This is for the birds.

Thing 46 WebJunction Minnesota

Webjunction is a great resource. I was pleased with the classes offered and that they were self paced. I plan to complete the class Reaching Relunctant Readers soon. The class is appropriate for my needs and the price is right.

Thing 45 Cloud Computing

I think Cloud computer is the answer to many common data management problems. I have often had to try to retrieve lost information after computers have crashed. I encourage teachers and students to make back ups (not just save) when ever they have more data entered than what they want to reenter. In other words, stuff happens. Online back ups answers the broken, lost or stolen hardware problem.
I teach my student about googledocs. It works great for assignments that they want to work on both at home and school. So many times I have compatibility problems when the student bring in work from their home computer software.
I do have reservations about Web OS, space can be limited and what if the server decides to charge after all of your documents are online. I hate to sound paranoid but all of my family pictures could be held hostage:)

Thing 44 - The Economy

I learned quite a bit on this "thing". I was very interested to learn the explanations of why we are in this mess. I tried many tools. Several such as GasBuddy and Feed the Pig were interesting but really didn't pertain to me. I was excited to explore Graigslist. I had heard so much about it. I know people addicted to checking the lists daily. My son-in-law sold a wooden fence that he was going to have to pay to have torn down to someone through Graigslist. Very impressive. I am sure I have something to sell, perhaps men's golf clubs?

Thing 43- Online TV and Video

This is one web 2.0 tool that I am not excited about. I checked out both Hulu and Joost. I thought Hulu was easier to navigate, but I really did not find any programs that I was eager to watch.
I did watch an episode of SNL and it was funny. But, only if I had nothing else at all to do, would I bother to sit down and watch Hulu. I do not watch a lot of TV and the shows I do enjoy are on PBS or cable.
At first, I thought this would put cable out of business but I did not find many movies either. I watched Snow Walker and was not engaged in the movie. I think I need an easy chair and a bowl of popcorn to enjoy a movie.

Thing 42 - Music 2.0

I really enjoyed this web 2.0 activity. I had never tried internet radio. I found several stations on live365 and enjoyed trying out different music genres. It is an easy way to find stations and music to listen to.
I also created an account in Pandora. It was easy but I had a difficult time stopping. I kept wanting to see what was the next song and group. I found I enjoyed almost all of the music selected and actually was surprised at some of the groups I did enjoy.

Thing 41- Mashup Your Life

I have to admit I have had trouble staying connected with all of my accounts and Web 2.0 associations. I love my igoogle home page because at least several of my identities are easily accessed there.
I joined friendfeed. I am following President Obama. I invited a couple of friends to follow. I added my flickr and blog and twitter to my services.
I will try this for awhile but this stream of information is overwhelming. I think I need to retire to keep track of all of my social connections. This is why people can spend so much "screen time".

Thing 40 -Mashup the Web

It is amazing what people have thought to do with their time. I checked out the author BookTour mashup. I like to keep the families aware of opportunities to meet authors so I can see the value of the tool.
Lazy Library produced so many books for my subject that it did not seem helpful.

I created a fun concentration game with my family photos and emailed it to my daughter at Flickr Memari-Create.

I think I will use Wheel of Fun in the future, my family always has a hard time deciding where to eat. All of the above tool were very easy to use.

Thing 39 Digital Storytelling

Thing 38- Screencasting

I looked at screen-cast-o-matic and screentoaster, but decided to use Jing. It was very easy. I had to redo my screencast a few times to get it right but the tool was very easy. It was easier than I expected. I will use this screencast in the school library and I can think of many other subjects to screencast.

Jing

Thing 37 - Photo Tales

At first, I did not want to display personal photos, so I spent a lot of time finding Jane Austen photos on FlickrrCC. I made a collage on collgr of Jane Austen action figurines. That was fun. But in the end. I wanted to show off my granddaughter. So I returned to Flickr and uploaded new pictures and created a slide show. Just watching the show puts a smile on my face.

