Thing #47: Evaluation

I finished!! It is a good thing that the deadline was extended to June 20th. I don't think that I would have finished if it hadn't been extended.

One thing that I learned during this round of 23 Things is that my phone can do a lot more than I thought it could. I discovered the Animoto, Joost, and Last.fm apps. They are now on my phone, and I plan on continuing to use them.

Thing #36 Comic Relief was one of my favorite things to do. I enjoyed creating a comic using ToonDoo and using Wordle.

It was fun to revisit BigHugeLabs.

Thing #39 Digital Storytelling was also one of my favorite things. I enjoyed using Scrapblog to create a page of pictures from my trip to Japan.

Screencasting was fun. I plan on doing more of these in the future.

I didn't get into Twitter, because it is blocked at work. I might check it out later at home. I know that there are a lot mobile apps available for this, too.

Thanks to everyone who helped put together another great round of 23 Things on a Stick!

Thing #46: WebJunction Minnesota

I just joined WebJuncion Minnesota. I invited someone that I knew to be my friend. I will look for more friends later.

WebJunction Minnesota is a good way to connect to other Minnesota library staff. I also like how we can take self-paced courses. I think that I might try one or two this summer.

Thing #45: Cloud Computing

I use Google Docs. I like being able to access my documents from any computer with Internet access.

This past year, I presented with some of my colleagues at an inservice and at a conference. We all work in different building and meeting was sometimes difficult. We used Google Docs to prepare our slide presentation and our handouts. We could all see the most recent edits and edit as needed. It was a lot easier than emailing documents back and forth.

With Google Docs, you can also upload your Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoints. I did this for some of the items that I have on my work computer. It made working at home so much easier. I also didn't have to worry about forgetting my flash drive and not having access to my documents.

You can also control who has access to your documents. Some of my documents are only accessible to me. Some are shared with others so that we can edit and work on them together.

Thing #44: The Economy

I explored a few sites for Thing #44. I checked out Feed the Pig. Benjamin the Talking Pig is kind of odd, but the site has good information. I took the Beat the Brain quiz.

I compared cars and their gas mileage on FuelEconomy.gov.

I found some useful information on Wisebread. I am going to add Wisebread to my feeds. I liked how FrugalDad in his 75 Money Saving Tips for Surviving a Recession mentioned rediscovering your local library.

Another site that should have been mentioned is the Twin Cities Free Market, where one can get or give free stuff.

Thing #43: Online TV & Video

I just discovered that Joost has an iPhone app. I now can watch movies, etc. on my phone. The viewing area is kind of small, but watchable. I am watching a Charlie Chaplin movie. It is streaming quite well.

I heard about Hulu on a blog just before it became live. I occasionally watch things on there, but not often. I found the following NBC Nightly News clip about More People Using Libraries as a Way to Save Money.



I have seen blog posts lately about Hulu possibly charging for content. John Miller, a Hulu board member, has been talking about charging subscription fees in the future.

Thing #42: Music 2.0

I already have Pandora on my iPhone. Pandora seems to play a lot of music by the artist that you typed in. To create your radio station in Pandora, you can use an artist, song, composer, or genre.

I just downloaded the iPhone app for Last.fm. For the small amount that I have listened to Last.fm, it seems to play a wider variety of music related to the artist. There are also more songs that I don't know. To create your radio station in Last.fm, you can use an artist, tag, or user.

I will probably listen to Pandora when I want to hear more music by a particular artist and to Last.fm when I want to discover new artists and songs.

It is nice being able to create your own radio stations with no ads.

I don't think that Internet radio will replace broadcast radio anytime soon. More product development still needs to take place. Car radios still use broadcast or satellite for radio stations. The price of mobile hand-held devices that can access Internet radio stations are becoming somewhat more affordable. Internet radio is free for now, but I wonder if artists/record companies will want to start collecting royalties in the future.

Thing #41: Mashup Your Life

Well, I signed up for Lifestream.fm. I am not sure at this point if it will make my life easier, since I only have accounts for two of the tools listed. I guess I will evaluate it for a couple of weeks.

Thing #40: Mashup the Web

For Thing #40, I checked out a few of the mashups. Below is a Time Tube that I created for Barack Obama. Time Tube builds a timeline of videos based on your keyword.

YouTube: Barack Obama on Dipity.

