Week 9, Thing 23: Copyright, Creative Commons, and Finale

Copyright is a very touchy topic. I did not enjoy the Disney type video because most of my students will dedicate more time looking at the characters than listening to the language spoken. I do teach copyright to my students and try to encourage teachers to follow the laws. We do what we can. I will definetly bookmark the creative commons website to share with my teachers and students. This is a good place to find material that can be modified and re-used. Great! No worries! Well, it is time to say goodbye to this blog space. I had tons of fun learning about so many resources that can make our life simpler. I am already planning on doing a mini-training to my staff to share what I have learned. Thanks again for such a wonderful experience. I will keep tabs to see if a similar workshop will become available for next year.

Week 9: Thing 22: E-Books

I just had a presentation from a vendor about E-books today. I am planning on buying some this year because I feel that we have to move to technologies that our students are using. I was excited about paying the same price for an e-book as the book on print. Now, I am extatic knowing that I can recommend websites where we can download and read free e-books. The World Library Fair website is also a good place to recommend. 8.95 per month is not bad form millions of e-books available. I plan on buying mp3 players so my students can download the free e-books to and listen to them at home. This works well when our students don't have internet at home. I can't wait to see their faces when they hear of what I am planning. They are going to think that I am the coolest librarian. I will surely need to come up with a checkout plan for the mp3 players and train my students on how to dowload the e-books and/or audiobooks.

Week 9, Thing 21: Podcasts

I began my journey by going to the suggested directory websites. I went to podcast alley.com. While I was there, I searched for podcasts about books, reading, and/or education. The podcasts listed had a variety of names which I thought was hard to determine which podcast I needed. I was hoping I would get exactly what I needed. Then I selected one called Children's Book Radio but was asked to add an aggregator to listen to the podcasts. I chose Juice. I downloaded it and after that, caos. Well, not exactly, it's just that I was not able to make the podcasts work. Another thing that I didn't like is that I need to select the podcast series as a feed. I don't need to add more files to my computer, especially if I don't know how good they are. I prefer podcasts that do not require any additional applications to run the podcast. I did find Yahoo directories useful and especially liked the link on the educational podcasts. Those opened without a problem. I guess that next time I need a podcast, I will search for it and not subscribe to the feed.

Week 9, Thing 20: You Tube

I have used YouTube in the past but don't use it much since it is blocked from school. At school, I use teachertube. I can't recall the website, but you are able to save the video from Youtube and convert it into an mp4 file. This allows me to add to different types of presentations without having to go to the website. Students really enjoy videos because the website has such a wide variety that interests them. The main problem that I see is that some people are misusing this website and it scares us to think that our children can view things that are not appropriate. We have to be aware of what they are doing and advice them to be safe on the internet.

While I was searching YouTube, I found a video worth mentioning. I would like to share this video with my staff one of these days. Enjoy! and be Inspired like I was.

Week 8, Thing 19: LibraryThing

Wow! I had no idea this service was available. I didn't want to stop adding books. It helps you get organized at home by adding all of your books. This was awesome. I plan to add a library for my daughter's books as well. I am going to investigate to see if I can add a sublibrary within my account to add her books. That would be even better. This service helps me check online from the bookstore to see if I've already bought a certain book. I find myself buying second copies after many years of the original purchase. I will no longer wonder whether I have the particular book or not. The link to my library is as follows: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mmtz143

Week 8, Thing 18: Online Productivity Tools

Zoho Writer Test Page

 

I love this tool! I will share with my staff. What I love about it is that I can work with my last 25 documents offline and then changes will be synced once you connect to the internet. I also like that we can save the document however one needs depending on how we are using the document.  I will continue practicing cause I need to learn how other people work collaboratively with one document. I am going to try the slideshow feature as soon as I finish typing this.

