Twitter

I already had a twitter account, but purely for personal reasons. I had set it up to follow announcements for my son's high school. The same week I did that, my husband found an article in a travel magazine about tweets to great travel deals, so I started following some of those sights. I don't tweet with my friends so much. I guess I use it more for information.

I chose to follow some other library's that I found on Heather Braum's site. One being the New York public library. I also chose the Kansas City Public library to try and keep up with what is going on in the big city. I am also following Heather. She follows Michael Yon, a journalist imbedded with troups in Afghanistan. I am following him too. My husband served two tours their and my brother will be on his way their shortly, so I try to keep up with what is happening their. I found Michael's tweets interesting. I would primarily use this site for information for myself or to share with colleges. In the future I might set one up for my library for my patron's to follow. I would really like to set up a blog for the library, but it is just finding the time. I think it would be a very good summer project : )

Delicious is Delicious

I had never heard of social bookmarking! I saw the Delicious icon, but never knew what it was for. Now I do. I think this will be a great site to show teachers, and a great way for them t collaborate with one another. I am in a one section school, so collaboration can be quite a challenge. This would be using technology in a very useful way.

On another note, I am having a hard time getting my stuff done in a week. I don't know why. Well, I do. I start it, and then I have a hard time sitting my but down to do the application piece. Last week, I signed up for Delicious then tried to get on it at home. I couldn't figure out how I got on it. It all came together this afternoon. Now, on to week seven's assignment.

Google Reader

Well, week five was something that had been perplexing me since we started our blogs and I had seen RSS on many blogs and then sites. I wondered what it was and how to use it. The videos were very informative. Since I have the Google blog, I decided to get the Google Reader. It seemed easy to use, and I already have a google account. I subscribed to the Lawrence newspaper and to School Library Journal. Now I can get the new news all at once. This is really a handy little device. Now, on to week six!

Webinars

This weeks topic was webinars. I searched through and watched a couple of archived ones. The first one was about finding music to use for publishing on the web or podcasts. the other one I watched, and really liked, was an archived webinar on OPAL. It was called "Connecting Kids with Great Websites." The presenters were Meagan Albright and Sharon Haupt. They discussed how they evaluate websites to put the Great Web Sites which is part of the ALA site. I had forgotten about this website, so it was nice to be reminded. It was also interesting listening to how they evaluate the sites that are chosen. We have a database called Teaching Books in my district. They often have webinars, but the times don't always work with my schedule. I do like the idea of being able to join a webinar live, if possible, and if not, being able to go back and listen to and watch the presentation. I plan to take better advantage of this opportunity. I wonder if there are any groups that focus on school librarians. Usually their is only one librarian in a building. To me, webinars would be a perfect opportunity for school librarians to collaborate with each other.

Facebook Reflections

Okay, it is Monday. I am a bit late posting on the assignment. I chose Facebook, because I am already a member. It is one that I set up because a lot of my friends are on it, and this is how we communicate with each other with our busy lives. I have also connected with some friends from high school. I see it as a great way to stay in touch with family and friends as well as communicating with my professional community. I think it would be hard to sell to elementary school parents as place to use, but I could very much see it being useful at the high school level. I didn't know about creating groups. I have done that. My one quesiton is, if the person is in a particular group, can they see the people in the other groups? I can see them all at once, so I wasn't sure. Ta, ta for now.

Friday!

One week down. I found out how to add a blog to my blog. I am going to try and add a picture later. We'll see how that goes.

Thursday, Jan. 14th

I failed to mention that yesterday was my baby's 16th birthday. Man, they grow up fast, which means I am getting old fast. Second day on this blog. Life has been busy. I am trying to get on other people's blogs, but can't find them yet. Will keep looking. I hope I am in the group that is having a hard time seeing the list. Otherwise it is operator error. I hate when that happens!