Thing 46 - WebJunction

I remember this Thing from the last go around. I have signed up, but I used the wrong email address and created a goofy log in. At first I signed up with my personal email instead of my school email address. That was a bit of a rig-a-ma-roll to get that straighten out that I was indeed a library employee. And then it turns out, you cannot change the email address you registered with.

So now this time around I am trying to log into WebJunction and do my last Thing on the last day and I can't get in. I clicked on the "forgot my password" button and still have not received a email response yet.

I plan on continuing to use WebJunction to take web training courses. It is a fabulous resource available to library employees and it is FREE.

Thing 45 - Cloud Computing

the idea of cloud computing: “The concept of cloud computing is one of a user sitting at a terminal taking advantage of services, storage space, and resources provided somewhere else - on another computer, through an Internet connection.”

I find I am already doing this through iGoogle, Flickr, etc... But to switch 100% to cloud computing. I don't think I can make that leap. I don't necessarily think my data is all that important, but to put it in somebody else's hands is not a risk I am willing to take.

Google Docs is fabulous and I love it for creating documents and sharing them with colleagues. But it still can't hold a candle to Microsoft Office.

I am rather intrigued by Web OS, but this is the first time I have heard about it. I will check this one out further. I have used Remote Desktop Connection, but always for work purposes and related to the tech side of my job not the library end of it.

Thing 44 - The Economy

This thing doesn't really apply to the media center, but there is a lot of good information out there. I liked the calculators available at mymoney.gov. These resources will be good to recommend to the social studies teachers and students.

The simple explanation video is worth a look too. Keep getting the information out there and hopefully, eventually it will sink in! Don't borrow money you can't afford to pay back.

Selling stuff online is a breeze too. I have done the ebay thing, right now we have a motorcycle listed on Craig's List too. Selling stuff is definitely buyer beware and seller beware. There are a lot of dishonest people out there looking to scam anyone they can.

Thing 35 - Books 2.0 revisited

I have to highly recommend shelfari.com. This is one site I keep going back to. I have entered about 150 books I have read so far. I even had my 10 year old and my 8 year old sign up. It is fun to track the books that you read and get suggested titles.

Thing 43 - Online TV & Video

Yes, people I really am old. I don't even have much time for TV anymore. I do watch PBS kids with my children. I like Arthur, The Electric Company, and Ruff Ruffman. I also catch Law & Order SVU reruns on USA. Honestly, I have never watched an episode of 30 Rock, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Dancing with the Stars, American Idol....etc. I do check out a lot of DVDs from my public library. Everyone get the most out of your library card. Great River Regional Library has the biggest selection of movies, even more than Hennepin County Library. But, I digress.

I am not a 100% total dork. I have been to Hulu before. I was searching for a Jerry Springer episode after I heard a former Rockford High School student had been on the show. So there I was watching Jerry Springer on the computer. I didn't find the episode I wanted to watch, but I did see Jerry had adapted his show to please the audience. They don't even provide the "guests" chairs anymore. I guess it is much easier to bitch slap someone standing up.

Thing 42 - Music 2.0

Wow, I had previously thought myself old. I don't listen to music on the radio much anymore. I always tell people you are old when you hear a new song on the radio and say "what the **** is this crap!"

But I have once again encountered a Thing I already am utilizing. I have an account on Pandora Radio and find it pretty cool. You can set up "radio stations" and vote on the content if you like it or not. And actually that is the downfall of Pandora radio too. You have to click on stuff once in a while or the music stops playing. The other downfall of Pandora is it is a huge suck on the bandwidth, so naturally is is blocked at school.

So, I also started poking around on the lyrics websites. You ever had a song that has plagued you for years about what the lyrics are. Problem solved!! Just look it up on the internet. I have finally figured out the chorus to Beck's "Loser" is "Soy un perdedor", which is just the Spanish translation of "I'm a loser". Does that mean I am a loser? Come on, who doesn't remember playing a record and picking up the needle and playing the same part of the song over and over again trying to learn the words to your favorite song. Or does that just mean I am an old loser. haha......

Thing 41- Mash Up Your Life

Hmmm. Sounds good in theory. If I am thinking about it right, friendfeed.com is like an RSS feed for friends I already have in email, facebook and whatever. I only ended up with 3 contacts; ALA, Barack Obama, and Debra Hamel. I like the concept and would like to utilize it, but I don't think it will work unless you have contacts also using it. Most of the stuff that came through was twitter and I already have a twitter feed on my iGoogle page.

Thing 40 - Mashups on the Web

This is from booktour.com (utilizing google earth). What fun! You can use Google Earth to find author's speaking engagements.

Thing 39 - Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling, online scrapbooking, screencasting, etc.... All the Things are starting to overlap. I suppose that is just nature of the beast. There are so many resources on the web it gets to be overwhelming....and exciting.

I am trying to fly through these last few things before the deadline, so I don't have an example.

