Thing 9 - Google Blog Search

I guess that I should get over my Google fasination - but this is the search tool that I like best. It follows the form that Google searching has - so it would be familiar to students. I like that it has a time element showing - this gives the searcher some idea how current the item is. Also, it makes it easy to connect to your RSS reader.

I just think that there is something to be said for familiarity especially when you are dealing with little kiddos. They need that support - so for me, I think I would use the Google blog search. Now, another thought occurs. I think this opens another kettle of worms to deal with as far as the kiddos are concerned.

It is already difficult for them to understand that everything that they read is not necessarily gospel truth - blogs are going to often be oppinions. Now, for dealing with fact and opinion that is great - but when searching for FACTS, we really do need to be careful.

I sometimes think we need to create a cheatsheet checklist for the kids of what they can "trust" for factual info and what not. The list is getting extremely long - so I guess that begs the question that is behind all of this - we are moving from just learning how to "find" info into a time where we need to really begin to teach students, at a very young age, to evaluate what they find. That can be a very difficult concept for adults much less young pumpkins.

Thing # 9- Blog searching

I really liked Topix. It was fairly easy to search by topic which is the main way that I would use it for students in the library. Another that was equally easy and gave lots of choices was the Blogline's search tool. I was not so impressed with the Syndic8.c0m. It seemed to limit your choices and did not have as large of a return for the searched items. I also did not like the layout of this one. However, for news, it would be a good choice.

Technorati was fairly easy and gave a good return. But, I think I still like Blogline's the best of all.

I am still not sure how much I would use this in school at this point. Of course, the fact that I work in an elementary school has alot of bearing on that. With older students I can see a real use for this. However, elementary school has a problem that often web pieces are at to high of a reading level for this to be extremely helpful. What I would like to find is a blog search that will find blogs by elementary students for elementary students. So, that will take some searching.

Thing 8 - RSS

I think that I could come to love RSS. Currently there are still a limited amount of sites with the RSS feed link but I believe there will be more and more. This is another of those awesome timesaving devices.

I can se an immediate application to the morning news. If they had their own RSS site they could have it pull in the weather, person of the day, special quote, fun fact, and other bits of info to help round out the morning news. This would allow students to go to one place to get all of that info.

I can see librarians using it in several ways. One of course is the news. That is a given. But, we have the olympics coming this summer. What about a rss that was just about olympic news. I could make one for teachers in summer school who are using Olympics as a theme. How helpful it would be to have all that info coming to one spot.

I can see doing a search for other subjects and doing the same.

I suspect that as we begin to use it we will find more and more applications.

Another thing about 7

Google Earth is a very cool - MASHUP - see I am showing off because this is one of the things I learned yesterday - that term - Mashup. What fun!

Thing 7 - Google Stuff

Okay, I already loved Google but I found new reasons to love it. I knew about Google Earth but there is a new updated version that I am about to load - new and fresh. It is so very cool with all the new stuff. Google Earth has lots of classroom applications. For 1st grade when they are starting all the different countries, there are wonderful pictures on Google Earth as well as the 3d buildings which let you go and "see" the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, Mt. St. Helens, etc. Then you get to 3rd and 5th grade landforms - that is a easy app to see. You just go somewhere on the map and let them find penisulas, islands, bays, etc. It is a great way to really see if the kids know the different landforms.

I also investigated Google Docs. I think they are extremely easy to work with. I think it would be easy to make that my library webpage rather than the one that I have currently or the one they are proposing. I want to spend more time exploring this one.

Lastly, I really liked the IGoogle page set up. It is extremely easy to use and lots of fun.

I can see so many ways to use this in the library. Of course, I always see ways to use things in the library. And I don't even have my library glasses on. Hmmmmmmm!

More on Thing 6

I said I could go on and on so here I go.

