THE FINISH LINE - SUMMARY

This posting represents a summary of the completed project that began last October. I still remember the ovewhelmed feeling and tears I had at that time when I couldn't get equipment to work at home or at school. Then once I got wireless at home, this made working at home possible and pressure was taken off me staying at school to get assignments done. Then, like everyone else, frustration continued when logins became increasingly impossible and error messages and then overrides that drove everyone insane. But, persistence paid off and we continued on working through the 'things' and fixing the wrongs that popped up week after week.
Looking back, I think I enjoyed the Avatar assignment the most although I didn't realize it at the time ! I would like to go back and play with it some more later. Another fun assignment that probably took me the longest to do was the Animoto assignment. This was really fun although very short for the amount of time it took to do it. Kids would love to see the product of their work in this cool site. I was probably the most amazed at my work on this website.
This program has opened my eyes and opened my laptop to an amazing world of technology that I never knew existed. So much of it I am just not interested in at this point in my life, but I am glad to be aware of what is there for those who are using these tools in their life. I am not afraid to move around the web and explore new sites as I once was, so this has been a real growing experience for me.
I was totally overwhelmed at the volume and variety of information out there just in the few sites we dabbled in. There is probably nothing you could not 'get into' if you wanted to ~ daunting at best.
Whether this assignment is done at home or at school, something else is getting neglected ~ books shelved, repaired, ordered, ILL's, teacher requests, etc., family responsibilities. Therefore, I would not choose to participate in a program of this magnitude again. It was just too overwhelming and always 'hanging over my head'. When I would have the time to relax, I really couldn't because I knew this assignment was due and I needed to get it done, so it was very stressful in that way. It probably could have been 23 staff developments over the next 4 years done in class !
I certainly feel much more knowledgeable about the world of technology now and hope to definitely use some of the things we explored to make my life easier and more 'collaborative' with my friends and co-workers !

Thing #23

This is certainly a new twist on the subject of copyright that we cover every year in staff development ~ creative commons !!! I had never heard of this so I found it quite interesting a presented in a neat, upbeat manner that certainly held my attention. It is defintely a new wave of sharing information that we will need to be aware of so our kids can use it correctly and without fear of violation of any laws. I think it would be especially useful in art, photography and journalism classes where ideas are conceived from other works, but modified and expanded in a personal way to make way for even more works and materials. Below is a political use of this Creative Common law being used in signs being distributed over the web and in other ways as long as it follows the guidelines designated.



Photo Project
Timothy Vollmer, January 9th, 2008


Photo by Jodi Sperber / CC BY-ND

The New York Times has reignited its Polling Place Photo Project, a “nationwide experiment in citizen journalism that encourages voters to capture, post and share photographs of this year’s primaries, caucuses and general election.” All participant photos are published under a Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives license. This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the author.

Thing #22

In progress. . . . during the week
I began this project about 3:00 on Saturday afternoon and it is now 10:00 p.m. The longest adventure yet, but probably the most enjoyable one to date. I first of all had to install a Coolpix camera software disc into my laptop so I could retrieve all my Christmas pictures. Then I had to sort through 150 pictures and choose 10-15 for the video clip. Trying to get music was also a challenge, and there was alot of down time while pictures and CD's were dowloading and uploading, but I found other things to do during that time which helped. I made several 'remixes' and chose the one I liked best and was quite anxious to see what was going to come from the pictures and the music I picked ~ although 7 hours of work for 30 seconds of a video clip was kinda sad. I just kept playing it over and over though !! I then was ready to post it to my blog and again, many attempts only gave me an 'error' message and to try again, so I will. This was disappointing. Overall, I really enjoyed this and will definitely use some of the pictures we take in the future to do another clip and see what comes of it ~ this was probably my favorite assignment although I am tired now.

Persistence does pay off and I hope a New England Wonderland will be relaxing to all who view this clip !!

Thing # 21

This activity led me to many of the directories, but I liked the education podcast network the best. I had a hard time finding educational material on the other directories. From here, I went to the Professional Philosophy and ICT site. This brought down a menu of many sources of which I picked the Kidcast: learning and teaching with podcasting in the classroom. This was very useful and very well explained as to how a teacher would go about using the podcast in a room of students ~ the organizing of students, materials and producing/presenting acceptable results. There were many subjects coverred on this topic over many years, so much was learned throughout the process. I tried many times to link this to my Google account, but it would not accept the feed, so I am not sure what the problem was, but I can continue to try it again as I would like to see how this evolves.

Thing # 20

On YouTube I found some very interesting sites. One of particular interest was called TheFamousStacie at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=33DF64653C52557C. This mother has a son named Cougar that loves to make videos, so she made several where she taped him coloring Easter eggs and then another video was the reading of Peter Rabbit which was absolutely beautifully done !! The music and correlation of subject matter was gorgeous. Another site on this page was Cougar and his love of school. It was cute and I enjoyed it very much !

