Thing 24: Things I would still like to do

I did not get a chance to see Second Life or the Pirate Game, so I am hoping that I can look at it this summer. If either of them are rpg games, then I would be interested in playing them.

I would also like to start posting my some of my writings on Docs so that I can get some ideas on how things should happen. It may be interesting to get some feedback.

I may revisit other 2.0 items... Like Library 2.0. Check for me there

And I may be back here to blog and let you know what I have been up to.

Thing 22: Keep learning!

What did I find useful? Despite the fact that I was not able to access several items there were some things that I did find useful. LibraryThing, Library 2.0, gmail, this blog and some of the photo sites were good. I have already discussed what I thought was a waste of time.

What will I do to keep learning? Add more books to librarything, maybe check out Webjunction and listen to more podcasts from St. Cloud State.

What will I do with students? Have them work with photos more, start doing web pages and get more involved with what is on the web so that they don't use Google for their research.

Thing 21: Other social networking

I was not able to get into most of the social networking sites however, Library 2.0 was available. I set up my site and looked around. There are interesting things on this network. I think this is more valuable to librarians than other social networking sites.

This is something that I would consider joining rather than other places.

Thing 19: Podcasts

I listened to podcasts from St. Cloud State University. It was interesting to hear media specialists from two sides. One said that she would like to have her kids do pod casts, the other thought that since they did not allow MP3 players or anything like that it would be not necessary to do podcasts, since the kids could not listen to them anyway. They also do not allow things like music or videos in the computer lab.

I also attended a workshop on Staff Development Day in my district on podcasting and found that it would be quite easy to do. We also have a radio station in our district so there may be a possiblity that a pod cast would be interesting. However, since our kids are so far behind in their other learning of technology it is not even something I would currently consider, although for a special project, it might be fun.

Thing 20: Facebook and MySpace

this is the other thing that I have been fighting against since becoming a media specialist. People using Facebook and MySpace in the library when they are supposed to be doing educational pursuits. The first district that I worked in was more of a problem and I even got an answer from one person that, "no one sees it except from our zip code". I was wondering where they got such a naive idea.

YALSA has a presence on MySpace. I cannot say how a library could use MySpace since most school libraries have access blocked. One states national education association has asked it's teachers to not have a MySpace presence. There are too many problems with what is going on with MySpace. Like pediophiles and the girl who caused another to commit suicide. I have not really seen much good come out of these social networking sites. Mostly bad. Again it is another reason why people cannot use computers at the public libraries. People are on these social networking sites so that others who need library time for actual research cannot access computers.

Thing 18: Discover YouTube and Google Video

What I have seen on YouTube is not anything I would be remotely interested in. However, when I went to Google video, I found a copy of the Last Lecture. The Last Lecture was given by a dying professor and his story has recently been on Oprah and Primetime. I was able to watch this vide and found it quite moving.

It is possible that it is easier for students to use Google video as it will not be blocked as YouTube is in our district. I would prefer that students produce their own videos and use them as they need to.

I have also found that many videos on the internet are not things that I wish for my own children to see let alone those I am teaching. However, things on specific sites, like PowerMedia or United Streaming are better for teaching.

Thing 17: ELM productivity tools

How can these tools benefit your students? If they can access them, it will give them an opportunity to use reference materials that a school does not have. By getting access, I mean being able to get onto a computer, and have a library card. Some schools have ELM as part of their electronic resources. Students need to use these resources and not depend on search engines such as Google to do their research for them. My experience with students doing research is that they go on Google, type in their keyword and spend hours looking through what they could use, not really knowing the types of materials that are legitimate or even trustworthy. I am from the old school which learned to research by searching encyclopedias, dictionaries, card catalogs and research abstracts. Kids these days do not always know what some of these books are, so we as media people have to teach them how to do it.

Thing 15: Online games

I was not able to try this as I have no access. This is one of two things that I have been fighting against in the four years I have been a media specialist. It is apparently the only reason that teens believe that they need to use the computer in the library. It is one of the things that we have recently blocked so that kids are using computers for things like research or schoolwork.

In my previous district the kids who were the worst offenders (playing games) were ones who were using laptops and we could not ask them to get off the laptops as we did not know what they were doing.

The public library is full of people playing online games. It is disturbing to me who would actually want to use a computer for research or business to have to wait because people are playing games. A public library had to quit having 2 hour computers because so many people were using the computers for games instead of legitimate uses. So do I think online gaming has a place in a library? no. Sorry.

Thing 16: ELM Research Calculator

How can I use this with kids? I think this would be a good thing to keep kids on track with what they need to do for say a History day project. It tells them everything that they need to do and when things need to get done. It would give them short deadlines to give them success in getting a long term project done.

It would also inform them of the little bits that needed to be done, thus there is not a push at the end of the project to finish everything in a hurry. I really like it.

Thing 13: online productivity tools

Which start page did you use? Well, I looked at iGoogle and picked a start page that I thought was more outdoors, but it wasn't. Looking at all the calendars and stuff, it would be good if I had access to the internet 24/7. But I am living cheaply and still depend on my paper and pencil calendars.

I can see using these if I had a PC (also which I do not). Personally, I do not see me using any of these soon. However, it might be good to show kids especially iGoogle when they want to learn about web design.

There are a lot more things on the web than there ever was, it is hard to keep track of where everything is.