Final Posting for 23ThingsKansas

My reflections on the things I have learned from participating in 23thingsKansas:
1. Technology is not as difficult as I have made it sometimes. I need to just "jump in" and try more things more often. However, I still would like to have a mentor to discuss items with and ask questions and I am more comfortable if the mentor is someone I know.

2. My least favorite lesson was Twitter. However, after listening to the wrap-up webinar, I may have to open my mind and give it a try.

3. My personal favorite lesson just to help my own organization was week 14 - Library Thing. I am so excited about continuing to add my books to shelves this summer and getting organized.

4. Lesson that I most want to go back and redo because I am still having major problems: Week 6: Tagging and social bookmarking. I feel like this lesson has lots of potential but it is not working for me. I don't know if the problem is the school filter but I cannot get the Delicious link to stay on my webpage and my tags are not working either. My delicious link shows under "my favorites" but that is not where I want or need it to be.

5. Lesson that could have the most impact on my library may be from week 12: screencasting. I have only done the one screencast but I have ideas for several more. Hopefully, I will have time this summer to work on some of these. I am glad that the lessons will remain on the site this summer so that I can go back for review and reinforcement.

6. The lesson I have used the most is lesson 1:blogging. Once I got this established, it was kind of fun to come back each week and add my summaries. My nephew spent the spring semester in Rome, and thanks to my blog, I was able to follow his experiences. It was great!

I learned multiple things throughout the course of these lessons so in no particular order now, here are the rest of my 23 things:

7. I have used facebook for personal family information since week 2. Now I want to set up a library facebook page - challenge: get past the school filters.

8. I am becoming more comfortable with webinars. The primary advantage for me may be those that are archived since getting on during the school day is not possible.

9. Professional training may be easier to access through webinars and this may become more important for the next several years although I prefer the personal touch where I can talk to people face to face.

10. I need to get better at uploading photos into Flickr and getting them organized. Then it will be easier to use other tools like Slide Sharing.

11. I like Google Reader.

12. I subscribed to too many RSS feeds after my first lesson and became completely overwhelmed.

13. During the final webinar, someone mentioned that they don't always read everything on their RSS feeds- the example was the "Sunday paper approach." This is going to help me. I am deleting some of my initial RSS feeds, keeping several of my "essential ones."

14. I want to use "tagging" to get organized with my various school projects, presentations and resources that I have stored in too many different places.

15. I know what the "cloud" is. About one or two weeks before this session started, someone was talking about the "cloud" and being a former science teacher, I knew they weren't discussing the weather. Now I know what they meant and have attended one training session on google tools. Along with the projects from this class, I am actually a part of the "cloud" now.

16. There are still a lot of things I do not know how to do. Technology keeps changing very quicklly.

17. I have not used the instant messaging as much as I thought I might. I think I need to get several of the people I like to solicit help from on my buddy list.

18. I need a Round Two for most of the things we did this spring semester. Time went very quickly and I was doing most of them for the first time. I need more practice.

19. I like slide sharing and may actually use it more with some of my "family" projects, trips etc.

20. I need to network better with more school librarians who are doing some of these things.

21. Almost everything we did throughout this class was new to me. Perhaps the only thing I had done before was to sign in to some other professional webinars.

22. I have plenty of work to do to add some of these tools to my library to create a better learning environment for my patrons.

23. 23thingsKansas has GREAT INSTRUCTORS!!

Web 16: Wrap-up Webinar

I just finished listening to the morning wrap-up webinar. It was good to have a review of all the lessons again - it will help with the final reflection. The webinar gave me some reinforcement to keep trying even though some of the things I tried this first time did not work very well. I was so excited when I joined the goodreads for my personal library and then tonight when I was listening I heard one of the librarians talking about Shelfari and how patrons like to see the book jackets on the new books. So, now I think I will set up shelfari maybe for the library web page - another project for this summer.

Another suggestion that was made was about Web Junction and having a group of people who might want to work together. This may be for the future but it would be great if there were 4 - 5 school librarians who would be interested in doing this. I would love to be a part since I feel that I just skimmed the top on most of these projects. Then perhaps I could make a better network with some people I know and add to the projects that I have started with this class.

