Thing #23: Final Thoughts

I finished! I was in the first round for the 23 Things, but did not complete them. I am glad that I had a second chance to finish what I had started. I am hoping that there will be a 23 More Things on a Stick.

I can see how some of the Things can be applied to schools, unfortunately many of the Web 2.0 tools are filtered at my school. I do plan on using the Web 2.0 tools that I can such as podcasting. I recently downloaded Audacity and have been experimenting with it.

I loved exploring YouTube, playing with the Flickr mash-ups, and listening to podcasts.

I never realized all of the things that you could do with the ELM databases. I will certainly compose pages in the future and continue to place search alerts in my RSS feeds.

Thank you to everyone who put this together!

Thing #22: What Did I Learn Today?

I have almost completed my 23 Things on a Stick. Even though I will soon complete my 23 Things, I do plan on keeping up on what is happening with Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. One way that I have found useful is by reading my feeds in my Google Reader. I have quite a few blogs and sites that I monitor. I am always adding new blogs that will help keep me current.

Another way that I have found to keep up on Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 is with my del.icio.us account. As I find sites in my feeds, I save and tag them for future reference. I have things tagged about podcasting, blogging, social networking, and YouTube.

Thing #21: Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

Before I did the 23 Things, I was not a member of any online communities. I now belong to the 23 Things Ning, and I am now considering joining others. I am a media specialist, so the Teacher Librarian Ning and Classroom 2.0 Ning look interesting. I saw Shelfari on the Denver Public Library Teen MySpace page. The virtual shelf is a fun concept.

Thing #20 : Libraries and Social Networks

For Thing #20, I looked at some MySpace pages for teens at public libraries. Being that many teens have a MySpace account, I would think that this would be a great way to connect with teens at your library. I liked how there was a search box for the OPAC on some of the pages. I also liked how some tied in music, too.

Thing #19: Podcasts

I have iTunes on my laptop. I browsed for booktalks. I listened to some created by students. I thought that this might be a fun way to involve students and to promote books.

Nancy Keane's site Booktalks Quick and Simple also has booktalks that you can listen to and subscribe to in your feeds.

Thing #18: YouTube & Other Online Videos

I chose this video called No Cookies in the Library, because it is classic Sesame Street.

Here is a link from one of my feeds to 100 Awesome YouTube Vids for Librarians. I spent some time looking at some of these videos.

Another site that has useful videos for teachers is TeacherTube.

Thing #17 : ELM Productivity Tools

For Thing #17, I created a search alert via RSS in EBSCO for 21st Century Skills. I didn't have any problems copying the feed URL into Google Reader. I didn't have to remove "proxy.elm4you.org" as it wasn't in the address. I hope this means that this problem has been fixed. The feed seems to be working fine in Google Reader. I hope that continues.

I also created web pages in EBSCO and ProQuest.

These are great tools. Setting up a search alert in EBSCO and having a feed in Google Reader will help me keep current on the latest information on subjects that I find interesting or relevant. I am going to have to add more search alerts for other topics that are related to my job as a media specialist.

Creating a web page in EBSCO and ProQuest is great for sharing information on topics that your colleagues would be interested in. It also would be a more efficient way of placing all the links to articles and other information on one page rather than just sending individual articles. I like how ProQuest shows your recent searches, so you can review your search and go back to all of the search results.