Thing #11 Library Thing

Library Thing is a great way to track your own books-- favorites or those reading currently. I also really enjoyed looking at the reviews and recommendations of others. I signed up to watch 2 groups-- picture books and mysteries-- one for school and one for personal interests. I added 5 of my favorite books, and was interested to see how some of my favorites were really popular, and a couple were added by less than 50 people. I had trouble getting the widget to work to add them to my blog. I will consult the kickball captains next time I see them to see how to add them. I am also interested in learning to use shelfari to add that cool graphic bookshelf of current favorites to my blog.
Random books from my library-- Favorites
Murder, She Wrote: A Little Yuletide Murder (Murder She Wrote) by Jessica Fletcher
Butterflies of Houston and Southeast Texas (Corrie Herring Hooks Series) by John Tveten
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
The Cay by Theodore Taylor
The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Ruth Sanderson

Thing # 10 Image Generators

Wow --are there a ton of image generators out there for free. Some are hidden in and around adds, and you have to sort through some that aren't free. But I loved the long list on the Custom Sign Generator website.
Comic Strip Generator was fun and easy to use. I made some extra ones to use on a bulletin board next year. I also made a few signs to use later with reading slogans. I discussed the Big Huge Lab on a previous post-- easy and fun with lots of possibilities for home and school. I loved the Image Chef. I can see many personal uses for all of these, and some for school. Students love graphic novels and comics. Teachers could pick some comic or sign templates to spice up or add humor to a lesson or presentation. These could also be used for students to come up with a saying to go with the template to add to research projects, creative writing, or something that applies to any unit or content studied. And then there are all of the generators that enhance digital images students could take themselves-- that really opens up the endless possibilities for creativity in learning and teacher use. I can add some of these features to jazz up my library website, too.

Thing # 9 Blogs & Feeds

I used the keyword searches in both Google Blog Search and Blogline's-- they both were the easiest to use, but I found that Blogline's found more blogs that fit exactly what I was looking for a little quicker than Google. It may have just been the particular ones I was searching, but both were easy and had tons of results to sift through. The most confusing parts were not the search tools, but some of the blogs that were so techy that the content was greek to me at this point.
I found this to be true with most of the Edublogs-- except for the ones from SBISD folks. They were great, and I used many of them to springboard off to other blogs. I found Guusje's blog on suprglu.
The more I look at what other people are reading, the more possibilities I see-- and I know I have added more to my feeds and blog subscriptions than I can possibly read-- for school and for my gardening pleasure. I just stumbled into the blog of one of my favorite gardening writers-- I didn't think she had a blog and so it was a real find. And then there are always a few when you search that make you wonder, "How does this relate to what I am searching for?" Like the feed that came up under "children's books" that discussed current issues in the US Securities and Exchange Commision???

Thing #8-- RSS Feed

The first and most obvious advantage to feeds is that it will save time and hopefully help sort through some of the vast amount of stuff out there to zero in on topics that are most important or needed in a timely manner. I subscribed to some feeds and blogs from SBISD people that looked interesting, and those they shared for professional development or ideas to try for the library. I am sure I will go through later to sort some out and add others. I then subscribed to about 6 for me personally-- gardening of course. As I was searching-- a feed came in about the fire at Cornelius Nursery-- one of my favorite places to plant shop:(
I like reading the feeds and blogs because they are short and sweet-- I don't have much time to sit at the computer each day-- so it is more like just picking up a quick magazine or newspaper article to browse. Now-- off to the gym!

Thing #7

Google tools have really come a long way since I used some of them last. Several tools looked useful to me as a professional-- the notebook to gather information and the docs pages to share with others. I would be cautious to do the alert because I am afraid I would get many more emails than I could handle reading right now.
I looked closer into the advanced searches to find powerpoints in curricular or literary areas. I was pleasantly surprised to find some useful ones for elementary levels! I set up an account in picasa to upload some family history photos that I had scanned previously. I have it set to only share with my family.
But Google Earth I think has so many possibilities for geography and science-- even math. I have used it a bit with the activboard and it lends itself nicely. I was able to zoom in so much on our school that I could see the butterfly outline of our garden in the school courtyard.

Thing #6

I loved all of the additional tools in this thing. I can see quite a few of them that could be used to quickly spice up any research project or provide a visual that could go with a more indepth report-- or just give the quick facts if that is all that is needed. I loved the trading cards for research facts, or "about me" activities at the beginning of the year. The trading cards, mosaic, magazine covers, or cube could be used for really any topic. I wonder if there is a way to leave blank spots in the mosaic or cube to insert or write text/info. Mappr would be great for state or country reports with post card type info, or book covers inserted for stories from different countries. I also liked the movie poster idea for a book review/report or an extension for an original piece of student writing. I liked the calendar idea for me to use for library events and schedules, and the photo badge for "about me", student-made desk/cubby nametags, post with student work on bulletin board, etc. There is a lot to try out-- the possibilities are endless-- and the best part is they are so easy and quick to use with students--and FREE!
TRADING CARD: I just planted one of the pipe vine plants at my home this year. I discovered about 20 of these pipevine swallowtail caterpillars on it this week. I am eagerly awaiting some of these beautiful butterflies flying around in my garden. Butterflies have amazing instincts -- the black swallowtails found the 4 small parsley plants and the one pipevine plant in my back yard on which to lay their eggs!

Thing #5

Flicker is a wonderful additional resource for pictures! Although Flicker didn't have the large numbers of photos that you may find on Google, I was pleasantly surprised with the clarity and quality. I'm sure it will grow in time. I loved having a larger thumbnail format to preview. I did not see any inappropriate photos as I searched through some science and social studies topics, as well as some topics of interest to me personally. I found the keyword searches to be fairly accurate and specific considering all of the different sources adding photos. I can see many applications for even the younger students where these pictures will be easily used-- especially photo story. I am curious to see how some of these will work when projected in activboard flip charts for teaching purposes. Anyone tried that? And would you save it as a different size to get good clarity when it is projected?

This photo is the Blue Morpho Butterfly-- one of the largest and most popular butterflies we have at the butterfly center where I volunteer.