Well I am back. It has been a while since I have posted. I haven't been asleep. I have been spending lots of time playing with RSS feeds. After being so excited about them I was not too impressed with online image generators. There were some that were kind of interesting but they were not very useful. They were fun to play with but I didn't find much that I will use in the classroom. I added the image to my blog banner using a generator called Blog Banner Generator.
http://www.bighugelabs.com/flickr/blogheader.php#
It is designed for Wordpress blogs but I was able to up lode a picture to the generator, save the generated pic to my computer and then attach it to my banner on the "customize" link. It looks ok. I will look around for some more but I am not terribly excited about what I have found so far.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
SLL 2.0, Week 4, Things 8 & 9
RSS feeds are Amazing! I had no idea that they existed. (I have been living in a cave.) I have seen the little orange icons on lots of sites but didn't have a clue how cool they were. I have set up a Google Reader and added about a dozen different feeds. I am sure that I will get rid of some of them once I find out about them. I always wished there was some way to check news stories without going to sites all over the internet. I would like to use video and audio feeds too but my G3 is a bit slow to make them usable. I subscribed to several feeds from the ALA site. It was amazingly easy to add them. There must be a catch. It is to good to be true. I am in love with RSS.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
SLL 2.0, Week 3, Thing 7
More Time Please.
Technology is an amazing thing. When I first went to work as a media specialist over 30 years ago almost nothing being used today existed. One of the coolest pieces of technology that my school had was an ancient cabinet about 5 foot tall filled with stereoscopic viewers and hundreds of cards with geography pictures from all over the world dating back to the 1920's. The kids loved it.
Over the years we have added more and more diverse technology. Teachers in my small rural district have the usual overhead projectors, cassette and CD players, VCRs, DVD players, DVD recorders, and TVs. They also have access to PDAs, digital cameras, digital movie cameras, LCD projectors, and laptop and desktop computers. Nothing too avant-garde but every one of these items requires a level of tech expertise. In addition every vcr, every projector, and every computer works a little differently. Just because you can run one LCD projector doesn't mean that you can run another. Every piece of equipment is different.
That is just the equipment. Then there is the software. Every computer program has a learning curve and is changed (updated) every few months. When teachers come back to school this year they will have to re-learn how to use most of the software and some of the equipment that they used last year since it will be updated or replaced over the summer.
Then there is the Internet. Every site works differently. Every site requires the user to sign up, register, provide user names, passwords, etc. In taking this course I have had to register at three different sites. They require the latest plug ins and browsers, all of which must be downloaded. As a media specialist nearly every company that I purchase from has a website and requires me to log in to use it. Remembering all of the logins is a full time job. All of these things work differently depending on what OS you are using, the type of computer that you use, and the network setup, firewall, virus protector, and spam blockers that are present.
Teachers can be forgiven if they are developing a fear of technology. They can spend endless hours learning how to do something, getting it set up, and teaching their students to use it, only to have everything undone when the tech person changes a setting on the firewall. Even kids are becoming technophobic. I have been working on this tutorial for School Library Learning 2.0 for several days now and have spent hours and hours figuring out how this all works. Who knows if I will be able to remember how to do everything I have learned. I would never have time to do this during the school year. A check of the blogs on the SLL 2.0 site shows that many of them have not been updated for weeks. I am sure that time is the limiter.
The biggest technology challenge for teachers and the media specialists that serve them is going to be finding time to weed through which technologies are the most important, finding time to set them up, learn to use them, and then actually implement them.
Time may be THE most important technology requirement.
Technology is an amazing thing. When I first went to work as a media specialist over 30 years ago almost nothing being used today existed. One of the coolest pieces of technology that my school had was an ancient cabinet about 5 foot tall filled with stereoscopic viewers and hundreds of cards with geography pictures from all over the world dating back to the 1920's. The kids loved it.
Over the years we have added more and more diverse technology. Teachers in my small rural district have the usual overhead projectors, cassette and CD players, VCRs, DVD players, DVD recorders, and TVs. They also have access to PDAs, digital cameras, digital movie cameras, LCD projectors, and laptop and desktop computers. Nothing too avant-garde but every one of these items requires a level of tech expertise. In addition every vcr, every projector, and every computer works a little differently. Just because you can run one LCD projector doesn't mean that you can run another. Every piece of equipment is different.