Again, a huge thanks to all the mentors!!

Week 15: Wikis

I did not decide to edit an existing Wiki. Instead, I went to the "examples of wiki use" and reviewed several of them. The one I chose to investigate most closely was Lab Tech Training Wiki. I went through the Wiki titled, "Creating Your First Wiki." There is a lot of information contained in the presentation and I believe I will refer to it again for helpful suggestions.

After reviewing the video on Common Craft Video, I decided the Wiki might be a good way to plan a couple of group projects. One of them involves a trip where three couples are trying to coordinate one plan. This may be the answer as the emails seem to be getting very complicated. For this I believe I will use PBworks. The video made this seem fairly simple although the presentation I referred to in the previous paragraph did have more steps and seemed a little more complicated.

For the second part of the lesson, I was successful in following Eric's directions and I believe that I have added a page to the 23 Things Kansas wiki. While the steps posed a few challenges for me, I believe that in the end I actually succeeded in getting it linked. I hope so!!

Week 14: Library Thing, etc.

This may be my favorite personal tool. I have been wanting a way to organize my personal library books, lists I have for books I want to recommend to the students, and a way to keep track of books that I want to read. I have tried several paper methods over the past several years but I keep misplacing some of my "papers." This tool may be the answer. I am sort of intrigued by the idea of looking at other people's recommendations - I am not sure how much I will (would) use that. I decided to go with Goodreads.com at this time. After looking at the three options LibraryThing, Shelfari and Goodreads, I was influenced by Erin's screencast of Goodreads. I am really excited about trying this out and look forward to my experience the next several weeks.

Week 13: Slide Sharing

This is another very interesting tool. It is one that could help me make my presentations more available and accessible. I decided to use slideshare.net for this assignment. However, after viewing the lessons that Cindi did on Zoho Show and Animoto, I am tempted to try both of them. The last one I think has some real applications for the type of work done my by husband so I plan to share it with him. We should have some time this summer to try it out on several projects that he is currently doing.

As I have time to try it more this summer, I may come up with some additional ideas for the library. It would be great to design several projects to use with in-service in August. One that comes to mind is a quick orientation to the library for new staff members. The same presentation might be a good review for some of the staff members who don't use the library very much.

It would be interesting to know or view how other school librarians are using this tool. I need to do a better job of networking with some of the librarians utilizing these tools

Week 12 - Screencasting

As it turns out, this may be one of the most useful lessons. What I decided to do was to create a screencast showing how to put a hold on a book in the library since this is one of the most requested items in the library which most students don't remember how to do. The only challenge now is getting it linked to the library's webpage so it is ready to use next fall. Then I have to figure out how to advertise it so the students get used to going there to look for it. Right now, they prefer to just ask the person working the circulation desk to put the hold on the book for them. However, my goal is to get them to be comfortable with using the online catalog and its capabilities to be more independent.

I am sure the next one I do will be better. It took some time to get the settings right for the audio and to get a video which showed all the keystrokes I wanted them to make.

Week 11 Break

I need to use the break this week to catch up on some of the previous weeks' activities. For example, I did not realize when I signed up for RSS feeds, how they would pile up on me. I am not good about getting there everyday with all the research projects scheduled in the library now. I may have to delete some of the RSS feeds in order to keep it to a more manageable size.

Also, I still need to try my hand at the video on the web lesson.

Week 10 Video on the Web

I read through the lesson for the week but I have not done anything with it. I am not sure that I am going to commit at this time to making a video which I will upload to YouTube. I have the bookfair going on in the library for the next six days and that is consuming my time and energy. It might be a good idea to try and get some video and then maybe I could use it to advertise for next year's book fair. I will need to play around with that idea.

Week 9 Instant Messaging

I can see where this would be very handy in a work setting where co-workers were online and you could get some instant feedback. My guess is that at school this function is not going to work. I wish it was easier to find someone I know that is really good at these things so I could ask my "dumb" questions. It was not hard to set up.

