Thing #23!!

What an amazing experience 23 Things has been for me--from blogging to tagging to podcasting I have learned so much. Of course, I never could have completed everything without the always willing and helpful Vaughn Branom and Liz Philippi at SBISD's Library Information Services. I'm feeling that I truly belong to the 21st Century now.
1.) My favorite discovery was blogging. I love being able to communicate with other like-minded people, some of whom I may never actually meet in person but contribute to my learning experiences.
2.) This program has assisted my lifelong learning goals of continuing to learn something new on a daily basis.
3.) Flickr is an unexpected discovery I made in doing this program, and I'm anxious to use it this next school year with our teachers.
4.) I can't think of anything you all could do differently. The main thing that helped me was working on my "Things" at LIS so that I could receive immediate help "from the experts" when I was stuck, and I would highly recommend this method for those of the faint of heart, like me.
5.) I most certainly would participate in any future programs.
6.) Amazing and enlightening.

Thing #22

So where did the term ning originate? I'm always interested in acronyms and their derivations.

I do see that the blogs from other teachers and librarians could be helpful, and I like the fact that they are easily accessible. It was interesting to read about middle school scheduling, as our school is similar in that the most demanding classes are taught in the morning, and I understand the reasoning behind that for most; however, now they are saying that teenagers don't really become alive until about 11:00 in the morning, so maybe administrators need to re-think the hours that school even begins for teens. Of course, I also understand the reasons why students need to work after school and participate in extra-curricular activities.

Thing #21

Podcasting has been my most challenging and probably my most interesting Thing of the 23.

The names of the China Olympics Mascots are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini.

They represent four of China's most popular animals--the fish, the panda, the Tibetan Antelope, and the swallow. The fifth mascot is the Olympic flame.

I recorded sound; however, it doesn't seem to be working now.

Thing #20

Of course YouTube was blocked.
Teacher Tube has an excellent video on Evaluating Websites tutorial using the CARS criteria.


Student created information on China is very interesting.

Thing #19

What a great website. I'm so glad to know about it.

I scrolled through all the options and began with TRAVEL. Looking at Farecast and Kayak they look pretty much the same to me, especially compared to Expedia. I did like Farecast's feature of good travel deals; however, when I looked at them they had no flights leaving from Houston in the near future, so that wasn't helpful.

Under SOCIAL I looked at sphinn and searched for images of celebrities. The photos are pretty much taken and posted by amateurs, so it was interesting for me to see real, everyday people who were accommodated by movie stars (and celebrities who were not accommodating).

Under PHOTOS flickr was quite good, including 924 beautiful photos of Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, KY. (If you read Sue Grafton's Alphabet Murders she talks of Cave Hill, as she lives in Louisville.)

Under PHILANTHROPY I was surprised that Care2 is blocked by SBISD.

Under HEALTH Revolution Health, I looked up information on amaranth which is a healthy, protein-laden grain that my son in law is researching for his PhD in Tropical Agriculture, and they had good info.

Under FOOD I watched an informative video in imcooked of B. Smith making a healthy, Italian meal, and I got hungry and had to eat my lunch.
I was so glad to find urbanspoon houston which is special, because it gives current reviews of local restaurants, most from the Houston Chronicle, including Thyme Table Cafe which is a new favorite of mine.

I finally got to BOOKS and Biblio allows the user to search by ISBN which can be very useful when looking for a specific book. It has a clean format, but not any reviews on several of this year's Bluebonnet Books which was disappointing. I think I'll stick with Amazon for the majority of my searches.

Thing #18

I'm sure I'm biased towards Microsoft Office, because I'm familiar with it and have been using it for so long; however, I'm glad to know about free options.
As an amateur scrapbooker and a love of sharing photos of my grandsons and my travels Google Template Gallery has some great options for me.

Thing #17

I have enjoyed studying Rollyo. I was especially impressed by the video created by a fellow SBISD teacher, but it did seem to roll a bit slowly, probably my fault.
I have always been interested in Jamestown since I went as a sixth grader. They are making some exciting new discoveries as can be seen in this PBS show.

Thing #16

I have wondered how wikis work--especially Wikipedia. Thanks for making this part of the 23 Things.
I can see that I could use a wiki to make a library and school calendar for parents, students, teachers and mentors to view from our web page.

Thing #15

Reading more about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 has been very interesting. I preach to my students about plagarism (and that it is illegal not to cite works by another). I hope that I am finally getting through to them the importance of citing sources for validity and scholarly experience of the author(s). To paraphrase Michael Stephens "(The) librarian understands that the future of libraries will be guided by how users access, consume and create content."

Thing #14

Technorati showed me the incredible amount of information that is "out there" and how important it is to be able to organize it ub useable amounts. Now I see how so many young people get movie reviews as we talk on the phone or search for the best air fares in such a short amount of time. I am SO glad to have become acquainted with Technorati.

Thing #13

I'm playing around with tagging, but I'm also still trying to decide how I can best use this. Since I basically use the same computer most of the time I'm not certain that I need it as much as others who change computers all the time (like students).

Thing #11

I cataloged five titles for my home library; however, when I returned from lunch, that section has disappeared. I was very impressed that some titles that I intentionally selected due to their relative obscurity were there!! I did look at some of the groups, and I was impressed.

Thing #12

Following are two points which I find most useful:
1) Don't give all of your opinions at once. Leave some of them open-ended for future responses.
2) Asking questions will certainly elicite responses from some other bloggers.

I went to Google and entered "movie reviews" and received 295,359 hits and "celebrity gossip" and received 556,497 hits; however, many of them said "Access denied"-- by SBISD. I wasn't surprised, as I selected areas that I thought could be a bit "iffy" with Spring Branch. I like the feature that allows you to select how much time has elapsed since last entry, i.e., "last hour".

Thing #10

I played around with the image generator for about an hour, and I saw some great things. What really appealed to me is the serenity of the beach. I just have three more weeks of summer break, and I did manage to get to the beach for part of my time off.

Thing #9

RSS Feeds: I added four librarians's blogs, a neighborhood blog and CNN.
I found the easist way to add blogs was to check out what other players had selected and then decide what I wanted to add to my own. I also used the SBISD Library Resources Page to look at Fox News, CNN, and Houston Chronicle.

Thing #8

RSS feeds can be quite time saving.
Glad I'm learning.