I also tried the Wheel of Food. This is a fun mashup for when you want to find a new restaurant or can't decide where to eat.

I also checked out Interestingness, which is a daily dose of interesting photographic inspiration from Flickr. There are some gorgeous and interesting photos here.

I created the following using Captioner on BigHugeLabs. This is my crabby cat Mario.

Thing #39: Digital Storytelling

For this thing, I chose Scrapblog. I liked how it didn't require a download. It was easy to upload my photos. It was fun.

I created a one Scrapblog page using photos from my trip to Tokyo, Japan. I can see using it to create other pages of vacations, events, family members, etc. Here is my first Scrapblog:

Thing #38: Screencasting

My first attempt at screencasting did not go that well. I first tried Screen-Cast-O-Matic. When I went to export it, it would not export. After I clicked on the export button, it went to another screen and my screencast was gone. I tried to recover it, but I was unsuccessful. Something on our network would not let me export.

I then tried ScreenToaster. There was a lot of lag after I clicked on something on the Internet. This lag showed up in my screencast. Waiting for the next page to load was painful to watch.

I finally downloaded Jing I had a very positive experience using Jing. I plugged in the Blue Snowball microphone and begin screencasting right away. It only took me a couple of tries to have a screencast that I was happy with. I am sure my prior practice helped me.

One thing that I learned about screencasting is that it is helpful to have a script or a brief outline of what you would like to cover and/or say. It is also takes a few times to have a screencast that you are happy with. Screencasting is a lot of fun. I plan on creating more.

My screencast is about Educator's Reference Complete, a magazine and newspaper database for educators.

Thing #37: Photo Tales

I went to the Animoto site and noticed that they had an app for the iPhone. I downloaded the app and created the following video from the photos on my phone. It was fun, quick, and easy.



Educators can apply for a free Animoto account and have the ability to create full length videos here

Animoto is a lot of fun. I certainly will be creating more in the future. I can see myself creating book talks, etc. I just attended a Technology Integration Institute where a teacher had her math students create videos on different mathematical concepts and vocabulary. She showed an Animoto video that students had created showing different right angles around their school.

Thing #36: Comic Relief Generate Some Fun

I liked this comic because it promotes the summer reading program at the public library, which I hope my students are participating in.

I created the following comic because I actually had this situation happen in my media center this year. The student's dog had eaten half of the cover of the dog book.

I created a Wordle using My Delicious tags:



I used the the Web 2.0 Name Generator, and it generated the following name: shufflecat. Fun!

Here are the results from Convert Your Name to a Dewey Decimal Number:

Heather's Dewey Decimal Section:

944 France & Monaco

Heather = 8510858 = 851+085+8 = 944


Class:
900 History & Geography


Contains:
Travel, biographies, ancient history, and histories of continents.



What it says about you:
You're connected to your past and value the things that have happened to you. You've had some conflicted times in your life, but they've brought you to where you are today and you don't ignore it.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Thing #36 was a lot of fun!

Thing #35: Books 2.0

I believe that Book 2.0 tools enhance one's reading experience. I recently added the Classics app to my iPhone. I can read some of the classics right on my phone where ever I am whenever I feel like it.

I checked out a variety of Book 2.0 tools, but I seemed to be most focused on the books on the phone section. I checked out KidderLit. KidderLit tweets the first line of kid's books and links to the book in Amazon. I liked it and decided to add the widget to my blog.

I also checked out txt2ph, which has free ebooks for your cell phone. I tried the demo, and it worked quite well. I am deciding whether or not I actually want to get an account.

In my media center, I see students still reading books. I haven't seen any students using Book 2.0 tools.

Thing #34: This is Our Competition--Online Answer Sites

I believe that the appeal of an online answer site is that you can post a question anonymously and gather opinions/answers from others. You can also ask your question from any computer or phone with Internet access.

Some of the questions that I saw would not be appropriate questions to ask in a library. These questions were seeking opinions rather than facts. For example, I saw someone asking which baby name people liked better. There seemed to be quite a few questions like this.

One question I saw could easily be answered by visiting an airline site or asking a librarian. The person was wondering what kind of ID was needed to board an airplane.

I saw a question posted by a student looking for information on historical people for his exam. This is a question that libraries could certainly answer. It makes me wonder why the student didn't visit his/her library and is instead relying on others who may or may not provide accurate information.

