Thing 19 - Pod People

We have played this game and are fans, indeed.  As soon as we discovered that "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" was available, podcasting was a done deal. How else to get through long car drives?

We have since added several other news and humor podcasts to our RSS feed. We added "Mugglecast" directly to our iTunes just to try something new.  Granted, we don't always have time to listen to all these things, but they're there when the fancy (or the need for a roadtrip) strikes.

The content websites were all quite easy to navigate, and we wasted nearly a hour (but an enjoyable one) catching 3 episodes of "Dr. Horrible." But we were particularly intrigued by the Educational Broadcast site.  We have been creating student works in Garage Band and iMovie for several years now and have always wondered if there was a next step.  The issue is always security.  One does worry that identifying the school and even the 1st names of the adorable children who are there every day is not too much information, not to mention showing their faces on video. How do these schools manage the issue of parental permission and security? Would love to hear some comments on this.   

Thing 18 - You Tube

You Tube has been on our radar for a long time, and it's not just for viral videos.  It is excellent research when one is trying to learn something that's not easily shared verbally. We have used You Tube to research period dance steps, to compare operatic performances, and (of course) to check out Harry Potter Pocket Pals.  

Yes, our school blocks it due to bandwidth demand as well as security issues, but there are so many ways to get around it.  We also subscribe to Discovery Streaming as a source for educational videos. The huge downside is how quickly one can eat up great blocks of time idly viewing. As we did, searching for various library and librarian videos. The student librarians singing "I Want to Be A Librarian" (apologies to the "The Producers") was very dear -- obviously an assignment.  But ultimately Cookie Monster called to me.

Thing 17: ELM Tools

It is good to be redirected to the many services ELM provides us. We are indeed blessed to have this service provided for our state. Miss Shelved sings the praises to staff and families, but rarely do we get to see if there are results. Now we have a few more goodies to share. It's easy to e-mail a useful article to a colleague. We were especially delighted to find a terrific book (E-Parenting) available in full text through the eBook library. We will highly recommend it at our next family internet night. Quick tip: have children sort the mail as a great way to teach what's junk and what isn't. What a terrific pre-research activity!

The various ways to gather information (e-mailing, RSS feeds, copying to flashdrive, saving in a folder) are lovely ideas to help staff use their time well. At the elementary level, however, we tend to ask students to do their research in a more immediate manner (and we give them the time to do so), else the "chase" becomes more important than actually absorbing the information. For the unsophisticated, an article copied or otherwise manipulated becomes a report written. We urge students to find it, read it, add the citation to your list, and take notes immediately. Touch it once and make it go away -- and remove the urge to plagiarize. Our students, at least so far, don't need more ways to rearrange the information they access. They need guidance to find the right material and then, despite sometimes amazing reluctance, they have to read it. Not bookmark it, print it, e-mail it home, or any of the other things they would dearly love to do to avoid actually interfacing with the text. Sad to say, we remain Luddites on this front: we say, "Dear, just read it and take notes, since that's what you're going to have to do anyway." That is one part of the research process technology will never change, and it's the part that is the hardest.

Thing 16: Assignment Calculator

Funny how some people are naturally organized and love to check off the steps on their planning calendars. However, those who are not naturally organized are usually the most resistant to preparing and following plans. Miss Shelved fears that assignment planners wind up being the same kind of tool as diagramming sentences: those who understand love doing it; those who really need the exercise usually avoid it at all cost.

On the other hand, the planner (or even the simplified version: the what to do when you're running out of time) would be EXCELLENT for use by Special Ed. staff for use with students with IEPs. Rarely do classroom teachers really break up assignments in a way that special learners require, and many special learners have particular difficulty seeing both the "big picture" and the steps involved at the same time. Thus, a "map" with this kind of specificity is incredibly useful. Having the steps set up by date is a huge boon: one would love to see more teachers require students to report in at various stages. This might help avoid the "all-nighter" and the resulting temptation of plagiarizing. Of course, at the college level, such babysitting is unlikely -- which makes it all the more desirable that research coaching occur before that time.

In sum, Miss Shelved feels there is little here that we don't already know and try very hard to practice (now it's just in an on-line version). Will this give us and our colleagues the time to teach and model all these steps for each of the gazillion students who pass through our hands in any given academic year? For, really, it will not do simply to hand students the URL. Nothing will replace the time required to sit and work with a student who needs support.

