A Wrinkle in Tech

Courtesy of Kyle Wegner and Flickr's Creative Commons directory

Okay, okay…I have been humbled concerning my previous post about RSS feeds and blogging in general. I think my frustration and lack of perseverance came from not having a useful search tool for blogs and RSS feeds. Of course, many library blogs are linked to each other through blogrolls, but that is time consuming and tedious. I don’t know many librarians (or teachers for that matter) who have that kind of time on their hands or the patience to search for such elusive, albeit valuable, information.

So I started with Edublog award nominees and winners. I added The Shifted Librarian and LibrarianInBlack as a surfed, though I didn’t add the actual nominees or winners. I tend to look for practical advice, tips, tricks, and applications over rants and ramblings about library issues. At this point in my career, I don’t care much about the larger issues in our field, though I do advocate for them. I just have too much other stuff to worry about here “on the ground.”

Then I discovered the Bloglines search tool! Holy awesome! I LOVE it! All I searched for was “library” and came up with no less than three PRACTICAL library blogs I didn’t know existed: Library Web Chic, Library Grants, and LibVibe. Okay, so LibVibe is news, but it’s podcasted…which means I get it in five-minute sound bites. As a member of GenY, I like quick information. So now, I have no excuse not to stay up-to-date on the library blogosphere, because now I have Bloglines. And she lived happily ever after…The End.

I’ve known about RSS feeds for quite awhile, but I don’t use them very often.  I have Joyce’s blog (of course!) and a few others on My Yahoo! page, but I don’t check it like I check my e-mail. I like not having to check back at a site or blog every day, but neither am I that desperate to know what’s going on in the blogosphere in the first place.  Maybe I’m just unenlightened as to what RSS could do for me….we’ll see as I explore and add feeds to my account.  For now, I remain a bit of a critic.

As for Bloglines, I have to admit it is MUCH nicer than Yahoo!, and I can see why many people use this instead of other RSS readers.  It’s like checking another e-mail account, which makes it user-friendly.  I think I could definitely use it to keep up on my tech news…I’m a gadget and gaming geek, so I often search tech blogs to check out reviews of new products.  Just for kicks, I also added a few other SLJ blogs in addition to Joyce’s.  I honestly didn’t know they had so many feeds from their site.  If nothing else, SLJ and other library-centric feeds would be helpful for school librarians to keep up with the latest trends.

Curriculum Connections:

• If teachers create a classroom blog, then showing the public-subscriber blogroll would be a great tool for students to see how big the World Wide Web really is.  Imagine forming an online partnership with other classes or schools and collaborating from there!  The blogroll would also show students why it is important to be careful of what they post….a great information ethics lesson too!
• Teachers could also stay up-to-date on technology and education news….though I know this is a stretch…sorry, that’s all I’ve got for now.

Indexed blog - http://indexed.blogspot.com/

Whenever I start taking my job, life, or self too seriously, I just hop over to this blog to get some perspective and a few laughs, too.  All the entries are beautifully tagged: I just pick one and start smiling.  It does make your brain work a bit with all the relational stuff, but it’s worth the brainpower.

Photo from Old Shoe Woman - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ judybaxter/4236782/

These tech toys are SO FUN!!! Even though I can’t use Flickr at school (yet), I’m excited for creating the mashups at home or school and then using them at school. I can’t think of a good use for Montager or the Color Pickr, but I LOVE the FD’s Flickr Toys. I found this slogan on an old computer-paper banner in my library’s back room. I’m not sure how original it is, but I like it. My library “theme” for next school year is community and becoming more environmentally-aware, so I thought this might fit.

The caveat that I’m running into is copyright. Obviously, using your own photos is great, but I’m not always the best photographer. I often look for general photos of kids reading that I can use for projects, webpages, etc. The fact is that most Flickr photos are under copyright. As an alternative, I did find that you can search copyright-friendly Flickr photos through the Creative Commons. If you click on the arrow next to the “Explore” tab, the Creative Commons is near the bottom of that list. These photos have more flexible restrictions, and many you can remix, mashup, use, and republish as long as you give credit. I would LOVE to use that search tool for class projects, and I could neatly tie in the whole “using information responsibly and ethically” info lit. standard. Still, it all goes back to getting the district to grant access.

Curriculum connections:

• Creative project for book reports - One of the 3rd grade book reports is a DVD cover for the book. The movie poster maker would be perfect for this and digitizing the project would be SO cool!
• Author visit idea - Jennifer L. Holm (author of Babymouse) is visiting our school next year, and it would be really fun to take photos of the students with a Babymouse doll and then have students use Captioner (another of FD’s Flickr Toys) to add thought and word bubbles.
• Flickr Toys alone has TONS of project potential…I think it’s just a matter of matching the right research project with the right tool.
• Mosaic Maker for a quick “what’s happening in the library” snapshot

I have to admit, it’s strange to see my humble blog on the blogroll of PA Online Web 2.0. Yes, I know everyone’s blog is listed there for organization and collaboration, but still…I feel a little famous. And it makes me think good and hard before I hit that publish button. It’s like when we ask students, “Is this your best work?” I have to ask myself if what I’m writing is worth posting to the world. Scary…

Dreaming of dishwashers

I’ve known that Flickr existed for a few years now, but I always thought it was just like Photobucket or one of those Kodak sites that were really just a virtual dumping ground to show-off photos to the world. I wasn’t aware of the “groups” feature, or how well they are run and organized. I had heard about the AWESOME things public libraries have done with Flickr, as well. It’s very impressive to see libraries embracing this technology.