What about some trading cards for favorite books. Kids could make them for their favorite books, write a bit about the book and then give them out to other kids. They could even put the call numbers on their trading cards. What a wonderful way to teach about summarizing as there would only be a small amount of room to write something about the book. This could really be a fun activity that would draw the students in. Then they could print out say, 10 copies, and give them out to friends. The friends could then read the book and they could use the trading cards to write comments on the back and you could post them on a wall in the library, the trading card with the comments on the back, for other students to read. Now we have moved to advertising!

Thing 6 - mashups

Wowzer! I liked the Flikr mosaic mashup. That was quite fun. I made one with clouds, mountains, all from the Favorites using tags. I think this would be a great thing to do with kids who are working on different landforms. Plug in - valley or island and let it go and find lots of pictures and then have a mosaic. I think they would be fun to print out and put outside the room for others to look at especially if you could print the mosaics in color. Of course you could always go out and find pics too. One of the things that my teachers told me about landforms is that they need lots of visuals for this.

I also liked the trading cards. I can see how these would be a great tool. Go in and take digital pics of all the science equipment the students are supposed to know for TAKS and the saftey rules, make a set of trading cards. Then give out groups of them to different kids and have a complete set posted. Also the teacher could give them out as reward slips. Students would need to go around to other kids and say - I need a goggles card. The student with the card would ask 2 or more questions (teacher choice) that the 1st student would need to answer. If the child answered correctly, he gets the card for his "set." The students would work with each other to help each other learn the tools and safety rules. Then they could put their completed sets in their science notebooks. This could be done with landforms, math, alphabets, adinfinitum. I see this as a great way to have some huge fun. It takes a bit of time to make the original set - but then kids can start making sets as well. They could make sets about different periods of time in history, okay, if I start down this path - I will never stop. I could go on and on.

The choices are endless. So, let the mind run free - oppps, that could be dangerous.

Flikr -YEAH

I love flikr. It saved my fanny all of last summer. I went on a trip where I took over 2,000 photos. Well, I uploaded to Flikr like a wild woman and burned CD's as well. I still have some to upload to Flikr and hope to get that done soon.

I really like this site because it allows me to decide who I want to share my pictures with. I have pictures from my trip, my friend's kids, and even my new townhome - before I started to work on it. I will be taking more pics when I am finished decorating and getting it ready.

What fun. Flikr is easy to use and a great tool. Lots of fun to look at the pics other people have taken.

It is finally summer

I know that it has been a long time since I posted my first post. It is finally summer and I am beginning to take some time to stop and smell the roses so to speak. This summer will be a busy one for me. I will be learning some new things in Web 2.0 as well as teaching alot of new things with Promethean and writing curriculum. So, I expect that I will begin to write more here over the next few weeks.

The spring was full of school and renovating my new townhome. I have not finished that yet and am still working on it but as I get rooms completed I will take some pictures and post them here. Alright - how does this apply to books being treasures? I have had to read quite alot to be able to do the plumbing and tiling as well as painting work that I have done. Yes, I know, all those years of watching This Old House have helped immensly but so does reading the This Old House magazine for hints as well. You will often find me with my head stuck in that particular magazine. I am also looking at lots of decorating books as well right now. Still more to do, but hopefully most of that will be done this summer. Right now I am trying to learn about gardening and taking care of a lawn. I have never really done that before and so this is a learning experience - such as water after the sun starts to set - it hurts the plants if you water in the hot part of the day. Plants are NOT like humans - they do NOT need a drink when they are hot.

The other thing that I will be doing this summer, which I already alluded to, is working on learning more about Web 2.0. I have started a fun thing called 23 Things - these are supposedly 23 new things to explore on the web - one of which is blogging. Ha! So I have explored the idea of life long learning, made some goals for myself, and learned a bit about the history of blogging. Now I am about to launch out into this new learning experience for the summer. I have dabbled in it with my students in the library a bit during the spring of the year - already played with animoto and making trading cards - but I hope to get a bit more in depth as the summer goes on. So, expect to hear a bit about some of the things I am doing and how I see them relating to education - especially in the library or classroom as I go forward. I will get back to talking about books every once in awhile as well.

So here I go diving in - I guess that is appropriate for an Olympic summer!