Once again, playing catch up.  Most of the items being covered I’m familiar with – and while I may not have used them all, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on how they work.

#16: Wikis – Task, explore some and write about your thoughts and experiences.  I love the concept of Wikis and would love to use them with teachers and/or students.  I especially like all that Joyce Valenza is doing with wikis and the TeacherLibrarian Wiki.  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon your viewpoint, this requires a level of collaboration between teacher and librarian that requires pre-planning.  This may be an activity for us to develop for next year (or semester) and would hinge on the district allowing access to a wiki.

#17: Add an entry to the SCASL Wiki – I’ve already updated the SCASL librarians who twitter, blog, and podcast (although our podcast page hasn’t been updated in quite some time!)  Will have to think of something to add to the “Your Favorites!” section o.

#18: Zoho Writer – great thing about Zoho is that I can use my GoogleID instead of having to create a whole new account.  Zoho seems to do the same and more than Google Docs and I like the Notebook feature.  Can see using this to take notes at a conference and exporting them to my blog.

I’m already a Google Docs user and have advised some of my students to use them as well.  We have a huge problem with floppy discs and thumb drives not working in our school computers.  By using Google Docs (and as long as we have an internet connection), students have a way of retrieving their work.  Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten teachers to try it out, yet!

#19: LibraryThing: Kinda neat.  I’ve created a LibraryThing catalog to share on my blog (see the widget below the blogroll & links) to list the books that I’m reading now.  I’ve entered the six that I’m currently trying to finish.  All are available in the school library.  As I finish them I’ll write a review.  I’d be interested to see what others think of the books.

That’s all for now.  This week we’re to look at YouTube and other video sharing sites.  Should be fun!

If you are following along in the SCASL 2.0: 23 Things blog, they are up to week seven, while I have only completed week FOUR.  *Sigh*  It seems I’ll always be behind.  Oh, well.  I’m going to skip week five which is all about play…maybe I’ll come back to it.  Or not.  Which brings me to week six and Delicious.

Delicious is one service that I didn’t see the big deal with…in theory, yes, but in practice, not.  As a way of organizing bookmarks with tags for my own reference, it’s great.  However, I’m not one to ’share’ well when it comes to my bookmarks.  The things I bookmark are usually just things I want to go back and explore when I have “free time” (ha, ha) and not so much things that are important or even useful to others.

That’s not to say that I don’t see the value of sharing with others when there is a REASON to share – such as if I’m collaborating on a unit with a teacher or preparing for a group workshop/training session or gathering sites for a pathfinder. Delicious could also be used by a teacher to bookmark resources, along with notes, for his/her students to access and/or have students add additional links.  The only problem with this – Delicious is BLOCKED by my district.  So, even if I wanted to use it to collaborate with teachers, I couldn’t.  Just another great Web 2.0 tool denied to my school community.

Next up: Technorati – not one of my favorites as far as searching for useful blogs.  Looking at the most popular blog list, they are all useless time wasters.  Looking at the top authority blogs, I subscribed to three of the top 5 already.  I already have way to many blogs I subscribe to and prefer to add new ones based on recommendations of folks I know or follow.  If I do have an information need, I may revisit Technorati, but as for now, I’ll pass.

Lastly: Library 2.0.  I’ve heard the term, but hadn’t really thought about what it meant.  Taking a parallel with Web 2.0, I’m going to say Library 2.0 is providing services to patrons via the web when and where the patron needs the services.  So, things like homework help via chat/IM/Twitter, ebook/audiobook downloads, electronic pathfinders, wikis, etc. would all be Library 2.0 services that could be provided.  While I wholely agree and embrace these tools, realistically, in my high school setting, they are not “practical.”  Most of these tools are blocked.  Add our rural setting where only about 60% of our students have computers and only about 40% have Internet access (which is 70% dial-up), online services aren’t a priority for after school hours.  However, I would love to be able to provide these types of services and am slowly developing what I can – see our schools library webpage and podcast page.  I have also signed up for wikis on both wikispaces and pbwiki that I’m still exploring what services to offer.

SCASL Thing #8: RSS and Newsreaders – the task is to find our rss reader shared link and provide it to our public.  So here is my Google Reader shared link.  However, I must tell you that I’ve not used it up until today.  I went and put a couple of the posts that I starred in there just so something would be in there.  I’ll have to remember to “share” what I star from now on!