Thing 38 - Screencasting

Wow!! What an incredible tool. I only wish I had an idea to actually make a screencast and post it. So far, I have only been to screencast-o-matic, but imagine the capabilities. At work the Art teacher had purchased Snapz-Pro, so I was rather impressed with myself that I actually knew what screencasting was. I will keep pondering the possibilities and hopefully play with this tool some more. I am still amazed it is free.

Thing 37 - Photo Tales (rolfbot)

Thing 37 - Photo Tales (rockyou.com)

Thing 37 - Photo Tales (slide.com)

My Goodness!!! This one makes a nice slide show, but I had added a song to it and there is no where to stop it. It just continuously looped and wouldn't stop. I like it a lot, but what to do with the noise?

Thing 37 - Photo Tales (One True Media)

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Thing 37 - Photo Tales

I love the Things I already know about. I have worked with Animoto before. It is a fun easy way to share photos. You only send a link to people in emails, you don't have to send emails with attachments. Makes it easy to send photos to mom (who still has dial-up internet access). Animoto is so easy to embed on your blog or facebook. Give it a try.

Thing 37 - Photo Tales (Animoto)

Animoto Bonfire Video

Thing 36.3 - More FUN!! (Toon Doo)

by badcathopkins | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

I have been having problems with the Toon Doo in my blog. It showed up fine last night, but now when I try to view it all I see is a blank box. In preview it looks fine, but just regular view. I will mess with it some more and see what happens.

Thing 36.2 - Still having fun!! (Obomiconme)

This was done at Obamicon.me.

What an iconic image.

Having fun with iMovie.

Thing 36.1 - Still having fun!! (fodey.com)

This is from fodey.com

Web 2.0 Tools

I was turned on to this site by a colleague. It is a comprehensive list of Web 2.0 tools. Check it out, it is pretty overwhelming. This website could be called 230 (plus more) Things on a Stick. I am pretty proud of myself. I am pretty familiar with a lot of them, thanks to 23 Things on a Stick, More Things on a Stick and my personal knowledge quest.

If the links are not working be sure to visit http://www.go2web20.net/.

THING 36 - Have some fun.

This site is pretty cool. This is from Glass Giant. There are different generators that will make fun things. Just a note, the prom make over was stupid. I tried it with 2 different photos and all it did was put a paper bag over the face. It was kind of disappointing, I thought it would actually apply make up or something.





I liked the fake newspaper page generator. I used this slide in my daily announcements on the TV as a reminder to students to return library books.





This is from an email icon generator


This image is from http://www.acme.com/labelmaker/

Thing 35 - Books 2.0

Wow!!! I love this Thing. I signed up for Library Thing the first go around, so I am already familiar with it. One interesting thing about Library Thing is GRRL (Great River Regional Library) uses Library Thing in its card catalog. When you search a book and click on it for the description and information, you also see tags from Library Thing. I haven't logged into Library Thing since 23 Things on a Stick. I also signed up for Shelfari, it is basically the same as Library Thing. I do like the look of Shelfari better. Facebook also has similar applications, you can add books to your profile and join reading groups or become a fan of authors too. I really loved What's Next too. I tagged it in Delicious and plan on using it frequently. Working at a school library, a lot of my readers are looking for series and the next book in the series. What's Next is perfect for that. I also signed up for Overbooked, the Ning for books. We will see. Once again, my never ending dilemma....not enough hours in the day.

JUMP ROPE VIDEO

Thing 34 - Online Answer Sites?

Good or Bad--hmm. Well there are both good and bad sites out there? Yes. Are they used? Yes. Will students continue to use them? Yes. Here at the HS-MC, usually I am the only one here. And doing tech duties at the same time. Most of the students are doing projects dictated by their teachers and have approved sources. The answer sites are helpful, especially for a small school media centers, we don't have a large budget or staff. So for the most part, I would have to say good. If it weren't for the computers in the media center my traffic through here would be greatly reduced. (The couch helps a lot too! :)

Thing 33 - Travel 2.0

Wow, is this stuff fun! Creating a travel journal, blogging about your experiences, mapping the route and inserting pictures and videos. I liked the blogs and the travel journal sites. As internet access grows, I see computers being so much a part of daily like, just like cell phones. It is kind of like blogging though, who has time to look at all this stuff?

Thing 32 - Google Maps

I liked this Thing. It combines two of my favorite things, maps and Google. Maps because I was a geography major and Google because who doesn't love Google? I played around and made a map of states I have visited. That was kind of depressing, I would love to travel way more than I have!!

Google maps would be useful in the media center to create book promos. You could create a map of different book settings, books about different cultures, etc. You could map out your favorite authors, libraries, colleges, the list is endless.

I could definitely waste a couple of weeks on Google maps.

Thing 31 - More Twitter

Twitter is much like RSS, it can be so overwhelming. I like following just a few local people I know. I follow some local politicians and libraries and Sam at CMLE, to name a few. I prefer to keep it kind of small. I am a "Twitter Pragmatist", only following 30-50 people. I once stumbled on a guy I though might be kind of fun to follow and what a mistake that was. He was way into it and have 16,000 followers. After I started following him all kinds of people started following me and it got so overwhelming. Who has the time to read all this information!! There is a whole world out there I don't want to be a part of. Maybe later down the Things journey I may change my mind. Right now even the ALA posts get overwhelming. It kind of stinks to look at your Twitter feed and see nothing good.