Week 7, Thing 17: Region One Sandbox

I loved "playing" in the Region One Sandbox. It is so cool that we can actually practice with wikis before we can create our own wiki. One thing that wasn't very clear was where we create the sandbox from. Are sandboxes only for wiki practices? Well, I guess I need to go back and read a little more about sandboxes. As for the California Curriculum Connection Wiki, it was awesome. It had great ideas. I even bookmarked it with my Del.ici.ous tool. I can see how I can creat a wiki page and have teachers post ideas on how to teach skills from our timelines. I just need to sell all this information to my prinicpal so she can encourage the teachers even more.

Week 7, Thing 16: PBWIKIS

I had originally heard of pbwikis last summer during a science workshop I had. The presenter added information about the workshop and included needed resources. Before this, I thought a wiki referred to "Wikipedia", the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to modify the information. As a librarian, a wikipedia is not a reliable source. I tried explaning this to my teachers and students, but I continued seeing an increase in usage. I found that wikipedia's had topics of interest and all that I encountered seemed pretty trustworthy. Now, I understand that most of the time, these wiki pages are constructed by people that are willing to help other people find information and/or learn what they have found/learned in an easier and faster manner. I loved it that there are so many different ways that educators can use wiki pages. It is an awesome way to organize information for the viewer. I will definetly encourage my teachers to create wiki's for classroom use.

Week 6, Thing 15: Library 2.0

Wow! How could I ever manage to serve my 600 students with such high standards as the Library 2.0 describes. Don't get me wrong, I would love being able to do so much more for my patrons but I find that I don't have the time, energy, and/or resources. I do believe that we need to learn what our students know so that we can target them successfully. I learn through these types of workshops then share with my students and teachers. But there's so much to do, so many possibliities, that I often feel that I run like a chicken without a head. My teachers tell me that I am a wonderful librarian, but I know that I can offer so much more. Resources are also scarce. I try purchasing as much technologies as possible. I have found that by the time I finish with one grade level, another is already in need for replacements. We seem to have more problems with new equipment breaking down than our older equipment. There is an overall feeling of frustration as well when I am the only person pushing the library. It is hard not having full support from the school administrators. These articles have definetly inspired me to try to find ways to facilitate learning even if I have to do it all by myself.a

Week 6, Thing 14: Technorati

I visited the Technorati website for a second time now since I started the 23 things workshop. My feelings for the website continue being the same: I don't like it. The explanation of it's services is wonderful. You really think you are going to save lots of time by searching for blogs in on place by topics. Well my searches only brought back some good websites. I found it that alot of times I was getting hits to websites that were not even related. Tags may not work as well as we'd hoped. People tag things differently and because of this, we get unnecessary results on our searches. I guess one can use Technorati as a tool but not soley depend on it to find the blogs of interest. We might be lucky and get more results on some searches than in others.

Week 6, Thing 13: Del.icio.us

I had already heard of the Del.icio.us website in other workshops but had never tried it out for myself. I did view the Santa Cruz Public Library Tutorial video to review what I had already heard. After watching it, I went to the SJLibraryLearning2 link. There I tried the tags that other people had created that would help with this class. I also tried the tags that had been bookmarked the most. I went on to create my very own Del.icio.us account and installed the necessary tools (icons)for my toolbar. Then I began trying it out and realized something was not working right. When you find a good website to bookmark, you're supposed to click on the down arrow on the del.icio.us icon on the toolbar and select save a new bookmark. When I click on it, I am asked to sign-in. After I sign-in, I have to select a link to save a new bookmark. Well, I had to type the url myself. I know their is some glitch I have to fix because I know that the url should appear automatically. I can't wait to use the offered features to add and organize all my favorite websites. Creating an account for the library would benefit our students greatly. I would encourage teachers to help save bookmarks on topics covered in class.

Week 5, Thing 12: Rollyo

I created a rollyo for student safe sites. This is the link to my rollyo: http://rollyo.com/mmtz143/student_safe_sites/. On my rollyo, select student safe sites and commense your search. I had a ton of fun creating it and will surely have use for it with other topics.

Select...Student Safe SitesSearch The Web