That is just the equipment. Then there is the software. Every computer program has a learning curve and is changed (updated) every few months. When teachers come back to school this year they will have to re-learn how to use most of the software and some of the equipment that they used last year since it will be updated or replaced over the summer.
Then there is the Internet. Every site works differently. Every site requires the user to sign up, register, provide user names, passwords, etc. In taking this course I have had to register at three different sites. They require the latest plug ins and browsers, all of which must be downloaded. As a media specialist nearly every company that I purchase from has a website and requires me to log in to use it. Remembering all of the logins is a full time job. All of these things work differently depending on what OS you are using, the type of computer that you use, and the network setup, firewall, virus protector, and spam blockers that are present.
Teachers can be forgiven if they are developing a fear of technology. They can spend endless hours learning how to do something, getting it set up, and teaching their students to use it, only to have everything undone when the tech person changes a setting on the firewall. Even kids are becoming technophobic. I have been working on this tutorial for School Library Learning 2.0 for several days now and have spent hours and hours figuring out how this all works. Who knows if I will be able to remember how to do everything I have learned. I would never have time to do this during the school year. A check of the blogs on the SLL 2.0 site shows that many of them have not been updated for weeks. I am sure that time is the limiter.
The biggest technology challenge for teachers and the media specialists that serve them is going to be finding time to weed through which technologies are the most important, finding time to set them up, learn to use them, and then actually implement them.
Time may be THE most important technology requirement.
SLL 2.0, Week 3, Thing 6
This was another site that I found that has all sorts of potential uses. You could create cards for people, countries, animals, historical events, even books.
SLL 2.0, Week 3, Thing 6
Thing 6 was to check out some of the third party applications that work with Flickr. I liked this one from Bubblr.
It lets you search for pictures on Flickr by Tag and then create bubble captions. I ran across these two bunnies and created this little cartoon. I was a little disapointed that it was too small to read on my blog but if you click on it you are taken to the original site in full size.
Kids could really have fun with this and could practice some creative writing too.
It lets you search for pictures on Flickr by Tag and then create bubble captions. I ran across these two bunnies and created this little cartoon. I was a little disapointed that it was too small to read on my blog but if you click on it you are taken to the original site in full size.
Kids could really have fun with this and could practice some creative writing too.
SLL 2.0, Week 3, Thing 5
This picture is from my Flickr account. I had to make it a public picture so everyone will be able to see it. Flickr doesn't seem to allow you to preview your post so I have no idea what this is going to look like.
These iris are one of my favorites. I think the name is Lace Jabot.
After I made this posting the picture was smaller than I wanted. I was able to go into the editor and make it larger by pulling the handles on the corners. Cool.
Flickr is a neat site. I have set up a private group for my family's pictures. It should be a good place to exchange photos.
Teachers could set up a private site for their classroom to share with parents but I think they would have to get permission from all the parents in the class to share them. I am not sure how privacy issues would work but it could be a great way to share class activities with parents.
These iris are one of my favorites. I think the name is Lace Jabot.
After I made this posting the picture was smaller than I wanted. I was able to go into the editor and make it larger by pulling the handles on the corners. Cool.
Flickr is a neat site. I have set up a private group for my family's pictures. It should be a good place to exchange photos.
Teachers could set up a private site for their classroom to share with parents but I think they would have to get permission from all the parents in the class to share them. I am not sure how privacy issues would work but it could be a great way to share class activities with parents.
SLL 2.0, Week 3, Thing 5
Check out this picture of a reading station at the public library in Eugene, Oregon. So cool. It would make a great storytellers chair. I couldn't put it on my blog as it is copyrighted. I hope this link works.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fototakerspain/547887847
I created a Flickr account and put some photos on it but put them on private mode. I am not sure I want everyone in the world looking at them.
I uploaded this picture from my computer here at home.
It was very easy to do. I am not sure why anyone would want to go to the work of setting up a Flickr account just to add pictures. If you already had a flicker account it would be useful to add them from Flickr.