Thing 30 - More RSS and Delicious

I have been struggling on this thing. I just don't surf the web enough to check my RSS feeds all that much. It is just too much....information overload. Occasionally I will check my Google Reader and that is sufficient for my needs. I don't post that often, or even want to. Same with texting and IM.

Delicious is ok, it is kind of cumbersome to use. You have to log in and I really don't like the layout of it. I have been trying out the Delicious sidebar, which I really don't like that much either. I like the look of Microsoft Internet Favorites better than Delicious. Of course Delicious has the advantage of being on any machine you are on, but I pretty much use the same computer all the time and haven't utilized it much.

Thing 29 - Google Tools

Well here I go gushing about Google...again! I feel like this is all I ever blog about. I love my iGoogle homepage. I heavily utilize Google Docs. I have done Google Sites, Google Calendar, Google Reader, etc.

If you are not a user of Google Docs, you should be. I love it, it is not as fancy and as user friendly as Microsoft Office. But, it is free and online and always accessible. You do not have to save your documents to a flash drive or CD or disc. You can easily share documents with other people, you can give them read-only access or editorial privileges. I have so many documents for all my work and volunteer groups.

I did a Google Site. It is not the best for making webpages and a little frustrating at times. But, like I said...it is free. What can one expect?

p.s. Try National Geographic Picture of the Day. It is fun to get a new picture every day. I frequently change my desktop wallpaper to one of their pictures.

Thing 28 - Customized Home Pages

Once again, a Thing I already have done. I love this project! and I love Google. I have iGoogle set as my homepage with my Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Groups, Weather, To-Do List, Gmail, Google Reader etc...... There is no end to the amount of gadgets you can put on your iGoogle page. I try to keep it to a minimum though. Who has time to go through that much stuff everyday? I went to Widget box and tried to do a blidget, I liked how it turned out. But I just can't seem to get it on my blog page. Oh well. On to the next thing.

I also have a MyYahoo! page, but I much prefer the iGoogle page. With all the add ons Google beats Yahoo! hands down. I do prefer Yahoo! groups and Yahoo! email though. I have long done away with email accounts from my ISP and solely rely on my Yahoo! email address.

Thing 27 -- Twitter

Once again, an easy Thing. I found twitter through a learning workshop at school. I like it and got a few friends to join also, unfortunately they don't post very often. But then again, you can also follow public people. I am a follower of MN govenor, Tim Pawlenty, and Barack Obama (who is also following me). Yes, I am that important!

If you are already on twitter, also check out twhirl. It is a widget you can put on your desktop and it will feed your twitter posts.

So, look me up on twitter as dianehopkins

Thing 26 -- 23 Things on a Stick Ning

I love when the Things are easy. This one all I had to do was renew some info. I already had an account and a picture. I joined the CMLE Central Perk and School Librarian groups. I started a couple of discussions and posted a few things. Once again, it is hard to do at school because all the pictures are blocked.

OK, I did send some photos to Ning. It was surprisingly easy. All you do is email them to the address provided by Ning. I like the Ning Thing a lot, but I don't think it will ever be engrained into me like Facebook.

I joined Facebook in the first round of Things on a Stick and really did stick with that one. Hey everyone out there, give social networking a try.

Thing 25 Blog Tools....to be continued

I am still working on all those blog tools that are available. The biggest hindrance to me, is most of the things I need to access are blocked at school. I have been having a lot of fun lately taking videos with my new digital camera and posting them on YouTube and Facebook. So, I will probably keep posting about blog tools, but now on to Thing 26!

Fund our school media centers!

KSPTP story about outdated school media center library books
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S760112.shtml?cat=5

All about Thomas

Thomas created this one by himself

All about Erin

animoto slide show

Thing 25 Blog Tools

Who's Watching & Statistics Tools.
Well I found out the answer to my own question....who is reading my blog? NOONE. I like Site Meter, they email you statistics of what is going on with your blog. And now I added Clustrmaps and Google Maps, I hope I get some people reading my blog!

#24 Renew Your Blog

Hmmmm. This one sounds easy. I had planned to keep this going, but as you see the last time I touched it was in September. As you can see by my feeble attempt at posting a Google calendar. By the way get yourself a Google account! It is the best thing on the internet! I visit my iGoogle page daily. It displays all your Google apps, such as; Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Groups, Weather, etc. Even blogger is a Google app. I think I like pbwiki better though for putting up a webpage. I haven't had much luck and/or time to work with Google pages. I am still trying to work through in my head the difference between the two and what is better suited for RHS-MC.

So, anyone, please let me know your comments. I love the idea "if noone reads your it, is it still a blog?" If a tree falls when noone is around, does it make any noise?

AM I MAKING ANY NOISE?