Social Bookmarking and Wikis

After visiting Delicious and setting up an account I realized that I should have done it at school instead of from home since most of the sites I wanted to bookmark are at school. Almost instantaneously I realized that that was why I needed Delicious, so that after I get the websites from school added I will be able to access them from home. Clever. Once I get the information from the two computers together I'll be able to plan lessons from home much more easily. I'm looking forward to that.

Moving on to wikis, I am very familiar with wikis and have always had a concern about the fact that anyone can edit anything on a true wiki. That is why I have a modified wiki on my school website where students can add to their classmates' comments, but can't change them. Kiera, go look at what your new second-favorite movie is on our HEB 23 Wiki and you'll see what I mean.

LibraryThing

I really enjoyed using this site and created an account to keep track of my autographed books. So far I have added a couple dozen hardback books to the account. I'm using my new avatar as my profile shot. If you want to check it out you can access it at http://www.librarything.com/profile/ElizabethDoyle.

Playing around with image generators

I've explored many image and text generators today. Have had some great success with a couple and some frustration with others. My greatest frustration is clicking on a site that I think will provide a service and getting an ad-filled site with multiple other links posted and no indication as to which one does what I went to the site to do. When that happened I just moved on and found something less complicated to use. I'm posting my two favorite products from today's exercise here - my cartoon avatar and a book cover. I hope you like them. Be sure to read the speech bubble in the book cover. It reflects how I feel about all the cool Web 2.0 possibilities and the lack of opportunities to use them with students.

RSS Feeds

I've been adding several RSS feeds to my Blogline account this past week and have found some wonderful sites. Today my husband told me about a show he heard on KERA radio that was an interview with an author of a book about libraries. He only heard part of it but thought I would enjoy it. He gave me the title of the show and a short Google search later gave me the radio broadcast to listen to. I've added the RSS from that show to my account. Go to My RSS Feeds on the right and choose the KERA feed, then go to Feb. 4's Think show and listen to the host, Krys Boyd, interview Marilyn Johnson, author of This Book is Overdue, How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. It will make you very proud to be in our profession.

Flickr and 6th grade project

OK, I created a Flickr account for my professional development course which I am planning on using for family photos after this project is finished. That's why I gave it a personal name rather than a professional name. I figure I can make sets for Midway Park on it that anyone can view as well as sets for our family photos that will be private.

The first set I added has photos I use with 6th grade when we study world structures. They were taken at Machu Picchu, Peru. I brought my Midway Park backpack just to get these photos to use. As it turned out, the backpack was much more comfortable than I expected and I ended up using it every day!

I discuss Machu Picchu with the students after sharing the book, Talking Walls, with them and prior to the Big 6 research project we do on world structures. In that project I am able to include lessons on web evaluation, copyright and plagiarism, Word, PowerPoint, and, hopefully this year, Photo Story. I have the students randomly draw a structure from the 25-30 that I have in a hat. Usually they have never heard of the one they draw, even if it is Fenway Park or Neuschwanstein Castle, but they have a lot of fun learning about the structure they chose and then sharing what they've learned with their classmates.

My Flicker account is : http://www.flickr.com/photos/doylephotoshare/

Welcome

My name is Beth Doyle. I have been a librarian since 1977 and am currently in my 17th year at Midway Park Elementary School in Euless, TX. I created this blog as part of an online professional development course - HEB23. Through HEB23 I will be learning many of the Web 2.0 tools that my three grown sons use.

I think it is important to stay current on the technology available today both for professional reasons and personal reasons. I will be able to use what I learn with my students and fellow faculty members, and will also be able to share them with my husband, mother and many siblings. It is my hope that other librarians will find ideas here that they can use in their own schools. Thanks for visiting. - - - BD