Week 7: Thing 16

I agree with someone else who did not like the layout of the wikis that are like wikipedia. I also prefer the more personalized pages.

I am a little lost, wandering through the wiki mazes. I remembered that Joyce Valenza had said she was going to change all of her pathfinders to wikis after she discovered them, but when I checked them on the Springfield Township High School Library site, they didn't seem to be in a wiki format. I did not see any place where an entry could be added, edited, or deleted.

I have done some prior research on wikis and do like the idea of using them for a class project. From the blogs that I have read by other students in this course, I have been encouraged to learn that although I am in the information gathering phase right now, it is possible that I will be able to use these applications at some point in my school - as long as our technology will support them (as someone else mentioned).

One thing that I am a little confused about is the idea that wikis are easier to use than web pages. Our school has a static web page. Our district does nothing to update the school web pages, and most schools don't either. I am wondering if it is possible to have a school wiki with out a school web site.

Week 6: Thing 15

I have just read some of these articles, and agree wholeheartedly with what they have to say. At the same time I think "how does this fit in with the library that I am in now?" I work in an inner-city elementary school library. Most of these children do not have access to books, except through our library. Many of them do not hear stories read to them, except when at school. When I am feeling discouraged about how far behind we are, in our use of technology, I remind myself about how important it is for these students to become more literate through the process of being more engaged with literature. All of this technology is great, but most of my students do not own computers at home, and have far more basic needs.

Week 6: 13 and 14

Ok, I admit that I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I am still working with my new del.icio.us account, and gettting used to the tags. Perhaps I need to do a better job. I investigated technorati, but as some others mentioned, I am not sure that I am ready for this right now. I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water. I have been skiing for the past four days, and LOVE being outdoors. I am starting to wonder if I am in the right field. Luckily, I will be back at work in another day, and remember why I wanted to be a librarian.

Week 5:Thing 13

I had already had a frustrating experience with Rollyo when I was taking this course last year, on my own. This time I did a quick search on the Sonoran desert, as I had just made a hotlist on Filimentality for a teacher doing a research project. This actually seems very similar to using Filimentality. I found several more websites on Rollyo, that I had not found on Filimentality. I have also read the blogs of a number of other people who have experimented with Rollyo. L can definitely see the value of it, being a strong advocate of hotlists, and look forward to being able to use it in my library.

Week Five: Thing 11 1/2

Whew, I'm exhausted! Having dial up service is painful. I managed to import all of my bookmarks to del.icio.us. Then I explored the TeacherLibrarianNetwork on ning, signed up, joined the elementary librarian group and even posted a comment about flexible/fixed schedules, and then tagged the site to add to my (what do you call them if they aren't bookmarks anymore?)

Speaking of tags, the new set up of my bookmarks is confusing to me. I think they were much more organized when I had them in folders. Maybe I need to get used to the tags and clouds. Does anyone else feel this way?

Well, I am going to take a break before I tackle Rollyo.

Oh, one more thing. My son showed me a program called Keepass Password Safe, where I can enter all of the password and username information for everything that I may do online. With a password that I must remember, I can access all of the information that I keep here. Neat!

Week 5: Thing 10 and 11

I am getting a little over my head here. I did work with one of the image sites, but I didn't get too far and didn't have a particular goal in mind so I gave up on it.

I looked over the web 2.0 award winning sites and decided that I would try to use del.icio.us. I had already decided that it would be useful to be able to access my bookmarks from any computer, not just mine. I have it set up now, but I wish I could just import all of the bookmarks that I already have, into it. I don't seem to be able to figure out how to do that. It looks like I have to enter them, one at a time, as I use them. If anyone has the answer, please let me know.

I also looked ahead to the next week, and see that we are supposed to look at del.icio.us then, as well. Maybe I will be able to get ahead. Also, is there a special way that it is supposed to be pronounced? I just say it like delicious.

I haven't looked at Ning yet, so I will add a 11 1/2 post about that later.

Week 4: Thing 8 and 9

I also decided to subscribe to some of my fellow student's blogs. I was able to quickly set up a Google Reader account and added on several blogs. However, I now must admit an embarrassing fact. We still have dial up internet access. I am currently waiting for my School Library Journal blog to download and it is taking forever. Last time, I just gave up. It is still loading. I have two blogs listed so far, and will keep trying.

I guess I have done both things together. I really am only interested in receiving information from a school library blog. And...I am still waiting for my next blog to load. I may just quit for now.