Thing #19

This site had to do with flow charts and I found it different from other things we have done. I signed on to Gliffy and Bubble.us ~ Gliffy reminded me of Kidspiration with the extensions and information you could enter in that site. I found it a little hard to use and not as extensive as others we have had staff developments in using, but it was fine. Bubble.us, on the other hand, was fun to play with and I found that using this as a diagram for a floor plan was intriguing. There were alot of tools to use on this site and it was insightful. Of the two, Bubble.us was my favorite.

Thing # 18

This was a website that you could spend all semester on ! It was incredible with the number of websites on just the short version. I chose the retail site from the Web 2.0 Awards and then the 2nd place chart of winners entitled Etsy. Etsy is the place to buy and sell all things handmade so it was chocked full of everything imaginable !! A column on the left categorized the items by subject matter and then further broke down the accessories. There was even one part that listed items that were updated every 15 seconds which was neat ! This was very well designed and categorized so items could be bought and sold easily.

Thing #17

I found the Zoho writer very easy to use and very easy to sign in on. I especially like all the bookmarks available in plain view to use in the documents which make it easy to insert in the document you are preparing. I did not print anything out, but imagine that a document would be just as simple to do that as well.

Thing #16

I read and looked at all the sandbox wikis and found it very interesting. I especially like how the subject matter is categorized for easy placement of information. However, I became very frustrated trying to upload my picture to the generator image page where I felt my image was best suited. I was never able to get it transferred, so I just kept it on my desktop and will try later. I also went back to myspace and tried to set up an account again, but still get the 'technical error' message after four attempts. Something is wrong, so I will get outside help to get this solved.

Thing #15

This was a very insightful exercise all about wikis. It is basically a site that emphasizes collaboration between students, teachers, or any groups of people in any kind of setting. It seems the most user friendly of all sites we have studied and is the only one that can be modified by each user, so everyone has an opinion and can express it if dedired. It includes a broad range of people so can be used quite effectively in connecting the community to the library. Within the library, it could be used as a great source to enhance the online catalog as a subject guide by the patrons or even post reviews by the users. In the classroom, students could collaborate with each other quite effectively and teachers could use this as an excellent source to eliminate that never ending lost homework excuse. Reaching out to the community by posting newsworthy information to the people via wiki would be a real asset to the library's reputation as well.
I think this is a very viable tool for a large population of people.

Thing # 14

I read three articles, but my favorite two were Away fron Icebergs and Librarians 2.0 Manifesto. Away from Icebergs gave the three points that we will need to let go of in this century if we are to succeed as librarians. First, is the 'just in case collection'. That would eliminate the pack rats among us that can't stand to part with anything because 'you never know...' Our collection is becoming too easily accessible to attain to keep and store anymore in the traditional sense. Next, we need to eliminate the barriers that exist between the patron and the information they need ~ not bore them with extensive research methods. Our next challenge is to place our library services and the content in the user's preferred environment ~ go to them, not wait for them to come to us because the web is too easily attainable to not be utilized. Finally, he concludes by saying that we need to be ready to adapt if we are going to face the challenges before us because we are in real danger if we refuse to do so.
The other article I liked was the Librarians 2.0 Manifesto which was really just an optimistic list of reminders for the librarian affirming the changing times of the library and how we must adapt and be flexible to these changes. Our attitude must be openminded, creative, supportive, professional and positive. I was amazed at the responses to this article from all over the world ~ Denmark, South America, etc. Excellent reminder of what we need to strive for everyday in our profession.

Thing #13

I was never able to download the Del.icio.us podcast tutorial after four attempts. However, I did watch the Furl and Ma.gnolia social bookmarking sites. I am just amazed at anything and everything you can find out there if you search and spend enough time researching. It really doesn't matter what subject matter or what idea you might have, someone will have an opinion or an experience about that and make reference to it ~ it is overwhelming. The subject matter is endless both personally and as educators. This is truly a community of assistants when you need them for anything you need !!

Thing # 12

I have tried unsuccessfully three times to open up a myspace account. I keep getting the message that a technical error has occurred and it will be reported to technical services, so I am going to continue my assignments and come back to see if this can be resolved at a later date.

Thing # 11

This exercise was very interesting in that it dealt directly with books and people who loves reading. I found it particularly refreshing to see such a site that connects the two and will love to spend more time searching books I find intriguing and see how others feel about them as well. The website I came up with is http://www.librarything.com/widget.php.

Thing #10

First of all, I looked at the four generator sites listed. The comic strip generator was probably my least favorite next to the happy face generator. I especially liked the custom sign layout because when you scrolled over the tabs listed, a sample image of the template would appear which I found very helpful in choosing several sites to look at in greater detail. I really liked the glitz and glamour that could be generated in this site which could attract alot of attention to upcoming events in the library. The support ribbon generator was quite informative and could be useful when needing ribbons, etc. to recognize special days throughout the year. There were several sites that were not available when I clicked on them, however. But, my most favorite was the image chef. I loved playing with the various designs, colors and images to produce pictures that I eventually posted to my blog - much to my surprise. It was very easy and fun to use. This would be fun to use in advertising upcoming events at school, in the library, social news in the school, etc. This website is saved on my desktop and is file:///Users/teacher/Desktop/ImageChef.webarchive.

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