SCASL Thing #9: Finding Interesting Blogs – the first part of the task is to use search tools to locate interesting blog feeds.  Okay, I COULD do this, but I already have way to many feed to get through now! See also my previous post All Together Now – Think#2.  I currently have 185 subscriptions in my Google Reader.

The second part of the task was to blog about the experience of finding feeds.  That I will do!  Most of the feeds I’ve subscribe to were found in 4 ways:

1) Following the leader:  I started by following the blogs Cathy Nelson listed in her blog roll or that she specifically told me to check out.  Then I followed the ones those folks followed, and just kept doing this.  You’d think that would be way too many, but you’ll find that the groups tend to follow the same blogs.

2) Professional readings:  there are more and more blog links showing up in the professional journals and websites I already visit.

3) Personal interests:  Most of these were news, entertainment, or author/book sites that I visited often, but now the content comes to me instead of me going out to find it!

4) Recommendations/Mentions:  If a blog I follow mentions or links to a blog, I’ll usually go check it out.  If I like what I see/read, I’ll add it to my reader.

I ran across this article from BBC News – “The revolution of paperless paper” that has me kinda intrigued.  Paperless paper isn’t a new idea.  Many ebook readers have been using e-ink technology for a while now.  I personally have a Sony Digital Reader and am quite happy with it.  [I just wish they'd make it Mac compatible!]

The “revolution” here is that the Plastic Logic reader is all plastic, including the screen, so that the size and weight of it is about the size and weight of a magazine.  My one complaint with my Sony Reader is that it is a little on the heavy side leading to the fear that I’ll drop/break it.  The article says Plastic Logic’s paperless reader won’t be out until sometime next year.  It will be interesting to see what the cost and additional feature are for their reader.

While I have been purchasing more of my reading selections on ebook, the ebook doesn’t replace the joy of reading a “real” book. I’ll still purchase my favorite authors in paper formats.  ‘Cause lets be real, books lining the shelves of a bookcase still make me happy!  But, packing one ebook reader for a trip vs. an armload of books sure makes the suitcase a lot lighter.  Decisions, decisions.

BTW: This is SCASL 2.0’s Think #7.

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the phrase “Be Careful What You Wish For.”  Well, that’s is SOOO true for me.  Last school year was a particularly slow one for me in terms of work load.  I’d gotten into a rut routine with few surprises.  This year is totally different.  I’m swamped! – but happy.

So anyway, I’ve fallen behind on the SCASL 23 Things project (among other things).  This is my attempt to get caught up.

#1 – Learn about the program.

#2 – Go through the 7 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners tutorial from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

#3 – Set up your own blog (or for advanced users an independent blog just for SCASL 23 Things).  I’m choosing to use my existing blog as I’ve got too many accounts open to keep track of one more.

#4 – Create an Avatar using Yahoo Avatars.  In case you didn’t notice, there is one over there on the right – you may have to scroll down a bit.  Boy did I “waste” an hour playing around with this one!  I was just as bad as some of my teens – trying out each outfit, background, bling, hairdos, etc.  While this is neat, I like Voki better, as you can record a message and the avatar moves.

#5 – Explore Flickr.  Create an account, upload photos of your library, and tag at least one SCASL2.0.  Boy was I surprised to find that there is already an hloy on Flickr!  Who isn’t me!  So, had to fall back on my other screen name and my flickr account is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hloy22/ for those of you who may want to go visit.  Right now, you’ll be disappointed as there is only one photo up!  Just give me time!  I used one of the Books wi/ Bite photos.

I use Flickr Creative Commons photos all the time, both in my blog and on my school website.  I think it is wonderful to be able to find (granted after a lot of paging through junk some times) photos that match what I’m trying to post.  Typically, I download the photo to my computer instead of using the image URL because my district blosk Flickr.  This way, I know my faculty will see what I’m inserting.

Okay, I’m still a few “Things” behind, but it’s time for me to hit the sack.  Lots to do tomorrow.  ‘Nite All!

PS: I hope some of you will take the time to work through the SCASL 23 Things with me.  While some of the items I’ve learned on my own and with the help of my online friends, I still learn something new with each activity.