Monday, July 21, 2008

Thing #6

Mashups are very interesting and offer incredible potential for use in libraries.   It is amazing to see how many new mashups are being created.   I am going to make sure that our art teacher is aware of Flickr Color Pickr.   I explored this site for a while and was very impressed with the selection of photos that matched the color that I had clicked on the color spectrum.   Very nice!    My favorite exploration was with Mosaic Maker where I spent far too much time.   In fact, I used Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of photos taken at my daughter's wedding, and I saved the mosaic to a CD, took it to the Walgreens and had an 8 x 10 color print made.   And, it turned out great.    I have been using Flickr to share photos with my widely-spread family, and am finding that it offers so much more than I was aware of.   I look forward to doing some more exploring.  I believe that my students might enjoy creating the trading card, and think it would be a great way to incorporate use of adjectives, etc..   When I looked at some of the librarian trading cards, some of them were very unappealing to me -- perhaps I am just too stuffy.  I have bookmarked Big Huge Labs' site and will pay it more visits as time allows.   What an interesting Thing this has been !  
   

Friday, July 18, 2008

Thing #5


I have been using Flickr for personal photo sharing since my daughter's wedding six weeks ago and have become intrigued by the complexity of the site.    I was really surprised to see so many libraries represented although I was disappointed that few school libraries were listed.   I wonder if my school district blocks access to Flickr -- I will have to check on Monday.   

The photo that I am sharing here was obtained by entering Accelerated Reader as my search and only this one photo came up.   It does not really seem to have anything to do with the AR reading program, though.

I am wondering whether or not I can use Flickr for my journalism/yearbook class as a way of collecting and tagging photos.   Does anyone have any ideas?




Thursday, July 17, 2008

Thing #4

I completed Thing #4 and submitted my information to officially register.    Lots to do!  

Thing #3

When I was setting up my blog, I had some difficulties and ended up setting up two different blogs.   I figured out how to delete one of them.   Creating the avatar was interesting -- so many choices but then not quite enough in some cases.   I was looking for a hair style with extremely short (not spikey) hair since mine is growing out after chemotherapy, but could not really find something that was close enough.   I thought creating the avatar was a lot of fun.   I felt really challenged with the task of exporting it and was so surprised when it worked the first time!    I am having a good time working on these Things.  I've got to work faster!  

Thing #2

Being a life-long learner involves a commitment to acquiring new knowledge and to answering new questions.   It involves an ability to accept new ideas, new attitudes, new adventures.   The easiest habit for me is to play and the most difficult habit for me is to have confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner since I question myself and my adequacy.   This interferes sometimes with my ability to learn.  

Monday, July 14, 2008

23 Things: Assignment

I'm just now setting up this blog and am having some difficulties figuring out how to add a picture to it.   I am looking forward to using the blog to communicate with my students during the school year, especially about books which I am reading or books which we have received in the library that they might enjoy reading.