Thing 15 - In need of a 1st life, let alone a 2nd

If Miss Shelved wanted to spend time being ignored by people much cooler (not to mention younger) than herself, and with a deeper appreciation of the ambience and available activities, she could frequent a local singles bar. At least there, she might get a drink. . . 

We have tried MMORPM's before.  In teaching a research unit (oh, the typical elementary animal report!) we introduced students to the WolfQuest game co-sponsored by the Minnesota Zoo. In that game, too, Miss Shelved wandered for hours, desperately looking for something to do, and never caught a rabbit (and you ain't no friend of mine)!

Young people of our acquaintance tell us that they log on with friends to play such games, which might make it much more fun.  High school chums now scattered across the country at various colleges reunite to kick necromancer butt (or whatever).  We spent a dull hour riding the rides at the Prim Heart Amusement Park, poked around Info Island, and never felt comfortable in our avatar. Moving around felt much like being in an Imax movie:  faintly seasick-making. 

Again, we would suggest that all these online activities are more enjoyable as part of a group. Probably the most fun so far has been co-editing the Declaration of Independence because everyone was involved (even if it was at different times).  If all the 23 Things participants were able to meet at a site on Info Island and interact, that would be more useful. Logging in blind at 9:30 am was a lonely experience.

As to library usage, we did note that there were scheduled activities like book clubs and author appearances that sounded much more like it. (We may try crash the party sometime in the future to see if scheduled activities make the scene is any more exciting.)  An institutional (premium, that is $$) membership with a resident geek to create activities would be a delightful interface for a teen library. Were Miss Shelved a YA author she would want a presence -- and doubtless her publisher would spend big bucks to create a sensational interface in her name. 

Thing 14: Book LIsts

This one took more time that expected because we wanted to stay and play. Add 5 books? In no time at all we'd added 18 and the titles keep coming to mind. (Miss Shelved will have to log off to tend to some of those dust bunnies...)

It was interesting to note which titles had huge followings (the edge has to go to best sellers as well as titles of most interest to heavy computer users) and which didn't (one of my favorites had only 82 hits). YA tends to outclass juvenile, understandably.

Would love to link this to the library's Moodle page -- an easy way to highlight new purchases. We will have to keep searching to see if there is a way to display LibraryThing selections on our search stations. Any ideas?

Thing 13 -- and we're over the hump!

How appropriate that Thing 13 (the "now you're past the half-way mark" activity) should be productivity enhancers.  It also served as a reminder to me to be grateful to my school district (Hopkins, west of MPLS) for already providing its staff with many useful online tools.  Some of which it would behoove Miss Shelved to get to know better.  Well, what better time than the present?

To respond to the prompts:

***Start page?We have had a Google start page for some time, but this was a good time to refurbish and add some of the services the 23 Things folks have introduced.  Useful to have widgets like weather and local gas prices available . . . both of which are behaving immoderately in recent days. It is the #2 page on this computer, since the internet startup is a district page (about which we have no complaints!)

***Useful tool?  Miss Shelved has long been a fan of stickies.  These tend to serve as to-do lists as well as reminders.  Doubtless there would be times when it would be useful to access this information online, or form a different computer.  However, it is at least as likely that the information will be needed when offline.  Miss Shelved will stick (hmmm) with her local stickies for the nonce.  However, MyStickies was a big hit (see below).

***Calendars are a resource for which Miss Shelved must be deeply endebted to her district. We share Entourage calendars with capabilities to schedule, invite, sync, etc.  Upon touring the list of recommended online calendar sites, we decided instead to take an hour (2 as it turned out) to explore our current tool and become a better user.  Adding tags, finally sync-ing in holidays, changing preferences to make better use of invitations -- all should add considerably to one's productivity.  Sometime the best way to learn something new is revisit what you already started.

***To-dos?  We'll stick to stickies.

***Backpack:  What a terrific resource for an ad hoc group. However, for professional groups that supply their staff with computing capability, one would think that such resources would already be shared.  But one could see a group coming together to organize a fundraiser, or a performance, or a slate of PTO meetings using this to link users from many different home or corporate systems.

