Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Don't I just wish my latest project had worked out better! A fabulous sister librarian in our district had the idea of selling coffee in the library before school during National Library Week. I think I will be out of town that week, so I thought maybe I could try out the idea on Valentine's Day!

I contacted the coffee shop which supplies coffee for teachers on our campus every Friday, and they said, "Sure! No problem! We'll give you a good deal." But then, but then....I never could keep in contact. I had to call and call and call. Finally, we agreed on a price for coffee and hot chocolate, complete with cups, spoons, sugar, cream, and whipped cream. I was plenty nervous so I didn't advertise in a big way.

This morning my retired librarian friend and I were parked in front of the coffee shop at 6:30. The coffee was ready; the cocoa was ready. There were no cups, cream, or whipped cream. We made an emergency run to the grocery store. Finally, we arrived at school, and we were early enough to get a parking place in front. Sure, I had to park in the spot reserved for "The speaker," but whoever he or she may be, he/she wasn't there at 6:45! I collared two students who had the misfortune of arriving early, and gave them the opportunity to help me lug two hefty containers and assorted items up to the library, while long-suffering friend parked my car in its proper space.

I was set up and ready for business at 7:00! My regular morning crowd came in, and a few of them bought cocoa. They seemed to enjoy the experience, and it was nice. The atmosphere was homey and relaxed, and the hint of cinnamon was a masterful touch!

Did I make any money? Not a dime. Did people enjoy it? Yes. What could I have done differently? More extensive advertising. Take pictures! Now that I know what to expect, I can have a better experience next time!

It was fun; I would do it again.

Thing #23: Cliff Notes

Oh, this has been a treasured learning experience! Thank you for making me get off my duff and tackle these "things!" Our RCE librarian is one who always just jumps in and does something with new technology--remember the "teases?" I really envied that attitude, and although it is not a "native born" trait, I feel that I am developing into the kind of person and librarian I want and need to be.

It feels so good to have done this and to understand the terminology that our geeky kids seem to have been born knowing. Today I complimented a student for helping me clean up a mess on one of the computers, and I asked him how he had become so knowledgeable about computers. He replied, "Well, I ought to be! I've sat in front of them for 11 years!" I thought, "Well, we have probably sat in front of computers the same number of years, but you are light years ahead of me. How did that happen? How did I let that happen?"

Thing #22: Ding Dong Ning!

Oh, this was interesting I started with the definition of a "ning." I'd never heard that term before, and when I started Thing #1, I didn't even really understand what social networking was! At least now I know that a ning is a social networking tool that brings like-minded people together, no matter where they live!

I started with Teacher Librarian Ning because I do like that term, and I feel it describes my position--somewhat! This ning is for teacher-librarians and other educators, and some of the groups appealed to me: High School TeacherLibrarians, for example, discuss the lack of help, guaranteed research experience, and "old school" library aides. What to do? Building a Culture of Collaboration revolved around disseminating and implementing the AASL Standards for the 21st Century learner, flexible scheduling, and approaches to teaching information literacy. These are subjects that all of us wrestle with, apparently. It's nice to have company but maybe not so nice that we are all familiar with the problems!

I thought I would try to make a ning, so have a look at Nontraditional Old Maid Librarians!
It is just a start, I know, but it is fun, and the next one I make can be the "really good one!"

Thing #21: From My Pod to Yours

That is the problem, all right. I have sweated blood over this one. I went to Radio Shack this afternoon and purchased a ten dollar headset with microphone from a youngster who could have been my grandson. When I told him I had to learn to make a podcast, he almost choked to death to keep from guffawing right in my face. "Oh, it's easy," he said. Right. Well, I got home with said headset and recorded my experience, leaving out the sordid and humiliating little details. Now, I only have to figure out how to get the podcast into this blog. I may be up to my eyeballs in trouble here. I could save this as a wav file but not as mp3. I wasn't able to download this "lame" thing (lame in more ways than one!) on my computer. What to do with a wav? Swim fast to the shore. I'll be back!

This is still very clumsy. I cannot see the forest for the trees!
http://www.box.net/shared/204knx9c0s/rss.xml

Thing #20: I Tube, You Tube, We Tube, Teacher Tubes....

I received an email this morning from a senior English teacher who asked me to gather resources for a unit dealing with the Vietnam War. Since I was in the mood to play and since the firewall doesn't block Teacher Tube, I engaged in a little detective work! I searched for both Viet Nam and Vietnam, and almost immediately I stumbled upon this lesson plan incorporating primary source research and technology for Tim O'Brian's The Things They Carried. I hope it is embedded properly, and I hope you like it.

