Thing #8 Make life "really simple" with RSS and RSS feeders

Well, I made it through another "thing" in my life. Actually, I finished Thing #8 several days ago, but am just now getting back to posting about it. (After all, there are other "things" going on in my life. Ha!)

Anyway, I chose Bloglines. I can't tell you right now why I chose it over Google Reader. When I was looking at them several days, Bloglines grabbed me for some reason. I thought it was very easy to set up an account. Somehow when I started exploring to find various feeds to subscribe to, I looked in the left panel of my screen and noticed that there were hundreds of feeds already subscribed to. I'm not sure how that happened. I was going to try to unsubscribe, but found that I was having to go into each one separately. I knew I didn't have time for that, so I created another account.

I was successful in subscribing to most of the ones Mary suggested. I created folders for different subjects like libraries, news, health, "girl stuff", and sports. (I'm a big Cowboys and Mavericks fan.) Anyway, I tried to subscribe to various sections of the Dallas Morning News, but I think I did something wrong. I wasn't able to put each individual part of the newspaper into various folders that I created. I'm going to have to go back and delete all the individual ones and just subscribe to the whole newspaper I guess.

I like the fact that I won't have to visit individual web sites to check for updates . . .they will come to me. I won't have to "find" or "look" for information about things I am interested anymore, whether it's for my personal life or school-related information.

I can use this tool to subscribe to websites that will help me keep my staff informed of new things going on. If my students are doing research, I can subscribe to sites like Feedster.com. I can search for different topics that my students are researching and within less than a day have new items to choose from that might help my students. It's like having your own personal researcher. I could really go for that! And it's free! I don't have to put them on my payroll! Ha!

I haven't looked closely at creating bookmarklets yet, but what I saw of it, I think I'm going to investigate it more later, when I have time.I've made my page public, so click on this link to get to it:
My Bloglines

Library Happenings

Thing #7 Google - not just for searching anymore

After looking through all the Google Discovery Resources, I decided that the two most useful to me in my library program were the Google Calendar and the Google Notebook. I had no trouble creating a new notebook. With this feature, I can create a webquest with questions and links to websites in order for my students to find the answers in their research.

When I tried to create a calendar, I ran into some trouble. I typed events into certain days of the month, but it didn't seem to be saving them. I have looked at the help page on the calendar page and the FAQ's, but have still not been successful. . .

Yay!!! I was finally successful in creating my calendar with events posted during the month of November. After hours of trying everything I could think of and getting advice from Mary, Debbie & Marnie, I figured out what was wrong. I have two Google accounts, the one I created on staff development day and my home e-mail account. I was creating the calendar under one account and trying to imbed my calendar into my blog under my other account.

Now I'm ready to tackle Thing #8. Hopefully I won't run into as many roadblocks with it as I did on this one. But, I don't give up easily. I will spend hours obsessing with problems like this until I find the solution. So those of you out there struggling with your blog, don't give up.

Thing #6 Flickr mashups

There are so many 3rd party tools associated with the Flickr website. You could spend weeks exploring all the different things available and create almost anything you could imagine. I really like the mosaic maker. I could post multiple pictures on my school website of Children's Book Week, our Scholastic Book Fair, research project pictures, my library helpers, etc. I also liked the postcard maker. My 4th grade students could create a postcard based on the region of Texas that they researched. Another favorite of mine is the trading card maker. I could create trading cards of my library helpers and recognize them on the library website.

My Avatar's Trading Card

My Nano

This is my up-coming toy.

Image citation: IPod Nano 1, mrjerz, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrjerz/1678295091/

Thing #5 Discover Flickr

Well, I just explored the Flickr website. I was looking for a picture of the IPod Nano that I'm going to get when I finish this assignment. All I had to do was type Nano in the search box on the website and I found many different pictures of my soon-to-be Nano. I can't wait! Check out the picture I found on my blog. Some other things I also learned about this website are:

Video tutorials about Flickr

How to check the creative commons part of the website to find pictures with alternatives to full copyright protection for use on my blog and school website

I can use Flickr in my library program in ways such as uploading pictures and organizing them into sets around themes like Children's Book Week, our Scholastic Book Fair, Research, etc.

Thing #4 Register your blog and join the party

Well, I registered my blog. I had a really hard time coming up with a "catchy" name for my blog. After taxing my brain for over ten minutes, I gave up and settled on "Share with Sue", which probably sounds pretty lame, but I want to get on with the registration process so I can complete this "thing" and move on to Thing #5. (I actually feel pretty good about myself. Afterall, Dr. Seuss only got as far as Thing #1 and Thing #2.)

Thing #3 Create a blog, post and add an Avatar

Well, I've been successful posting my first blog and it's exciting to see what I've posted on the web for all the world to see. It's also intimidating because I don't want to embarass myself by showing my lack of knowledge into a world that I'm not sure of right now. I hope to gain more confidence as I go along in my assignment, learning new things along the way. I'm also feeling some frustration with creating my Avatar. I've wasted time trying to get to the website where I choose my Avatar, but keep getting error messages from Yahoo. I will move on to Thing #4 and come back later to add my Avatar.

Thing #2 Lifelong Learning and Learning 2.0

After taking the tutorial for the 7 1/2 Habit of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners, I have decided that my easiest one to accomplish is Habit 1, beginning with the end in mind. I will have 18 hours of PGH & PFK and if I finish by the early deadline, I will get an IPod Nano. What great incentives! Thanks MISD administrators! Way to go!
I think the hardest habit for me to tackle will be Habit 7, teaching/mentoring others. My first thought was the fact that I don't have time to teach or mentor others. Then I got to thinking, how silly! What if I don't understand something that I need to do? If I don't have time to mentor others who are struggling with this new technology, how can I expect others to take their time for my struggles?

Thing #1 Learning has never been so much fun!

I am a little apprehensive about creating this blog. I have just begun to feel comfortable working on the library website for my elementary school. I am also excited in a way, to be able to learn new things so that I can better relate to my students and their way of communicating and sharing.