eSchool News | Technology News

Thing Ten: Tagging and Delicious Bookmarks

I love trying to get to the bottom of these assigments because I end up searching around finding all sorts of interesting things then realize I'd better pick something, do it and move on. I've already had a Delicious account, with the proper buttons in my tool bar. I'm not sure I really saw the benefit of it and only had a few bookmarks which I initially created. I'm going to try to use it more especially so that I can see of it would held students and them instruct them on using it for their research needs. I wasn't really aware of the social aspect of it and think I have that now.

Thing Nine: Slide Share and Databases

I am going to skip over this for now and just leave this placeholder so that I can come back to it later perhaps. One to 10.

Thing Eight: IM, Texting & Twittering

Okay, I admit it I've been behind the whole IM thing. Back at the turn of the century the high school kids outside of Rochester NY would sit 2 computers down from each other and IM about what they had for lunch. Most schools don't allow chat or IM.

I've just started texting on my phone and have to admit that I do like it and find it much more convenient. I've also had a twitter account since August and haven't really used it much, don't really understand exactly how I can best implement it. But now that I am using more and more Web 2.0 tools I am beginning to see some of the possible potential for getting quick infor out to patrons.

For this assignment I am going to beef up my twitter page and try to use that a litle more. I'm putting a photo up on my profile. BTW, my twitter account for my library is gr8library.

Wow...I'm moving along on this twitter thing. I am going to try to put it on my blog page here and later see if I can text a twitter using my cell.

Thing Seven: Online Image generators.

Here is something fun to do. Create your own album cover using wikipedia, flicker, and a random quote generator. It is fun to see what you end up coming up with when you follow these instructions.

1. Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
   or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
   The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
   
2. Go to "Random quotations"
   or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
   The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
   
3. Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
   or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
   Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
   
4. Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.
   
5. Post it with these instructions

It's great fun, you can play for hours even if you don't actually make the things into covers. It's amazing how many come up looking quite genuine - maybe this is how artists come up with album names & covers.

For this second image I used ImageChef which lets you combine text with some standard images and pick color and theme. It looks like you can also upload your own photos to incorporate into the program. Anyway here is the image I generated using the Visual Poetry section of ImageChef found at: http://www.imagechef.com/ic/poem/

===

I'm having a hard time getting my images laid out properly on this blog. I'm just going to leave it and move on. If you have suggestive tips (no, not that kind ;-)) please let me hear them....well maybe....

Thing 6: Flicker Mashups

My creation
Originally uploaded by stanton2008

I looked at the possibilites of using the Big Labs Trading Card Mashup to make UP World History trading cards to replace notecards.

Waverly Place

Waverly Place
Originally uploaded by George Eastman House

Wearing Your Heart on My Sleeve

When I was eight there were cobblestones in the street
that were paved over that year.
My mother stood at the kitchen window
her hands in a sink of warm sudsy water
watching the bulky yellow trucks
lay the asphalt
and sighed,
"that's progress."

Thing 5: Flicker

I am looking at the Flickr Commons. I just read the Flickr blog post about having the Florida Memory project images available on Flickr. I don' t know enough about what the capacities of Flickr to really be able to see all the possible uses at this time. It is good to know it is here however.
What is even more interesting is the whole idea of a photo commons which contains copyright free images.

So, I'm wishing you a happy valentines day, and found this image on the Flickr commons from the George Eastman collection. Now I want to put the proper credits. Let's see where I can find them...

Okay, I just linked this blog to my Flickr account, now I can use the "blog this" tool to get photos on my blog. I'll try that...I think it might make a brand new post. I'll see and then see if I have to edit it....

Thing 4: RSS feeds and Readers...

Okay, this is the 4th time I have worked on RSS feeds and have yet to post anything. I am going to do it today and move on the the next thing. I have used pageflakes and I like the idea of the various tabs I can use to organize content by subject. For this assignment I set of the Google Reader; I like Pageflakes better. My colleague, Mary Lewis, english instructor extraordinaire, and partner in technology curriculum integration, recommends net vibes. I want to get this post done before I get sucked in and stuck on another product. For now, here is a link to my International News Pageflakes page: http://www.pageflakes.com/murreyn/164383

My problems: When I subscribe to an RSS feed I don't get the option of putting it on pageflakes.
I'm not sure I really know the difference between widgets, gadgets and RSS feeds. I get stuck and don't want to move on until I get it sorted out and have to accept I probably won's so I should just move on.

Wow. I am getting lost and bogged down again discovering new things the tools can do as well as interesting content. I'm going to post now. -Nancy

Thing 3. Technocrati and Searching Blogs

I knew there had to be a way to just search blogs and that I didn't know what it was. Now I do. I also just couldn't get the Blog List gadget to work and switched over to link list. I made a link to the White House so I could follow our first blogging President.

Trouble with Blog List

I have tried a couple of times to add the Blog List gadget and save a list of some of the blogs I like. For some reason, it just isn't wanting to take. I will get the option to add, I will list some blogs, but it won't save and show up. I was able to add the Google Hot Trends gadget at the bottom of the page, but really want this particular gadget. It slowed me down last week and kept me from proceeding with the other "THINGS" so I think this week I will just let it pass and move forward.

Since I've already had a blog created it wasn't hard to add another. I haven't consistently added to my previous blogs so I am hoping that this 23 Thing thing will help me develop a habit of posting to my blog as well as learning some of the newer features.

I am a high school librarian and I would like to explore more ways to use blogs in my work.