Final Thoughts about PA Web 2.0

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I discovered many things on this journey. It is hard for me to narrow down my favorites. I can't wait to try using these things with my students and "educating" the teachers in my building about these tools.
How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
This forced me to explore things that I wanted to explore but just never to the time to do. I want to be a cutting edge librarian and Web 2.0 is a must.
What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I liked the format and the self pacing. You may want to double check some of the links.
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
Absolutely

Week 9:
I think YouTube could be a good way for students to do a book “report” and then they could be posted on the library website to entice other students to read the book. I would use the following as examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fvmvED7_4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmZjL_u4LHU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jiT-yqP97w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJcUU8FCuw
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=54210&title=Hatchet_by_Gary_Paulsen_Book_Trailer_
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=52990&title=Beyond_the_Smoke___book_trailer
I believe there are many great potentials for these hosting sites. The problem is that there is a lot of inappropriate things on it as well. At my school, we would have a huge problem because YouTube is blocked by our filter. That is another whole story, for another blog.

I was getting frustrated with podcasts - I was having trouble getting anything to work. So, I did the unmentionable - I did a google search for book podcasts and it took me to one of my favorite websites - quick and simple book talks. It included some podcasts. I think these would be great to add to my website with the cover of the books. http://nancykeane.com/booktalks/

I have quite a collection of free ebook sites. I am constantly sharing these with the teachers in my building.
http://www.gutenberg.org
http://www.childrensbooksonline.org
http://www.biguniverse.com
http://www.tumblebooks.com
http://www.lookybook.com
http://www.icdlbooks.org/
“The mission of the International Children’s Digital Library Foundation is to excite and inspire the world's children to become members of the global community – children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas -- by making the best in children's literature available online.” This multicultural collection now includes hundreds of interactive stories in different languages.
http://www.bartleby.com/
http://storynory.com/
This site features free “iPod-ready stories for kids”, ranging from popular classics, such as “Sleeping Beauty” to lesser know gems like the Japanese tale “The Cat’s Elopement”. And the iPod isn’t required. You can listen to “storynories” on you computer.
http://www.storylineonline.net/index2.html
Celebrities ranging from Haylie Duff to Al Gore lend their voices to this collection of streaming-video picture-book readings. The 21 stories, accompanied by activity guides, include Chih-Yuan Chen’s Guji Guji, Janell Cannon’s Stellaluna, Ysaye Barnwell’s No Mirrors in MY Nana’s House, and Chris Van Allsburg’s Polar Express.
http://www.rif.org/readingplanet/
Reading Planet offers several reading and writing portals, each offers highly interactive and engaging activities that will enhance a child’s love of learning and literature. (motivation for producing writing, choose meaningful literature, activity calendar to entice reading every day of the year, forum for rating and reviewing books, listen to animated stories, interact with authors)
http://www.storyplace.org/storyplace.asp
StoryPlace is a virtual experience of going to the library. The PreSchool Library features an animated online story, an interactive accompanying online activity, a take home activity, and an additional reading list of other exciting preschool appropriate titles. Elementary Library allows students to participate in the story through character selection and other interactive choices, a corresponding printable activity and an additional related reading list. Book Hive is a guide to children’s literature and books, is designed for the older reader, with featured titles, online activities, reading polls, book selection guides and inventories, and original stories submitted by children.
http://www.magickeys.com/books/
StoryBook Online provides original stories with color illustration for children of all ages. The goal of this project is to combine education and entertainment to engage students in reading and ignite their imaginations. There are riddles, mazes, coloring pages, and related literary links. Readablity scores are provided for each story. Online submissions by authors are welcome but are not monetarily compensated. This site lacks the animations available via some other sites, but children will enjoy the vivid color illustrations accompanying each story.
http://www.fablevision.com/
The animated shorts, interactive art and games, and stories by Emmy Award-winning children’s authors on this site encourage creativity and inspire students and educators to create individualized, exciting story paths.
http://bookwink.com/
The mission of this acclaimed site is to inspire kids to read: “Through podcasting and web video, we hope to connect kids in grade 3-8 with books that will make them excited about reading.” Be sure to check out the archives.

Week 8 - Online Production Applications

This is a great idea. I don't have to have a word processor loaded in order to use one and I can use it anywhere. It is easy to then drop it into other online applications. This could also be set up for collaboration.

I checked out the wiki while I was in here as well. I am looking for a free option to teach the teachers in my building for making a website.

I created this in Zoho Writer. I cut it paste it to here. I was unsuccessful in getting it to post automatically. I'll have try again.

Library Thing is a great website. Lots of good resources. My list: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/scrapbookingmrst

Week 7 - Wikis

There is a world of possiblities with Wikis. The interesting thing is that I teach at a private school and all of the teachers are required to have websites. Of course, the school is not paying for it. I have helped the middle school set up website on Google Pages which we all loved but Google is no longer accepting accounts and it going to convert to Google Sites which I have taught the elementary staff to use and mostly everyone dislikes it. I was exploring the possiblity of having the teachers use a wiki for their website. My big concern is the editing peice by others. Does anyone have an advise? Also, I have checked out Wikispaces and haven't been overly excited - it doesn't seem very user friendly. Are there options that you all have found to be helpful?

Ideas:
Book Discussions
Group Work
Taking work from school to home

In the sandbox (California) by the time I got done reading the lists I couldn't come up with a unique idea to add BUT I got lots of ideas.

Week 6 - Web 2.0 and the library

Rick Anderson's comment about how we look at collection struck a cord that occurred to me in the past month. I am currently "weeding"a collection that inherited from a librarian who had been at the job for 35 years - she was definitely "old school". As I have been weeding, I have talked to several department teachers to see if I should keep a book. I wasn't sure that I should get rid of it because I didn't have anything else on the subject. The comment that the teacher made was they can find better pictures on the Internet and more current information. That comment was very freeing for me. If it was old and unused, then it could go because I didn't have to something on every subject in the collection - there is so many other places they can find the information.

Library 2.0 is the way to go! We can't stay stuck in the past, we did to provide our "clientele" with the best resources available in the way they want it. We need to teach them how to use many resources well - so they can "function" in the 21st century.

Week 6 Delicious/Technorati

I have played around with Delicious in the past. It's a great concept - being able to access your favorites anywhere is a definite plus. I don't use it much anymore - I found it cumbersome and not user friendly for my brain. I enjoyed playing around with it and seeing what others had tagged in categories.
Technorati is nice way to find content in blogs. The directories or tags are helpful in finding things.
Tagging is helpful - I am going to have work with it a little more before I decide how much I like them.

Week 5 Image Creators

Here are all the states that I have visited - I hope to visit them all in my life time. This summer we are hoping to do the west coast. I used map maker in FD Flicker Toys.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/map.php

Students would have a blast with the cartoon creator. These image creators have a lot of uses in the classroom.