Survivor

Really enjoyed reading Between a rock and hard place by Aron Ralston. It was a story well told that kept me reading until the end. The story also left me wanting to know more about Aron and Canyonlands, the site of the story. To that end, we have purchased the DVD from NBC news with a Tom Brokow interview and return to the canyon. Your sponsor can borrow it from us at anytime. Just e-mail a request. Keep on reading.

2008-2009 High School Name That Book Underway

Hope this blogging finds you deep into the reading list for this year. I, as the grand quote picker and ultimate questions maker, have been making my way through the books as well. Currently I am experiencing the end of the world with the zany Pratchett and Gaiman book, Good Omens.

Hope that many of you celebrate Teen Read Week at your library the week of
Oct. 12-18. I love the theme this year, Books with Bite. We have at least one Vampire tale to read this year, Bloodline by Cary. And of course we are all anticipating the movie Twilight. Twilight was on our list two years ago. I swear all teams had every line of that book memorized and it was impossible to find a quote from that book that someone might not know.

I will be posting here once every two weeks. I would like to share team pictures. Just send them and I will upload. Read thoughtfully.

Thing 23 - The summary

This is absolutely my favorite picture and perfect in my mind to describe my experience. I worked my chops off!

(1) My fav is blogging. I have gotten into this and think I am developing a feel for it.
(2) Perhaps made me a bit more committed to becoming more proficient in various Web 2.0 tools
(3) Unexpected and delightfully so was the number of HISD librarians participating and really being into it.
(4) If you could anticipate the hard parts, like embedding video, and provide more online help or resources.
(5) Yes
(6) Delicious
(7) Big thanks for doing this. I'd play with you guys anytime.

Thing 22 - Ning

I have had some experience with Nings. I have looked at Joyce's and Shondra's before and think that both could be useful. The Texas Ning gets a lot of repetition from the TLC Listserv. Joyce's Ning has a lot more features. We have a UNT cohort of MLS students that uses a Ning. This is a great use of this tool.

Thing 21 - Podcasting and Photo Story

This was my second effort with Microsoft Photo Story. It is really fun to work with. I think it should get easier with time. Had no luck adding narration. I have a brand new computer (Vista) and tried using a mike with a headset to no avail. Just need to invest in some equipment I think. And play more... Definitely want to challenge students, librarians, and teachers to try this.

I think I need more help on this one. Specifically the handout from Liz's Region IV class. My Photo Story ended up being a .wp3 file and I looked and looked and could find no instructions or directions on how to fix it so it could be uploaded to the blog. I know this was covered in our class. I even looked back at the Region IV WIKI and came up empty. Oh well. I do have an ok Photo Story to use with the High School Name That Book Group.

Thing 20 - TeacherTube and YouTube

So much wonderful educational content now resides here. Too bad that much of YouTube is presently unavailable to our students at school. Luckily we can access TeacherTUBE in most school districts. With help and persistence almost any video can be shared in a school by a teacher or librarian who is willing to learn how to do it.

Here is a book trailer from a Science Fiction book we will read this year, Host by Stephanie Meyer. I have met some readers who prefer Host to Twilight. How about you? Can you make a book trailer?

Had some trouble with the embedding. This link helped me.

Thing 19 - Web 2.0 Awards

I love this site. This will take some time to explore but I really liked what I saw when I checked out the categories most useful or interesting to me. I see lots of educational or library applications scattered among the categories. Of course I can see used for the WEB 2.0 tools in Books and Content Aggregation. I want to explore more of Wufoo for managing some web content like registration. That could be very helpful.

Thing 18 - Online office tools

So we really can't get along without MS office. We need it like the air we breathe but it is not free. We started using Google Documents a few years ago. It is a very handy tool. We use it to share and edit common documents. Never really thought about it's use as an alternative to a computer without Office. I have always made sure that I added the MS Office suite to whatever computer I purchase. I have seen and heard about Open Office but never downloaded it. I am in the market for a new computer so I might consider it. This might be very helpful to students whose home computer does not have Office.

Thing 17- Rollyo

Rollyo was a bit obtuse for me at first.
I created a custom searchroll on healthy eating. I think some of the custom searchrolls may be useful especially the one on travel. Then I added a Rollyo searchbox on books and authors to my blog and that may be useful. I see some overlap with using delicious. I also added a bookmarklet for Rollyo to my home page.