Week 8 Cloud Computing

It is nice to have a better understanding of how online shopping, online meetings, RSS feeds etc. works. I had just recently heard the term, "cloud computing," and had no idea what it meant. Now, with this week's lesson, I have some idea. Of the examples listed in this week's lesson, the items I find that will be most helpful may be Google docs and doing a calendar using Google. The calendar is something I had thought about before where I could keep a calendar for the scheduled classes in the library. It would be a calendar that teachers could consult when they want to bring their classes to the library and note the dates that are still available. Now what I need to figure out is how to embed the calendar into the library's webpage. The other resource I reviewed was Dropbox; it sounds interesting but it seems like it does some of the same things as Google docs, Google presentation, etc. More research on my part is needed.

Week 7 - Microblogging

I have to admit that my age or lack of desire is catching up with me this week. I have never had the desire to post a lot of details about what I am doing online. If I want to tell that to someone - I call. So, for now, I am holding off; I do not plan to set up a Twitter.

Week 6 - Social Bookmarking - Tagging

I have created a Delicious account which was not too difficult. I think it is going to be handy to access my favorites from any computer as I don't usually have my work computer at home. Now I can add sites at home and still access them at school. The other feature that I like is the idea of creating "Bundles." This may be useful when working on different research projects for the students and I want to earmark sites that would be useful during the project, keeping all the sites together in a folder

Week 5 RSS and Feed Readers

I chose Google Reader as my aggregator because I already have a Google account and I thought it would be easier to keep going with some items that I already understand. I have subscribed to several RSS Feeds. I did this by choosing the Browse option which allowed me to look at bundles on topics that interest me. One bundle that I selected was on libraries. I selected another bundle on cooking and a third on scrapbooking.

Now I have plenty of feeds to review. The next step will be to go in and edit the feeds as I don't want 80+ feeds to review every day.

Week 4 Photo Sharing

I have created a Flickr account and I believe I was successful at uploading several images. I do see how I could use this feature to add pictures of the library to the library's webpage. It was not too difficult. However, I am not sure that I was successful in tagging a photo so that it would show up on the 23thingsKansas site.

Week 3 Webinars

I went to two sites. The one I enjoyed the most was Stephen Abram's, "Twenty-five Technologies to Watch and How." When you listen, it is almost overwhelming when I think about all the things I don't know how to do. However, he had a "how to get started" section at the end and so I now have a plan:
1. Get a buddy - I need to find someone that I know, trust and who I won't hesitate to ask questions because I am going to have a lot of them.
2. Set a schedule - he suggested three times a week for fifteen - 20 minutes. Use the time to learn or begin to learn one of the new technologies (actually he suggested "playing" - keep it fun.
3. Pick 1 or 2 items and get started. I don't have to do it all. (This is where the 23 Things Kansas is going to be helpful because maybe we will cover some of these items this spring.) However, the two items I decided to learn more about this week are Avatars and Scrapbooking - both new terms for me.

The second site I visited was Infopeople where I listened to George Needham anmd Joan Frye Williams discuss, "Revitalizing the Library Experience." The key message from this presentation for me was to focus on the user or patron and respect what they want. Most user experiences are independent and they talked about tools, not rules. One term that showed up here and in the first session as well was "Cloud software" which I also know nothing about. My new motto adapted from Charles Darwin may be, "To survive - be adaptable to change."

Facebook Assignment 23things

I set up a facebook page tonight and while I found the steps easy enough, thanks to our mentors, I have a lot of questions about the security of the information. I don't have a desire at this point to list a lot of personal information.
I know that my nephews and nieces like facebook a lot and perhaps this will be an easier way to stay in touch with them. One of them has already added me as a friend.
I am still not convinced of the use of facebook in a library setting; I understand it has appeal in a social network. So, I am here to grow and discover new uses.

23things Blogging Assignment

I have created my first blogging page. Now I need to find a use for it. Since our school blocks blogging sites, I will need to do this from home so I don't think I am going to create many school applications.