Trading Card

The End

Wow, it was kind of fun to title this one The End. This has been quite a process for me. I'm not a big fan of technology because when it works, it's wonderful. When it doesn't work, it makes for a big headache. It was interesting to learn more about technology through this 2.0 project. I especially liked learning about Twitter. I don't think I'll use it much, but at least I get how it works now. I also liked learning how to add photos and videos. That will be very helpful in the future. What frustrated me about this project was that sometimes I spent a loooooong time trying to figure something out that was simple--I just couldn't figure it out without instructions. I think it would have been helpful to have more direction during the project. If Anne could have shown us how to do some of these things in class, it would have made it more fun for me to play around with them on my own instead of being so frustrated because I couldn't get it to work. This is one of those projects that I'm just glad is over. I did learn from it so in that sense, it was a good thing.

Book Genre Tag Cloud

Podcast

Technology is a big part of what we librarians do so I looked for a podcast related to that. I used epnweb.org to find one by the Technology Teacher. The podcast was about an earthday photo contest from NASA. Students were supposed to take a picture of some part of the earth that is changing. I like the idea because it gets kids interested in their environment and allows them to do a hands on activity. The podcast listed ways for classroom teachers of all curriculums to use the activity, but I thought it would be great to do for the library. I'm already picturing lots of cool photos all over my library next year. I'd heard podcasts were complicated, but I found I could find and listen to them easily.
http://www.mevio.com/episode/105460/016-www.techteacherlive.com-earth-day-photo-contest

Thailand Video

In the late 1980s I served a mission for the LDS Church to Southeast Asia. I lived in a small village about three hours south of Bangkok. Monday through Friday I taught English in a Vietnamese Refugee Camp and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I grew to love not only the Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees but also the Thai people who were my friends and neighbors. It was fun to find a video about school libraries in Thailand and that's why I chose it. I'm hoping to be able to go back to Thailand someday and when I do I will definitely check out the libraries.

Twitter

I first heard about Twitter from the Ellen show. She was really into it for awhile and kept encouraging viewers to read her tweets. I'm glad I was able to learn about it for this class, but it's just not something I will use a lot. I chose to follow NPR news, School Library Journal, and Borders. I've already received many tweets from Borders. As I read about school libraries it was kind of disheartening to read some tweets by teens who were dissatisfied with their libraries. They seemed to think they were lame. I guess we school librarians have to be vigilant about promoting our libraries and making them teen friendly. With that in mind I can see how using Twitter would be a fun way to let kids know about new books in the library, give a review of a book I've recently read, or reminding kids about book club. Maybe if I did that I wouldn't have any of my students tweeting about my library being lame.