***What else is good?  Loved Gliffy -- easy creation of flowcharts and floorplans.  See Miss Shelved's "Dream Office"   with grand piano and hot tub.  Ooops:  this was supposed to be productivity enhancement, not time-wasters.  Still, one can dream.  And MyStickies is a neat way to remind oneself why a particular website raised one's interest in the first place. 

Thing 12

Digg and its ilk make one happy to a an elementary librarian. One supposes that a public reference librarian might need to keep up with what the world is reading/viewing/thinking and would find the socially edited "news" sites useful. Admittedly, Miss Shelved does take a periodic peek at Disney, Nickolodeon, and movie trailer sites, for example, to keep up with what the little darlings are talking about. However, one would never confuse keeping a finger on the pulse of mass publicity with being truly informed.

The most worrisome part was the amazing uniformity of the sites , with the same soundbites and images topping the charts. The ease of voting also leads to fears of manipulation -- does ubiquity start to equate to plausibility? What an excellent reminder to get one's real news from a variety of sources. The BBC never headlines the same news as the New York Times -- or the Wall Street Journal, for that matter. And don't simply read those of similar political persuasion. Lowest common denominator news is not likely to expand one's mind.

Thing 11

Oooooh are we loving Del.icio.us! What a terrific way to overcome the limitations of our bookmark bar and the annoyance of perusing "history." Loved the BUTTONS, which will now supercede all new additions on Miss Shelved's button bar. We especially liked (and will introduce to our classroom teachers at summer's end during workshop week) Pagekeeper. At the elementary level, teachers are urged to provide hotlinks rather than have students attempt to type in URLs (with uncontrollable, unintentional and sometimes unfortunate results). At the Media Center, we facilitate this by maintaining a school "links" page which shows up upon internet login. However, teachers fail to request that sites be added, neglect to request that sites be deleted, and often find that the lists have gotten too long to be particularly useful. Pagekeeper is the ideal solution to individualize and quickly update for classroom use.

Thing 10

Point of etiquette: does one place an edit at the beginning or at the end of the page? In the case of an actual wiki article, one assumes there would be a logical organizational outline that would dictate exactly where one would stick in one's oar, as it were. In this case, Miss Shelved has to agree with MysteryLvr (SEE above) that this particular page is less a wiki than a practice page with no real organization to the contributor's comments.

As to the utility of wikis in general, there are situations in which the sharing of knowledge among peers and/or practitioners is pure gold: educational best practices, etymological research, folklore, pop culture, technological troubleshooting, for example. In other cases, say medical research, one might need to be rather more careful in checking the antecedents of shared information. Wikipedia, one gathers, relies on a dedicated cadre of self-appointed citizen editors who work arond the clock to keep the site cleared of misinformation, at least some of which is supplied by well-meaning librarians (a few well-known to Miss Shelved!) who plant articles to prove to their students the unreliability of the source. As in any social network, the key is getting a quorum of authentic contributors and keeping the riff-raff out. (Miss Shelved 7-16-08)

NOTE: This is the edit added to the 23 Things Wiki page

Thing 9

This was somewhat frustrating. Having successfully leapt the hurdles of invitation, there is little instruction to help one to actually open the document in editing mode. Google Doc was fine. Zoho,on the other hand, would allow me to post a comment, or copy the document into a personal file and edit it. But the document would open (from the 23 things link) with no editing and few options. Following a link to "sign in now" (again . . .) allows one to search for a document, but "23-things-practice-document" was not to be found.

Still, it was a particularly fine exercise -- on this beautiful day after the 4th of July -- to work at editing the Declaration of Independence. One must note, however, the limitations of team efforts. Having had the privilege (?) of working on several committees responsible for "mission statements," one acknowledges that through two or more heads may be better than none, such efforts do not lend themselves to felicity of expression. One suspects Thomas Jefferson would have been horrified to have had the rest of the "team" offering their emendations and suggestions. Having Adams and Franklin breathing down his neck was probably annoyance enough on the day.

If one may also comment on the level of glee evinced by some of the editors (and the disapproval of others), Time Magazine offers a wonderful article on Mark Twain this week, and includes a telling quotation that is most apropos: "A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty." Lets keep the giggles coming, shall we?

More Thing 8 -- Everglades Slideshow (Picturetrail)

Thing 8

This is a work in progress.

