23 Things- Final Thoughts

I am so glad that I signed up for this project, and even happier that I have actually completed all of the activities. I'm sure that I will be going back to the 23 Things Kansas website to review some of the activities and the explore further. 

I definitely want to play with Animoto and do some slide sharing projects for school. 

Some things I want to think about further:
    Security and privacy issues-for both personal and professional accounts
   Creating or assisting in the creation of a Facebook page for my school
   Projects for my students in art & library using a Flip camera
   How best to share some of my new skills with colleagues

One thing that I have learned  is that an introvert is still an introvert even when  participating in all kinds of social networking activities!  I have enjoyed blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and collaborating with Google Docs and wikis BUT I have a constant voice in my head questioning how much I want to reveal and whether I have already said too much.  I don't think that is entirely a bad thing, but it has made completing some of these projects scarier and more time consuming for me than was probably necessary.

23 Things Kansas--I'm Done!!

Finally finished the last project,  adding a page and editing a wiki in WetPaint.
http://23thingskansas.wetpaint.com/page/Karen+Rinke

23 Things Kansas: Week 15 - Wikis

Project 1:
Explored Wikipedia and tried to find an article that I could edit.  It was a lot more challenging than I anticipated.  I wanted to add to the Tomie DePaola article but it was semi-locked so there were limits on who could edit and hoops to jump through to be approved to edit, including opening an account.  I DID open an account after several tries but it was a pain in the keister!
 
Eventually, I found a couple of other articles that I could edit without the waiting period required for the DePaola article.  The BEST was that I was able to add the 2010 winners to a chart in the article about the William Allen White Book Award . Was pretty please with myself when I saw that I actually got the formatting correct.  Formatting Wikipedia edits was a lot more involved than I anticipated and I was feeling "under the gun" to get this project done.

I have learned that although I am a pretty patient and can be very persistent when it comes to learning new tech skills, I don't have the patience? motivation? willpower? TIME?!? to spend becoming proficient editing/formatting Wikipedia.  I will gladly leave that to others.  Here's hoping WetPaint and/or PBworks is more user friendly

23 Things Week 14: Library Thing, etc

I have had a Shelfari account for a little while and plan to explore it more fully this summer when I have more time.  I like the look of Shelfari and would love to add a Shelfari bookshelf (or something similar) to my school library webpage to show new books or to highlight the books chosen each year for my Battle of the Books program. I think students would be drawn to explore the bookshelf with its cover images much more than they are drawn to read a mere list of books.  I haven't figured out a way to make it work smoothly with TeacherWeb, at least not as smoothly as I would like it.

I still have some reservations about advertising, and linking to this kind of social media on an elementary school website although I can certainly see the value of Shelfari or LibraryThing for a public library or a school library serving older students.

I joined a group that discusses literature appropriate for middle school, and hope to get some good ideas for collection development.  I don't anticipate using and of these sites to record my own personal reading.  I would much rather be reading another book than spending valuable time listing, tagging, or writing yet another review to be posted on one of these sites.

23 Things Week 13 - Slide Sharing

 Behind on 23 Things projects and doing them out of order....will do week 12 project later....

Here is a video made with Animoto.  I'm  not sure why the first image is sideways...I've tried rotating it but it keeps reverting back....other than that, I am pleased with the mix that Animoto created from my photos.



Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

23 Things Kansas: Video on the Web

Kimi, the most vocal cat in the world was struck mute at the site of the video camera.  Here she is, eerily quiet, begging for treats.


I shot this video with an RCA Small Wonder camera (similar to a Flip) that I borrowed from school.
Despite  the tone of my previous post, I have actually been wanting to experiment with video for a while.  Uploading to YouTube seemed to take forever, but they were doing some site maintenance earlier this evening so maybe that was still slowing things down.

I thought about uploading some PhotoStory videos that I created to introduce  the art of  Miro and Picasso to my 4-6 grade  students, but I wasn't sure about the copyright issues of making them public.

Week 9: Instant Messaging

I didn't have time to do the IM lesson during the week that it was originally posted and am just now trying to get caught up.  I have IM'd using Facebook, and I just signed up for Meebo and added a Meebo window to this blog.  So far, I am not impressed with what I have seen in Meebo chat rooms, but I haven't chatted yet with any 23Thingsks folks.  I'm sure the conversation would be much more interesting than any of the ones I have seen today while lurking on Meebo.
IM on Facebook has helped me connect with friends/family in new ways (especially some of the younger members of my extended family.)  It still feels odd to me, and I am unsure of IM etiquette, if there is such a thing?!?  Privacy is another concern.

I appreciate the uses listed in the 23things lesson for the week but most do not apply to my work situation in a busy elementary school library\/art room.

Week 8: Cloud Computing

My 23ThingsKansas project for the week was to create a GoogleDoc listing children's books that include recipes, cookbooks for children, and websites that combine children's literature with recipes.   I invited several faculty members and some 23 Things participants to contribute. Here is the link if you want to take a look at my Book Bites list.

It has been fun for me to look back and see the additions and changes to the list, but I found that I was really curious about who had made each contribution to the list. Most of the additions were made anonymously so my curiosity will not be satisfied. For this project, that's no big deal, but I could see that possibly being a drawback in other situations.

Some of the 23Things participants have made excellent suggestions for using GoogleDocs, including:

• Before traveling, scan everything you’d hate to lose in case the original is lost or stolen (passport, plane tickets, reservation information, etc) and make available to a family members at home, just in case something unfortunate happens.
• Collaborate on group homework assignments.
• Use Google calendar to share multiple calendars easily in the workplace.
• I can see this being very useful at school where we have Special Events  and Menu calendars for public sharing, in-house calendars of staff birthdays, special duties, proposed calendars for the next school year. etc.  I was especially interested to see how easily Google Calendars can be added to a webpage.
• Creating a scrapbook --allowing others to contribute photos and captions.   
• This could be a great way to gather family stories, and photos, or even family recipes (along with the adaptions and comments of various family members.)
• GoogleDocs could be a great tool for those interested in gathering and sharing family tree and genealogy information.