thing 23-reflection

I have so loved my experience! I believe that I have gained a lot of confidence regarding my use of online tools. My toolbox runneth over! I have especially liked some of the simpler tools and I know that I will use them again. I don't know that I'll use or contribute to wikis, but I will continue to learn from other people's contributions to the "wiki community". I liked writing upside down and creating a word cloud. I enjoyed exploring youtube and the web 2.0 awards gave me sites that I will continue to explore and enjoy. This class has contributed to my goal of being a lifelong learner by helping me explore technologies that I never knew existed or did not have the confidence to try! Thanks very much for the opportunity!

thing 22-audiobooks

In looking at the library site, I can only imagine there are a million titles that I would like to download, but to tell you the truth, I'm not a big fan of audiobooks. I'm sure if I had a lot of windshield time and there weren't three children in my back seat, I would enjoy audiobooks much more. I am glad to know, however, that this is available!

thing 21-podcasts

I found a great podcast that I actually subscribed to. It is by the pastor of a Church in San Antonio, TX who has authored several books that I have enjoyed. I guess I will be getting little snipets of wisdom from this man daily! I'm so excited! This is the RSS feed link--I think. This one was so easy to copy and link to my blog, I'm really wondering if I did it correctly!

http://maxlucado.com/feeds/podcast.xml

thing 20-youtube

Youtube is a really great tool, in most cases. Tonight, as I'm doing this, my daughter came up to watch too. We watched a video of a song that we both really like and then we watched Charlie Brown Christmas Ch. 1-3. It was so much fun watching those things with her. If I can finish my class tonight, we will watch some more before she has to go to bed! I have also really enjoyed watching other youtube videos. The Last Lecture was one of the more touching and "teaching" videos that I've watched. I'm disturbed, however, when someone commits suicide on youtube and there is an audience that does not try and stop that person. It also makes me wonder if we've taken "vouyerism" to a whole new level. I don't know that I will ever post a video to youtube as I'm not so sure that I want my life to be a running record for all to see....forever.

thing 19-web 2.0 tools

I loved the web 2.0 tools that I tried. I went only for the winners--exploring what was determined to be the best! In the food section, I looked at Urbanspoon, which gave restaurant reviews of local restaurants, as well as restaurants in Denver and a few other cities. It was very helpful information and for the most part, I agreed with the reviews! In "Fun stuff", I looked at Hairmixer--a site where you can take celebrity hairstyles and switch them with one another or import a picture of yourself and have their hairstyles put on you! Fun! In the health area, I looked at PeerTrainer, which is a site that will send you an email daily to help you lose weight and log your progress for free. Maybe I'll do that one....right after the holidays!

Those are fun sites!

thing 18-pbwiki

Thing 18 has not gone well for me. I simply do not get how to use this tool. I have been able to create an account for myself (I think), but unable to find anything else in the pbwiki site. I'm sorry. I've totally failed!

Not big on failure--sorry!

thing 16-exploring wikis

I really enjoyed looking at two of the wikis that were linked to this "thing". The first was the Book Lovers Wiki, set up by the Princeton library. As a member of a Book Club, this would be an invaluable site, as it gives "star" ratings/reviews for books that people enjoyed. It does not seem that there is a lot of current information, but the reviews were great and gave me some ideas to take back to my Book Club! The other wiki that I reviewed was the one set up by the Saint Joseph County Public Library. This was well organized and easy to use. It gave the user the ability to look at books they might enjoy, searching by topics, author, genre, etc. It also gave other searches-geneology, hobbies, local history, etc. Considering the blog that I just read by Rick Anderson, this library is doing it right! They are taking their services to the consumers, rather than having the consumers come to them. This was a great wiki!

thing 15-library 2.0

For this exercise, I read the blogs of two information "guys". David Warlick is a teacher and speaker and educates teachers on how to use technology well in the classroom and educational settings. He said that he is most excited by "what we can shine the light (of technology) on, rather than the fact that technology is "the light". One of this fellow's true passions is programming computers, which is likens to completing a Lego project as a child. I have often felt that I'm Lego-disabled, so this is a very interesting way to look at the complexity of computer programming. David also references his blog called "2 cents worth" and podcasts that he does.