Thing 16 - WIKI nation

So WIKI's are everywhere. The grandaddy WIKI, Wikipedia, has become many internet users default encyclopedia. It is an awesome and amazing thing. However, it should not be the only source of information consulted in the research process. One of our tasks as librarian is to warn about authority and to introduce our users to other possibilities.

I went to the Spring Branch Sandbox (WIKI) and posted a commment about WIKIs. As I mentioned in that posting, we have created a WIKI to track and work on our departmental goals. Observation: WIKIS have to "catch on". You can build it but will they come? How do you get your audience to participate ? There are barriers to deal with learning curves, fear of making a technological misstep in front of your peers. This is one technology tool that is pretty deep and will require more practice and experience to be beneficial.

Thing 15 - Library 2.0

It is exciting to see all of the possibilities with Library 2.0. It is certainly a time of change to anyone working in libraries. I think that many of these new Web
2.0 tools will have a place in the the Library 2.0. The future of the library is all about service and delivering what the patron needs in the format requested in and a manner that is very user friendly. Design is very important and communicating for better understanding. I want to fast forward sometimes and take a peek.

I think one of the best Library 2.0 roadmap's was listed in Christopher Harris's blog, Informancy. Here is a quote that I want to hold close to my heart and mind.

"Being the Intel Inside is making sure you slap a “Powered by the School Library” sticker on everything you do. It is about making sure people know that the library is the person/place/thing/idea that helps make learning happen throughout the school. "

Thing 14 - Tagging and Technorati

Tagging is a big part of many Web 2.0 tools. The tag when used well can make searching and finding information so much easier. I think the key is to use it and the more you tag and use tags the better you will become.

I was impressed with the interviews with the Technorati leadership and their goals. Very idealistic I must say. I don't see myself using Technorati often. It is a great idea to be able to locate blogs by keyword and search blogs. It is just the time issue. Do I have the time to look for more to read?

Thing 13 - Social Bookmarking

Del.icio.us is probably the best known and most widely used of the social bookmarking sites. I had initially tried Digg but have since moved to Del.icio.us as more of my friend and colleagues are using this as their tool of choice. Hands down this is the way to go in order to keep track more efficiently of what sites you want to access. This exercise has given me ideas about using Del.icio.us more effectively by providing me with more ideas about smart tagging practices and also ranking. I really like the idea of using an asterisk rating system. Some of the other social bookmarking sites have that ranking part built in the tagging process; perhaps Del.icio.us will add that in the future. I am ready to tag. This can be a real boon to research and would be great for teachers to share with their students. We have been introducing this to our ACP librarians and need to make sure that all of our librarians are using social bookmarking sites.

Thing 12 - To comment or not to comment that is the question

Commenting is an important aspect of blogging. Both the blogger and the reader of blogs benefit from readers' comments. There is more to learned from the topic under discussion if one reads a blog and its comments. You are exposed to additional viewpoints. Therefore comments can enlarge and extend the focus of the blog. Comments that offer contrary viewpoints may make blog readers and bloggers reconsider their earlier statements or posts.

It is kind of scary to post a comment at first. It is easier to post a comment to a site of a blogger that you know.

Thing 11- Social networking reading sites

The two most popular social networking reading sites are :
Library Thing and Shelfari.
Another similar site you might want to look at is goodreads. I had actually started using that a few months ago and decided to switch to Library Thing instead during this exercise. With Good Reads you can rate your books and indicate what you have read, what you are reading, or what you want to read.

All sites allow you to list the books you are reading and those you have read. Both allow you to search and share what you have read with others who join the network. If your friends join, then you can also check on what they are reading.

Thing 10 - Image generators

Image generators are a lot of fun. You can make cartoons, trading cards, signs, art, and etc. I took some titles from our Name That Book Contest and had some fun with them. Can you identify the books?

The image on the left was taken from the Comic strip generator.
The one on the right is a more arty piece. I took a book cover image and
used the Bead Art site to create an arty cover. Know this title?

Thing 9 - Finding Library-related Blogs and News

I tried various search strategies to locate blogs. But for my money, the best advice on this type of thing comes from three sources:

(1) a colleague who is presenting about blogs
(2) a list of best of the best - see the jpeg image to
the right of this text. This Time magazine article picks the top 25 blogs . I added one blog (Lifehacker) to my aggregator on the basis of this article. This blog provides technology solutions to life's overload. There were several other interesting blogs but I am trying to hold back.
(3) following a link to a blog from another blog

The above strategies is how I added several of my blogs that I am attempting to follow. The Google search tool was the easiest to use and Technorati was the least satisfactory and most confusing.

