmentally delayed but just a couple of years ago I was working with students from very low income families. These were families who were struggling to stay in a home and even put food on the table. Sometimes the only meals these students got were the meals served at school. They don't have computers, let alone internet access. Mr. Anderson comments that the print library system "worked moderately well for those privileged with access to a good library." People have to be privileged to be able to have a computer and internet access. Any public library is more accessible to low income families struggling to avoid homelessness than a computer and internet access.
"Into a New World of Librarianship" by Michael Stephens
Does Librarian 2.0 have any kind of personal life outside the library????
"To a Temporary Place in Time" by Dr. Wendy Schultz
She is right "Digital natives take 2.0 for granted". My children do not know of life without computers, internet access, cell phones, facebook, my space, instant messaging, etc. They expect that it will all be there for them to use any time of the day or night and it is. Being a digital immigrant and having experienced life without all of this, I sometimes question the need for all this access. I grew up, received an excellent education, work in a professional career of my choice and got along fine without all these "things". Okay, I admit this computer is much easier to type on and edit than the old manual typewriter that I used 27 years ago as I worked my way through graduate school!
"To More Powerful Ways to Cooperate" by Chip Nilges
Sorry, I don't even understand what he is writing about. I would have to do a lot more research and reading to grasp these concepts.
"Library 2.0" from Wikipedia
I really do like this definition of Library 2.0. It is one I can understand. But haven't libraries in any form always attempted "to harness the library user in the design and implementation of library services by encouraging feedback and participation." Isn't this what surveys, suggestion boxes, circulation reports, stats about number of patrons at certain times and days, boards, Friends of the Library are all about? We have always asked for input and feedback from our patrons. Michael Casey is quoted as describing the "need for libraries to adopt a strategy for constant change". School libraries (where I work) have always done this with collection development plans, equipment plans, policies for accepting donations and for censorship. As technology has progressed so have school libraries and haven't all libraries? I have replaced reel-to-reel tape recorders and record players with cassette players that have been replaced with CD players. I have replaced filmstrip projectors and 16mm movie projectors with video tape players that have been replaced with DVD players. I have just replaced the TV in the library with a SMART Board that shows DVDs through the computer. It should be noted that the one thing that does prevent the library from moving forward is budget constraints. I would love to add a document camera, a digital camera, a flip video to the library. Really, I would like to add a digital camera, a flip video, and a SMART Board for every teacher in my school. There is no money to purchase these items or provide the teachers with the training needed to properly use these items to the fullest extent. I'm not sure I'm even going to have money to buy this year's award winning books. And the next few years don't look much more promising with regards to budget. As a matter of fact, I will be happy just to keep my full-time job!!