The other blog I reviewed was that of Rick Anderson and was entitled "Away from the Icebergs". Rick looked at three pitfalls that face the library profession and libraries themselves. He discussed there is no longer the need for the "just in case" collection. He said that because of technology, it is pointless for a librarian to try and determine what type of information consumers want, when it is largely available to them in a non-print format. He also disucssed the foolishness of relying on the level of the user's education in order to train users of library information. Because there are such excellent tools as "Blog This" on Flickr and the Google Page Creater, educating consumers verbally is less necessary. Lastly, he discussed the fact that "come to us" library service is no longer a viable mindset for the librarian. It is necessary for librarians to take service to patrons when technology is so available everywhere. Expecting patrons to walk into libraries, as in days past, in not an expectation librarians should have.

Both of these blogs were very interesting. I specifically liked Rick Andersons blog. Because I grew up in the public library of my hometown, but rarely frequent a library now, I see the dilema facing librarians today. Interesting to see how librarians are dealing with the changes technology brings.

technorati-thing 14

I'm not so sure that I'm all that interested in reading the blogs of people that I don't know. In looking up some key words that I might be interested in, I found that the blogs I looked at were mostly composed of people complaining about something. I'm looking for solutions, actually. I know complaints about the things that I'm looking for. I assume that blogs are often used to find an audience for those who have a specific "beef" about something in life. Because I don't really have a "beef", I don't find these blogs interesting or helpful. I would have liked to have found the blogs of a few celebrities who I really like. No luck there. Not a fan of reading blogs of strangers. Boring.

thing 13-delicious

I really like delicious (punctuation not included). Sometimes, when ready to search the web for specific research (which I do often regarding autism and investment strategy), it is difficult to know where to start. Delicious allows you to begin where someone else began and that is a huge help and time saver! I know that I will use this site again for both of my preferred topics. I don't know that I will use it as a way to access bookmarks from somewhere besides my home computer because, sadyly, I just don't go too far from here. This is an awesome tool! Thank you!

rollyo search engines-thing 12

I don't really get Rollyo, but I think that I've created a search engine that involves news, which I love. I don't know that this is a tool that I would use frequently personally or professionally. I believe that this search engine was difficult to create and I'm still not sure what I have created, after trying numerous times to create it and then feeling that I really haven't successfully accessed the things in the search. Below is the link that I've created. I hope that it works! I'm really glad I tried, but don't believe that this is technology that I will use.


Rollyo is a new site where you can create personal search engines using only the sources you trust. Check this one out:
...............................

http://rollyo.com/321321321/news_search/

...............................

Let me know what you think!

Rollyo: Roll Your Own Search Engine
Markay
markay@milehighplaysystems.com

Librarything-thing

You can view my library selections at www.librarything.com at:

You can view my selections on

Oops on Thing 10

By pasting the link in the blog, I thought you would only be able to access the link and the word cloud would not be present. I was mistaken and the word cloud published just by pasting the link into the blog as I wrote it! The things I'm learning! I love it!

Thing 10

I love generators! I found a great one with upside down writing on www.sherv.net.
Here is an example:

˙ʇ,uop ı `ʎlǝʇɐunʇɹoɟun ˙ʇı ɥʇıʍ ʇuǝʍ ʇɐɥʇ ɹǝʍsuɐ uʍop ǝpısdn ǝɥʇ sıɥʇ ǝʞɐɯ plnoʍ ı `ǝlppıɹ ɹo ǝʞoɾ ʇɐǝɹƃ ɐ pɐɥ ı ɟı

I also created a word cloud related to Christmas. It is too big to paste into this blog, but can be accessed by the link below. You can make your own at www.wordle.net.


