The participants were excited about blogging. Great questions about the format of a blog and how to find them. Their comments included:
“We are being brought into the 21st century.”
“It is an exciting way for knowledge to be disseminated.”
“Can’t wait to design our own blogs!”

We also talked about Google Reader as a way to monitor blogs and other web pages without having to check each site individually…or to use to introduce one’s self to new ideas easily…by monitoring someone else’s Google Reader.

Unfortunately, they did experience some of the downside of Web 2.0 technology…a few sites were blocked and TeacherTube videos were buffering…both effects of things going on inside our district. But these little bumps did not seem to dampen their overall enthusiasm for the activity.

FYI: Other blogging class posts 1 2 3

P.S. Can someone please explain to me why all of my photos that I post appear so dark on district computers, but just fine at home or other out-the-district locations?

[this post was originally created 10-25-07 but technical difficulties prevented it from being posted until now]

This is just too much fun…and your creations can be saved, printed, emailed…
I sure hope it opens in the district!

And if you want to try your hand at the online version of the traditional Etch-A-Sketch, draw away! (arrow keys make the difference)

I currently do not have wiki examples, but will!

I welcome any additions that show the kinds of things students are doing out there. I know there so many more great examples that are behind the walls we collectively find necessary to use in order to get the privilege of having students participate…some day, those efforts will be available freely. I have faith!

At the general session, among the welcomes including TLA president Steve Brown, we heard a little bit about the coming of Encyclopedia Britannica Online to all the school libraries as an addition of TexShare things we get as a result of the the recent legislation change. That is quite exciting!

The speaker for the general session was Rene Saldana, children’s author and education professor at Texas Tech University (his blog). His new book is A Sky Full of Stars, a book about friendship. In his remarks, he shared with us some of his favorite books as a child. He spoke fondly of things like The Hardy Boys and admitted he liked Nancy Drew stories even more because of “one chick being able to do more than 2 guys” and he also loved the Little House books as well.

The most enduring moment for me was when he told us how he takes his 4-yr. old son to the public library only one a month because the child checks out 50+ books at a time (yea for that librarian/library) and that on the first day of “real” school, he intends to take his son FIRST to the library to meet the librarian before going to the classroom or filling out the “mountains of forms” required of parents!

If you would like to participate in a live chat with him about this book, go to http://alan-ya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=2at 8:00 pm CENTRAL time on Wednesday Oct. 17th.

Among the many sessions offered, I attended one on copy cataloging pointers and helpful sites. During the Q&A portion, I did find out the records from WorldCat are not downloadable as I suspected…it was not my inability to make it work after all! But the info for many items including AV can be found. “Copy & paste” is still faster than original cataloging.

A colleague reported that in the session on transitioning from high school research to college research that bib cards are still required by many professors at her college (although she doesn’t necessarily agree with that practice) and when asked how to help more traditional teachers understand there is NO difference between an article in print that is identical online, the speaker said “good luck and just keep plugging way one teacher at a time to make them understand and accept the online version!”

Then it came time for my presentation on blogging. The room was overflowing and VERY warm, but the audience was so gracious and enthusiastic and attentive…even when we discovered that virtually ALL of the blogs (including my own!!) were blocked. Yup…the firewall and the technology department got us right where it hurt…nothing got thru except for Library Stuff and some Teacher Tube videos. This was the pitiful situation despite the careful planning by the people in charge to obtain the list of websites, blogs, etc. that I needed unblocked well in advance of the date.

Thank goodness for PowerPoint…I had planned for this situation because it had happened before…not this badly, but before nevertheless, and screen shots are not as good as the “real” thing, but with the enthusiasm of the audience and the slide show, we had a great discussion on the power of blogging and the many things that you can do with it. And needless to say, we a had a very frank discussion on what we all have to do in order to make administrations and tech people understand that this type of situation can NOT continue. It is unfair to our students…the very reason we were all in that hot room on a beautiful Saturday morning!

HANDOUT for those that did not get one!

This will be the second year for this award. Here is the list of last year’s winners. Here are the finalists from each group. A printable list here with synopses included. Another BOOK SELECTION TOOL!

There are categories for children’s and YA’s titles:
Fantasy/Science Fiction
Fiction Picture Books
Graphic Novels
Middle Grade Fiction
Non-Fiction: Middle Grade
Young Adult Non-Fiction Picture Books
Young Adult Fiction
Poetry
Go to the blog to communicate with the various organizers for each of the categories.

If you want to see a book considered, send it in! It must have been published in 2007 and you may only submit one title per category. You have until November 21st.

A wonderful group of teachers, librarians and other school people are spending the afternoon learning about blogs and wikis at the Regional Service Center.

After doing a little research on their own, their comments about the experience included:

Cool Cat Teacher: using blogs, wikis to help our teachers and our students do lots of things…has helpful ino on how-to

TeenLibrarian: urban fiction for teens..short stories about teens, comments about the books and stories

Just One More Book: used author list looking for particular authors especially for middle school…not too many choices, but idea of podcasts was intriguing.