The above photo pick was inspired by my real-life journey in Apartment Therapy (if you have an apartment or small house, I highly recommend this book!). I have been window-shopping (or rather website-shopping) for a small compact dishwasher for a week or so. My apartment kitchen is dreadfully small, and there’s not even room for a countertop, portable, OR slim-size dishwasher, so I’m on the hunt for an in-the-sink dishwasher. It’s just that at the end of the day, I really, REALLY relate to the Scottish man who posted and titled this photo. And my kitchen sink often looks like that.

Cat wash

As I was searching for dishwasher ideas, I found an inordinate number of pets inside dishwashers. Now, if this were a safe, humane way to give my cat a bath, I’d be all for it, but I don’t think Laney would be so fond of it. She puts up quite a fuss when it’s bath time.

Curriculum connections: Sadly, my district blocks ALL image servers such as Flickr, and despite teacher requests, they don’t show any signs of loosening up. Of course I can understand the safety and legal issues of a school library-run Flickr site, but still… My best idea is to collaborate with my public librarian (whose library is conveniently across the street from my school) and cook up some ideas to promote school and public library programs and events.

Overall, I think Flickr is a useful tool for social networking, but it’s applications to school library is limited by the amount of inappropriate content available.

Despite that the SLL 2.0 team recommended Blogger, I was a bit disappointed with it the last time I used it. As noted in the Weekly Tips section of the SLL 2.0 blog, the Blogger user interface is not very intuitive. It’s an excellent (free!) resource to be sure, but I already figured out how to use it the last time I did a blog. In the interest of self-discovery, I tried WordPress.

I found WordPress to be a little more user-friendly, but not by much. The different labels and terms threw me for a loop, but I just basically played with it until I got what I wanted. The downside of learning through play, of course, is that it’s time-consuming. I’m glad I’m doing this over the summer when I actually HAVE time, because if I had tried setting up this blog during the school year, it never would have gotten past the “Hello world!” post and the unappealing blue and white theme. With that said, though, I really do like WordPress better than Blogger. The hardest part was figuring out how to get my avatar in the sidebar, instead of just in my posting.

Curriculum connections:

• I know of a few teachers in my district who use blogs to recommend books. In an elementary school, this isn’t as useful when the students have a hard time typing until (and even after) third grade.
• I’ve used blogs for my Lunch Bunch book clubs, but upkeep and getting students to participate was difficult as the school year progressed. For next year, I want to (1) make it a priority, and (2) move the blog discussions to a “real” blog, not the Schoolwires mess that my district offers.
• Blogs for each team science fair project (though maybe wikis would be better?)
• Classroom homework assignments..one blog for whole school, instead of separate teachers’ webpages.
• My plans for this blog are to make it a professional blog for teachers and librarians with tips and hints on using Web 2.0 and other technology in their classroom. I’d like to emphasize free and/or user-friendly tools.

So this is my lovely blog. It’s not the first one I’ve created, but it is my only existing one at the moment. In the past, I used blogs for classes in library school and then deleted them when I stopped updating. After the PA Online Web 2.0 class is over, however, I’m committing now to continue updating this blog. We’ll see how it goes…

P.S. - For more info on the title and tag line, please visit the “About tesseracts” section.

Lifelong learning is not a foreign concept to me. When I was in college and grad school, it was drilled into our heads, and eventually we all got the idea that we don’t stop learning just because we graduate. Even if we stopped taking classes like this one, we still learn new skills and concepts every day.

The easiest one for me is #6, Use technology to your advantage. I’ve very comfortable with using technology, even though I don’t always apply it in the most effective or creative ways. That’s why I’m here. I’ve also read several articles recently in the news about how Generation Y, of which I am a part, is learning to make technology work for us, instead of vice versa. I agree with that, but I don’t think it’s limited to just Gen Y. I think many people across the age spectrum are learning to balance. I’m learning, too, and I think that’s an ongoing process for everyone.

The most difficult one for me, and many others I’m sure, is #3, View problems as challenges. I often find myself succumbing to the mindset of equating problems with crises to be dealt with and sorted out. I rarely, if ever, begin by saying “What can I learn from this?” I just jump head-long into the solution-finding. So that’s clearly something to work on.

As a side note, my favorite one was #7 1/2: Play! I often learn just by “playing with” a new technology to find out how it ticks. It’s more fun to me to mess with something, as long as there’s an undo button!

And as for my gorgeous avatar up there, I think that’s how I want to visualize myself looking before I run out the door. Not exactly reality, but a girl can dream, huh? Still trying to figure out how to put it on my sidebar in WordPress…will work on that for tomorrow.