WEEK 9 Tasks

#23 Copyright, Creative Commons, and Congratulations!

I love the video "A Fair(y) Use Tale"---saw it at my IB workshop for librarians. Very, very instructive and informative.

Creative Commons is much needed and I'm sure much appreciated. Introducing this site will generate teachable moments about copyright. I am linking it to my teacher information so it's available in all classrooms. And the other Discovery resources are invaluable for copyright / plagiarism / intellectual property discussions!

Congratulations to MOI! I did it---even if I stretched it way out over many months. That's just a good excuse to go back and revisit the early lessons!
My one word is: Mash-ups. Love the whole idea....love Wordle and all its goodies.
The sentence to describe my experience: Lifelong learning means stretching, reaching, exploring----every day!

WEEK 9 TASKS

#22 Explore E-Books and Audiobooks


Over two million books available at World eBook Fair---amazing and amazing. This is a world library that takes my breath away. I was sadly disappointed that the search tool was cumbersome and the results kept yielding broken links.....Ho Hum. I'll explore more when I run out of other apps :-)

Librivox looks like a great tool also--and the instructions for "How to Listen" were very helpful. I can see this application for bibliophiles and reluctant readers alike. It would also be useful for struggling readers of ELL's.

I went to the British Library and looked at images only of virtual books---saw pages from William Blake's notebook. OH MY!! You can download software to "turn the pages" but I was in too much of a hurry and sometimes those downloads are so*&&^^% tedious! All I can say is wow! I really want to share this with everyone---even strangers on the street.

OK---the great list of the best places to get free books is on friedbeef.com........the WWW is a fascinating intersection----or colliding worlds! Great resource to share.

WEEK 9 TASKS

#21 Podcasts

I have an iTunes account for my iPod, so I know I can download those podcasts. I checked out Podcast.com. Once again--huge variety, and varying quality. I heard a great podcast from dictionary.com on the etymology of the word "pencil" that would be fun to embed in the library website. But there was also some very amateurish stuff where the sound quality was unnerving.
I really thing podcasts could be a great tech tool for booktalks, etc. I may try one of the apps that does podcasts via cellphone. There definitely is a lot to explore and think about in this arena.

WEEK 9 Tasks

#20 Check Out YouTube
I never really explored YouTube enough to see that there is some useful information to be found!
I chose a cooking demo because I love to cook and the title "Working Class Foodies" caught my eye.
Hurray! I learned how to temper chocolate for molding and coating candy! This brother and sister duo made pumpkin seed brittle for Halloween treats. During the video they said they learned the technique from Jacques Torres so I had to watch his chocolate tempering video, which lead me to watch how to make a molded chocolate monkey. I think you could see demos on EVERYTHING on YouTube........and fritter away a lot of time.
I know there could be amazing applications for library websites--the big problem is that YouTube is blocked in my school district. Sigh.........
But for those of you who are aspiring candymakers, watch this video for some ideas:

Week 8 TASKS

#19 Check Out LibraryThing

This is amazing---Facebook for Books! This I understand! Here's the link to my page on LibraryThing:

I only posted 5 books to get started.

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Week 8 Tasks

Take a look at ONLINE PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS

#18 I have just changed my librarian mantra to "So many apps, so little time!" This ZOHO Writer is amazing. I could spend hours exploring it. Love all the collaboration features! I typed this on ZOHO and posted it to this blog. GO FIGURE!

Week 7 TASKS

#17 Add an entry to "Sandbox" Wiki

I explored the Wikis page in the the CalCurriculum Wiki. Great article linked from Joyce Valenza's wiki titled, "10 Ways Library Schools Should Be Teaching Social Media" by Daniel Hooker. Amazing---there are reasons to use Twitter to promote information literacy skills! Who knew? I printed the article, will peruse diligently, and apply what I learn. I am continually amazed by all the "apps" and "mash-ups" out there. I posted a comment to the wiki.