Thing 36 - Comic Relief

I have used many of these generators before: Image Chef, Big Huge Labs, Easybib and Timeline Creator. Easybib is my favorite and often used by the students. I tried Read Posters and Dictionary Entry. ToonDoo was fun (see below). I use ComicLife with my students and that is very easy. I found the Convert Your Name to a Dewey Number very interesting and a bit scary.
I can't remember where I learned about WigFlip, you can make fun signs, graphics, scrolling text, or sticky notes for your webpage.

Thing 36- ToonDoo

Thing 36- Comic Relief

Mary Keifenheim's Dewey Decimal Section:

006 Special computer methods


Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works


Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.



What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Thing 35 - Books 2.0

I have faith in the future of the printed book. I have no quarrel with ebooks etc., and I think the new media has advantages. But there are enough people who love the feel, the freedom, and the convenience of a printed book in the hand that there will be a need for books in the future. In the school library, reading is still strong. I give credit to Harry Potter.
I loved many of the Book 2.0 sites. I think discussing with, reading and interacting with other readers, is a positive for the future of reading and books. I use Shelfari for my books list for the students. I also linked Shelfari to my facebook page. Parents have commented that they checked my Shelfari often during the summer for suggested good reads. I had fun with BookStumpers, I enjoyed reading the solved mysteries. "What's Next" did not work for me, I entered the Ranger's Apprentice series and the Percy Jackson series - no information. BookGutton is great, I plan to visit it more in the summer. I also, have resolved to release at least two books on vacation. For a book lover, Book 2.0 is fantastic. I hope to explore more this summer.

Thing 34- Online Answer Sites

I had never used or visited an online answer site before now. I found them fascinating. Many of the questions were straight forward technical or information questions. All of these requests were questions a reference librarian could easily answer. The personal questions were, of course, more interesting. The attraction of using an online service is that no one knows who is asking about their own "misleading facial expressions". I suspect that people often use the online answering sites because they are comfortable with the technology and it is anonymous i.e. how do you unlock an iphone. I am not worried about the role of the library or the reference librarian, I think the variety of sources makes it harder for many people to navigate and evaluate information. When I teach researching to my elementary students, I often require two sources and many times the two sources disagree. My students often look at me with trust in their eyes and ask me which one is correct:) I am needed.

Thing 33- Travel 2.0

This was fun. I did get the travel bug after checking out some of the sites. Many of them would have made our trip to Europe years ago easier. I forwarded several links to my daughter and son-in-law , they are traveling to Scotland and Ireland this summer. I enjoyed My Kugelhopf, the photos of the food were fantastic. Notes from the Road was also interesting with great photos.
I thought Igougo and Boo both would helpful when planning a trip. Hotspotr and Wines and Times were fun to visit. I don't need to visit Fastfoodmaps.

Thing 32- Google Maps

Google Maps and some of the mash-ups can be very useful. I enjoyed touring Jane Austen land and making a map.

• I also enjoyed digging a hole (its not the first time).
  
• I forwarded the bike path mash up to my daughter for her bike trip - very useful.
• I had fun with the UFO sighting maps.

What I want to do is create a google map tracing the path of a character in a book for the students. Perhaps, Stringbean's Trip tom the Shining Sea or Elijah of Buxton or a non- fiction book about the underground railroad.

Thing 31 - More Twitter

More Twitter is right! I spent a lot of time on twitter, not in twittering but reading and exploring extras. I tried to join the Librarians Directory, but it took forever to log on, but it is worth the effort. I think its popularity is bogging down the system. I am trying to twitter more often, but I would rather read than enter. I do though enjoy following some of the other tweets (CNN, Mr. Twitter, School Library Journal, and most importantly, my daughter). I enjoyed some of the extras ( I am a question mark and get along well with commas). So far I am not using it as a communication tool, it is just is another way to find out about books. At this point I have a "presence" I am a baby tweet.

