Sunday, February 28, 2010

RSS Feeds, Google Reader & Delicious Oh My!















Wow!

Google Reader is addicting! I just kept adding and adding the RSS feeds. I really think I may have to delete many of them because I don't know how realistic it is to think I can read all of it but it really is an amazing tool as all Google products are.

There were so many RSS feeds on the School Library Journal site! I think I added nearly all of them but I have to go back and make sure.

What I find with many of these technologies is that I just "jump right in" and really don't read things over carefully before I start. I have to refrain from doing that and really start using the help button and watching the accompanying videos! :) Why am I in such a rush?

I'm still working on getting my delicious toolbar to work correctly. I think I may use my original work account that I started two years ago. It seems like it would be easier. We'll see. :)

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Getting the Hang of Things


Phew....technology can be challenging!

I just added the Shelfari widget to this blog which took a little bit of time because it originally went to my personal blog! I finally figured things out.

However, Delicious is still challenging me because it is somehow connected to a yahoo account of mine while the blogger blog is connected to my gmail account and I am getting so confused with what emails I am using and the passwords! Yikes! I am really trying to use my school accounts for school related work and am developing the library blog and tags so I want to keep things separate for simplicity sake but it difficult.

I have the Diigo widget (?) and it is saving for me nicely but the delicious one is not. I have a personal delicious account, a work delicious account and I just set up a library one but I can't seem to get it to work correctly in my toolbar. I am experimenting with Chrome so I am getting to use to that too. Ugh!

But.....I just spent over an hour on Shelfari and I love it! I am part of Good Reads but I think I like Shelfari better. I think it looks visually better. Someone in class had their Shelfari with some great tags, like summer reading, and I want to learn how to do that. I can how helpful that would be.

Tomorrow I am going to explore more with Delicious and Diigo to see if I can get that running better and I'd love to get a widget on this blog too. We'll see....

I am learning more about other programs too, like Evernotes and Tumblr! And I want to know what Digg is too and how that is different from Diigo. I was getting Diigo and Digg mixed up, I wonder why? :)

Deep breathes.

I briefly explored Google Reader and know a bit about RSS Feeds but I really need to continue to explore those apps further.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Wiki Wiki Wiki

I do like saying that word! It has a nice sound to it! :)

I made progress with learning more about wikis by setting up a NEASC wiki so this will be very useful for me right now! I am a co-chair of the NEASC core values committee and we have only been meeting every other month. Next year is our self-study and everything starts and ends with the core values and mission statement so there's lots of work to do.

Having a wiki for this work, I think, will be so helpful for all of us, especially when we have to write and edit it. I am also looking forward to exposing the teachers to this technology too! What a great opportunity to integrate technology in our everyday work. I think many schools still just think of email and websites as technology and don't realize what is out there.

I LOVED Richardson's chapter on wikis!
In fact, I want to copy it and give it to all of the faculty to read, especially several departments who are anti-wikipedia.





The help button was useful on the site but I found myself initially just trying to set up the wiki on my own! Note to self: read and reread or watch and rewatch the tutorial on the site!
After a few frustrations, I started to catch on and have gotten use to using the edit button. There is no spell check as far as I can tell and there is no "undo" button which I really wanted many times! But overall, I think I have the wiki set up how I want it to look with the exception of the left side bars. I have to work on that this week and get to know more of the features.

I'd like to send invitations out to my NEASC group before we return to school next week.
Overall, I had a fairly good experience setting this up. I tried PBwiki one time but I can't honestly compare the two yet.

The wiki address is: chs-neasc-core-values.wikispaces.com
As for blogging, I'm getting better with the image postioning. However, I still have difficulty with the spacing even though I check preview. Visually, it seems off to me but I am working on it.






















Wednesday, February 3, 2010

My First Post!





My First Post!

I started a personal blog back in September so I am somewhat familiar with blogger but I got frustrated with placing my photos and images on the site. I was importing an image from the show Mad Men and it was acting up on me. I haven't been back to that blog since then!

That seems to happen to me a lot with technology. I'm really excited to try something. I try it for 30 minutes or so and then I have a problem and can't figure something out. Sometimes I will persist at it for a while and then completely give up; or I will persist, give up and try again some other day or sometimes I just give up right away! :(

Just now, I had a hard time editing my post and I'd like to reduce the size of my book image. When you write, it looks fine but then when I preview, it doesn't look like how I want it to look.

I so hope my skills improve with blogging because I think it is a wonderful way to document, record and express oneself. I follow many blogs, mainly scrapbooking and photography ones because those are my hobbies.

I do think it is important to have a picture or image when you post on a blog. Visually, it is more appealing.

I'd love to set this blog up with all of my favorite library sites, links and info to the right. I love how people include vimeo videos and all sorts of stuff on their blogs. One person I follow has her playlist play songs when you log onto her blogger site. I wonder how you can do that? Wouldn't it be great to play some calming classical music while people check out your blog? For a school library blog, you could even have music the students like too, like Top 40 songs. I bet they'd think it was cool and it would elevate the library cred with the students!

Barbara: Do you have a library blog? I checked your school site but I didn't find it. Someone had mentioned it in one of their posts and I'd love to check out your blog. Thanks!

I love how blogs can truly reveal your personality and how visual they can be. It's like the equivalent of decorating your room, don't you think? That's what I'd like to do with this library blog, decorate it with cool links, images and information to engage the students.