© 2008 Jonathan Feinberg
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More RSS Feeds

For Thing #9, I have researched a few of the sites that will help to add customized feeds to my Google Reader account. I'm happy to report that through Technorati, I was able to find an RSS Feed regarding Autism. It seems that through this Feed, I can get recent research articles on Autism as well as blogs from professionals and parents. It was exactly what I was looking for and I'm so excited to find it! Yeah me! I also have been looking for local news, as I had a hard time downloading the Coloradoan feed with you last night. I found some information on Topix.com, but it was not exactly what I was looking for, so I decided not to subscribe to that feed. It is nice to be able to see what is offered on these sites and then determine if it fits my needs or preferences before subscribing. I've visited a few websites today and have automatically looked for the RSS Feed symbol even if I'm not interested in subscribing. It is really amazing just how much information is available through this format! Now that I've been shown how to copy the "shortcut", I feel comfortable in subscribing! I really like this technology and think that I will use it! Thanks!

rss feeds

Thanks very much for your help in establishing a google reader account. It made it so much easier for me to set these RSS feeds up. I've added 6 or 7 feeds so far. I like the rss feeds because it's going to make the "headlines" so much easier to read and I will make better use of my time by going to these rss feeds. I know that I will use the RSS feeds a lot personally, as I enjoy sites about Wall Street and the stock market a lot, but it can take a lot of time. That may "streamline" my stock research a little bit! I love being turned on to "oculture"! Thanks for that piece of information. Professionally, I'll be looking for an rss feed regarding Autism, as this is my primary caseload and really would be nice to have resources at my fingertips. I'm sure that other school professionals use this in their classrooms and I can see at the secondary level, it could be really helpful, if used appropriately, for research and staying up with headlines. I love what I'm learning and I intend to use this google reader account often! Thanks for your help!

Thing 7

Technology is an amazing thing. I think about the wealth of information that is available to easily because of the technological advances of the past several years and I'm overwhelmed. I'm thankful for my children and what is available to them, but at the same time, sad that they will never really look much up in an encyclopedia. I sometimes worry that so many children's social skills will be poor because of technological advances. It sometimes seems that we won't have to actually talk to one another because of technology. We will be a society of text messages, emails, IMs, etc. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to technology, but I'm thankful for the knowledge and creativity of others and how technology can make life so simple!

For Thing 7, I also made a comment to Sally Thomas who is an amazing art teacher and missed at Bacon Elementary!

Thing 6

Flickr is so much fun!

I think the mosaic tool is completely awesome. I am a fan of mosaics anyway, but a mosaic with pictures is so neat. I would love to make a mosaic of my favorite vacation destinations or places I would like to visit. I would love to make a mosaic of my children. I can think of so many fun ways to mosaic--photos! It will be so much less messy than tile--no grout or adhesive! Cool!

Flickr rocks!

FLICKR ROCKS!

My daughter and I have just discovered the coolest things about flickr! We learned that "tags" are keywords that are attached to photos and effective way to search for things on the site. We learned that "groups" are the way users pull photos together according to their interests. We did not know that Fort Collins had a famous suspension bridge, which we now plan to go and visit. We also searched for my hometown, a small Texas panhandle town, which we did not expect to even find. When we indeed found it, we found some really fun pictures, some of which had been taken by a man who I went to elementary school with, but had not heard of since! It was really fun to see our hometown through his eyes! I'm thrilled to know about this site!
Thanks!

Lifelong Learning

In listening to the 7.5 habits of lifelong learners, I found that the easiest will be "beginning with an end in mind". I'm generally a goal-oriented person. I like to set goals and achieve them. I believe that the hardest of the habits to "own" will be having confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner, especially when it comes to technology.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

I love learning...

How easy was that? Your basic idiot could set up a blog, yet your basic idiot wouldn't even try! I'm thrilled with the fact that now I can share with others all of my brilliant thoughts and wisdom and joy found in my days. I'm just wondering who in the heck (besides my mother and dad) would ever actually want to read it!