Thing #20: YouTube, TeacherTube and Zamzar

As I was doing research for the final, I stumbled across this video on YouTube called "What does a librarian do?" If this is what students really think a librarian does, we need to do a better job educating!

Now that I know how, embedding this video is super simple. Teacher Tube has a wide array of videos that are very helpful in the classroom. However, keep track of the URL on Delicious of your favorite ones. It can be very difficult finding that just right one at a later date. I know that one from experience!

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Thing #19: Web 2.0 Awards List

As I looked through the Web 2.0 awards, I noticed Picnik that worked with photos. Most educators are always on the lookout for new and different ways to display what is going on in the classroom and library. Picnik is a great site to quickly create collages which showcase many pictures at once. It was very user friendly. I can easily see using this site to share Open House night or First Day of School photos. I made a quick one to share pictures of my son and e-mailed them to my family. This site is a keeper!

Thing #18: Online Productivity Tools

To say it as some of the teenagers I know do, Google Docs rocks! It is perfect for group projects. For our final, three of us are putting together a PowerPoint. Without Google Docs, we would make changes and email the PowerPoint back and forth to each other. We would have to rename the latest one to avoid confusion which really adds to the confusion. With Goggle Docs, the PowerPoint is in one place. Each of us has access and we can adjust one! How awesome is that! No more multiple copies and mass confusion. We can even add our changes as comments which will put them in different colors from the text. That will highlight changes instead of guessing what was there before. I wish I had known about this at the beginning of the semester.

Thing #17: Rollyo

Rollyo is a very interesting tool that I wished had known about sooner. In just a few minutes, I created a search engine that would allow students to research information about Texas on good websites. In the past, coming up with good information for students on Texas history has been difficult. My experience has been that the online subscription resources do not include specific state information. The video made it especially easy. Here is my Rollyo http://rollyo.com/bennett_p/texas_info_for_students/ which might be especially helpful if you teach 4th grade Texas history. What a great thing to know and use!

Thing #16: Wikis

I could really see using wikis in collaborative lesson planning. We could add and delete without physically tracking everyone down. Best of all, we could include a reflection on the lesson and keeping what worked and changing what didn't. This would be a great way to build from year to year. Also, as we found things throughout the year, we could put it in and not worry about keeping up with post-it notes. I can't wait to use a wiki this year.

Also, the Commoncraft videos are fantastic in their explanations.

Thing #15: Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries

From Tom Storey's article on Web 2.0 on Next SpaceWeb, he describes the 2.0 principles as "simplicity, rich interactivity, user participation, collective intelligence, self-service, novel and remixed content—Flickr, MySpace, FaceBook, del.icio.us, YouTube, LibraryThing—to name a few." After watching the UTube video, I could not have said it better. Web 2.0 will be people driven which I find very interesting after years of being guided by the media and marketers. I find this a nice change to finally have other voices to hear.

Although it was at the college level, I really like what Rick Anderson had to say in Away from the "iceberg." He challenges librarians to let go of some of the age old principals in order to eliminate the "barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need." As a teacher, I believe that students are best served when they can think for themselves and I am not the only "director" of the show. I believe the same is true in a library. The word "collection" no longer just means physical holdings within the walls of a library. It now includes the vast amount of information that can be accessed through the internet.

Finally, I would really like to visit Dr. Wendy Schultz's 4.0 Library. This type of library might be coming faster than we can even imagine.

Anderson, R. (2006). Away from the "icebergs." The OCLC Newsletter, 2. Retrieved from

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm

Storey, T. (2006). Web 2.0: Where will the next generation web take libraries? The OCLC

Newsletter, 2. Retrieved from http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/1.htm

Thing #14: Technorati and How Tags Work

I took a look at Technorati and even joined. I was able to search blogs and posts but not tags. It was interesting browsing through the top 100 tags. Clicking on one of the top 100 provided a lot of different kinds of information on that particular tag. If there is a way to search for tags, this site does not make it user friendly. I came up with zero posts and blogs for School Library Learning 2.0. I changed my search to "4th of July" and came up with 23 blogs and 97 posts. On Delicious, Flickr, and LibraryThing, tags are very easy to use. What I like most about tags is they are a "people powered search" per the Chicago Tribune. I sincerely hope it stays that way.