Monday, September 3, 2007

After the fact


Well, I did this with Safari, but Safari does not give me all the other editing options that I get from Netscape.

Internet Explorer does not support the updated versions for a MAC, that allows all the things I did with Netscape.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Week 9 Thing 23


I think I am going to get this finished before the deadline!

I don't know that I had a favorite discovery. Has it affected my lifelong learning? Well, no, I like to think that that was a habit of mine anyway. Would someone please offer to support my husband and me so that we could just spend our time on a university campus going to school?

There are some things that I was particularly glad to learn to do. I don't think I will become a habitual blogger, but I am glad I know how. I believe it is one of my jobs as a technology leader at my school to gently guide other staff members to tools that can facilitate their teaching and student learning. I would do this again, and would hope that "you" would continue to keep the rest of us informed about all the new stuff, and how to use it. For my part, I will explore all the new tools I read about, and will do my best to share them with my colleagues.

(What do I still need to do? I need to figure out how to get a picture on this thing. The "Add image" button is not working in Netscape. If I still had lots of time to do this I might persists and get it done, but for now, since it is close to the final hours, my blogs are just going to have to stand without pictures.

Week 9 Thing 22

I was not very successful with the World EBook project. I did appreciate the best places to get free books site. I confess, I am personally not a fan of audio books. I can read faster than I can listen. If it is fiction I like to skip ahead. Non-fiction I read with a pen in my hand to mark books.

I am a frequent browser in project Gutenberg and other online book places, and have found several books I read as a child and thought I might not find again. I have also found pieces by favorite authors that I had not previously read, but I confess, I printed them out to read. I suppose that is a sign of my age.

Week 9 Thing 21

Lots of very cool podcasts. Probably not something that I would personally make a habit of listening to, but clearly this the future for education. I can think of dozens of ways we can use podcasts in the library, and all through the school. I can't make a podcast yet, but I am going to learn. Our school's Blackboard website will soon support podcasting.
Plus, I am married to an engineer who thinks the idea of podcasting is just really cool. He is fascinated by all the new technologies, and is absolutely convinced that I need to learn to use podcasting. Even if I didn't already think it would be a good idea for me to use and lead the way for our staff members, there will be no peace for me at home if I were to ignore that technology.

Week 9 Thing 20

It is August 31, and I have to hurry to get this done.
I have visited all the sites in week 9 over the course of the summer, but I don't enjoy writing, so here I am.

I particularly liked the video Introducing the Book. And there are lots of other videos that were very well done. There were some interesting clips from Shakespearean plays that I think would certainly capture student interest and perhaps make them more open to reading the play.

My criticism of all those sites is that it can be a bit tedious to find something because things are not as well organized as they could be. Not to mention that one can get side-tracked by all the funny stuff.

The other problem is persuading the teachers in my school to use these video resources. I cannot sit down with them and demonstrate the possibilities because the sites are blocked. And it can be a bit daunting to figure out how to get something downloaded into a format that can be used in a classroom.

One of our teachers found a presentation she wanted to use, and gave up because she could not find a way to put it into a format she could use. (She lucked out--as it happened I had found that presentation on a different site, had it on my desktop, and I emailed it to her.)

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Week 8 Thing 19

I like Librarything a lot. I can't wait to get started making my reader's advisory list. I have lists and lists, but I am always forgetting titles or authors when I am helping kids with "if you liked this try" situations. Librarything will help me do a quick search of the books I know kids will like, and the tags will make it easy for me to jog my own memory.

Week 8 Thing 18

Zoho.com is very cool. I am a "heroine" to the computer teacher at our school. I shared it with him. He was impressed with the site and saw lots of possibilities for himself and his classes. Plus, he was very impressed that I knew about zoho when he didn't and he prides himself on trying to stay up with new tools. Chalk one up for librarians, and thank you, creators of the 23 things for making me look good.