WebFeet

THE FINISH LINE - SUMMARY

2008-01-13T10:43:00.002-08:00

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

2008-01-12T14:15:00.002-08:00

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

2008-01-12T14:15:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-09T11:33:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-03T18:39:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

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.

Webfeet

2008-01-03T17:37:00.001-08:00

Thing # 9

2007-11-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

In this exercise I added School Library Journal 2.0 and put it in a folder entitled 'Blog'. I also set up a MISDISD feed and added it to the folder entitled 'News'.
I thought all the search tools were very easy to navigate through ~ at least initially. I especially liked the layout of Syndic8.com because of the way the items were categorized or grouped (i.e.) most viewed, most popular, most recent, the graphs, etc. On the other hand, this site got me more and more away from subjects I was interested in and sometimes real confused about what was going on-latest articles on fancy dress and fashion. This was probably the most unusual one I viewed.
The Topix.net was set up very clearly and concisely - People reading, talking and editing, I really like the clarity of this site and enjoyed browsing its contents. There was even a listing of sales (houses, merchandise, furniture, etc.) as well as the most popular news of the day. I found this to be a very interactive sight as well as a very informative sight. This is also the site where I searched jobs for librarians and found everything available in the United States and then, more specifically, Dallas. Very interesting ! We need to hold on tight to what we've got !!
Technorati covered everything from entertainment to sports to politics. In the life section, I read where 80% of all Americans are online now according to a recent Harris poll. I am sure that stat went up significantly after our last staff development meeting !!!!
I looked at Slashdot.com and found all kinds of interesting news items. One was the idea of putting chips in the uniforms of students to keep up with them. These articles and the comments went on and on ~ very insightful.
Finally, I clicked into BibMe and found that this is a way to get free bibligraphic citations online which would be useful to look into at more depth and inform our teachers.
Overall, this was quite a journey and provided a wealth of information on about anything anyone could possibly want to know. You can get as specific or as general as you want which would certainly meet the needs of all users.

Thing # 8

2007-11-05T19:23:00.001-08:00

The best feature about RSS and newsreaders is that the information is brought to the reader, not the reader searching for the information. The reader decides up front what is of interest to him/her and that is the information that comes in as often or as infrequently as the reader chooses. This sort of information will force me to look at what is current whether I am aware of it or not and also allow me to choose a feed that a colleague/student might need current information on and pass that article on to him/her. For example, we get the Dallas Morning News everyday and we give it to the secretary every evening. Many times, someone will come in a week later and refer to an article and ask if I have the paper or how they could I get a copy of it. I think this might be an avenue to help that teacher.
As I read through these blogs and feeds, I think this technology is bringing libraries together ~ this is a way to connect to the library world even internationally. We can learn so much from what "they" are doing out there in all areas, and we can share what we are doing right here in Mesquite.
I especially enjoyed the It Really Is Really Simple: RSS for Educators and CNET Video: RSS - Feel the Need for Feeds, and Feed Me tutorials. They were clear and very informative. I thought the Getting Started Using Google Reader went too fast and the narrator was not as clear.
Overall, though, I enjoyed this exercise because I didn't feel rushed and did it in segments. The more I searched the more I wanted to search. I guess these "webfeet" are getting wetter and wetter.

Thing # 7

2007-11-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

Today I visited iGoogle and Picasa Web Album. I set up a home page in iGoogle with a background, temperature, time and information about Dallas. I added more tabs to the Google News to get daily information about popular news, business and sports. This would be an excellent resource for students in keeping up with current events during the week ~ especially if you had one person look this up and report something of interest to the class or on morning announcements. Then I went to the wikiHow-to page and learned everything from roasting pumpkin seeds to resisting a sales pitch. This would be wonderful to use with the students in learning new and interesting facts about everyday things on a variety of subjects and possibly expand their minds on projects or writings.
I downloaded all my library pictures on Picasa Web Album, but marked it private because so many children were involved and was not sure about the privacy issues. But I am going to try and link one of my Mother Goose pictures to my blog again since several attempts have failed so far.

Title # 6

2007-10-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

Flickr mashups was a very colorful, vibrant website ! I think this really accentuates the creative side of a user and expands the diversity of the web more than any other I have seen so far. After repeated tries, I could never get into Mappr so I will have to try it later. Howeever, Flickr Color Pickr was gorgeous. The pictures were phenomenal and unlike anything I have ever seen before. They would be great attention grabbers for any website and terrific kaleidoscope screen savers. Another feature were the products that could be ordered on the right side of the screen. This was convenient if you wanted to shop online. Mosaic Maker was fascinating. In Zumyer, the mosaics that were used to create a picture numbered 2500. That is almost unbelievable, and to be able to zoom in and see the actual pictures it took to create a small square was really spectacular. I guess I was most intrigued by the Mosaic Maker and the intricate details that were involved in its design. I think the Librarian Trading Card would best be used among the librarians if each librarian would design a card that would have the picture of their school,their website,etc. and have the directions to their school. Then,these all be put on a ring for each librarian to have to refer to during the school year.

Thing # 5

2007-10-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

I guess I had the least amount of trouble on Flickr. I went right through the assignment and really enjoyed the program. I was a little hesitant, but it was easy to follow and the directions were very self explanatory. I was glad that we had Mother Goose come the week before, so I had some pictures to choose from on my web. This is a fun sight that I would like to further explore with the postage stamps as we have had those printed through the US postal service as a joke on my son. Cool !

Thing # 4

2007-10-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

The ways I might use a blog in my library program or at school is to post the WOW words we use each week in FutureQuest; the 'latest read and review' from the teachers; upcoming special events/promotions; book award winners and voting results; competition winners among various groups. I think it would be an excellent way to make you school shine and promote the activities that takes place during the week and on the weekend with the teachers and the students.

Thing # 3

2007-10-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

Creating the Avatar page was alot of fun for me. I enjoyed browsing all the different pages of clothes, accessories, and backgrounds to come up with my style. I particularly enjoyed seeing other librarian's pictures and how they fit their personality. I am still feeling a 'time crunch' which prohibits me from fully relaxing while doing these activities, but as I progress, this should diminish somewhat.

Thing #2

2007-10-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

The easiest lifelong learning habit for me is setting a goal and attaining it. I do not have a problem in finishing a task that I set out to do. My goals are usually not long range goals, but if they are within a reasonable amount of time, I can do what I am suppose to do because I don't want to disappoint or let anyone down.
My hardest lifelong learning habit for me would be to use technology to solve problems. Because I do not keep as current on new technology, I would not be as apt to turn to this source as a solution to a problem. This is why I am excited about learning new ideas on this Web 2.0 program.

Thing #1

2007-10-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

By working with Web 2.0, I would like to become familiar with the various type of websites available in society today. I would like to know the terminology when I read or hear about this technology.
The frustration I experienced today was not a good way begin. After moving to four different computers to just get online and/or have sound, I finally began the program. However, I am determined to work my way through this and learn all there is available to me.