Library of Congress: upcoming events, podcasts of different authors, events, blog

Nelson Central: looking at the different classes, very simple lessons about letters for very young children that she could use with her very young students

Kathy Schrock: downloading unitedstreaming onto i-pods…using the medium in a different format

Wiki thoughts:

One of the groups present was from a district where their teachers use wikis for a variety of things: online discussion, share information between teachers about subject areas, training, communication between team leaders, etc…post changes and edits of information,post response for homework on wiki page.

LibrarySuccess Best Practices: good stuff!

We did spend the last part of the time looking at how to create a blog and seeing how “ridiculously” easy it is!

FYI:

Some other blogging “class” notes to review other thoughts…

July 10th

June 10th

and if you have any doubts about using technology with kids, review this post and watch the video (it wouldn’t work for our class today so I am making it available for the students should they check here!)

[go here to see comments the students made to the post as it appeared on my mirror image!]

If you are a “techie” or a big sci-fi fan, this is probably the test for you, for sure!

It was fun…and did make me think about some things!

Caution: it is a tad long, but not too time-consuming.

ANIMOTO
http://animoto.com/play/a462c2d1fe46475b480b18b8b6e7f6e3
this link is the movie I made to learn the process using the only batch of pictures I had handy…hence the reason for it only being 26 seconds long.
If it doesn’t play because of a password issue, try one of theirs…I saw a cool little movie about skateboarding in the preview pane. It is a simple 1 – 2 – 3 process.

Of course, at this moment, I am not sure it will be available inside my school district…guess I will find out tomorrow.

All the interesting techniques with the pictures, Animoto did that…it does ask you to highlight a few of the pictures for extra punch…and you can choose one of their music files…not too many to my taste, but, hey…it’s free!! and it does all the work for you…so I am not complaining! (You can use your own music file–be sure you are not violating copyright!)

Go have some fun…it is E-A-S-Y.

P.S. It took me longer to create this post than it did my little movie…of course typing can be a bit of a problem when your space bar all of a sudden decides to stick! o, brother…technology is fickle, isn’t it?

1. Library Stuff written by Stephen Cohen who came to the Texas Library Association annual conference a couple of years ago and really hooked me into the fun of the blogging world with his talks. I had not read any of his blog before hearing him talk about it and all of his other adventures related to this thing called blogging. I had some limited blog experience (mostly teen angst) and was ripe to see the bigger picture. His blog posts are short and sweet and to the point…they take you to all aspects of the library world and points beyond. Thanks Stephen!

2. American Presidents Blog is my favorite blog for trivia type info. I look forward to any and all of the interesting facts (and stuff) the team comes up with, but I am kinda of a history nerd anyway so this might not appeal to you. But if you have ANY reason to want to delve into all things presidential, this is the blog for you! (one the blog writers also blogs at History is Elementary, another one of the first blogs I found and devour on a regular basis)

3. Karbon Kounty Moos is written by a Montana ranch/farm woman who includes the most incredible photos of the area that I can actually feel like I’m standing in her pasture looking at a horizon full of mountains that bring back such fond memories of my own high country experiences. Her posts are full of things totally foreign to my daily life, but I can so easily escape into her world for a few moments of reading. Those adventures are some of the greatest mini-vacations I have ever had. I found this blog thru my friend and colleague over at

4. Of Life, Education, Travel, E-Bay & Books who started her blog as a means of recording a special trip and by doing so let me go along for the incredible ride she had during that adventure. She has gone to write about kinds of things, especially in the world of books and school libraries from her very unique and in-depth level of understanding. She entertains me, but more importantly she makes me think. Thanks G!

5. My last entry for this post is a “group” of bloggers made up of 2 former teachers turned stay-at-home moms and one former teacher turned librarian who write about their lives and make me laugh out loud EVERY time I read them. I am not linking to them here as they are a little more personal & private in what they write than what I like to include on my professionally-based blog. Their almost-daily expressions of life itself are like reading chapters in a good book and wanting the experience to go on and on…luckily it does…one of the grandest values of blogging. If you would like to have a peek at these blogs, let me know.

And I also must pay a small tribute to my own two daughters who used this social networking tool many years ago and introduced their mom to it in an interesting way. Neither write presently, but I look forward to their grown-up adventures if they ever do and I cherish the opportunity I had in seeing the world through their adolescent/YA eyes.

Blogging is a unique way to find yourself a way thru many venues of your choice. You don’t have to write, but I do hope you experience some of the adventures in reading… and learning that are out there.

P.S. Although my blog roll is long and my bookmarks even longer…share something you think I’d like! I am always looking for something to new to “read”!

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They are looking at samples of blogs and getting a sense of what blogs contain and what bloggers write about.

At the beginning of class, because they are a new group pf students, we popcorned out what comes to mind when you say the word “LIBRARY.” Their answers included…resource, book, books, information, technology, FUN, interactive, access, reading…. What are your thoughts?

One of the students brought up a very important question? What do you do if parents of your students do not want their picture on the web? (we had been viewing the video from the elementary school’s student blogs). I suggested doing audio podcasts only in the beginning or making blogging an after school elective! What suggestions can you give this person for her concern?

The students are looking at different types of blogs and noting the similarities and differences found in blogs. I will post some of their findings at a later date.

I had fun…I hope they did too (and I hope they learned a little something about blogs as well!)

[Please go here to my "mirror blog" to use their comments about the experience]