I took this picture of a Purple Coneflower in my flower garden.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fototakerspain/547887847
I created a Flickr account and put some photos on it but put them on private mode. I am not sure I want everyone in the world looking at them.
I uploaded this picture from my computer here at home.It was very easy to do. I am not sure why anyone would want to go to the work of setting up a Flickr account just to add pictures. If you already had a flicker account it would be useful to add them from Flickr.
I took this picture of a Purple Coneflower in my flower garden.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
SLL 2.0, Week 2, Thing 3: Addendum
I tried making changes and posting to this blog from my Apple G3 at home using Safari. I could get into the appropriate places but when I tried to save or post I had to click on a web object. Nothing happened. I decided that the problem was a Safari problem. The version of Safari that will run on my old computer was not supporting the programing that was being used on the page. This was a bummer as I would have to go to school and use the school computer if I wanted to work on this blog.
This evening I downloaded Foxfire. It seems to have eliminated the problem. I have made some minor changes to the appearance of the blog and if this post is published correctly I think I will be using Foxfire as my browser in the future.
This evening I downloaded Foxfire. It seems to have eliminated the problem. I have made some minor changes to the appearance of the blog and if this post is published correctly I think I will be using Foxfire as my browser in the future.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
SLL 2.0, Week 2, Thing 3
Thing 3 is to set up this blog and add an avatar to it. I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to set it up using my computer at home with no success. I am using the Safari web browser with an ancient Apple G3 at home. It reached the point of upgrade ability a year or two ago. As the web evolves it is being left behind by plug-ins and new web software that won't run on it. It really hated the Yahoo Avatar site. I hope that I will be able to post from home now that everything is set up.
I had to come to school and set up the blog on my PC computer here at school. The hardest part was getting accounts set up on Google and Yahoo. After that posting was super easy. The people at CSLA have done a super job of setting up the SLL program site. I was a little surprised that our firewall here at school let me access Blogger. It tends to be a bit overzealous at times but so far so good. Next step...to register as a guest.
I had to come to school and set up the blog on my PC computer here at school. The hardest part was getting accounts set up on Google and Yahoo. After that posting was super easy. The people at CSLA have done a super job of setting up the SLL program site. I was a little surprised that our firewall here at school let me access Blogger. It tends to be a bit overzealous at times but so far so good. Next step...to register as a guest.
SLL 2.0, Week 1, Thing 2
I watched the Life Long Learning show and was very impressed by the technology. It worked very smoothly. The only glitch I ran into was trying to open the form for the Learning contract. When I clicked on it it tried to open and then closed up. I think my pop up blocker is interfering.
I think that the easiest habit for me is taking responsibility for my own learning. I am always reading, surfing the internet, and looking up what ever I run across. There are times when I go to bed at midnight feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the vastness of what I don't know and the effort to keep up. This may be because I am not good at beginning with the end in mind. Getting started with this program is a prefect example. I have no clear idea what I hope to accomplish. I just want to know MORE........................
Am I an information junkie?
I think that the easiest habit for me is taking responsibility for my own learning. I am always reading, surfing the internet, and looking up what ever I run across. There are times when I go to bed at midnight feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the vastness of what I don't know and the effort to keep up. This may be because I am not good at beginning with the end in mind. Getting started with this program is a prefect example. I have no clear idea what I hope to accomplish. I just want to know MORE........................
Am I an information junkie?
SLL 2.0, Week 1, Thing 1
I am late starting this project. I left school in May and always try to stay away in the month of June. When I stopped in to read my e-mail the first of July I ran across a link to the School Library Learning 2.0 project. I keep hearing about the Web 2.0 and have wanted to find out more and get involved. This program looks like just the thing to start exploring with. I am not a California librarian and I don't know how far I will get with the program before school starts but I have already learned enough to start this blog so it's all good so far.
ALL RIGHT!
I did it. Horray! I am now officialy a blogger! Now to think of something profound to say.
Testing my blog?
This is a test of the Data Garden web blog. If this was an actual posting, information would be conveyed to the reader.
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