Thing 30

I use RSS, in fact it is very helpful in many cases. I found that if I didn't attend to it I could become overwhelmed. I had to learn to ignore a lot. I think that filtering is the answer. I reduced and organized the feeds and so far the information is more pertinent and I am not wasting time on articles not related to my needs.
I also had used Delicious, but after upgrading my computer I lost the site off my tool bar. I intended to add it again but never did. I finally added it back to my browser and I love it because I work from different computers. I also had resorted back to printing articles that I wanted, what a waste of paper. I love saving to delicious and then just rereading the information when I need it.

Thing 29 Google Tools

Back to Google. How do they think of all of it? I set up Google alert. I choose it because it seemed easy and I have a semi-rapport with Google. At first, I was certain that I did not want to be alerted to anything. I already am overwhelmed with information. But it was very easy and I have found the alert is helpful. I set the alert to report software update issues daily to my email. The first time I looked at the alert I found a very timely warning. I rarely find time to search for the information on the internet, so I am pleased with the results.
With a more positive mind set, I set up Google calendar. I need a calendar to keep track of my grandmother babysitting duties. The schedule changes often and it is easy to forget the details. It will be convenient to share the calendar with my family so we all can keep track of our schedules. I embeded the calendar on my igoogle home page. I am not sure how to use the calendar for library events

Thing 28 Custom Home Pages

I had created a google home page previously, but only visited it when I wanted to read my RSS ( google reader). I am determined to make it my home page on my work computer this time and really utilize the widgets. Please do not tell my principal because it has a time absorbing game on it. Which was one of the reasons I avoided igoogle before. I like igoogle, I looked at Netvibes and Pageflakes (my favorite name), but I stayed with igoogle because better the devil you know. It is very easy to add widgets and easy to move them around. I added google maps because I often use it and I added a widget that shows all the places in the world I need to visit. I would have added a few more but I was busy playing my game. I recommend colorjunction if you have nothing but time.

Thing 27 Twitter

I had heard about Twitter before this, but I had no idea of the number and variety of people who tweet. I watched all of the videos and read the materials, but what struck me was the man who said he spent three hours a day on Twitter. WHAT? I prefer to twitter probably to blogging. I like that it is short, you just need to get the message across and do not need to say anything all that profound. Having stated that, I find do enjoy reading blogs especially on literature. So in tweet language - like to write tweet and read blog. I would love to twitter for my students "maimek - great new mystery London Eye Mystery, but must return over due book if you want to check it out:)" I am afraid if I twittered my children they would end up blocking me. This was a great learning experience.

Thing 26 - Ning

I joined Ning in round 1 and frankly, never revisited or even really remembered much about it:(
After looking at it again, I thought it was another "facebook" time consumer. But I visited another librarian's place and realized what good connections for a librarian. I am a private elementary school librarian and there are not too many of us left. A group would be useful. I also enjoyed reading the Anokaberry group postings. I am always interested in book reviews of children's books.

Thing 25

I have started this blog at least three times and had to quit before I was finished. I love some of the widgets especially the children's picture book art gadget. But, I had to delete it because it did not not work. I took Mick's advice and tried Odiogo and she was right! It was easy. I was not that interested in adding voice to my blog because I do not think that many people read it. If I had a well-known blog, a voice component would be helpful. I also did the quick poll - Glowday. It was very simple, perhaps my poll was not judicious but I am interested in the results. I also added my favorite blog on Jane Austen to my sidebar. Very easy, and I am sure that many people are also interested Jane Austen. There were too many options in Thing 25. I wanted to check out all of the gadgets before I decided, but I just did not have the time. Again, I plan to revisit and play with the tools some day.

Thing 24

I changed the layout. But it looks very similar to the old layout. I wanted it to be colorful and dynamic and by the time I was finished, it looked quiet and sedate. The same thing happens when I design a web page. I guess I can't fight it. I am searching for a new avatar, but I was very fond of the old one. I use it on facebook and my former students think that it is funny and accurate.

I had planned to keep blogging, but I found that I needed an audience to motivate me to blog. I was shy about sharing my blog site with others, so I am happy for this opportunity to restart. I do enjoy other blogs, but I rarely comment ( I know there is a term for that ).