ED 566E - March 30, 2008, No. 10

Some of the tools that Joyce presented to us on Thursday I had seen before. I have browsed her Web site and wiki in the past and have found it to be a gold mine of ideas related to Web 2.0. Of course there were many things that I had never looked at or couldn't determine an application for. I've spent some time exploring Voicethread and it was nice to hear a librarian using it. I think it would be a great place for multimedia presentations. One idea would be to have a class draw pictures and write a script to narrate the pictures. The video would be of the pictures. This would eliminate the problems involved when students' faces appear on Web sites.

She said her goal was 3 "take-away" ideas for each of us. For me those ideas were creating wikis for projects, the use of iGoogle for students' information spaces, and "Death by Powerpoint." I sat through 3 Powerpoint presentations at work on Thursday. All of which were boring. Using her ideas could really liven up a presentation. I'm not sure that the corporate world is ready for this "new" type of Powerpoint, but I believe its a great way to convey ideas in a school environment, at a conference, or perhaps during a multi-media sermon. I have a feeling you may see 3 innovative Powerpoints about our Web sites.

I'm looking forward to further exploring Joyce's Web resources and professional lessons available online. Not all may be immediately useful, but her site will be a good way to stay on the cutting edge of technology.

ED 566E - March 22, 2008, No. 9

Once again an interesting class. While we were looking at Google Earth someone asked how we would use this in the library and neither of us could come up with a good answer, but on further reflection I think that many of the new Web 2.0 tools aren't things that we necessarily need to use in the library at this point, but the idea is that we could use them. They are just extras at the moment and kids like always like the newest hippest thing. No one needs Google Earth, but a student doing a presentation on the Eifell Tower could put it into Google Earth to give the people watching the presentation another way to look at the Eifell Tower. Its an enhancement and I think that is how we need to view these new tools for now. 15 years ago people thought Power Point was completely unnecessary and now students wouldn't do a presentation without it. Some of these web 2.0 tools may be become integral like power point, while other will not last and for that reason we should have an awareness of them. So we can be part of that process. This thought has really changed my perspective on what we are learning in this course.

ED 566E - March 9, 2008, No. 8

I really enjoyed this week's class. I did not understand widgets at all (i.e. how they worked, why I would use one). The hands on practical use of widgets was really helpful. I put 3 different widgets in this blog and it is interesting to see how they are all different. I especially liked the library thing search widget although some people were having trouble getting accurate results. I've done some experimenting since then with putting widgets in our group website. I've used very basic widgets that are available through freewebs.com. Turns out I've been seeing widgets for a quite a while on other websites. The one I've used in our website seems to be a popular one. It allows a user to create an RSS feed from a website or page.

Working on our website was good too. We divided up the tasks so we each have something specific to work on for the next 2 weeks. I'm creating links to age-appropriate author web sites, podcasts, and book reviews. Finding the information and creating the links has been interesting. I've experimented with some free clip art too.

Finally, I think I'm addicted to ProQuest. I know I'm addicted to information. As you could see from my search strategy I like to include as many specific key words as possible and I'm amazed at all the relevant information that comes back.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

library thing search

library thing

ED 566E - March 2, 2008, No. 6

I liked seeing del.ici.ous on Thursday night. I had previously dismissed it as something I wasn't interested in. I'm still not sure that I was used it a lot, but I can now see the use for it. I do collect lots of bookmarks and it would be nice to share them with family and friends.

What I really enjoyed was getting a chance to work with my group and discuss our project. It was already becoming apparent that we have different strengths and weaknesses. Ellen came up with a great name and I think it will work well to focus our project. We've already had some preliminary discussions since class about what we can include.

Also, it was great to learn how to do a screen capture. That is something that has elluded me for years. I can see using that a lot in my personal and professional life.