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.