It is always interesting the places you go when
reading blogs. Today I found some great info about
student's weaknesses in searching. Some of the library
blogs can be redundant. Everyone reads Blue Skunk for
example and comments on it. That can be a bit repetitive.

Thing 8 - RSS feeds, Readers, Oh my!

So there are lots and lots of super librarians out there and they are
doing a whole lot of talking on blogs. To even begin to keep up with stuff it helps to not need a lot of sleep. Since doing without sleep is not a viable option, one must choose. Actually, you need to be very, very selective and choose only the most compelling reading. Otherwise you are doomed before you start. This is hard becuase most librarians are information junkies and just want it all. The reader or aggregator helps but still one needs to make checking in and looking at the posts on a regular basis. My resolution after this module is to cut back on my subscriptions. Bloglines is my aggregator of choice.

Thing 7--- Google tricks

Google is so amazing. I enjoyed spending some quality time with some of the tools. I already was using I-Google which is amazing. I have found it works better for on Firefox. Right now I am avoiding Internet Explorer whenever possible. Anyway it was fun picking the art for the header and my gadgets. I have a countdown gadget for my vacation - only 10 days!
This is my current iGoogle banner.

I also added Google notebook. Seems like it could be very useful to a book lover and researcher.
Dave Pogue mentioned the Google thumbnails in his recent NYT column so I added that as well. I think that is way cool. Can't wait to start using it. Here is the link to download the Google thumbnails.

Thing 6 - Mashups

I like to travel and during the past few years I have been able to go to Italy, Spain, and Portugal. I have also been able to visit neat places in the U.S. like Pittsburgh, Reno, and Chicago as I attended various library meetings.


This summer the big trip will be to England, home of some of my favorite authors. To the left is some pictures from my Flickr account that I took in Italy. We saw lot of fantastic sites as we traveled from Rome to Pompei to Tuscany. I used Mosaic Maker to combine 4 of my pictures in a more aesthetically pleasing presentation.





One of my favorite authors is Jane Austen. I hope to see some of the places where she lived.
If I collected author trading cards, this is one that I would have to collect.

This is an example of using two web-based programs to create mashups. The travel pictures were created with Mosaic Maker and the Jane Austen card was created with Trading Card Maker.

Thing 5 - Flickr and author sightings

Homo sapiens love to take pictures. They especially love to take pictures of themselves with famous people. Authors are famous people. You can search sites like Flickr to find pictures of some of your favorite authors. Here are two pictures I found in the Flickr common grounds section. This section has photos that you may use under certain conditions outlined on the site.
The picture on the left is Sherman Alexie talking about one of his books to a gathering. The picture on the right is Neil Gaiman autographing one of his books at an event.

Thing 3 - - - The deed is done

So as I have begun to play, the blog's the thing and Reading Thoughtfully the title. My avatar has made her debut and will represent me well I hope in the weeks and months to come. Now on to Flickr and other sites most visual.

Thing 2 - - - Starting out

So here I am playing with Web 2.0 tools and having fun doing it. My plan is to use this blog space as a vehicle to communicate with my High School Name That Book Community which consists of readers from several high schools, their sponsors, and possibly parents. I will track my efforts on our current reading list and comment about my reactions to titles as I read them. I also plan to post any news about the books and authors that we are reading. With my job, I frequently run into opportunities that I would like to share with all of you. The first book I read this year is The Absolutely True Diary of a part-time Indian. Sherman Alexie is a fantastic writer and certainly deserved the National Book Award for this effort. Part-time Indian is funny, smart, and compelling. Definitely will be one of the best ones on this year's list. I have not received my Name That Book shipment yet but hope to receive the order this coming week. Can't wait. Unpacking a box of new books is one life's greatest pleasures!

For my Library2Play class, I need to comment on being a life-long learner. I think most good teachers and librarians are by default life-long learners. For me the most difficult part is one of the most important - Habit #1, goal setting. Being a mentor to others is the easiest part of being a life-long learner. When I see great books or cool tech tools, I am literally driven to spread the word.