My slideshow (on Thumbstacks) is available at:

My 23 Things Show

My photo slideshow is above (Thing 8 continued)

My database (all of three entries to start) is at:

Books I Have Read

Perusing this assignment left Miss Shelved with the smug feeling that, to a great extent, we had "been there, done that." Our districtwide server's capacity for sharing is extensively used to share photos, slideshows, databases, and documents among colleagues. Then, when attempting to pull up some archived photos it came to our attention that the district server is down --and likely to be so for much of the summer--for upgrades. Ah, yes, there is a great deal to be said for saving to the web. Necessity is the mother of invention. To the prompts:

• Use for these tools? Photo slideshows are fast becoming a tradition for graduations, retirements, etc. Indeed, such products as PictureTrail raise the bar for the poor Media Specialist who can surely (in her ample free time) womp up several of these imaginative little entertainments each spring. One supposes if it must be done, these tools make it easier. The slide sharer used (Thumbstacks) was somewhat balky. Sharing presentations is often a necessity -- but it would be preferable to be able to share ones already created with more user friendly software. Surely, presentations are rarely prepared (at least at this presenter's level) with the forethought of sharing. As for databases, the same would hold true: one creates a database for personal or team use rather than assuming it needs to be public. Lazybase does allow one to upload an existing database, but Miss Shelved could not try that method since her district server (where such things reside) is down.
• Ease of navigation? Thumbstacks lacked basic instructions and relies heavily on right clicks -- an initial stumble and ongoing annoyance for the Apple user. Also, items carefully and artistically laid out on a slide do not stay in place and look sloppy in presentation. Picturetrail, on the other hand, was very easy (though adding pictures was time-consuming). Lazybase was okay. The ePortfolio site was the most interesting: clearly on-line resumes and portfolios will be the norm.
• Would you recommend? Maybe Picturetrail. Certainly ePortfolio.
• DO you use other sharing tools? Yes: our district has had Moodle pages for a few years now. These are designed for on-line courses, but different teachers use them in different ways to share information, photos, blogs, calendars, etc. with students, colleagues and parents. Moodle is useful, but could also be more flexible and easy to use. Adding a photo, for example, requires a good few too many steps, IMHO!
  

Thing 7

Lots of new information in this one "thing" -- more than can be properly digested in one sitting. But this is definitely a case where one is moved to revisit applications in the near future.  The OPAL and ELM webinars had some interesting offerings (though somewhat sparse at present -- summer downtime, perhaps?)  Come fall (when Miss Shelved has pots of free time  ;>) we shall try to join in.  Once again, we shall respond to the prompts:

• How do we use e-mail?  It has revolutionized school district communication on so many levels.  We use it for a brief weekly newsletter (Friday Media Moment) that offers information on services available, new materials, training sessions, and all-around problem solving. On a more basic level,  teachers can be sitting at home, remember that an appointment must be made or books requested, and put out the message at their own convenience.  In fact, Miss Shelved has been know to ask colleagues to put a request in an e-mail even after having a casual encounter.  Short-term memory being what it is, it's nice to have it in writing.
• Online reference (via IM or texting) will change the face of college libraries, where research goes on round the clock and libraries have extended hours. Until public school libraries are open during non-school hours --
• IM is wonderful for people most likely to be near a laptop for most of the day.  Our district's tech staff, for example, stay connected and can offer excellent, immediate  support to one another as they troubleshoot in their various buildings. This is less of an option for elementary teaching staff (including teaching librarians) who are less likely to be "on" while students are present. Though the school secretary also stays "on" all day -- so she is able to send and receive sensitive information privately. 
• Minitex had a recorded session on advanced search strategies.  It was a tad annoying in that none of the "live" action -- the actual searches -- were recorded.  Only the canned PowerPoint slides (also available as a PDF) and the voiceover are available.  But there was still good information offered -- if only the URL for "Search Engine Showdown" -- which in this case was the basis of most of the presentation anyway.  Frankly, it was more interesting to peruse the site at leisure than to fade in and out of paying attention to the seminar.  Don't most of us loath seminars, anyway?   However, we have experienced software training via webinar and believe this will be the wave of the future: no travel, real world conditions, no chit-chat, and completely personalized.