Thing #33: Travel 2.0

I find review sites useful in choosing hotels and things to do and see. I wish that I would have known and used a travel journal site for my trip to Tokyo, Japan last summer. This would have been a great way to document my trip and share it with others. I enjoyed exploring the Travel Mashups.

I can't currently foresee our students using Travel 2.0 tools at our school.

Thing #32: Google Maps and Mashups

I just created a simple map of places that I would like to visit on an upcoming trip to Red Wing, MN. Here is the link to my map.

I think that this would be a good project to do with students. You could have them create maps to go along with stories, for social studies, etc.

Thing #31: More Twitter

I haven't been able to access Twitter at work. It is blocked by our filter. Please see Thing #27 for information on Edmodo, a microblogging platform for educators. I haven't explored Edmodo, because I work in a K-5 building.

Thing #30: More Ways to Use RSS and Delicious

I currently use Google Reader. I definitely oversubscribe, but I have everything grouped into folders based on the topic/category. I find that this makes it easier for me to manage my feeds. I can choose to just read the feeds for the topic or category that I am currently interested in. I can look at my feeds on my iPhone. I can also look at my feeds on my iGoogle page.

I love Delicious. I recently added a linkroll to my blog. I blogged about this in Thing #24 not knowing it was going to be part of Thing #30. One of the other media specialists in my district and I have been recommending sites to each other using Delicious. I like doing this rather than just using email. It makes it a lot easier to add her recommended sites to my Delicious account.

I tried to use Insuggest, which uses your username to recommend bookmarks. It could not find my Delicious username. ?? I will probably try it again another day.

Thing #29: Google Tools

I explored Google News. I personalized my page, which was easy to do. I added the recommended news for you section, but none of the articles that they recommended were of interest to me. I decided to delete that section for now.

I also explored the Google News archive and timeline feature. It was very interesting. I am sure that I will use this more in the future.

I personalized Google Calendar. For now, I shared it with my family. I had already embedded Google Calendar on my iGoogle page, but I hadn't personalized it.

I have the Google app on my iPhone, so I am looking forward to using and managing these Google Tools on my cell phone.

Thing #28: Customized Home Page

I have had a MyYahoo page for a number of years, so I decided to set up a customized page for iGoogle. I choose iGoogle, because I already have a Google account and thought that this would help me manage my Google products better. It was very easy to set up my iGoogle page. I have the following things on my page: Children's Book of the Day, Best Selling Children's Books from Amazon, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Hennepin County Library Catalog, etc.

Thing #27: Twitter

Twitter is blocked by our filter, so I can't really complete this thing.

Schools might want to try Edmodo, which also offers microblogging. Edmodo provides a way for teachers and students to share notes, links, and files. Teachers have the ability to send alerts, events, and assignments to students.

I had the following in My Delicious: Twitter for Librarians: The Ultimate Guide. There is an explanation of Twitter, ways that librarians can use Twitter, guides, etc.

Thing #26: Join the Ning

I joined the 23 Things on a Stick Ning the first round. I haven't joined any of the groups on the 23 Things on a Stick Ning. I have joined a few other Nings though. I am a member of Classroom 2.0, which is a Ning for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education, and MEMO, which is an organization serving Minnesota school media and information technology professionals. I recently joined the Camp Read-A-Lot ning, which is a summer reading program for teachers and media specialists, sponsored by MELSA and Metronet.

Thing #25: Bloggers' Toolkit

For Thing #25, I decided to add Snap Shots to my blog. I tend to include links in my posts and also have my recent Delicious bookmarks on my blog. Snap Shots allows you to empower your readers with enhanced hyperlinks that display previews, text summaries, videos, etc. Readers just need to roll their cursor over the link to see how it works.

It was easy to add Snap Shots to Blogger. I just signed up for an account, customized the Snap Shot, and added it to my blog.

Thing #24: Refresh Your Blog

I logged into my blog and noticed that My Delicious gadget or widget was showing someone else's Delicious account. All the sites were related to Java. I removed the widget and looked for another one on Blogger that fits my needs, but I couldn't find another one.

After Googling Delicious widgets and not seeing anything I liked, I went to the Delicious site and discovered an option to create HTML code to embed in your blog. My Delicious linkroll is back. Here is a link to add your own linkroll to your blog or site: http://delicious.com/help/linkrolls