Although I dutifully searched for library and libraries and even more dutifully viewed what I found, what I really wanted to see on You Tube was a performance video of Anna Pavlova, and I found one! I was in heaven! Her technique was sadly lacking, but she danced so expressively and had such lovely arms and hands that she was a joy to behold! I am absolutely sold on You Tube now, and I wish I could see it at school!

Thing #19: Explore the Web 2.0 Awards List

How exciting it is to see the familiar "faces" of Technorati, del.icio.us , and LibraryThing, among others, but today I am thrilled to find Medstory. Not only is it fascinating to me personally, but I wish I had known about it this past week when the biology students were researching diseases and working on PowerPoint presentations! We had enough information just using the Library Resources Page, of course, but if this one is on the Page, I missed it!

Just type in your search term, and voila! There is all the information a person could possibly slog through! Even me. I searched for fatty liver, hemochromotosis, Tay-Sachs disease, and, oh, yes! The plague! A friend of mine is currently reading Journal of the Plague Year and was asking about the two types of plague mentioned in the book: one with buboes, and one where the victim --well, never mind. The point is that we can find out the answers here!

For those of you who are participating in the district's wellness program, try peertrainer if you need information, a sympathetic ear, and moral support.Your friends are probably tired of hearing about your wellness efforts and don't appreciate the new you!

Thing #18: Online Productivity Tools

Open Office turned out to be easier for me to use than Google Docs; perhaps it is more like Word? I loved dabbling with the drawing tools and making presentations. I even made a table, but I must admit that spreadsheets are not my forte no matter which program I am using! Thing #25 to learn?

I hadn't known what open source meant so I had to look it up, and I still couldn't easily explain it to anyone. Source code?? I like that it is free, and I like that Open Office is multiplatform. It did take quite a while to download, but maybe that was an individual computer problem.

These, according to Google Docs' "Basic Information" are just some of the advantages of using an online productivity tool such as Google Docs:

• Invite others (by e-mail address) to edit or view your documents and spreadsheets.
• Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
• View your documents' and spreadsheets' revision history and roll back to any version.
• Publish documents online to the world, as Web pages or post documents to your blog.
• Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip.

P.S. Yesterday I downloaded Open Office, as I told you, and today a student came in with a WordPerfect document. Our library computers wouldn't read it, and she was really stressing. I thought I would try to open it with Open Office, and it worked!

Thing #17: Learning 2.0 Sandbox Wiki

I played in the Sandbox this afternoon, and being a fur person, I wonder whether anyone will come by with a scoop and fresh litter!

The pbwiki tour link did not work for me. I am staying late and working on a school computer; perhaps that is part of the problem. Anyway, I would have enjoyed taking a tour to learn more about this! I was intimidated because everyone can see what I wrote, and it wasn't really all that intelligent! Taking these risks is sometimes very uncomfortable for me, but I will just have to suck it up and GOI!

Thing #16: Wiki, Wiki!

I am not sure what is supposed to be "wiki wiki" (fast) but I am not it! I have read several of the suggested wikis ,and all the information just vanishes as soon as I go to sleep. Like the girl in "50 First Dates," I start each day as a blank slate and begin re-reading. Finally, it occurred to me--take notes!

I investigated some of the suggested wikis, starting with Library Success: A best practices wiki. I looked at the suggestions for book club reading guides and found BookBrowse.com Reading Guides, Reading Group Guides, both of which are useful, and S.C.O.R.E. Cyberguides, directed primarily toward teachers and no longer updated.

Some teachers are doing remarkable work with students. This Holocaust Wiki Project is so good and so interesting that I would like to join in myself! The Holocaust Museum Houston (Holocaust Museum Houston : Home) is always adding to their database of resources for school projects, and I know the librarian will be very pleased to learn about this one!

Other wikis such as Core Competencies wiki are devoted to staff technology training, although this one may have been accessed but not added to. Others are developed for librarians especially interested in library instruction.

Thanks to a certain individual who keeps me on my toes, I have had a bit of experience the past few days on pbwiki. It isn't really hard to get started, but the formatting can be difficult, and I am very glad that formatting wasn't my part of the project! My friend tells me that one has to let the wiki be a wiki and do its thing, and I was very grateful to be the follower rather than the leader in this adventure!

The project my colleague was working on was a wiki for interdisciplinary research with a resources bank which teachers could add to. I can see the benefits for both teachers and students as they share their information.